Human Development
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Created @April 3, 2025 4:57 PM
Status in progress
→ Important description → MCQ based questions → analogical or
Highlights philosophical → idk what to make notes of
TERMINOLOGY
→ Attainment— to achievements made in key areas of human development
→shortfalls—low life expectancy, adult illiteracy rate, number of people not
having access to clean water, malnutrished and underweight children are
taken into account to show shortfall in human development
💡 Do growth and development mean the same thing?
Do they accompany each other?
Growth and Development
Human Development 1
Both growth and development refer to changes over a period of time
GROWTH DEVELOPMENT
→ it is quantitative and value neutral → it is qualitative and always value positive
→ may have a positive or a negative
sign (change can be either positive-
→ it only has a positive sign
showing an increase or negative-
indicating decrease)
→ this means development can’t take place if there
is no positive change or increment to existing
conditions.
→ positive growth is necessary for development but
it does not always amount to development.
development occur when there is positive change
in quality.
Human development introduced by Dr. Mehbub Ul Haq and Prof. Amartya Sen
earlier development was only measured in terms of economic growth.
bigger economy = more development (other aspects were not taken in
account) → but other aspects like quality of life, opportunities, freedom were
also important for development
and these aspects were emphasised by south asian economists dr. mahbub-
ul-haq and amartya sen in late-80s early-90s
concept of human development was introduced by dr. Mahbub-ul-haq
he described human development as development that enlarges people’s
choices* and improves their lives.
→ people were central to development
→these choices are not fixed but keep changing
→basic goal of development= to create condition for meaningful lives.
meaningful lives— a live with purpose
— people must be healthy
—able to develop their talents
Human Development 2
—participate in society
— be free to achieve their goals
CASE STUDY
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 objective
of development. Interestingly, increasing freedoms is also one of the most
effective ways of bringing about
development. 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 any
discussion on development.
Human Development 3
long healthy life + ability to gain knowledge + living a decent life → most
important aspect of human development.
therefore —> access to resources, health and education are key areas in
human development.
IDK
For example, an uneducated child cannot
make the choice to be a doctor because her
choice has got limited by her lack of education.
Similarly, very often poor people cannot choose
Human Development 4
to take medical treatment for disease because
their choice is limited by their lack of resources.
The Four Pillar Of Human Development
Equity
making equal access to opportunities available to everybody
equality of opportunity irrespective of colour caste gender etc.
ex- in india many women, sc , st, obc dropout schools due to this there
choices are going to be limited by not having access to knowledge.
Sustainability
it means continuity in the availability of opportunity
to have sustainable human development, each generation must have same
opportunities.
all resources(environmental, financial, human )should be used with caution so
needs of future are not effected.
ex- developing skilled labour
Productivity
it means human labour productivity or productivity in terms of human work.
it is enriched by the building capabilities(education+healthcare) in people.
Empowerment
Human Development 5
it means ‘ to have power to make choices’
this power comes from increasing freedom and capabilities.
good governance+people oriented policies are required to empower people.
INCOME APPROACH →Oldest approach to human development
→ human development is linked to income(in this approach)
→level of income — reflect — level of freedom
→ higher level of income — higher level of human development
WELFARE APPROACH → humans = beneficiaries / target of all development activities.
→ promotes —> higher government expenditure on —>
education, healthcare, social secondary, amenities.
→ in this approach people are only passive recipients of
development not participants →the government is responsible
for increasing levels of human development by maximising
expenditure on welfare.
BASIC NEEDS
→ proposed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO)
APPROACH
→ 6 basic needs — health —education —food —water supply
—sanitation —housing
→ human choices is ignored and the emphasis is on the
provision of basic needs of defined .
CAPABILITIES
→associated with Prof. Amartya Sen
APPROACH
→Building human capabilities in the areas of health, education
and access to resources is the key to increasing human
development.
Human Development 6
Measuring Human Development
HDI ranks countries on basis of their performance in health, education(or
knowledge), access to resources
rankings are based on the score between 0-1 earned by country
access to health
life expectancy at birth= higher life expectancy means that people have a
greater chance of living longer and healthier lives
access to knowledge
→ adult literacy rate
→ gross enrolment ratio
access to resources
→ 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.
closer a score is to one, the greater is the level of human development
UNDP HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
💡 since 1990 UNDP publishes human development report every year
human development index and human poverty index are two important
indices to measure human development used by UNDP
Human development index reflects attainments of human development. —> it
is not the most reliable measure because it does not talks distribution
human poverty index measure shortfalls in human development.
→ it is a non-income measure
Human Development 7
→often it is more revealing than human development index
→shortfalls—low life expectancy, adult illiteracy rate, number of people not
having access to clean water, malnutrished and underweight children
are taken into account to show shortfall in human development.
by considering both the indexes it gives pretty accurate description of human
development in a particular country
💡 Bhutan - only country in the world that takes gross national
happiness(GNH) as a measure of country’s progress. a.k.a material
progress cannot come at the cost of happiness.
GNH encourages us to look at spiritual, non-material and qualitative
aspects of happiness.
International Comparison
size of the territory and per capita income are not directly related to human
income.
Countries can be classified into four groups on the basis of the human
development scores earned by them.
Level of Human Development Score in Development Index Number of countries
VERY HIGH above 0.800 66
HIGH between 0.700 to 0.799 49
MEDIUM between 0.550 to 0.699 44
LOW below 0.549 32
RANK COUNTRIES RANK COUNTRIES
1. switzerland 6. sweden
Human Development 8
RANK COUNTRIES RANK COUNTRIES
2. norway 7. germany
3. iceland 8. ireland
4. hong kong, china (sar) 9. singapore
5. denmark 10. netherlands
HIGH LEVEL COUNTRIES - MEDIUM LEVEL COUNTRIES LOW LEVEL COUNTRIES -
53 Countries - 39 Countries 38 Countries
→most of the countries in
this list are former imperial → most of these countries
powers →the degree of emerged after 2nd world
social diversity is not vey war. → many of these
high →most of the countries countries are former
are in europe and represent colonies and few emerged
industrialised western world after disintegration of USSR →a large number f these
→providing healthcare and in 1990. →they have higher countries are going through
education are priorities of social diversity. → many of political turmoil, social
the government → many of them have faced political instability, civil war, famine,
these countries are located instability or social unrest in epidemic. →there is an
in politically stable areas their recent history, urgent need to foucus on
which means they do not therefore they have to invest human development.
need to spend much on in defence. → they are
defence which allows them improving by adopting
to spend more on social social-oriented policies and
sector. → investment in reducing social
people and good discrimination
governance
to understand — why a region keeps performing low in human
development????
we need to look at ;-
→ pattern of government expenditure on social sectors
→political environment of the country
→ freedom of people
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Human Development 10
