HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

• The words ‘growth’ and ‘development’ are not new to you. Look around you, almost everything that you can see (and many that you cannot) grows and develops. These may be plants, cities,ideas, nations, relationships or even you yourself! What does this mean?

• Do growth and development meanthe same thing?

• Do they accompany each other?

Here we will discusses the concept of human development as it pertains to nations and communities.

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

Both growth and development refer to changes

over a period of time. The difference is that

growth is quantitative and value neutral. It may

have a positive or a negative sign. This means

that the change may be either positive (showing

an increase) or negative (indicating a decrease).

Development means a qualitative change

which is always value positive. This means that

development cannot take place unless there is

an increment or addition to the existing

conditions. Development occurs when positive

growth takes place. Yet, positive growth does

not always lead to development. Development

occurs when there is a positive change in

quality.

• For example, 

If the population of a city grows from one lakh to two lakhs over a period

of time, we say the city has grown. However, if a facilities like housing, provision of basic services and other characteristics remain the same, then

this growth has not been accompanied by development. 

Can you think of a few more examples to differentiate between growth and development? 

• Write a short essay or draw a set of pictures illustrating growth without development and growth withdevelopment.

For many decades, a country’s level of development was measured only in terms of its

economic growth. This meant that the bigger the economy of the country, the more developed it was considered, even though this growth did not really mean much change in the lives of most people.

The idea that the quality of life people enjoy in a country, the opportunities they have and freedoms they enjoy, are important aspects of development, is not new. These ideas were clearly spelt out for the first time in the late eighties and early nineties. 

• The works of two South Asian economists:-

1. "Mahbub-ul-Haq    
2.  "Amartya Sen 

                            are important in this regard.The concept of human development was introduced by Dr Mahbub-ul-Haq. 

Dr Haq -has described human development as development that enlarges people’s choices and improves their lives. People are central to all development under this concept. These choices are not fixed but keep on changing. The basic goal of development is to create conditions where

people can live meaningful lives.A meaningful life is not just a long one. It

must be a life with some purpose. This means that people must be healthy, be able to develop their talents, participate in society and be free

to achieve their goals.

• Do you know that cities can also grow negatively? Are natural disasters the only reasons for negative growth in a city’s size?

Band Aceh, June, 2004 Band Aceh, December, 2004

Dr Mahbub-ul-Haq and Prof Amartya Sen were close friends and have worked together under the leadership of Dr Haq to bring out the initial Human Development Reports. Both these South Asian economists have been able to provide an alternative view of development. A man of vision and compassion, Pakistani economist Dr Mahbub-ul-Haq created the Human Development Index in 1990. According to him, development is all about enlarging people’s choices in order to lead long, healthy lives with dignity. The United Nations Development Programme has used his concept of human development to publish the Human Development Report annually since 1990.Dr Haq’s flexibility of mind and ability to think out of the box can be illustrated from one of his speeches where

he quoted Shaw saying, “‘You see things that are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?’

• Nobel Laureate Prof Amartya Sen saw an increase in freedom (or decrease in unfreedom) as the main objectiveof development. Interestingly, increasing freedoms is also one of the most effective ways of bringing aboutdevelopment. His work explores the role of social and political institutions and processes in increasing freedom.

• The works of these economists are path breaking and have succeeded in bringing people to the centre of anydiscussion on development.24 Fundamentals of Human Geography

1. What is a Meaningful Life?
2.  Which of these lives is a meaningful life?
3.  Who do you think leads more meaningful life? What makes one of these more meaningful than the other?

Human Development 25 Leading a long and healthy life, being able to gain knowledge and having enough means to be able to live a decent life are the most important aspects of human development. Therefore, access to resources, health and education are the key areas in human development. Suitable indicators have been developed to measure each of these aspects. Can you think of some?

• Very often, people do not have the capability and freedom to make even basicchoices. This may be due to their inability toacquire knowledge, their material poverty,social discrimination, inefficiency of institutionsand other reasons. This prevents them fromleading healthy lives, being able to get educatedor to have the means to live a decent life.Building people’s capabilities in the areasof health, education and access to resources istherefore, important in enlarging their choices.If people do not have capabilities in these areas,their choices also get limited.

• For example, an uneducated child cannotmake the choice to be a doctor because herchoice has got limited by her lack of education.

• Similarly, very often poor people cannot chooseto take medical treatment for disease becausetheir choice is limited by their lack of resources.

• Enact a five-minute play with your classmates showing :-how choices are limited due to lack of capability in theareas of either income, education or health.

THE FOUR PILLARS OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT:-

Just as any building is supported by pillars, the idea of human development is supported by the concepts of equity, sustainability, productivity and empowerment. 

Equity -refers to making equal access to opportunities available to everybody. The opportunities available to people must be equal irrespective of their gender, race, income and in the Indian case, caste. Yet this is very often not the case and happens in almost every society. For example, in any country, it is interesting to see which group the most of the school dropouts belong to. This should then lead to an understanding of the reasons for such behaviour. In India, a large number of women and persons belonging to socially and economically backward groups drop out of school. This shows how the choices of these groups get limited by not having access to knowledge. 

Sustainability -means continuity in the availability of opportunities. To have sustainable human development, each generation must have the same opportunities. All environmental, financial and human resources must be used keeping in mind the future. Misuse of any of these resources will

lead to fewer opportunities for future generations.

