Chapter 12: Differences in Economic Development
12.2 The Human Development Index (HDI)
Economic development refers to the increase in the living standards of a nation. The development relates to the growth in qualitative factors of human life, which are best measured by the Human Development Index (HDI).
Human development is about giving people more choices and freedom to develop to their full potential and lead a productive life (UNDP, 2015). The three essential choices for people at all levels of development are to live a long and healthy life, to have access to quality education, and to have access to enough resources required for the basic needs of life. Without having access to these essential choices, all other opportunities for improving quality of life are not attainable. Human development goes far beyond economic growth. Economic growth is about increasing income, while human development focuses on qualitative factors such as health, education, clean environment, and material well-being. In other words, economic growth creates the opportunity for human development by providing people with the income they need to fulfil their development needs. As the experts at the United Nations Development Programme tell us: “Human development is the end – economic growth a means” (Kollanyi et al., 1996).
Let’s Explore: The HDI
The United Nations use the HDI to measure quality of human life in different nations based on the following dimensions:
- Health is measured by life expectancy at birth.
- Education is measured by the age at which children enter school and the average number of schooling years for adults.
- Access to resources for basic life needs is measured by average income.
To learn more about how the HDI is calculated and to see country development rankings based on HDI, read the Out World in Data article “The Human Development Index and related indices: what they are and what we can learn from them.”
Did You Know? The UN Sustainable Development Goals
Human development as measured by HDI was formally recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in 1990, and since then, in most years, an independent report has been prepared by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the three criteria (Stanton, 2007).
In 2000 the United Nations set eight goals to tackle the three essential needs of HDI and more, they were called Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were focused only on developing countries (Millenium Development Goals, 2024).
To address the shortcomings and criticism of MDGs as a platform imposed on developing countries, in 2015, the United Nations developed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that apply to all countries at all stages of development.
To learn more about the SDGs and how these goals are different from MDGs, explore the SDGs in Action page of the UNDP website.
Video: The SDG Origin Story
Source: Swiss Learning Exchange. (2020, April 22). Episode 4: Origin story of sustainable development goals | Origin of SDGs | SDG Plus [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zm7In9FRtE
References
Kollanyi, M., Harcsa, I., Redei, M. & Iddiko Ekes, I. (1996) Human development report 1996: Economic growth and human development. United Nations Development Programme. https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-1996
Millennium Development Goals. (2024, April 30). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Development_Goals
Stanton, A. (2007, February). The Human Development Index: A history. Working Paper Series, (17). Political Economy Research Institute. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&context=peri_workingpapers
UNDP. (2015, February 19). What is human development? Human Development Reports. United Nations Development Programme. https://hdr.undp.org/content/what-human-development
a measure of growth in qualitative factors of human life
