Human Development

Human development

Refers to creating an environment in which people can participate in the life of their community and decisions affecting their lives, expand choices and enhance capabilities, developing to their full potential having access to knowledge, health and a decent standard of living allowing them to lead productive and creative lives according to ones needs and interests.

Human development index

• A tool created by the united nations to measure and rank a countries level of social and economic development

• It is based on 3 dimensions: long and healthy life, knowledge, decent standard of living and 4 indicators: life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling, expected years of schooling, GNI per capita.

• It allows for improvements to be monitored over time.

• It provides a single statistic between 1 and 0, where the closer the number is to 1, the greater the level of human development experienced, that allows comparisons to be made between countries and regions.

Gross National Income

Total value of goods and services a country’s citizens produce including the value of income earned by citizens who may be working in an overseas country.

HDI Advantage 1

Takes more than just average incomes in to account, and so provides a more comprehensive representation of the level of human development experienced.

HDI Advantage 2

Captured attention of media, policy makers, communities and individuals, and as a result, has raised awareness of the importance of human development, helping people question and revise current policies choices.

HDI Disadvantage 1

Only reflects selected aspects of the HDI and still does not take in to consideration all aspects of human development such as gender equality and freedom of speech.

HDI Disadvantage 2

No survey data are collected in the HDI, so peoples feelings about their lives and issues facing communities are not reflected, including social, emotional, mental and spiritual health and wellbeing as well as feelings about physical safety.