                      A good example is about the importance of sending girls to school. If a community does

not stress the importance of sending its girl children to school, many opportunities will be lost to these young women when they grow up. Their career choices will be severely curtailed and this would affect other aspects of their lives. So each generation must ensure the availability of choices and opportunities to its future

generations. 

Productivity -here means human labour productivity or productivity in terms of human work. Such productivity must be constantly enriched by building capabilities in people. Ultimately, it is people who are the real wealth of nations. Therefore, efforts to increase their knowledge, or provide better health facilities ultimately leads to better work efficiency. 

Empowerment- means to have the power to make choices. Such power comes from increasing freedom and capability. Good governance and people-oriented policies are

required to empower people. The empowerment of socially and economically disadvantaged groups is of special importance.Talk to the vegetable vendor in your neighbourhood and find out if she has gone to school. Did she drop out of school? Why? What does this tell you about her choices and the freedom she has? Note how her opportunities were limited because of her gender, caste and income.

 Fundamentals of Human Geography

APPROACHES TO HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

There are many ways of looking at the problem of human development. Some of the important

approaches are:

 (a) The income approach;

 (b) The welfare approach; 

 (c) Minimum needs approach;

and 

(d) Capabilities approach 

MEASURING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

The human development index (HDI) ranks the countries based on their performance in the key areas of health, education and access to resources. These rankings are based on a score between 0 to 1 that a country earns from its record in the key areas of human development. The indicator chosen to assess health is the life expectancy at birth. A higher life expectancy means that people have a greater chance of living longer and healthier lives.The adult literacy rate and the gross enrolment ratio represent access to knowledge.

The number of adults who are able to read and write and the number of children enrolled in schools show how easy or difficult it is to access knowledge in a particular country. Access to resources is measured in terms of purchasing power (in U.S. dollars). Each of these dimensions is given a weightage of 1/3.

The human development index- is a sum total of the weights assigned to all these dimensions.The closer a score is to one, the greater is the level of human development. Therefore, a score of 0.983 would be considered very high while 0.268 would mean a very low level of human development. The human development index measures attainments in human development. It reflects what has been achieved in the key areas of human development. Yet it is not the most reliable measure. This is because it does not

say anything about the distribution. The human poverty index is related to the human development index. This index measures the shortfall in human development.

(a) Income Approach This is one of the oldest approaches to human development. Human development is seen as being linked to income. The idea is that the level of income reflects the level of freedom an individual enjoys. Higher the level of income, the higher is the level of human development.

(b) Welfare Approach This approach looks at human beings as beneficiaries or targets of all development activities. The approach argues for higher government expenditure on education, health, social secondary and amenities. People are not participants in development but only passive recipients. The government is responsible for increasing levels of human development by maximising expenditure on welfare.

(c) Basic Needs Approach This approach was initially proposed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Six basic needs i.e.: health, education, food, water supply, sanitation, and housing were identified. The question of human choices is ignored and the emphasis is on the provision of basic needs of defined sections.

(d) Capability Approach This approach is associated with Prof. Amartya Sen. Building human capabilities in the areas of health, education and access to resources is the key to increasing human development.

Human Development

It is a non-income measure. The probability of not surviving till the age of 40, the adult illiteracy rate, the number of people who do not have access to clean water, and the number of small children who are underweight are all taken into account to show the shortfall in human development in any region. Often the human

poverty index is more revealing than the human development index. Looking at both these measures of human development together gives an accurate picture of the human development situation in a

country.

The ways to measure human development are constantly being refined and newer ways of capturing different elements of human development are being researched. Researchers have found links between the level of corruption or political freedom in a particular region. There is also a discussion regarding a political

freedom index and, a listing of the most corrupt countries. Can you think of other links to the

level of human development?

• Since 1990, the "United NationsDevelopment Programme (UNDP)" has beenpublishing the Human Development Reportevery year. This report provides a rank-wiselist of all member countries according to thelevel of human development. The HumanDevelopment index and the Human Povertyindex are two important indices to measurehuman development used by the UNDP.Bhutan is the only country in the world toofficially proclaim the Gross NationalHappiness (GNH) as the measure of thecountry’s progress. Material progress andtechnological developments are approachedmore cautiously taking into consideration thepossible harm they might bring to theenvironment or the other aspects of culturaland spiritual life of the Bhutanese. This simplymeans material progress cannot come at thecost of happiness. GNH encourages us tothink of the spiritual, non-material andqualitative aspects of development.

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS-

International comparisons of human development are interesting. Size of the territory and per capita income are not directly related to human development. Often smaller countries have done better than larger ones in human development. Similarly, relatively poorer nations have been ranked higher than richer neighbours in terms of human development. For example, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago have a higher rank than India in the human development index despite having smaller economies. Similarly, within India, Kerala performs much better than Punjab and Gujarat in human development despite having lower per capita income.

Countries can be classified into three groups on the basis of the human development scores earned by them

Top Ten Countries with High Value Index

1. Norway                  6. Sweden

2. Iceland                   7. Switzerland

3. Australia                 8. Ireland

4. Luxembourg           9. Belgium

5. Canada                  10. United States

Source: Human Development Report, 2005

Providing education and healthcare is an important government priority. Countries with higher human development are those where a lot of investment in the social sector has taken place. Altogether, a higher investment in people and good governance has set this group of countries apart from the others.

Try to find out the percentage of the country’s income spent on these sectors.