The United Nations Development Programme defines human development as "the process of enlarging people's choices", said choices allowing them to "lead a long and healthy life, to be educated, to enjoy a decent standard of living", as well as "political freedom, other guaranteed human rights and various ingredients of self-respect".[1] Thus, human development is about much more than economic growth, which is only a means of enlarging people's choices.[2] 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".[3]
History
Human Development Theory has roots in ancient philosophy and early economic theory. Aristotle noted that "Wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking, for it is merely useful for something else", and Adam Smith and Karl Marx were concerned with human capabilities. The theory grew in importance in the 1980s with the work of Amartya Sen and his Human Capabilities perspective, which played a role in his receiving the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics. Notable early active economists who formulated the modern concept of human development theory were Mahbub ul Haq, Üner Kirdar, and Amartya Sen.[4] The Human Development Index developed for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) stems from this early research.[5] In 2000, Sen and Sudhir Anand published a notable development of the theory to address issues in sustainability.[6][7]
Martha Nussbaum's publications in the late 1990s and 2000s pushed theorists to pay more attention to the human in the theory, and particularly to human emotion.[8][9] A separate approach stems in part from needs theories of psychology which in part started with Abraham Maslow (1968). Representative of these are the Human-Scale Development approach developed by Manfred Max-Neef in the mid-to-late 1980s which addresses human needs and satisfiers which are more or less static across time and context.[10]
Anthropologists and sociologists have also challenged perspectives on Human Development Theory that stem from neoclassical economics. Examples of scholars include, Diane Elson, Raymond Apthorpe, Irene van Staveren, and Ananta Giri. Elson (1997) proposes that human development should move towards a more diverse approach to individual incentives. This will involve a shift from seeing people as agents in control of their choices selecting from a set of possibilities utilizing human capital as one of many assets. Instead, theorists should see people as having more mutable choices influenced by social structures and changeable capacities and using a humanistic approach to theory including factors relating to an individual's culture, age, gender, and family roles. These extensions express a dynamic approach to the theory, a dynamism that has been advocated by Ul Haq and Sen, in spite of the implicit criticism of those two figures.[11][12]
Measurement
One measure of human development is the Human Development Index (HDI), formulated by the United Nations Development Programme.[2] The index encompasses statistics such as life expectancy at birth, an education index (calculated using mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling), and gross national income per capita. Though this index does not capture every aspect that contributes to human capability, it is a standardized way of quantifying human capability across nations and communities. Aspects that could be left out of the calculations include incomes that are unable to be quantified, such as staying home to raise children or bartering goods/services, as well as individuals' perceptions of their own well being. Other measures of human development include the Human Poverty Index (HPI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure. It measures many aspects of development.
Pillars
There are six basic pillars of human development: equity, sustainability, productivity, empowerment, cooperation and security.[13]
Equity is the idea of fairness for every person, between men and women; we each have the right to education and health care.
Sustainability is the view that we all have the right to earn a living that can sustain our lives and have access to a more even distribution of goods.
Productivity states the full participation of people in the process of income generation. This also means that the government needs more efficient social programs for its people.
Empowerment is the freedom of the people to influence development and decisions that affect their lives.
Cooperation stimulates participation and belonging to communities and groups as a means of mutual enrichment and a source of social meaning.
