Human Development Index (HDI) 2013

International Journal of Development and Management Review , 2023

Taking development as a multi-dimensional concept invariably justifies the argument of adopting the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index (HDI) as a measure of development. Thus, being an attempt thereof to undertake a crosscountry comparative study of the trend of Human Development progress in selected countries between 1990 and 2013 and following the UNDP regional classification, a total of 35 countries inclusive of the industrial countries were evaluated. Factors such as continual social unrest, engendered socio-political crisis, adverse income distribution, high depth of food deficit, lack of education and health services amidst others were evident as limiting factors for human development. However based on the progress made in selected economies, it is recommended that priority attention especially by Developing Economies be given to enabling necessary institutional and structural changes in view to foster human development, synonymous to economic development.

Journal of Applied Microeconometrics, 2022

Although human development has made significant progress in recent years, especially in developing countries, there are differences in human development between countries. To determine the development level of a country, it is necessary to evaluate the social, cultural, demographic and political factors along with the economic factors. The Human Development Index, which covers three basic components in terms of socioeconomic order, such as income, education and health, gains a different dimension in the name of welfare in all of these areas. Therefore, this study aims to determine factors affecting human development which is essential in terms of development goals. A cross-sectional analysis on a global scale is presented to investigate the impact of democracy, economic development, IMF loan use, infant mortality, and urbanization on human development. Quantile regression was estimated for 128 countries using 2019 data. The estimation results show that per capita income, democracy, urbanization, and IMF loan use have positive effects on human development. In contrast, infant mortality reduces human development. Afterward, we discussed the findings obtained from the analysis.

Since 1990, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has published a series of annual Human Development Reports (HDRs) in which the human development index (HDI) is computed for each country. This index has become an important alternative to the traditional unidimensional measure of development (i.e. the gross domestic product). Although the index still fails to include any ecological considerations, it has broadened the discussion surrounding the evaluation of development. Unfortunately, over the years, the HDRs seem to have become stagnant, repeating the same rhetoric without necessarily increasing the HDI’s utility. This paper evaluates how well these reports have lived up to their own conceptual mandate and assesses the ability of the HDI to further the development debate. We find that the reports have lost touch with their original vision and the index fails to capture the essence of the world it seeks to portray. In addition, the index focuses almost exclusively on national performance and ranking, but does not pay much attention to development from a global perspective. We propose the incorporation of three simple modifications for the index as a first step to overcome these shortcomings.

Purely economic assessment, such as economic growth and wealth as measure of Development has been criticized by different economists and scholars. The most important criticism of traditional development economics was regarded to be its ‘concentration on national product, aggregate income and total supply of particular goods rather than on entitlements of people and the capabilities that these entitlements generate’ (Sen; 1997). Development is much more than just the expansion of income and wealth… it is the process of enlarging peoples’ choices (UNDP; 1990, P.10). A country may achieve economic growth, but it might not bring change in peoples’ livelihood and actual development. Amartya Sen (1985) emphasizes the importance of ends such as decent standard of living, health, education… over means (income per capita or growth) for achieving development. His works shifted the Development paradigm from growth to human capabilities. Afghanistan as a post conflict1 country has had a considerable economic growth since the international community intervention and assistance in 2001. Despite over a decade of investment and assistance by the international community, Afghanistan’s human development indicators place the country within the bottom deciles of countries globally (HRP; 2015). Afghanistan’s HDI value for 2013 is 0.468 which is in the low Human Development category, positioning the country at 169 out of 187 countries and territories (HDI-AFG; 2014). Nevertheless, there have been improvements in Human Development over the past 12 years; the average annual HDI growth rate has increased to 2.46 percent in 2000-2013 from 1.42 in 1990-2000 (HRP; 2015). Between 1980 and 2013, Afghanistan’s HDI value increased from 0.230 to 0.468; an increase of 103.4 percent or an average increase of about 2.18 percent (HDI-AFG; 2014). There might be numerous factors that might have affected Human Development trend in Afghanistan during the period. One of the factors is considered to be the quality of governance that affects Development. There is somehow consensus among scholars and academic literature that there is a strong relationship between quality of governance and developmental outcomes, in particular Human Development. To find out the relationship and trend between governance and Human development during the last four decades, I am going to do my research thesis on the role of governance to Human Development-in case of Afghanistan. However, I have already done part of Introduction, theoretical philosophy and also literature review. Due to limits, I have not focused on critical views about HDI, its measurement and 1 Afghanistan is not considered as the post-conflict country by some scholars, it is sometimes grouped as a country in conflict and crisis. 4 methodology. The present paper which will be developed as part of my thesis is going to focus briefly on the conceptual framework of Human Development, Human Development Index brief introduction, measurement, methodology, HDI data source, Human Development reports series, HDI dimensions and conclusion.

Intereconomics, 1991