Indicators of Development

 What is Development?

Development is a multi-dimensional concept. According to Webster’s

encyclopaedic dictionary, development means "the act or process
of' developing: gradual growth or advancement through
progressive changes”. In other words, it is fundamentally a
process of change that involves the whole society - its economic,
social, political, moral, educational and physical structures -- as well
as the value systems and the way of life of the people.

Gunnar Myrdal defines development as follows:

By development I mean the movement upward of the entire social

system, and I believe this is the only logically tenable definition. The
social system endorses besides the so-called economic factors.
Including all sorts of consumption by various groups of people,
consumptions provided collectively, educational and health facilities
at all levels; the distribution of power in society; and more generally
economic, social and political stratification: broadly speaking
institutions and attitudes to which we must add an exogenous set of
factors, induced policy measures applied in order to change one or
several of these endogenous factors.

Development is a process of improvement and changes required for

better living and existence. It is a word exclusively related to human
beings than anything that exists in this universe. It is measured by the
scale of achievements in human perspective pertaining to quantum of
qualitative fulfilment of needs of knowledge and sustenance of life.

There are hundreds of economic, political and social indicators of

development, ranging from ‘Hard’ economic indicators such as Gross
National Income (and all its variations), to various poverty and
economic inequality indicators, to the Sustainable Development
Goals, which focus much more on social indicators of development
such as education and health, all the way down to much more
subjective development indicators such as happiness.

Thus, to assess the development gap one of the key measure or

indicator is ‘Human Development Index’ so the next section
contains information about the same.
 What is Human Development?

Human development is a concept that has to do with the creation and

improving of living conditions where people can develop their full
potential, can have a long and healthy life, can have access to an
appropriate education system and can develop their potential to the
fullest and be productive in order to have opportunity to live
according to their need and interests.

It fights human inequalities and promotes a life with dignity for all
people worldwide regardless of their origin, gender and race.

 What is Human Development Report?

The Human Development Report (HDR) is an annual report

published by the Human Development Report Office of the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

 What is Human Development Index?

The HDI is a summary measure for assessing long-term progress in

three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy
life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living. A long and
healthy life is measured by life expectancy. Knowledge level is
measured by mean years of education among the adult population,
which is the average number of years of education received in a life-
time by people aged 25 years and older; and access to learning and
knowledge by expected years of schooling for children of school-entry
age, which is the total number of years of schooling a child of school-
entry age can expect to receive if prevailing patterns of age-specific
enrolment rates stay the same throughout the child's life. Standard of
living is measured by Gross National Income (GNI) per capita
expressed in constant 2011 international dollars converted using
purchasing power parity (PPP) conversion rates.

 History

The report was first launched in 1990 by the Pakistani economist

Mahbub ul Haq and Indian Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. Its goal
was to place people at the centre of the development process in terms
of economic debate, policy and advocacy. Development was
characterized by the provision of choices and freedoms resulting in
widespread outcomes.
“People are the real wealth of a nation,” Haq wrote in the opening
lines of the first report in 1990. “The basic objective of development is
to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy
and creative lives. This may appear to be a simple truth. But it is often
forgotten in the immediate concern with the accumulation of
commodities and financial wealth.”
The United Nations General Assembly has formally recognized the
Report as “an independent intellectual exercise” and “an important
tool for raising awareness about human development around the
world.”
The Human Development Report is an independent report,
commissioned by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), and is the product of a selected team of leading
scholars, development practitioners and members of the Human
Development Report Office of UNDP. It is a report independent of the
Administrator of the UNDP, as suggested by ul Haq. It is translated
into numerous languages and launched in more than 100 countries
annually. Since 1990, more than 140 countries have published some
600 national Human Development Reports, with UNDP support.
 Basic Dimensions or Indicators of Human Development
used by UNDP
Most people would agree that a long and healthy life, access to
knowledge, and a decent material standard of living are the basic
building blocks of well-being and opportunity. They are also the
building blocks of U.N. Human Development Index upon which it is
modelled. These three core capabilities are universally valued around
the world, and measurable, intuitively sensible, and reliable indicators
exist to represent them—two critical considerations in the
construction of a composite index. However, when it comes to
measuring Development Indicators we can classify the below
mentioned indicators into Social, Economic and Environmental.

