Development

• Economic development
• Social development
• Political development

Growth as a parameter of development

Evolution of concept

• Aristotle in the 4th century BC. In Politics, while discussing the idea of the “best political arrangement”, Aristotle argued that the aim of political planning is the distribution of the conditions for a good life to the people in the city. He asserted that a good life is one in which a person can function not only in the biological sense but also by exercising choice and reason.
• Thinkers like Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill also gave similar ideas of good human life.
•  Marx and Engels described a commendable human life as not only one in which the person’s material needs are satisfied, but also as one in which people are able to use reason,

 Human condition

• The human condition is defined as "the characteristics, key events, and situations which compose the essentials of human existence, such as birth, growth, emotionality, aspiration, conflict, and mortality."
• The great mystery, dilemma and paradox of the human condition is humans’ capacity for what has been called ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
•  Human development shares a common vision with human rights. The goal is human freedom.
•  Thus, human development is about much more than economic growth, which is only a means of enlarging people’s choices.
•  Fundamental to enlarging these choices is building human capabilities - the range of things that people can do or be in life.
•  Capabilities are "the substantive freedoms a person enjoys to lead the kind of life they have reason to value.

Thus, human development is interconnected with human rights and human freedom. The most basic capabilities for human development are:

• to lead long and healthy lives,
• to be knowledgeable (e.g., to be educated),
• to have access to the resources and social services needed for a decent standard of living, and to be able to participate in the life of the community

Capability approach

• Capability approach has been developed by Indian Nobel Lureate Amartya Sen.
• Capability theory has emerged as a serious alternative model of progress and development. 
• Rather than goods and resources (the inputs), the focus of Sen’s capability approach is people and their capabilities (the end-results).
• It also provides an alternative perspective on issues like poverty, inequality, gender bias, and social exclusion that are hardly touched by the economic perspective.
• Rather than talking of some theoretical equality of people or seeing them in terms of numbers, the capability approach explicitly recognizes the differences among individuals.
• It also accepts that people’s abilities are affected by external factors coming from interaction with other people, social arrangements, access to infrastructure and public services, discriminations, opportunities to participate in social and political activities, freedom to speak and influence state policies.

 Human Development and Human Rights

• The idea of human development stipulates the need for education, better conditions for work and more choices for individuals. The idea goes with human rights. The two concepts are simultaneously promoted:

1. First by good governance, implementation of human rights policy and a formation of participation of community in decision making processes,
2. Second by the promotion of civil and political rights and economic and social rights, which are components of the level of development. For instance, the right for education relates to intellectual development, and political rights relates to the level of the political development of that society.

Demographic dividend and human development

• India with a large and young population has a great demographic advantage.
• The average age of the 1.25 billion-strong Indian population will be 29 years in 2020, even younger than the 37 years of China and the US.
• The proportion of working-age population is likely to increase from approximately 58 per cent in 2001 to more than 64 per cent by 2021, adding about 63.5 million new entrants between 2011 and 2016 with a large number of young persons in the 20-35 years age group.
• This is a great opportunity for India. Demographic dividend will benefit India if its population is educated, healthy, and adequately skilled.

Indices – a  pass through time

• GINI coefficient which was introduced in 1912 by Corrado Gini and adopted by World Bank, and measures the income inequality among a country’s citizens — but it fails to measure social benefits or interventions that reduce the gap or inequality between rich and poor.
• Physical quality-of-life index : derived from basic literacy rate, infant mortality, and life expectancy at age one,  developed for the Overseas Development Council in the mid-1970s by David Morris, as a measure created due to dissatisfaction with the use of GNP as an indicator of development.
• GNH, which was introduced in the 1970s by the king of Bhutan similarly measures the happiness levels of the citizens in a country while it ignores other important elements like gender equality, quality education and good infrastructure.
• HDI, devised and launched in 1990 by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, is computed and published by the United Nations Development Programme and overcomes most of the shortcomings of the Gini coefficient and GNH.

 Criticisms

•  HDI, as a measure, falls short in its capture of the unequal distribution of wealth within the country and the level of infrastructural development.
• Many prospects of a healthy society, such as environmental sustainability and personal rights, are not included in HDI.
• Only few parameters are taken like education, health etc.

Human Development

1. Directly enhancing human abilities
2. Creating conditions for human development

Directly enhancing human abilities

• Long and healthy life
• Knowledge
• Decent standard of living

Creating conditions for human development

• Participation in political and community life
• Environmental sustainability
• Human security and rights
• Gender equality

Measuring Human Development - some major indicators

Human Development Index (HDI)

• Proposed by Mahbub-ul-Haq and Amartya Sen to counter per capita income as a sole indicator of development
• Places people at centre stage - emphasis on enhancing capabilities – particularly relevant during globalization
• Global Human Development Reports are published annually since 1990

• Long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy);
• Having education (measured by literacy and gross enrolment in education);
• Having a decent standard of living (measured by purchased power parity-based income)

The three dimensions of human development are measured by

• Life Expectancy Index (LEI)
• Education Index
• GNI Index

HDI is a composited index which is the Geometric Mean of the three indices.