Security offers people development opportunities freely and safely with confidence that they will not disappear suddenly in the future.[14]
Human rights
In seeking that something else, human development shares a common vision with human rights. The goal is human freedom. Therefore, human development is interconnected with human rights and human freedom, because in well-managed prisons life expectancy and literacy as measured by the Human Development Index could be quite high.[15] And in pursuing capabilities and realizing rights, this freedom is vital. People must be free to exercise their choices and to participate in decision-making that affects their lives. Human development and human rights are mutually reinforcing, helping to secure the well-being and dignity of all people, building self-respect and the respect of others.[2] In the days of fast globalization, human rights issues surface in relation to multilateral corporations and poverty issues. 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 first by good governance, implementation of human rights policy and a formation of participation of community in decision making processes, 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.[16]
Health
The axis of development is that it may harm or benefit human health, and eventually human development, as it proceeds. In concern of health, we divided it into disease and poverty issues. On 16 June 2006 the World Health Organization (WHO) presented the report Preventing disease through healthy environments.[17] No one in the world is without the environmental health issues and wealth problems. Development had been first approached as the future for more cure and hope. However, the criticism argues of the side effects such as environmental pollution and the gap between increasing wealth and poor. The ineffectiveness of many public health policies in terms of health inequality issues and social problems should be held by global community.[18] Therefore, the ultimate goal is to achieve environmental sustainability. Some critics say development is undermined by health concerns as it both directly and indirectly influences growth to be lower. HIV/AIDS, in addition to malaria, has negatively influenced development and increased poverty in many places, especially in Africa. Achieving adequate health standards is important for the success of development and the abolition of poverty.[19]
Human Development Report
The Global Human Development Reports (HDR) is an annual publication released by the UNDP's Human Development Report Office and contains the Human Development Index. Within global HDR there are four main indexes: Human Development Index, Gender-related Development Index, Gender Empowerment Measure and the Human Poverty Index.[2] There are not only a global Human Development Reports but there are also regional and national reports. The Regional, National and subnational (for portions of countries) HDRs take various approaches, according to the strategic thinking of the individual authorship groups that craft the individual reports. In the United States, for example, Measure of America has been publishing human development reports since 2008 with a modified index, the human development index American Human Development Index, which measures the same three basic dimensions but uses slightly different indicators to better reflect the U.S. context and to maximize use of available data.[20]
The Human Development Index is a way for people and nations to see the policy flaws of regions and countries. Although the releasing of this information is believed to encourage countries to alter their policies, there is no evidence demonstrating changes nor is there any motivation for countries to do so.[21]
The Human Development Index (HDI) is the normalized measure of life expectancy, education and per capita income for countries worldwide. It is an improved standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare and thus human development.[19] Although this index makes an effort to simplify human development, it is much more complex than any index or set of indicators.[15]
The 2007 report showed a small increase in world HDI in comparison with the previous year's report. This rise was fueled by a general improvement in the developing world, especially of the least developed countries group. This marked improvement at the bottom was offset with a decrease in HDI of high income countries.
Human Poverty Index
To reflect gaps in the Human Development Index, the United Nations came out with the Human Poverty Index (HPI) in 1997[citation needed]. The HPI measures the deficiencies in the three indexes of the human development index: long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living. The HPI is meant to provide a broader view of human development and is adapted to developed countries to reveal social exclusion.[19]
The Social Progress Index is published by the non-profit Social Progress Imperative. It combines indicators related to social welfare, equality, personal freedom and sustainability.
The Earth Summits, Agenda 21, Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals
In an attempt to promote human development, the United Nations supports decennial Earth Summits where the members to the UN bring together the best of humanity. In several rounds they discuss what are humanities biggest problems, quantify them and develop a plan of action on how to solve these problems. This plan of action is called Agenda 21–an agenda to make sure humanity will still be around after the year 2100. Thousands of cities now have a local Agenda 21 and more and more companies and organisations also align their strategic plan with the strategic plan of Agenda21. With the approaching of the year 2000, UN Secretary GeneralKofi Annan was compelled to develop something that existed in the private sector: setting out a long term plan, a mid term plan and a short term planning. This endeavour supports on Agenda21 and was named the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which ran from 2000–2015. The United Nations made a commitment to accomplish these goals by 2015 and thus make an attempt to promote human development.[22]
As the experience of this exercise was perceived successful, a follow-up program was developed and named as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Rethinking Human Development
In 2020, the International Science Council (ISC) and the Human Development Programme (UNDP) have started an initiative on Rethinking Human Development exploring the multiple dimensions and viewpoints regarding what Human Development means[23] in today's world.[24]
Augmented Human Development Index
Leandro Prados de la Escosura has an alternative dataset for human development, which he calls the Augmented Human Development Index.[25][26][27]
Educational development
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in September 2015, calls for a new vision to address the environmental, social and economic concerns facing the world today. The Agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 4 on education.[28][29]The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is leading SDG 4, covering all aspects of education.[30] Through initiatives, projects, conventions and events, UNESCO addresses issues related to education and shapes its future. The UN agency has established the Convention against Discrimination in Education, the Convention on Higher Education Qualifications and the Futures of Education initiative. In September 2022, the Transformation Education Summit sounded the alarm on the need for global solutions.[31] On this occasion, UNESCO published a report on a "new social contract for education", calling for a "peaceful, just and sustainable" future and underlining the importance of education in profound societal changes.[32]
Since 1909, the percentage of children in the developing world attending school has increased. Before then, a small minority of boys attended school. By the start of the twenty-first century, the majority of children in most regions of the world attended some form of school.[33] By 2016, over 91 percent of children are enrolled in formal primary schooling.[33] However, a learning crisis has emerged across the globe, due to the fact that a large proportion of students enrolled in school are not learning. A World Bank study found that "53 percent of children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read and understand a simple story by the end of primary school."[34] While schooling has increased rapidly over the last few decades, learning has not followed suit.
