The Human Development Report 1995 paints an arresting picture of hope and despair. Unprecedented progress, especially among developing countries, coexists with unspeakable misery. The conclusion drawn: rapid human progress is possible and development cooperation works but much more can be done by focusing national and international attention on concrete targets, including poverty alleviation, job-led growth and universal coverage of basic social services.
The report, commissioned by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), was written by an independent team of experts under the overall direction of Mahbub ul Haq, former Finance and Planning Minister of Pakistan, now Special Adviser to the UNDP Administrator. The report is best known for its "Human Development Index," or HDI, which measures the progress of nations beyond purely economic indicators, in terms of life expectancy, education and income.
The 1995 report shows that developing countries have moved at a remarkable pace, attaining improvements in human development three times faster than industrial countries a century ago. Between 1960 and 1992, the proportion of the world's population living in countries in the "high human development" category almost doubled.
The report also reveals that the average human development value of industrial countries (0.916) is only 1.6 times higher than that of developing countries (0.570), even though industrial country real per capita income is six times higher. On average, the regional human development levels of East Asia (excluding China) and Latin America and the Caribbean are now approaching the HDI of industrial countries.
The relationship between economic growth and human development has been an overarching theme of the report since its first publication in 1990, as well as a source of controversy and debate. Some have alleged, for example, that the human development concept is anti-growth. Mahbub ul Haq claims that nothing could be farther from the truth.
"Economic growth is necessary for human development," he says. "But the purpose of development is to help people live longer, more productive and more fulfilling lives. This simple but powerful truth is too often forgotten in the pursuit of material and financial wealth. Economic growth that does not put people at its center is development without a soul."
"The key is to approach traditional economic growth models from the vantage point of people," say the authors of the report. "Do people participate in economic growth as well as benefit from it? Are human choices enlarged or narrowed by new technologies? Is economic expansion leading to job-led or job-less growth? Are budgets being balanced without unbalancing the lives of people?"
The report looks at the experience of a number of countries in examining these links and draws its own conclusions. Among these are that investments in health, education and skills-development enable people to participate in growth and to share in its benefits, principally through remunerative employment. That is the growth model that has been so successfully adopted by Japan, the Republic of Korea, China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and many other newly industrializing countries.
Equitable distribution of income and assets is also regarded as key. Wherever the distribution of incomes and assets is severely skewed, as in Brazil, Nigeria and Pakistan, the report points out, high GNP growth rates have failed to translate into positive changes in people's lives. Ranking the 19 states of Nigeria by their HDIs puts the state of Bendel ahead of countries such as Botswana, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, while the state of Borno ranks lower than every country in the world. Similarly, South Brazil would rank alongside Luxembourg (number 27 in the global rankings), while North-East Brazil would rank between Bolivia (113) and Gabon (114).
Still other countries have significantly improved overall human development levels despite poor growth or uneven income distribution. Cuba, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and many countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, for example, have achieved high levels of human development through well-structured social expenditures by the state. But such a model, say the report's authors, is generally not sustainable unless the economic base expands enough to support the social base.
One sure way to link growth and human development is to empower people, particularly women, a central theme of this year's Human Development Report. "Investing in women's capabilities and empowering them to exercise their choices is not only valuable in itself, it is also the surest way to contribute to economic growth and overall development," says James Gustave Speth, UNDP Administrator, in a foreword to the report.
While the Human Development Report continues to spark debate in forums around the world, its basic premises have been adopted and translated into action in a number of countries-another cause for hope.
Bangladesh, Egypt, Ghana, the Pacific Island countries, Pakistan, the Philippines and 22 countries in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States have prepared national human development reports as a basis for analysis. Studies have also been undertaken in Bhutan, Cameroon and Nepal.
Botswana, Colombia and Pakistan are devising national human development strategies. In Botswana, the emphasis is on the participation and partnership of all sectors of civil society; in Colombia and Pakistan, on budget restructuring in favor of the social sectors.
In its current national development plan, India cites human development as its "ultimate goal." It is preparing district-wide human development profiles broken down by socioeconomic groups, in order to better serve the disadvantaged. In Egypt, regional disparities in human development have contributed to high-level discussions about reallocating resources to underserved areas of the country.
In Bolivia, a "super-ministry" of human development, and another for sustainable development, have been created. In Tunisia, a new division of human development has been established within the Ministry of Planning.
The World Bank has recently set up a Human Development Department which reflects its increasing sensitivity to the issues raised each year in the Human Development Reports. An innovation of this year's report is regional "balance sheets" of human development, which give examples of progress and deprivation in five different parts of the world. They point out, for example, that in East Asia, the 19 percent female representation in parliaments is 1.6 times that of industrial countries. And that during the past two decades adult literacy in sub-Saharan Africa has doubled from 27 percent to 54 percent. Yet tremendous human suffering persists. In the Arab States, the mortality rate of children under five (83 per thousand live births) is five times higher than that of industrial countries. In South Asia, 280 million people lack access to safe water and more than 800 million people are without basic sanitation.
When asked about the unfinished human agenda, Mahbub ul Haq is optimistic. "The concept of human development has struck a responsive chord among many for whom a new vision of society was sorely needed," he says. "I can confidently predict that the 21st century will be a century of people. All growth models in which people neither participate nor benefit will be summarily discarded."
