Measures of development

• Economic development is the sustainable increase in living standards in a country e.g increase in life span and education level
• The Human Development Index is a composite indicator developed by the United Nations with three indicators: health, education and income
• Health in the HDI is measured by the life expectancy at birth
• Education in the HDI is measured by the average years of schooling combined with the expected number of years of schooling
• Income in the HDI is measured by real GNI per capita which is gross domestic product plus net income (positive or negative) from abroad e.g remittances
• The IHDI is inequality-adjusted human development index
• The IHDI combines the HDI with the gini-coefficient
• The IHDI is beneficial as countries such as Israel have a high HDI OF 0.9 however have a high gini coefficient
• Advantages of HDI:

  1. Holistic as a composite indicator unlike single indicators
  2. Easy comparisons between countries
  3. Three of the most important factors - Health, education, living standards
• Disadvantages of HDI:

  1. GNI per capita etc means it does not measure inequality
  2. Omits other key indicators e.g the environment
  3. Inaccurate about a country's current development as the lengthy calculations and data gathering means there is a time lag in the HDI outcome
• MPI is a Multidimensional Poverty Index which includes 10 factors in measuring poverty
• MPI measures the total number in poverty and then the average intensity of poverty
• Unlike HDI + IHDI, A high MPI number is negative and means low development
• The HDI of the UK is 0.91, meaning very high levels of development
• The HDI of Burundi is 0.42, meaning low levels of development
• If the multidimensional poverty index is 0.9, this means low development in a country.
• If the multi-dimensional poverty index is low, this means high development.