The words ‘growth’ and ‘development’ are not

Unit-II new to you. Look around you, almost everything

Chapter-3 that you can see (and many that you cannot)
grows and develops. These may be plants, cities,
ideas, nations, relationships or even you
yourself! What does this mean?

Do growth and development mean the

same thing?
Do they accompany each other?

This chapter discusses the concept of

human development as it pertains to nations
and communities.

Human Development GRO WTH AND DEVEL

GROWTH OPMENT
DEVELOPMENT
Both growth and development refer to changes
over a period of time. The difference is that
growth is quantitative and value neutral. It may
have a positive or a negative sign. This means
that the change may be either positive (showing
an increase) or negative (indicating a decrease).
Development means a qualitative change
which is always value positive. This means that
development cannot take place unless there is
an increment or addition to the existing
conditions. Development occurs when positive
growth takes place. Yet, positive growth does
not always lead to development. Development
occurs when there is a positive change in
quality.
For example, if the population of a city
grows from one lakh to two lakhs over a period
of time, we say the city has grown. However, if a
facilities like housing, provision of basic services
and other characteristics remain the same, then
this growth has not been accompanied by
development.
Can you think of a few more examples to
differentiate between growth and development?

Write a short essay or draw a set of pictures illustrating

growth without development and growth with
development.
For many decades, a country’s level of
development was measured only in terms of its

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 Band Aceh, June, 2004 Band Aceh, December, 2004

Do you know that cities can also grow negatively? Look at the photographs of this tsunami
affected city. Are natural disasters the only reasons for negative growth in a city’s size?

economic growth. This meant that the bigger The concept of human development was
the economy of the country, the more developed introduced by Dr Mahbub-ul-Haq. Dr Haq has
it was considered, even though this growth did described human development as development
not really mean much change in the lives of most that enlarges people’s choices and improves
people. their lives. People are central to all development
The idea that the quality of life people enjoy under this concept. These choices are not fixed
in a country, the opportunities they have and but keep on changing. The basic goal of
freedoms they enjoy, are important aspects of development is to create conditions where
development, is not new. people can live meaningful lives.
These ideas were clearly spelt out for the A meaningful life is not just a long one. It
first time in the late eighties and early nineties. must be a life with some purpose. This means
The works of two South Asian economists, that people must be healthy, be able to develop
Mahbub-ul-Haq and Amartya Sen are their talents, participate in society and be free
important in this regard. to achieve their goals.

Dr Mahbub-ul-Haq and Prof Amartya Sen were close friends and have worked together under the leadership of Dr
Haq to bring out the initial Human Development Reports. Both these South Asian economists have been able to
provide an alternative view of development.

A man of vision and compassion, Pakistani economist Dr Mahbub-ul-Haq created the Human Development
Index in 1990. According to him, development is all about enlarging people’s choices in order to lead long,
healthy lives with dignity. The United Nations Development Programme has used his concept of human development
to publish the Human Development Report annually since 1990.

Dr Haq’s flexibility of mind and ability to think out of the box can be illustrated from one of his speeches where
he quoted Shaw saying, “‘You see things that are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why
not?’

Nobel Laureate Prof Amartya Sen saw an increase in freedom (or decrease in unfreedom) as the main objective
of development. Interestingly, increasing freedoms is also one of the most effective ways of bringing about
development. His work explores the role of social and political institutions and processes in increasing freedom.

The works of these economists are path breaking and have succeeded in bringing people to the centre of any
discussion on development.

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 What is a Meaningful Life?

The Government of India has introduced

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao programme to
address the issue of decline in child sex
ratio. Discuss with your peers how it will
lead to more meaningful life for girls.

Which of these lives is a meaningful life?

Who do you think leads more meaningful life? What makes one of these more meaningful than the other?

