INTRO: - In 1990 UNDP published its first Human Development Report, with its newly

devised
Human Development Index. The premise of the HDI was elegantly simple: national
development should be measured not simply by national income, but also by life
expectancy and literacy. The new HDI had its shortcomings including a reliance on
national averages, which concealed skewed distribution, and the absence of “a
quantitative measure of human freedom.”

“People are the real wealth of a nation.” With these words the 1990 Human
Development Report (HDR) began a forceful case for a new approach to thinking about
Development.

It is now almost universally accepted that a country’s Success or an individual’s well-

being cannot be evaluated by money alone. Income is of Course crucial but we must
also gauge whether People can lead long and healthy lives, whether they have the
opportunity to be educated and Whether they are free to use their knowledge and
talents to shape their own destinies.

That was the original vision and remains the great achievement of the creators of the
Human Development Reports, Mahbub ul-Haq of Pakistan and his close friend and
collaborator,
Amartya Sen of India.
The 2010 Report—The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human
Development—was launched by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNDP Administrator
Helen Clark and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.

There is much that countries can do to improve the quality of people’s lives even under
adverse circumstances. Many countries have made great gains in health and education
despite only modest growth in income, while some countries with strong economic
performance over the decades have failed to make similarly impressive progress in life
expectancy, schooling and overall living standards. Improvements are never
automatic—they require political will, courageous leadership and the continuing
commitment of the international community.

Human development is the expansion of people’s freedoms to live long, healthy and
creative lives; to advance other goals they have reason to value; and to engage actively
in shaping development
Equitably and sustainably on a shared planet. People are both the beneficiaries and the
drivers of human development, as individuals and in groups.

The top HDI movers (countries that have made the greatest progress in improving the
HDI) include well known income “growth miracles” such as China, Indonesia and South
Korea. But they include others— such as Nepal, Oman and Tunisia—where progress in
the
Non income dimensions of human development have been equally remarkable.

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 Health advances have been large but are slowing. The slowdown in aggregate progress
is due largely to dramatic reversals in19 countries. In nine of them—six in Sub-
Saharan Africa and three in the former Soviet Union—life expectancy has fallen below
1970 levels. The causes of these declines are the HIV epidemic and increased adult
mortality in transition countries.

Progress in education has been substantial and widespread, reflecting not only
improvements in the quantity of schooling but also in the equity of access to education
for girls and boys.
Progress in income varies much more. Despite aggregate progress, there is no
convergence in income—in contrast to health and education— because on average rich
countries have grown faster than poor ones over the past 40 years.

In sum, we see great advances, but changes over the past few decades have by no
means been wholly positive. Some countries have suffered serious setbacks—
particularly in health—sometimes erasing in a few years the gains of several decades.
Economic growth has been extremely unequal—both in countries experiencing fast
growth and in groups benefiting from national progress. And the gaps in human
development across the world, while narrowing, remain huge.

Pushing the frontiers of measurement has always been a cornerstone of the human
development approach. But it has never been measurement for the sake of
measurement.
This year HDR introduced three new indices to capture important aspects of the
distribution of well-being for inequality, gender equity and poverty. They reflect
advances in methods and better data availability.

1. Inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI). A measure of the average level of human

development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account. Under perfect
equality the HDI and IHDI are equal; the greater the difference between the two, the
greater the inequality.

The Inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI), estimated for 139 countries, captures the losses
In human development due to inequality in health, education and income. Losses in
The three dimensions vary across countries, ranging from 1 percent in education
(Czech
Republic) to 68 percent in income (Namibia), and tend to be largest in low HDI
countries.

The IHDI takes into account not only a country’s average human development, as
measured by health, education and income indicators, but also how it is distributed. We
can think of each individual in a society as having a “personal HDI.” If everyone had the
same life expectancy, schooling and income, and hence
the average societal level of each variable, the HDI for this society would be the same
as each personal HDI level and hence the HDI of the “average person.” In practice, of

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 course, there are differences across people, and the average HDI differs from personal
HDI levels.

LIMITATION: - The IHDI captures the inequality that the HDI does not measure. But due
to data and
Technical issues, it does not yet capture overlapping inequalities—whether the same
people
Experience one or multiple deprivations.

