habsgeographicalmar12

Firstly, “development”, as mentioned in the firstsentence, is a ridiculously vague term. TheHDI, however, has made it abundantly clearthat human development is measured usingthree criteria: education (length of time spentat school), health (life expectancy) and “livingstandards” (gross domestic product per capita).Yet human development, however difficult itmay be to define, clearly extends further thanthese three aspects. In fact, all three of thesecriteria are largely influenced by the state ofthe country’s economy, the relationship thatHDI apparently strived, and failed, to minimise.Peoples’ access to clean water, for example, isnot included, yet can vary massively dependenton geographical location and climate whateverthe state of a country’s economy.By considering only the amount of time peoplespend in school for the education criteria of theHDI, there are already massive problems. Whileadult literacy is an important component of humandevelopment, levels of literacy cannot becompared between languages varying in difficultyas much as English and Japanese. It isalso important to consider that it is not somuch the length of one’s education, but morethe quality of that education that matters more;a classroom with blackboard and chalk is incomparableto a classroom with Smart Boardand electricity. In 2010, the percentage ofschool enrolment in Malawi was 64%, yet only22% were literate at the age of ten.Each of the three criteria contributes evenly tothe overall the HDI figure. This makes the HDIan unreliable measure of human developmentas different societies prioritise different HDIcomponents over others. Moreover, the correlationsbetween each of the criteria and the HDIare unequal. Bryan Caplan, an American economist,believes this is the ultimate flaw in theHDI:“A country of immortals with infinite percapita GDP would get a score of 0.666(lower than South Africa and Tajikistan) ifits population were illiterate and neverwent to school.”The existence of vast inequalities in human developmentwithin certain nations must be takeninto account; yet the HDI sticks to taking meanaverages for the statistics it uses. Saudi Arabia,for example, has the largest oil reserves in theArabian Peninsula, and as such has one of theregion’s largest economies, yet some are stilldeprived of basic human rights in certain regions.Yet the biggest flaw which, I personally, findwith the HDI is the fact that this measurementof human development is based only on materialdevelopment, on either a deficiency or a surplusof tangible objects. Ratan Lal Basu, an Indianeconomist, believes that human developmentshould also be based on moral and psychologicaldevelopment. This argument is anextremely logical and profound reprieve fromother more technical criticisms of the HDI. It iswhy humans act in certain ways that ultimatelyinfluence their material outcomes the most.Haiti for example is a country firmly stuck inthe category of “Low Human Development”, yetstill manages to maintain one of the lowest suiciderates in the world. Inequality in the worldis inevitable; the only thing we can change ishow well we cope with it and attempt to rectifyit.14