Life Expectancy Index (LEI)

• It measures the quality of health which is based on the life expectancy at birth.
• It is based on probability and is measured by the average number of years people are expected to live.
• It is calculated using the birth and death data of the past.

Education Index

• It is based on two indicators:

1. expected years of schooling for a school-aged child;
2. mean years of prior schooling for adults aged 25 and older

• Mean years of schooling are estimated on the basis of schooling at each level of education and the population of official school age for each level of education.
• The index measures the sustainability of enrolment by measuring the expected and average years of schooling.

GNI Index

• GNI per capita is an indicator of the standard of living.
• It gives a true picture of national produce that accrues to the people of the country as it

1. excludes the outflow of remittances; and
2. includes inflow of remittances, foreign aid, etc.

The value of HDI ranges between '0' and '1' and increases towards '1' as the level of human development increases.

• Dimension index = [Actual Value - Minimum Value] ÷ [Maximum Value - Minimum Value]
• In HDI Report, the ranking of 189 countries is done.
• The countries are ranked into four categories as below:

India in HDI 2020

• Rank: 127 in the list of 187 countries
• HDI value: 0.647
• India scored least among the 

1. BRICS countries
2. QUAD group

• India scored the 2nd highest in SAARC.
• In the last report, India stood at 131st position with a score of 0.645.

IHDI

• Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index
• IHDI adjusts for the HDI for inequality in the distribution of the dimension such as 

1. Life Expectancy
2. Years of Schooling
3. Household income/consumption

• Under the IHDI, the inequality in each dimension of HDI is discounted from the average level of achievement in each dimension.
• If IHDI = HDI, there is no inequality.
• If IHDI < HDI, there is an inequality.

Gender Development Index (GDI)

• Introduced by the UNDP in 1995
• GDI measures gender inequalities in achievement in three basic dimensions of human development:

1. Health
2. Education
3. Income

• This index is published in the HDI report.
• Its purpose is to add a gender-sensitive dimension to the HDI.
• It is distribution sensitive in the sense that it considers not just the average or overall level of well-being and prosperity in a country, but also how this wealth and well-being is distributed among men and women.
• GDI indicates how much women lag behind their male counterparts in each dimension of HDI.
• GDI cannot be utilized without HDI score, it cannot be used as a standalone indicator of gender disparities.
• It is a direct measure of the gender divide.

Gender Inequality Index (GII)

• GII is published by the UNDP.
• It measures inequality that exists between men and women across three dimensions:

1. reproductive health;
2. empowerment; and
3. labour market

• So, it measures women's disadvantages in three dimensions.
• GII ranges between '0' and '1' - the gender equality decreases as the index value increases.

Human Poverty Index (HPI)

• An indication of the standard of living in a country.
• It was developed by the UNDP to complement the HDI, and was first reported as part of the Human Development Report 2007.
• It was considered to better reflect the extent of deprivation in developing countries compared to the HDI.
• In 2010, it was supplemented by the Multidimensional Poverty Index.
• The HPI concentrates on the deprivation in the three essential elements of human life already reflected in the HDI:

1. longevity,
2. knowledge, and
3. a decent standard of living

• The HPI is derived separately for developing countries (HPI-1) and a group of select high-income OECD countries (HPI-2) to better reflect socio-economic differences and also the widely different measures of deprivation in the two groups.

MPI

• Multidimensional Poverty Index measures the deprivation of people in three dimensions at the household level:

1. health
2. education
3. standard of living

• The index measures the under-achievements in three dimensions.
• it was launched in 2010 and is published by the

1. UNDP, and
2. Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Index

• Released annually since 2016 by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
• Through the SDGs, a development agenda was set to be achieved by 2030.
• SDG Index measures the performance of various countries in the achievement of SDGs.
• It considers

1. distance to targets from the present level for each of the 17 SDGs
2. key implementation challenges

• In the recent SDG Index report prepared for 163 countries, India stands at 121^st  position with an overall score of 60.32.
• Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria are the top five countries, i.e., the best performers in the achievement of the SDGs.
• The bottom five countries in the report are South Sudan, CAR, Chad, Somalia, and Sudan.
• India is behind its comparable countries such as Brazil (53), Chins (56), and South Africa (108).
• Among its neighbours, India is behind all except Pakistan.