2. Gender Inequality Index (GII). A measure that captures the loss in achievements due
to gender disparities in the dimensions of reproductive health, empowerment and labor
force participation. Values range from 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (total inequality).
The Gender Inequality Index (GII), estimated for 138 countries, reveals gender
disparities
In reproductive health, empowerment and labor market participation.

The disadvantages facing women and girls are a major source of inequality. All too
often, women and
Girls are discriminated against in health, education and the labor market—with negative
repercussions for their freedoms.eg. The Netherlands tops the list of the most gender-
equal countries,
Followed by Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland. Countries with unequal distribution of
human development also experience high inequality between women and men, and
countries with high gender inequality also
Experience unequal distribution of human development. Among the countries doing
very badly on both fronts are Central African Republic, Haiti and Mozambique.

The dimensions and indicators of the GII are:-

1. Reproductive health: Two indicators measure women’s reproductive health: the
maternal mortality ratio and
Adolescent fertility rates.15 the well-being of women during childbirth is intrinsically
important and a clear signal of women’s status in society. The risk of death in childbirth
is reduced through basic education, adequate nutrition, and access to contraceptives,
antenatal health services and skilled attendants at birth.
2. Empowerment
Women have traditionally been disadvantaged in the political arena at all levels of
government. Higher educational attainment expands women’s freedoms by
strengthening their capacity to question, reflect and act on their condition and by
increasing their access to information. Educated women are more likely to enjoy
satisfying work, participate in public debate, care for their and their family’s health and
take other initiatives.

3. Labor market
Female labor force participation, which includes the employed and unemployed (actively
looking for work) as well as those seeking part-time work.

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 4. Unmeasured dimensions
Other important issues are relevant to women’s well-being, such as time use, access to
assets, domestic violence and local-level empowerment, but reliable and timely data are
lacking.

LIMITATION: - The GII is not perfect. Among its shortcomings is the bias towards elites
that remains in some
Indicators (such as parliamentary representation).

3. Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). A measure of serious deprivations in the

dimensions of health, education and living standards that combines the number of
deprived and the intensity of their deprivation. Like development, poverty is
multidimensional. The index identifies deprivations across the
same three dimensions as the HDI and shows the number of people who are poor
(suffering a given number of deprivations) and the number of deprivations with which
poor households typically contend. It can be deconstructed by region, ethnicity and
other groupings as well as by dimension, making it an apt tool for policymakers.
About 1.75 billion people in the 104 countries covered by the MPI—a third of their
population—
Live in multidimensional poverty .
China, Tanzania and Uzbekistan—rates of income poverty are higher.
Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of multidimensional poverty. The level
ranges from a low of 3 percent in South Africa to a massive 93 percent in Niger.

LIMITATION: - First, the indicators include both outputs (such as years of schooling)
and inputs (such as cooking fuel) as well as one stock indicator (child mortality, which
could reflect a death that was recent or
Long ago), because flow data are not available for all dimensions.
Second, the health data are relatively weak or have poor coverage, especially for
nutrition, though the patterns that emerge are plausible and familiar.
Third, in some cases careful judgments were needed to address missing data. This
requirement makes the MPI less sensitive to minor inaccuracies.
Fourth, as is well known, intrahousehold inequalities may be severe, but these could
not be reflected.
Fifth, while the MPI goes well beyond a headcount to include the intensity of poverty
experienced, it does not
Measure inequality among the poor.
30 Finally, the estimates presented here are based on publicly available data and cover
various years
Between 2000 and 2008, which limits direct cross-country comparability.

Country profile of human development indicators

INDIA

Health Life expectancy at birth (years) 64.4

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 Education Mean years of schooling (of adults) (years) 4.4
Income GNI per capita (constant 2008 US$PPP) 3,337.4
Inequality Inequality-adjusted HDI value 0.365
Poverty Intensity of deprivation 53.5
Gender Gender Inequality Index, value 0.748
Sustainability Adjusted net savings (% of GNI) 24.2
Human Security Refugees by country of origin (thousands) 19.6
Composite indices HDI value 0.519
Human Development Index Rank 119

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