Sulawesi - GIS

The human development index (HDI) measures the average achievement of a country in basic human capabilities. The HDI indicates whether people lead a long and healthy life, are educated and knowledgeable and enjoy a decent standard of living. The HDI examines the average condition of all people in a country: distributional inequalities for various groups of society have to be calculated separately.

The HDI is a composite of three basic components of human development: longevity, knowledge and standard of living. Longevity is measured by life expectancy. Knowledge is measured by a combination of adult literacy (two-thirds weight) and mean years of schooling (one-third weight). Standard of living is measured by purchasing power, based on real GDP per capita adjusted for the local cost of living (purchasing power parity, or PPP).

How is the HDI used?

1. To capture the attention of policy makers, media and NGOs and to draw their attention away from the more usual economic statistics to focus instead on human outcomes. The HDI was created to re-emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth.

2. To question national policy choices - asking how two countries with the same level of income per person can end up with such different human development outcomes (HDI levels). For example, Viet Nam and Pakistan have similar levels of income per person, but life expectancy and literacy differ greatly between the two countries, with Viet Nam having a much higher HDI value than Pakistan. These striking contrasts immediately stimulate debate on government policies on health and education, asking why what is achieved in one country is far from the reach of another.

3. To highlight wide differences within countries, between provinces or states, across gender, ethnicity, and other socioeconomic groupings. Highlighting internal disparities along these lines has raised national debate in many countries.

Is the HDI enough to measure a country's level of development?

Not at all!

The concept of human development is much broader than what can be captured in the HDI, or any other of the composite indices in this Report (see gender-related development index, gender empowerment measure, and human poverty index). The HDI, for example, does not reflect political participation or gender inequalities. HDI and the other composite indices can only offer a broad proxy on the issues of human development, gender disparity, and human poverty. A fuller picture of a country's level of human development requires analysis of other human development indicators and information

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