Measuring Development

Geography: Edexcel A Level, topic 10.1.1

Measurements of Human Development by Ranking

Concepts of human development are complex and contested. The term ‘development’ can be defined using economic and social criteria.

GDP – Gross Domestic Product (usually given as US$ per capita).
GNI – Gross National Income (as above).
HDI – Human Development Index (a number between 0 and 1).
HPI – Happy Planet Index (a number between 0 and 100).
EW – Experienced well-being (ranked 0 to 10 – higher number indicating higher perceived well-being).
EF – Ecological Footprint (a measure of resource consumption devised by the WWF).

GDP and GNI are economic indicators and are expressed in per capita terms.
Other widely used indicators include life expectancy (LE), infant and maternal mortality, literacy and healthcare the HDI takes into account LE, education (years of schooling) and economic growth to provide an overall value of social development.
The HPI is a recent indicator that measures sustainable well-being and is calculated using the formula: HPI = EW x LE/EF.

Differences in the beliefs, values and codes of conduct of the world’s societies mean there are very different perceptions of what human development is.
E.g. Sharia law creates a code of conduct and a set of values that are markedly different from the perceptions of human development widely held elsewhere.
E.g. in Bolivia, President Morales has a strongly socialist viewpoint that national wealth (derived from natural gas and minerals) should be shared amongst its people (though not equally).