United Nations Development Program, Specialized

¶ … United Nations Development Program, specialized UN agency, is in charge of providing the necessary means, infrastructure, and know how to empower peoples all over the world to create a more developed society for themselves and future generations. In this sense, one of the most important measurements to assess the way in which the development of the countries is progressing is the Human Development Index (HDI). More precisely, according to the UN, the HDI represents "a composite measure of achievements in three basic dimensions of human development -- a long and healthy life, access to education and a decent standard of living. For ease of comparability, the average value of achievements in these three dimensions is put on a scale of 0 to 1, where greater is better, and these indicators are aggregated using geometric means" (Human Development Index, 2010).

The purpose of the present exercise is to create a personal Human Development Index by using the database and the Internet infrastructure of the Human Development Index for India and China, two countries that have experienced particular historical experiences in terms of democracy, economic development as well as political structure. In this sense, the HDI is a valuable tool for assessing their degree of development related to the issue of sustainable development as seen by the UN.

The table below presents the HDI for the two countries when only certain criteria are taken into account, as opposed to the UNDP HDI, which, as stated above, represents a composite index and is therefore more limited in pointing out specific core development problems.

Country

My rank

My Index

HDI rank

HDI Index

India

17

0.416

0.519

China

18

0.412

89

0.663

Taking into account five general criteria, the personal HDI was created. These included income, inequality, poverty, sustainability, empowerment and governance. I considered them to be important particularly given the past and current situation in the two countries. Firstly, the two experienced a different history in the sense that while India is considered at this point to be the largest democracy in the world, China is still viewed as the largest communist country in the world. This political factor is important because it points out two different economic standards, methods, and economic ideologies. Secondly, the factors taken into consideration are necessary for establishing whether the massive decade old economic development of China and India is indeed sustainable at all the levels of the society.

The table resulted following an introduction of elements related to the five criteria mentioned above. In more detail, the income was considered as GDP per capita as representing one of the main elements of assessing economic strength.

Secondly, the inequality index measures the loss due to inequality in life expectancy, education and income. Thirdly, poverty was taken into account with two elements: intensity of deprivation and population living below $1.25. This is crucial because it points out two main issues. On the one hand, deprivation implies lack of food and on the other hand the level of $1.25 implies a critical level of poverty in terms of physical money. Therefore, they are crucial elements to consider in order to establish the poverty line.

Fourthly, sustainability was introduced as it takes into account adjusted net savings, carbon dioxide emissions, protected areas, and ecological footprint of consumption.

Finally, empowerment and governance consists in the press freedom score, which is essential for a developed country and represents a goal for a developing country.

The results of the index composition reflect that by analyzing only the elements mentioned above, both India and China rank higher than in the general HDI. In this sense, India is ranked 17 and China 18, as opposed to 119 and 89 respectively.

There are several aspects for this change. On the one hand, positive indexes were taken into account for both countries. For instance, the income in China is constantly improving, as China has a 76 ranking as opposed to 89 the general index. By comparison, this is also applicable to India, with a positive index of 87 as opposed to its general 119.

In terms of inequality China is relatively low as its ranking is 72 compared with the general one of 89. Therefore there is little difference largely because despite the constant developments in the economy the results of this development are not evenly spread and therefore there is a clear sign of discrepancy. The situation is similar in India where the ranking for inequality is 94.

Poverty is therefore a clear issue in both countries, yet food deprivation and population living below $1.25 has improved as a result of economic development. More precisely, China is ranked 24 while Sierra Leone 44. This comes to prove that there have been improvements made to reflect a slightly improved way of life. Also, it implies persistence of food and financial means to purchase it, which in turn may determine a conclusion over a local society in development.

In terms of sustainability, which implies the actual impact of the economic development on the environment and the way in which the countries can further their economic development in a positive manner for the environment, China is among the first countries, ranked 12 in the world at this index. India is ranked 37, ahead of countries such as Finland or France. This is important because it points out there is a tendency to include the environment as part of a wider and more sustainable means of development.