 Social Indicator
1. A Long and Healthy Life: - The most valuable capability
people possess is to be alive. Advancing human development
requires, first and foremost, expanding the real opportunities
 people have to avoid premature death by disease or injury, to
enjoy protection from arbitrary denial of life, to live in a healthy
environment, to maintain a healthy lifestyle, to receive quality
medical care, and to attain the highest possible standard of
physical and mental health.
It is measured by Life Expectancy at Birth. It is defined as
number of years a newborn infant could expect to live if
prevailing patterns of age-specific mortality rates at the time of
birth stay the same throughout the infant’s life.
2. Access to Knowledge: - Access to knowledge is a critical
determinant of long-term well-being and is essential to
individual freedom, self-determination, and self-sufficiency.
Education is critical to people’s real freedom to decide what to
do and who to be. Education builds confidence, confers status
and dignity, and broadens the horizons of the possible—as well
as allowing for the acquisition of skills and credentials.
Globalization and technological change have made it
extraordinarily difficult for poorly educated Americans to
achieve the economic self-sufficiency, peace of mind, and self-
respect enabled by a secure livelihood.
Access to knowledge is measured using two indicators:
Expected years of schooling: -Number of years of schooling
that a child of school entrance age can expect to receive if
prevailing patterns of age-specific enrolment rates persists
throughout the child’s life.
Mean years of schooling: - Average number of years of
education received by people ages 25 and older, converted from
education attainment levels using official durations of each
level.
 Economic Indicator
1. A Decent Standard of Living: - Income is essential to
meeting basic needs like food and shelter—and to moving
beyond these necessities to a life of genuine choice and freedom.
Income enables valuable options and alternatives, and its
absence can limit life chances and restrict access to many
opportunities. Income is a means to a host of critical ends,
including a decent education; a safe, clean living environment;
security in illness and old age; and a say in the decisions that
affect one’s life. Money isn’t everything, but it’s something quite
important.
 It is measured by real per capita income of a country at
purchasing power parity (PPP) prices that is, adjusted for
purchasing power of currencies of different countries, also
known as Gross National Income.
Gross national income (GNI) per capita: - Aggregate
income of an economy generated by its production and its
ownership of factors of production, less the incomes paid for the
use of factors of production owned by the rest of the world,
converted to international dollars using PPP rates, divided by
midyear population.
 Environmental Indicator
The degradation of the environment and atmosphere, coupled with
significant declines in biodiversity, is linked to other development
concerns ranging from declining food and water supplies to losses
of livelihood and to losses of life from extreme weather events. This
profoundly serious crisis threatens the human development of
current and future generations. And, countries with lower levels of
human development, especially small island developing states,
generally have the lowest emissions but are often the most
vulnerable to climate change.
Linked to climate change and biodiversity loss, deforestation also
degrades land and reduces the quantity and quality of freshwater.
In addition, Human Development Index measures Environmental
Sustainability based on several indicators which are as follows:
1. Fossil Fuel Energy Consumption:-
It is the percentage of total energy consumption that
comes from fossil fuels, which consist of coal, oil,
petroleum and natural gas products.
2. Renewable Energy Consumption:-
Share of renewable energy in total final energy
consumption. Renewable sources include
hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, tides, wind, biomass
and bio-fuels.
3. Carbon dioxide Emissions:-
It includes the human-originated carbon dioxide
emissions stemming from the burning of fossil fuels,
gas flaring and the production of cement. Carbon
dioxide emitted by forest biomass through depletion of
forest areas is included. Data are expressed in tonnes
 per capita (based on midyear population) and in
kilograms per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) in
2011 purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars.
4. Forest Area:-
It includes the land spanning more than 0.5 hectare
with trees taller than 5 metres and a canopy cover of
more than 10 percent or trees able to reach these
thresholds in situ. Areas under reforestation that have
not yet reached but are expected to reach a canopy
cover of 10 percent and a tree height of 5 metres are
also included, as are temporarily unstocked areas
resulting from human intervention or natural causes
that are expected to regenerate.
5. Fresh Water Withdrawals:-
Total fresh water withdrawn, expressed as a percentage
of total renewable water resources.
Other than the aforementioned indicators there are also
three more indicators which basically belong to
Environmental Threats they are: - Mortality Rate attributed
to Household and Ambient Air Pollution, Unsafe Water,
Sanitation and Hygiene Services, and Red List Index.

