IGCSE Development Studies: Specimen Questions with Answers 59 - 60 of 98

Explanation

Human Development Index (HDI) was created for assessing the development and growth of a country. The people and their capabilities are used as the criteria for measuring the development index and the growth of the economy. Human development index is used to know about the relevance of economic policy and to know how two countries with same GNI per capita income have different HDI.

It is used as a measure of the achievements of a country in the form of human development index like:

• Healthy and long life

• Better standard of living

• GDP index

• Knowledgeable

Thus, HDI is the index measure of the level of education, life expectancy, per capita income etc. to rank the countries according to the Human Development Index.

Explanation

The UNDP issues the annual Human Development report based on the three basic criteria which is used to rank the countries. The three indicators of HDI are:

• Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity.

• Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio with one-third weighting.

• Standard of living as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) in United States Dollar.