Human Development 15

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 Leading a long and healthy life, being able For example, in any country, it is interesting
to gain knowledge and having enough means to see which group the most of the school
to be able to live a decent life are the most dropouts belong to. This should then lead to an
important aspects of human development. understanding of the reasons for such behaviour.
Therefore, access to resources, health and In India, a large number of women and persons
education are the key areas in human belonging to socially and economically
development. Suitable indicators have been backward groups drop out of school. This shows
developed to measure each of these aspects. Can how the choices of these groups get limited by
you think of some? not having access to knowledge.
Very often, people do not have the Sustainability means continuity in the
capability and freedom to make even basic availability of opportunities. To have
choices. This may be due to their inability to sustainable human development, each
acquire knowledge, their material poverty, generation must have the same opportunities.
All environmental, financial and human
social discrimination, inefficiency of institutions
resources must be used keeping in mind the
and other reasons. This prevents them from
future. Misuse of any of these resources will
leading healthy lives, being able to get educated
lead to fewer opportunities for future
or to have the means to live a decent life.
generations.
Building people’s capabilities in the areas A good example is about the importance
of health, education and access to resources is of sending girls to school. If a community does
therefore, important in enlarging their choices. not stress the importance of sending its girl
If people do not have capabilities in these areas, children to school, many opportunities will be
their choices also get limited. lost to these young women when they grow up.
For example, an uneducated child cannot Their career choices will be severely curtailed
make the choice to be a doctor because her and this would affect other aspects of their lives.
choice has got limited by her lack of education. So each generation must ensure the availability
Similarly, very often poor people cannot choose of choices and opportunities to its future
to take medical treatment for disease because generations.
their choice is limited by their lack of resources. Productivity here means human labour
productivity or productivity in terms of human
work. Such productivity must be constantly
enriched by building capabilities in people.
Ultimately, it is people who are the real wealth
Enact a five-minute play with your classmates showing of nations. Therefore, efforts to increase their
how choices are limited due to lack of capability in the knowledge, or provide better health facilities
areas of either income, education or health.
ultimately leads to better work efficiency.
Empowerment means to have the power
THE FOUR PILLARS OF HUMAN to make choices. Such power comes from
DEVELOPMENT increasing freedom and capability. Good
governance and people-oriented policies are
Just as any building is supported by pillars, required to empower people. The empowerment
the idea of human development is supported of socially and economically disadvantaged
by the concepts of equity, sustainability, groups is of special importance.
productivity and empowerment.
Equity refers to making equal access to
opportunities available to everybody. The
opportunities available to people must be equal Talk to the vegetable vendor in your neighbourhood and
irrespective of their gender, race, income and find out if she has gone to school. Did she drop out of
in the Indian case, caste. Yet this is very often school? Why? What does this tell you about her choices
not the case and happens in almost every and the freedom she has? Note how her opportunities
society. were limited because of her gender, caste and income.

16 Fundamentals of Human Geography

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APPROACHES TO HUMAN write and the number of children enrolled in
DEVELOPMENT schools show how easy or difficult it is to access
knowledge in a particular country.
There are many ways of looking at the problem
Access to resources is measured in terms
of human development. Some of the important
of purchasing power (in U.S. dollars).
approaches are: (a) The income approach; (b) The
Each of these dimensions is given a
welfare approach; (c) Minimum needs approach;
weightage of 1/3. The human development
and (d) Capabilities approach (Table 3.1).
index is a sum total of the weights assigned to
all these dimensions.
MEASURING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
The closer a score is to one, the greater is
The human development index (HDI) ranks the the level of human development. Therefore, a
countries based on their performance in the key score of 0.983 would be considered very high
areas of health, education and access to while 0.268 would mean a very low level of
resources. These rankings are based on a score human development.
between 0 to 1 that a country earns from its The human development index measures
record in the key areas of human development. attainments in human development. It reflects
The indicator chosen to assess health is what has been achieved in the key areas of
the life expectancy at birth. A higher life human development. Yet it is not the most
expectancy means that people have a greater reliable measure. This is because it does not
chance of living longer and healthier lives. say anything about the distribution.
The adult literacy rate and the gross The human poverty index is related to the
enrolment ratio represent access to knowledge. human development index. This index
The number of adults who are able to read and measures the shortfall in human development.

Table 3.1: Approaches to Human Development

(a) Income Approach This is one of the oldest approaches to human

development. Human development is seen as being
linked to income. The idea is that the level of income
reflects the level of freedom an individual enjoys.
Higher the level of income, the higher is the level of
human development.

(b) Welfare Approach This approach looks at human beings as beneficiaries

or targets of all development activities. The approach
argues for higher government expenditure on
education, health, social secondary and amenities.
People are not participants in development but only
passive recipients. The government is responsible for
increasing levels of human development by
maximising expenditure on welfare.

(c) Basic Needs Approach This approach was initially proposed by the
International Labour Organisation (ILO). Six basic
needs i.e.: health, education, food, water supply,
sanitation, and housing were identified. The question
of human choices is ignored and the emphasis is on
the provision of basic needs of defined sections.

(d) Capability Approach This approach is associated with Prof. Amartya Sen.
Building human capabilities in the areas of health,
education and access to resources is the key to
increasing human development.

Human Development 17

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 Bhutan is the only country in the world to
officially proclaim the Gross National
Happiness (GNH) as the measure of the
country’s progress. Material progress and
technological developments are approached
more cautiously taking into consideration the
possible harm they might bring to the
environment or the other aspects of cultural
and spiritual life of the Bhutanese. This simply
means material progress cannot come at the
cost of happiness. GNH encourages us to
think of the spiritual, non-material and
qualitative aspects of development.

