Recently, the Human Development Index (HDI) 2022 report was released by UNDP (United Nation Development Program). As an UPSC aspirant, you should be aware of these kinds of reports and data.
UPSC Syllabus : This topic will come under GS Paper 2 – Issues related to health and human development.
Human development is measured in the form of Human Development Index, HDI. It is measured as a simple composite indicator based on the basic achievements of human development and ranks them on the basis of progress made by different countries in the field of health, education and access to resources. This category is based on the score between 0 and 1.
Human Development Index
As we all know now that the Human Development Index is measured by the UNDP (United Nation Development Programme). The headquarter of UNDP is in New York. It was established in 1965. Let us know what is the Human Development Index and what indicators are used to measure it? Along with this, you will also know what was the rank of our country India this year.
Health
Life expectancy at birth has been chosen to determine the indicator of health. The higher the life expectancy, the higher will be the Development Index (HDI).
Education
Here education refers to adult literacy rate and gross enrollment ratio. This means the number of adults who can read and write and the number of children enrolled in schools.
Access to resources
Access to resources is measured in terms of purchasing power (in US dollars).
To make this index, UNDP first determines the minimum and maximum values for each indicator:
- Life expectancy at birth: 25 years and 85 years
- General Literacy Rate: 0 percent and 100 percent
- Per Capita Real Gross Domestic Product (PPP): $100 US dollars and $40,000 US dollars.
Each of these dimensions is given 1/3 weights. Human Development Index is the sum total of the weights given to all these dimensions. The closer the score is to 1, the higher the level of human development. Thus a score of 0.983 would be considered as a very high level, while 0.268 would be considered as a very low level of human development.
Source: The Hindu
Key facts related to Human Development Index 2022
Rest of the World Performance
- Switzerland achieved first place.
- Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia and Ukraine war and the climate crisis, human development scores have gone down in 90 percent of countries.
- This shortcoming has also hindered the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
- A major contributor to the recent decline of the Human Development Index is the global decline in life expectancy, which has declined from 72.8 years in 2019 to 71.4 years in 2021.
India’s performance and rank
- India has achieved ranked 132 out of 191 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI) 2021-2022 (a drop of two places from the previous year).
- This marks a decline in its score for the first time in three decades in two consecutive years. It is to be noted that in the year 2020, India had ranked 130th with HDI value of 0.642.
- Before the outbreak of COVID-19, India’s HDI value in 2018 was 0.645.
- This decline in HDI score is in line with the global trend indicating that countries have lagged behind in human development since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The decline in HDI in India in 2021-2022 can be attributed to the decline in life expectancy at birth, which has come down from 70.7 years to 67.2 years.
- The expected years of schooling in India is 11.9 years, and the average year of schooling is 6.7 years.
- The GNI per capita level is $6,590.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has also exacerbated gender inequality, which has increased by 6.7% globally.
India’s Neighboring Countries
Sri Lanka = 73
China = 79
Bhutan = 127
Bangladesh = 129
Myanmar = 147
Nepal = 143
Pakistan = 161
Afghanistan = 170
Maldives = 90
Achievements and Shortfalls
The Human Development Index (HDI) measures achievements and shortcomings in human development.
Achievements:
Achievements are an indicator of new progress in the main areas of human development. It is not the most reliable measurement, as it does not give any information about the distribution.
Shortfalls:
The Human Poverty Index is related to the Human Development Index and measures deficiencies in human development. These include many factors, such as the probability of not surviving to the age of 40, the adult illiteracy rate, the number of people without access to clean water, young children with disabilities, number of underweight children etc. The Human Development Index gives a realistic picture of the status of human development in a country by making a combined observation of these measures.