Human development: Less rhetoric and more action required

Since I have sometimes been accused of being a pessimist on matters concerning human development, let me start off on a rather positive note. Both Bangladesh and Spain have reasons to be happy about their respective positions in this year's Human Development Index (HDI), because both have improved their ranking. Out of 175 countries surveyed, Bangladesh has jumped from 145th position to 139th, which in my opinion, is a remarkable achievement. Spain has improved its ranking from 21st to 19th. Although none of the South Asian countries belong to the High Human Development category, India (127), Sri Lanka (99), and Bangladesh (139) have achieved Medium Human Development category. Pakistan (144) fell into the Low Human Development category. Over the years Bangladesh has made slow but steady progress in improving health and sanitation and in reducing fertility, which is a good pointer on gender equality.

Longevity, education, a relatively high standard of living and gender parity have helped Spain to achieve a high ranking in the OECD group of Leading Industrial nations. In the HDI, Spain is ahead of Italy, Portugal and Greece but comes after the United Kingdom (13) France (17) and Germany (18). With an average life expectancy of 79.1 years, Spain occupies the sixth place in the world in terms of longevity. In this respect Japan (81.3 years), Sweden (79.9 years), Hong Kong (79.7 years), Iceland (79.6 years) and Canada (79.1 years) come before Spain. Zambia ( Africa) comes last ( 33.4 years).

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Actually the overall human development situation in Africa continues to be poor -- in many cases it is even worse than before. South Africa, one of the few African countries belonging to the Medium Human Development category, has slipped from 107th to 111th in the index. The last position in world ranking is held by Sierra Leone (per capita income $470). The situation is not very much better in Latin America and the Caribbean countries.

According to this report, Norway continues to be the best country to live in. Iceland and Sweden occupy the second and third positions respectively. The United States has slipped from sixth to seventh position. While in Luxembourg only 3.9 per cent of the population live under the poverty line, in the United States this percentage stands at 17 per cent, which is the worst among the most developed nations of the world.

Since without reliable information no remedial measures can be taken, the poorer countries of the world are particularly indebted to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for this monumental task of collating and updating the data on a regular basis. But this is not its only contribution to the development of these countries. It provides all sorts of other useful services as well. Actually it was set up by the United Nations General Assembly in 1965 "to provide technical assistance, to improve living standards and promote economic growth" in countries which are economically under-developed.

Social scientists have, for decades, been trying to agree upon a common definition of standard of living and to devise reliable methods for the purpose of obtaining comparable statistics for the most industrialised, less industrialised, developing and the least developed nations of the world. It has not been an easy task. First of all, the social scientists had to agree on a set of quantitative indicators to measure the relative level of living of the participating countries. Until recently only material items such as per capita income, ownership of various consumer goods, contribution of manufacturing to the GNP were taken into consideration while preparing the index. Leaving aside the problems inherent in collecting reliable data from such diverse sources to calculate average figures for a group or a country, --which often disguised individual or group variations of enormous magnitude -- there was also the problem of translating figures quoted in dozens of different currencies into one generally accepted standard currency, i.e., the US dollar.

But the dollar figures often gave a distorted view of the relative positions of the countries in the ranking because they did not take into consideration the differences in existing price levels of same or similar products in different countries. The PPP (Purchasing Power Parities) method was invented to address the problem. The use of this method in adjusting the price levels in different countries gave a more accurate relative picture of the economies of the participating countries. Needless to say, it sometimes produced results, which were quite different to the ones produced, using the conventional method.

Even though this new quantitative measurement (the PPP) of the use or ownership of material goods was considered as an important step in the right direction, the social scientists were not entirely happy with the outcome. Several other questions kept nagging them: Was it (the measurement of economic growth) enough to enable one to assess the real standard of living of a group, a community or a country? Wasn't there something missing? What about the quality of life?

It is in this field that the UNDP has made and is still making important contributions. According to UNDP, human development is a process of expanding choices. In an attempt to reflect the quality of life in different parts of the world, the Human Development Index ( first published in 1990), not only takes into account the per capita income and ownership of certain goods and services but also a number of other items such as literacy, longevity, calorie intake, housing, access to safe water supply, infant mortality etc.

Using this method, the UNDP, this year, has reached some pretty devastating conclusions about human development such as: In more than 50 countries, instead of making progress, the human development situation has actually regressed; more than 1200 million people live on less than one dollar a day; more than 10 million children die every year for lack of preventive medical care; more than 500,000 women die at child birth or during pregnancy; more than a thousand million people in developing countries do not have access to safe drinking water; etc. Besides pointing out the deteriorating HIV/AIDS situation in Africa (14 countries in Africa and the Caribbean account for nearly half of the world's infections of HIV), the Programme sends a terse message to the world, at the current pace, sub-Saharan Africa will not reduce child mortality by two-thirds until 150 years after the date set by the MDG (Millennium Development Goals).

After reading all this, it is difficult to maintain optimism about human development for the poor or for that matter to have any faith in human solidarity. Once again the UNDP points out that although many of these under-developed countries suffer from chronic corruption at the governmental level (which must be remedied), unfair trade terms (a skewed form of globalisation) bear a tremendous responsibility for the deteriorating conditions in these countries. While commenting on the unfairness of farm subsidies, its Director for Energy and Environment, Mr. Alvaro Uma-

a has just mentioned that in the EU, for each cow, a farmer gets a subsidy of $930 (I think, I should remind the reader that the average per capita income in Sierra Leone is $ 470). Once again, the Programme (UNDP) recommends that the industrialised nations of the West must honour their pledge to open their markets to products from the less industrialised nations and demolish their system of protection.

Again, in spite of the UN resolution recommending the indus trialised countries to give 0.7 per cent of their GNP as development aid to poorer countries, the actual contributions fall far short of the target. The EU's development aid reaches 0.34 per cent of the GNP and at the end of 2002, the US contribution was a mere 0.12 per cent of its GNP.

In a compassionate article published in the International Herald Tribune (July 10, 2003), Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of the Columbia University pointed out that, "Our world is dangerously out of kilter when a few hundred people in the United States command more income than 166 million people in Africa--with millions of the poor dying each year as a result of their impoverishment......Bush's trip to Africa should open our eyes to these realities, as well as to the possibilities they raise to help ease the pain in the world."

I do not know whether anyone would pay heed to Prof. Sachs's words and do something "to ease the pain in the world", but I feel slightly more optimistic about human development. As long as there are people like Prof. Sachs, one should not lose faith in human solidarity.