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Poverty Alleviation

Measuring Poverty & HDI ?

The Human Development Index

The United Nations Human Development Index is a comparative measure of poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy, childbirth, child welfare on a global scale.  Although it does encompass some limitations it is a standard measure of well being and has been a useful tool in measuring poverty, since its development by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq.

The HDI measures three main variables:-

1. A long and healthy life as measured as life expectancy at birth

2. Knowledge as measured by Adult literacy, and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio

3. A decent standard of living as measured by Gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity

The human development index is an adequate quantitative and qualitative measure in understanding poverty as its variables are consistent in measuring GDP per capita, literacy, mortality etc.

Each year UN member states are listed and ranked according to these measures. Those high on the list it can be argued have poverty low on their list of priorities and have the ability to help reduce poverty in countries lower down the scale.

The 2005 Human Development Index Report

In the 2005 report there have been 177 countries that have been placed on the index, with the exception of Muslim countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Human Development can be classed into three zones :-

• high, low and middle
• countries in North America and Europe are be high;
• countries in Asia and Africa can be classed as low.

The higher the number indicates favourable human development and therefore lower poverty.

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