Human Development Index (HDI) Human Development Index is a summary composite index that measures a country's average accomplishment

in three basic dimensions of human development: longevity, education, and a civilized standard of living. What are exactly the three factors comprised in the HDI? y y y Longevity -This is gauged by life expectancy in a country. This allows us to see if the individuals of a country live a long and healthy life Knowledge - This is evaluated by adult literacy rates and the percentage of children attending school. This represents the quality of education in a country. Income -This is measured by purchasing power parity (PPP) this shows the standard of living of a country.

HDI is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing or an underdeveloped country, and also to measure the impact of economic policies on quality of life. Origins of HDI HDI was planned by the UNDP from the Human Development Reports and it was developed to shift the focus of development away from the economy and more on people's quality of life. It was launched by a Pakistani economist Mahbub Ul Haq in 1990. The HDI Values have been collected since 1990 and had another way to measure the quality of life, other than measuring the economic health. Strengths and Weakness of Human Development Index (HDI) Strength y We can easily monitor and compare the HDI of different countries because of its numerical form. The higher the HDI means the more the country is considered as a developed country and the lower the HDI means low develop country. Its gives policymakers, government officials and different concerned authoritys information regarding progress of development in their country Easy to rank countries as it is a uniform measure

y y

Weakness

y y

ne significant flaw of the HDI is that the three variables, which are income, knowledge and G.D.P, are confusing. This means that they are inter-related with one another. For example, the higher the level of education, the more likely the country will have a higher G.D.P. This means that it is hard to tell which of the factors influenced the level of development of a country the most. The data is sometime not accurate as data is unreliable. Key aspects of development are missing such as gender equality and respect for human rights and freedoms.

Examples of the HDI of countries from different levels of development Very high human development Norway - 0.971 Australia - 0.970

High human development Hungary - 0.879 Poland - 0.880 Medium human development Ukraine - 0.796 Thailand - 0.783 Low human development Ethiopia - 0.414 Afghanistan - 0.352