Universal Primary Education was one of the eight international Millennium Development Goals, towards which progress has been made in the past decade, though barriers still remain.[35] Securing charitable funding from prospective donors is one particularly persistent problem. Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute have indicated that the main obstacles to funding for education include conflicting donor priorities, an immature aid architecture, and a lack of evidence and advocacy for the issue.[35] Additionally, Transparency International has identified corruption in the education sector as a major stumbling block to achieving Universal Primary Education in Africa.[36] Furthermore, demand in the developing world for improved educational access is not as high as foreigners have expected. Indigenous governments are reluctant to take on the ongoing costs involved. There is also economic pressure from some parents, who prefer their children to earn money in the short term rather than work towards the long-term benefits of education.[citation needed]
A study conducted by the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning indicates that stronger capacities in educational planning and management may have an important spill-over effect on the system as a whole.[37] Sustainable capacity development requires complex interventions at the institutional, organizational and individual levels that could be based on some foundational principles:[37]
national leadership and ownership should be the touchstone of any intervention;
strategies must be context relevant and context specific;
plans should employ an integrated set of complementary interventions, though implementation may need to proceed in steps;
partners should commit to a long-term investment in capacity development while working towards some short-term achievements;
outside intervention should be conditional on an impact assessment of national capacities at various levels;
a certain percentage of students should be removed for improvisation of academics (usually practiced in schools, after tenth grade).
In the economics study of the public sector, economic and social development is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and objectives.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistical composite index of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which is used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores a higher level of HDI when the lifespan is higher, the education level is higher, and the gross national income GNI (PPP) per capita is higher. It was developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul-Haq and was further used to measure a country's development by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Human Development Report Office.
International development or global development is a broad concept denoting the idea that societies and countries have differing levels of economic or human development on an international scale. It is the basis for international classifications such as developed country, developing country and least developed country, and for a field of practice and research that in various ways engages with international development processes. There are, however, many schools of thought and conventions regarding which are the exact features constituting the "development" of a country.
Human security is a paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities whose proponents challenge the traditional notion of national security through military security by arguing that the proper referent for security should be at the human rather than the national level. Human security reveals a people-centred and multi-disciplinary understanding of security which involves a number of research fields, including development studies, international relations, strategic studies, and human rights. The United Nations Development Programme's 1994 Human Development Report is considered a milestone publication in the field of human security, with its argument that ensuring "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear" for all persons is the best path to tackle the problem of global insecurity.
Feminization of poverty refers to a trend of increasing inequality in living standards between men and women due to the widening gender gap in poverty. This phenomenon largely links to how women and children are disproportionately represented within the lower socioeconomic status community in comparison to men within the same socioeconomic status. Causes of the feminization of poverty include the structure of family and household, employment, sexual violence, education, climate change, "femonomics" and health. The traditional stereotypes of women remain embedded in many cultures restricting income opportunities and community involvement for many women. Matched with a low foundation income, this can manifest to a cycle of poverty and thus an inter-generational issue.
The capability approach is a normative approach to human welfare that concentrates on the actual capability of persons to achieve lives they value rather than solely having a right or freedom to do so. It was conceived in the 1980s as an alternative approach to welfare economics.
The Human Poverty Index (HPI) was an indication of the poverty of community in a country, developed by the United Nations to complement the Human Development Index (HDI) and was first reported as part of the Human Development Report in 1997. It is developed by United Nations Development Program which also publishes indexes like HDI It was considered to better reflect the extent of deprivation in deprived countries compared to the HDI. In 2010, it was supplanted by the UN's Multidimensional Poverty Index.
The Human Development Report (HDR) is an annual Human Development Index report published by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The National Human Development Reports (NHDR) take the Global Human Development Report approach to the national level and are prepared and owned by national teams. More than 540 national and sub-national HDRs have been produced so far by 135 countries, in addition to 31 regional reports.
The Legatum Prosperity Index is an annual ranking developed by the Legatum Institute, an independent educational charity founded and part-funded by the private investment firm Legatum. The ranking is based on a variety of factors including wealth, economic growth, education, health, personal well-being, and quality of life.
Released by UNESCO, the Gender Parity Index (GPI) is a socioeconomic index usually designed to measure the relative access to education of males and females. It is used by international organizations, particularly in measuring the progress of developing countries. For example, some UNESCO documents consider gender parity in literacy.
