Human development

(economics)

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Human development is the science that

seeks to understand how and why the
people of all ages and circumstances
change or remain the same over time. It
involves studies of the human condition
with its core being the capability approach.
The inequality adjusted Human
Development Index is used as a way of
measuring actual progress in human
development by the United Nations. It is an
alternative approach to a single focus on
economic growth, and focused more on
social justice, as a way of understanding
progress.

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]

Development concerns expanding the

choices people have, to lead lives that they
value, and improving the human condition
so that people have the chance to lead full
lives.[2] Thus, human development is about
much more than economic growth, which
is only a means of enlarging people's
choices.[3] 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".[4]
Human development disperses the
concentration of the distribution of goods
and services underprivileged people need
and center its ideas on human decisions.[5]
By investing in people, we enable growth
and empower people to pursue many
different life paths, thus developing human
capabilities.[6] The most basic capabilities
for human development are to lead long
and healthy lives, be knowledgeable (i.e.,
educated), have access to resources and
social services needed for a decent
standard of living, and be able to
participate in the life of the community.
Without these, many choices are not
available, and many opportunities in life
remain inaccessible.[3]

An abstract illustration of human

capability is a bicycle. A bicycle itself is a
resource—a mode of transportation. If the
person who owns a bicycle is unable to
ride it (due to a lack of balance or
knowledge), the bicycle is useless to her or
him as transportation and loses its
functioning. If a person owns a bicycle and
has the ability to ride a bicycle, they have
the capability of riding to a friend's house,
a local store, or a great number of other
places. This capability would (presumably)
increase their value of life and expand
their choices. A person, therefore, needs
both resources and the ability to use them
to pursue their capabilities. This is one
example of how different resources or
skills can contribute to human capability.
This way of looking at development, often
forgotten in the immediate concern with
accumulating commodities and financial
wealth, is not new. Philosophers,
economists, and political leaders
emphasized human well being as the
purpose, or the end, of development. As
Aristotle said in ancient Greece, "Wealth is
evidently not the good we are seeking, for
it is merely useful for the sake of
something else."[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. The Human
Development Index developed for the
United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) stems from this early research.[7]
In 2000, Sen and Sudhir Anand published a
notable development of the theory to
address issues in sustainability.[8][9]

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.[10] 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.[11]

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.[12][13]

Measurement
One measure of human development is
the Human Development Index (HDI),
formulated by the United Nations
Development Programme.[3] 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.[14]

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 stipulates 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.[15]

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.[2] 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.[3] 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.[3]
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.[5]

Human Development Index

HDI trends

   OECD    Arab States

   Central and eastern Europe,    South Asia
and the CIS    Sub-Saharan
   Latin America and the Africa
Caribbean
   East Asia

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.[2]

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.
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]
Social Progress Index
The Social Progress Index is published by
Social Progress Imperative. It combines
indicators related to social welfare,
equality, personal freedom and
sustainability.

The Earth Summits,

Agenda21, the Millennium
Development Goals and the
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 General Kofi
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
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.[21]

As the experience of this exercise was

perceived successful, a follow-up program
was developed and named as the
Sustainable Development Goals.

See also
 Human security
International development

References
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Programme (1997). Human
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Development Report. p. 15. ISBN 978-
0-19-511996-1.
2. Streeten, Paul (May 1994). "Human
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Human Development. 84 (2): 232–37.
3. "Human Development" . Human
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October 2009. Archived from the
 original on 15 April 2012. Retrieved
17 March 2009.
4. Human Development and Capability
Association. "Capability &
Functionings: Definition &
Justification". Human Development
and Capability Association Briefing
Note: 1–5.
5. Srinivasan, T.N. (May 1994). "Human
Development: A New Paradigm or
Reinvention of the Wheel?". Human
Development. 84 (2): 238–43.
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- The Human Development Concept" .
 22 October 2009. Archived from the
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7. Yousif, Bassam. Human development
in Iraq: 1950-1990. Routledge, 2013.
p4-6
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Klikemann Hans Dieter (2003). "The
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Comim, Flavio, and Martha C.
Nussbaum, eds. Capabilities, Gender,
Equality: towards fundamental
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Manfred (2009). "Towards a systemic
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12. Gasper Des (2002). "Is Sen's capability
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doi:10.1080/0953825022000009898 .
13. Elson, Diane. "Economic paradigms
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development." In Global Development
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50-71. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1997.
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 [Link]. Archived from the
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External Links
About Human Development on the HDR
Office

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