Since 1990, the United Nations

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS
Development Programme (UNDP) has been International comparisons of human
publishing the Human Development Report development are interesting. Size of the territory
every year. This report provides a rank-wise and per capita income are not directly related
list of all member countries according to the to human development. Often smaller countries
level of human development. The Human have done better than larger ones in human
Development index and the Human Poverty development. Similarly, relatively poorer nations
index are two important indices to measure have been ranked higher than richer neighbours
human development used by the UNDP. in terms of human development.
For example, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and
Tobago have a higher rank than India in the
It is a non-income measure. The probability of
human development index despite having
not surviving till the age of 40, the adult illiteracy
smaller economies. Similarly, within India,
rate, the number of people who do not have Kerala performs much better than Punjab and
access to clean water, and the number of small Gujarat in human development despite having
children who are underweight are all taken into lower per capita income.
account to show the shortfall in human Countries can be classified into four
development in any region. Often the human groups on the basis of the human development
poverty index is more revealing than the human scores earned by them (Table 3.2).
development index.
Looking at both these measures of human Table 3.2: Human Development: Categories, Criteria
development together gives an accurate picture and Countries
of the human development situation in a
Level of Human Score in Number of
country. Development Development Countries
The ways to measure human development Index
are constantly being refined and newer ways of
Very High above 0.800 66
capturing different elements of human
development are being researched. Researchers High between 0.700 53
have found links between the level of corruption up to 0.799
or political freedom in a particular region. There Medium between 0.550 37
is also a discussion regarding a political up to 0.699
freedom index and, a listing of the most corrupt
countries. Can you think of other links to the Low below 0.549 33
level of human development? Source: Human Development Report, 2020

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Countries with very high human development Try to find out the percentage of the
index are those which have a score of over 0.800. country’s income spent on these sectors. Can
According to the Human Development Report you think of some other characteristics that
of 2020, this group includes 66 countries. Table these countries have in common?
3.3 shows the top ten countries in this group.
You will notice that many of these countries
Table 3.3: Top Ten Ranked Countries with High have been the former imperial powers. The degree
Value Index
of social diversity in these countries is not very
Rank Country Rank Country high. Many of the countries with a high human
1. Norway 6. Germany development score are located in Europe and
2. Ireland 7. Sweden represent the industrialised western world. Yet
3. Switzerland 8. Australia there are striking numbers of non-European
4. Hongkong, China (SAR) 8. Netherlands
4. Iceland 10. Denmark
countries also who have made it to this list.
Countries with medium levels of human
Source: Human Development Report, 2020
development form the largest group. There are
37 countries in the medium level of human
Try to locate these countries on a map. development. Most of these are countries which
Can you see what these countries have in have emerged in the period after the Second
common? To find out more visit the official World War. Some countries from this group were
government websites of these countries. former colonies while many others have emerged
after the break up of the erstwhile Soviet Union
High level of human development group
has 53 countries. Providing education and in 1990. Many of these countries have been
healthcare is an important government priority. rapidly improving their human development
Countries with higher human development are score by adopting more people-oriented policies
those where a lot of investment in the social and reducing social discrimination. Most of
sector has taken place. Altogether, a higher these countries have a much higher social
investment in people and good governance has diversity than the countries with higher human
set this group of countries apart from the others. development scores. Many in this group have

India was 126th in

Human
Development
Index as per
Human
Development
Report, 2006.
According to HDI
report 2020,
India’s rank has
further gone
down to 131.
What could be
the reason for
India to be
behind 130
countries in HDI?

Human Development 19

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faced political instability and social uprisings To understand why a particular region
at some point of time in their recent history. keeps reporting low or high levels of human
As many as 33 countries record low levels development it is important to look at the
of human development. A large proportion of pattern of government expenditure on the
these are small countries which have been going social sector. The political environment of the
through political turmoil and social instability country and the amount of freedom people
in the form of civil war, famine or a high have is also important. Countries with high
incidence of diseases. There is an urgent need levels of human development invest more in
to address the human development
the social sectors and are generally free from
requirements of this group through well
political turmoil and instability. Distribution
thought out policies.
of the country’s resources is also far more
International comparisons of human
equitable.
development can show some very interesting
results. Often people tend to blame low levels On the other hand, places with low levels
of human development on the culture of the of human development tend to spend more on
people. For example, X country has lower defence rather than social sectors. This shows
human development because its people follow that these countries tend to be located in areas
Y religion, or belong to Z community. Such of political instability and have not been able
statements are misleading. to initiate accelerated economic development.

EXERCISES
1. Choose the right answer from the four alternatives given below.
(i) Which one of the following best describes development?
(a) an increase in size (c) a positive change in quality
(b) a constant in size (d) a simple change in the quality
(ii) Which one of the following scholars introduced the concept of Human
Development?
(a) Prof. Amartya Sen (c) Dr Mahabub-ul-Haq
(b) Ellen C. Semple (d) Ratzel
2. Answer the following questions in about 30 words.
(i) What are the three basic areas of human development?
(ii) Name the four main components of human development?
(iii) How are countries classified on the basis of human development index?
3. Answer the following questions in not more than 150 words.
(i) What do you understand by the term human development?
(ii) What do equity and sustainability refer to within the concept of human
development?

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 Project/Activity
Make a list of the ten most corrupt countries and ten least corrupt countries.
Compare their scores on the human development index. What inferences can
you draw?
Consult the latest Human Development Report for this.

Human Development 21

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