Concepts of Human Development (Edexcel A Level Geography)

• Development is the process of growth, or changing from one condition to another (hopefully for the better)
• Since the 1980s, countries across the world have made progress in health, family size and life expectancy
• However, there remains great inequality between countries e.g. Malawi and South Korea

Comparison of health indicators

A traditional economic development indicator

• Traditionally, the growth of Gross Domestic Product(GDP) is used to measure progress:
• GDP per capita is the monetary value of all goods and services produced by a country every year, divided by the population
•  A high GDP per capita suggests a high-earning population and productive workforce, which aids advances in health and life expectancy
• However, it is a crude average and masks the income gap between the rich and the poor
• It doesn’t consider the informal economy e.g. 94% of Uganda’s population work in untaxed jobs

Using social development indicators

•  There is more to development than economic growth
•  Development should consider:
• The advancement of human well-being
• The sustainability of the planet

•  Social development considers social measures, including:
• Health (life expectancy, death rate, infant mortality)
•  Education (literacy rate, number of schooling years)

•  Measuring human development is complex, requiring more composite measures (using more than one indicator)

The Happy Planet Index

•  Happy Planet Index (HPI) – a composite measure of sustainable well-being
•   It doesn’t include economic development indicators / wealth
•  Scored between 0-100. The higher the number, the better the level of sustainable human development

                          HPI =   

•  Experienced well-being – how satisfied people are with their lives (Gallup World Poll)
•  Life expectancy - how long people on average live for (UN)
• Ecological footprint per capita – the amount of land needed to sustain the country’s resource consumption (World Wildlife Fund)

A sample of national HPI values (2019)

• Costa Rica has frequently placed in 1st position, outdoing countries considered to be more developed
• USA placed 122nd in the overall list, below many poverty-stricken countries eg. Haiti
• The countries with the lowest HPI score are also considered amongst the least developed countries globally
•  Criticisms of the HPI:
• Well-being is highly subjective
• Ecological footprints of the least developed countries could be lower as its citizens can’t afford to buy lots of material objects

Contesting the more traditional western approaches to measuring development

• There are some governments who do not wish to adopt Western approaches to measuring development
• They adopt alternative approaches
• Sharia Law focuses on the importance of human welfare
• This is a legal system which controls aspects of life within Muslim countries, such as Qatar, the UEA and Yemen

Sharia Law and development

• Bolivia shows the importance of intervention by the national government 

Impacts of intervention by national government

• Despite significant improvements Bolivia remains one of the poorest countries in Latin America and over  6% of the population live on less than US$3.20 a day (2020)

• A prevailing view of development is there’s more to it than just economic indicators
• Hans Rosling (co-founder of Gapminder) felt that future goals must improve on: 
  • Environmental quality e.g. air and water quality
  • The health and life expectancy of the poorest
  • Human rights (ie. rights for women)
• He believed these goals could be achieved through economic growth, with a good and stable government
• Through economic growth, governments can invest in healthcare and education
•  Rosling also stressed that achieving the three goals empowers people to become more economically successful, driving economic growth forward
• Improvements in environmental quality are seen as being vital to the well-being of both the physical world and its inhabitants
• However, economic growth is frequently based on the exploitation of natural resources, which can cause detrimental impacts on the environment 

Education aids development

• Investing in education creates a literate and skilled workforce, which is crucial for countries wanting to economically develop
• If countries invest in education and health:
•  It increases the value of human capital (the economic, political, cultural and social skills within a country)
•  Enables more people to participate effectively in society
• This facilitates more economic and social development: 
• better job 
• higher wages 
• more disposable income
• increased quality of life

Education on human rights

•  Human rights are the rights people are entitled to simply for being human
• These basic rights (protected by law) are based on shared values and include:
• Dignity
• Fairness
• Equality
• Respect
• Independence
•  Education is the key to knowing and asserting your human rights
•  Education enables a longer life as it enlightens people about:
• Personal health
• Hygiene
• Diet
• Part of the UN’s International Bill of Human Rights, signed by 163 countries, recognises the right to free primary education
• The number of children attending school worldwide has improved
• UNESCO estimates education is inaccessible to 60 million primary aged children
• This mainly impacts children in Sub-Saharan Africa 

Enrolment ratio for Africa in primary education (2016)

(Note - Total enrolment in primary education as a percentage of the population of official primary education age. The gross enrolment ratio may be greater than 100% due to early and late school entrance)

• Barriers to education include:
• Gender discrimination - there are 129 million girls worldwide without access to education; possible reasons are early marriage, pregnancy, religion
• Extremism - Extreme religious groups often prevent children, especially females, from accessing education, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan
• Cultural identity - some cultures state that the sexes should be separated where possible, so a lack of female teachers means less education for girls
• Poverty - some families prevent their children from attending school, instead sending them to work from an early age
• The case of Nobel Prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai, illustrates the ignorance and violence that prevents females from exercising their right to education in Pakistan
• Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in an assassination attempt to stop her campaign over the right of girls to be educated
• In much of Africa and South Asia, the female literacy rate is more than a quarter below that for males