 Dimensions and Calculations

The Human Development Index (HDI) provides a single index
measure which aims to capture three key dimensions of human
development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a
decent standard of living.

The HDI utilises four key metrics:

 Life expectancy at birth (to assess a long and healthy life);
 Expected years of schooling (to assess access to knowledge);
 Average years of schooling (to assess access to knowledge);
 Gross national income (GNI) per capita (to assess standard
of living).

There are two steps to calculating the HDI:

1. Forming indices for each of the four metrics.

Values of each of the four metrics must be normalised to an index

value of 0 to 1. To do this, “goalposts” of the maximum and
minimum limits on each metrics are set by the UNDP, as shown in
the table below.

With the actual value for a given country, and the global maximum
and minimum, the dimension (indices) value for each can be
calculated as:

Once each of the individual indices has been calculated, they are
aggregated to calculate the HDI.

The HDI is calculated as the geometric mean (equally-weighted) of

life expectancy, education, and GNI per capita, as shown here:

actual value−minium value

Dimension Index =
maximum value−minimum value

2. Aggregating the four metrics to produce the HDI.

 HDI = (IHealth. IEducation. IIncome)1⁄3

HDI – Ranking (Country-wise)

 Problems with the HDI
1. It implicitly assumes trade-offs between its components. For
example, the HDI measures health, using life expectancy at birth and
measures economic conditions using GDP per capita. So the same
HDI score can be achieved with different combinations of the two.
2. The HDI also struggles with the accuracy and meaningfulness of
the underlying data. Average income could be high in a country, but
what if most of it goes to small elite? The HDI does not distinguish
between countries with the same GDP per capita, but different levels
of income inequality or between countries based on the quality of
education. By focusing on averages, the HDI can obscure important
differences in human development. Incorporating inaccurate or
incomplete data in an index reduces its usefulness.
3. Data on different domains may be highly correlated. For example,
the GDP per capita and the average level of education in countries are
strongly related. Including two highly correlated indicators may
provide little additional information compared to just using one.

 Conclusion
Through this report we tried to understand the concept of
development and its indicators, improvement in facilities for
education, health and general welfare should receive priority over
other factors in the development process. In short, economic
development without social development is no development at all. All
the same social development cannot be achieved without economic
development. The two concepts are inextricable so much so that they
are intrinsically dependent on each other.
However, Human Development Index also gave an insight on the fact
that most people today live longer, are more educated and have more
access to goods and services than ever before. Even in low human
development countries people’s human development has improved
significantly. But the quality of human development reveals large
deficits. Living longer does not automatically mean more years spent
enjoying life. Being in school longer does not automatically translate
into equivalent capabilities and skills. So shifting the focus towards
the quality of human development will be important in monitoring
future progress. Also, progress in human development cannot be
sustained without addressing environmental degradation and climate
change, which the recent progress on the HDI has exacerbated. For
human development to become truly sustainable, the world needs to
break with business- as-usual approaches and adopt sustainable
production and consumption patterns.
Every human being counts and every human life is equally valuable.
That universalism is at the core of the human development concept.
With the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sustainable
Development Goals and the promises to leave no one behind, this
universal perspective is more critical than ever, particularly in a world
that is increasingly unequal, unstable and unsustainable.
 References
 https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/366/9/09_chapter%20
2.pdf
 http://www.sociologydiscussion.com/society/development-meaning-and-
concept-of-development/688
 https://www.tutor2u.net/geography/reference/the-8-key-gap-indicators-
of-development
 https://revisesociology.com/2017/07/23/most-useful-indicators-
development/
 https://qz.com/1456012/the-3-key-problems-with-the-uns-human-
development-index/
 https://ourworldindata.org/human-development-index
 https://measureofamerica.org/human-development/
 http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi
 Human Development Report – 2016 & 2018
 Human Development Report (2018) – Technical Notes