Rights-based approach to development is promoted by many development agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to achieve a positive transformation of power relations among the various development actors. This practice blurs the distinction between human rights and economic development. There are two stakeholder groups in rights-based development—the rights holders and the duty bearers. Rights-based approaches aim at strengthening the capacity of duty bearers and empower the rights holders.
Multidimensional Poverty Indices use a range of indicators to calculate a summary poverty figure for a given population, in which a larger figure indicates a higher level of poverty. This figure considers both the proportion of the population that is deemed poor, and the 'breadth' of poverty experienced by these 'poor' households, following the Alkire & Foster 'counting method'. The method was developed following increased criticism of monetary and consumption based poverty measures, seeking to capture the deprivations in non-monetary factors that contribute towards well-being. While there is a standard set of indicators, dimensions, cutoffs and thresholds used for a 'Global MPI', the method is flexible and there are many examples of poverty studies that modify it to best suit their environment. The methodology has been mainly, but not exclusively, applied to developing countries.
Wikiprogress is a defunct online platform for sharing information on the measurement of social, economic and environmental progress. It is thought to facilitate sharing on ideas, initiatives and knowledge on "measuring the progress of societies". Like Wikipedia, it was open to all members and communities for contribution – anyone interested in "progress" could register.
The Gender Inequality Index (GII) is an index for the measurement of gender disparity that was introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report 20th anniversary edition by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). According to the UNDP, this index is a composite measure to quantify the loss of achievement within a country due to gender inequality. It uses three dimensions to measure opportunity cost: reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation. The new index was introduced as an experimental measure to remedy the shortcomings of the previous indicators, the Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), both of which were introduced in the 1995 Human Development Report.
Sabina Alkire is an American academic and Anglican priest, who is the director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), an economic research centre within the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford, England, which was established in 2007. She is a fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association. She has worked with organizations such as the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, the United Nations Human Development Programme Human Development Report Office, the European Commission, and the UK's Department for International Development.
Women's empowerment may be defined in several ways, including accepting women's viewpoints, making an effort to seek them and raising the status of women through education, awareness, literacy, and training. Women's empowerment equips and allows women to make life-determining decisions through the different societal problems. They may have the opportunity to re-define gender roles or other such roles, which allow them more freedom to pursue desired goals.
Sustainable Development Goal 16 is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015, the official wording is: "Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels". The Goal has 12 targets and 23 indicators.
Creating Capabilities is a book, first published by economist Martha Nussbaum in 2011, which outlines a unique theory regarding the Capability approach or the Human development approach. Nussbaum draws on theories of other notable advocates of the Capability approach like Amartya Sen, but makes specific distinctions. One distinct idea she proposes is to choose a list of capabilities based on some aspects of John Rawls' concept of "central human capabilities." These ten capabilities encompass everything Nussbaum considers essential to living a life that one values. Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen are considered to be the main scholars of this approach, but have distinctions in their approach to capabilities. Sen disagrees with Nussbaum's list of values on the grounds that it does not fully encompass the range of capabilities one would consider to live a fulfilling life, which inherently differs by person.
↑ Human Development and Capability Association. "Capability & Functionings: Definition & Justification". Human Development and Capability Association Briefing Note: 1–5.
↑ Yousif, Bassam. Human development in Iraq: 1950-1990. Routledge, 2013. p4-6
↑ Anand S., Sen A. (2000). "Human development and economic sustainability". World Development. 28 (12): 2029–2049. doi:10.1016/s0305-750x(00)00071-1.
↑ Welzel Christian, Inglehart Ronald, Klikemann Hans Dieter (2003). "The theory of human development: A cross-cultural analysis". European Journal of Political Research. 42 (3): 341–379. doi:10.1111/1475-6765.00086. hdl:2027.42/74505.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ Gasper, Des. Logos, pathos and ehtos in martha C. Nussbaum's capabilities approach to human development. in Comim, Flavio, and Martha C. Nussbaum, eds. Capabilities, Gender, Equality: towards fundamental entitlements. Cambridge University Press, 2014. p97
↑ Cruz Ivonne, Stahel Andri, Max-Neef Manfred (2009). "Towards a systemic development approach: Building on the Human-Scale Development paradigm". Ecological Economics. 68 (7): 2021–2030. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.02.004.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ Elson, Diane. "Economic paradigms old and new: The case of human development." In Global Development Fifty Years after Bretton Woods, pp. 50-71. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1997.
↑ Wilkinson R. (2005). "The impact of inequality: how to make sick societies" (London: Routledge).{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
↑ Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals. New York: UN. 2016.
↑ Cracking the code: girls' and women's education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Paris: UNESCO. 2017. p.14. ISBN978-92-3-100233-5.
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