Is the HDI always a reliable indicator of development? Justify with reasons based on your reading and research. Remember to comment on at least one of your classmate's view.
HDI is usually assessing development of the country. this is the most accurate when assessig the DCs country, where technology is updated. But places where data is unavaliable, the final value of HDI may be less reliable.E.g Ethiopia. The HDI also fails to take into account the measurement of human rights and freedom. Thus, i conclude that until now, HDI is the only way to measure the development of the country but it is not the best result. =)
HDI is an index used by the UNDP to measure the level of debelopment in a country but there are limitations of the HDI. Firstly, HDI does not provide an accurate assessment for every country. It is most accurate when it is used to assess the DCs as it is easier to obtain. While in the rural areas, as infrastucture and technology is not as developed HDI can only be estimated. Therefore, the HDI does not provide a completely accurate assessment of the lovel of development. It also fails to take into account the measurement of human rights and freedom. Lastly, there is a time lag between the time of publishing and the year of the date published.
As Hongkeng have mentioned, HDI is not the best result to measure the development of a country. I agree, but I would suggest that there are other alternatives and indicators to measure the development of a country.
Hence, HDI is not always a reliable indicator of development.
Human Development Index(HDI) are used to measure the level of development of a country, which is used by the UNDP. It is a reliable indicator of development as it takes into consideration health standards, economic well-being and education standards, which determines the level of development of a country. However, it does not take into consideration human rights and freedom which is also important for the development of a country. There is also the time lag between the time of publishing and year of data published. Thus, this minor problems cause the HDI not to be always a reliable indicator of development.
As Evangeline had mentioned, HDI does not provide a completely accurate assessment of the level of development, i agree with her and thus, i can conclude that, HDI is not always a reliable indicator of Development
Alan: HDI is an index used by the United Nations Development programme to measure the level of development in a country. HDI is use to measure the economic, health standards and education standards of a country. Although it is effective, but there are still some limitations of the HDI. The HDI is the most accurate when it is used to assess the DCs. Beacause, in DCs, it is easier to obtain data needed to calculate the HDI. In rural area, it will be diffcult to measure the HDI of that particular place. The HDI also cannot measure human rights and freedom and these two are very important in determining the level of development of a country. But in conclusion, HDI is still very reliable in measuring a country's standard as there is nothing else that are more accurate than the HDI. As what Hong Keng had said, HDI is the only way to measure the development of a country but not always accurate results will be obtained. I agree with the point he had made.
HDI is most widely used indicator to assess the level of development in a country and the UNDP uses it. It takes into consideration of three main aspects economic well-being,health standard and education level. HDI is a number, which is computed and valued between 0 and 1. The closer the country is to index 1,higher the level of development.Yes,HDI might be most accurate when it assessed in developed countries but in countries where no data is available,the HDI is not reliable,particulary in rural areas.The measurement of human rights and freedom are also important factors in determining the level of development in a country however the HDI fails to take it into consideration. Not only that, there is a time lag between the time of publishing and year of the data published. Therefore,HDI is not always a reliable indicator of development.
Finally,I agree with Amalina that with all these limitations,HDI is not always a reliable indicator of development as it do not reflect the accurate HDI value of a country which do not allow comparison with other country.
Human Development Index is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) to measure th level of development in a country. The HDI takes into consideration three main aspects which are economic well-being, the health standards and the education standards of a country.This also includes the economic indicators such as employment structure, health indicators such as life expectancy and education indicators such as the literacy rate. All these three aspects are chosen because they can be easily measured and compared acroos country. This shows that the HDI is reliable.On the other hand, there are also limitations of HDI. There are three reasons to why HDI is not accurate.Firstly, it is not accurate in LDC as LDC does not have facilities and technology to save the data. Secondly, it does not take into account human rights. Lastly, There is a time lag in publishing.Hence, HDI is not a reliable indicator of development. As what Hong Keng mentioned,HDI is the only way to measure the development of a country but it is not the best result.Therefore, I agree with Hong Keng and conclude that HDI is not always accurate and reliable.
First and foremost, Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to measure the level of development in a country. It takes into consideration three main aspects, economic well-being, health standards and the education standards of a country which include individual indicators for each main aspect. However, there are also limitations of the HDI like; it does not provide an accurate assessment for every country, even though it is the most widely used methods of assessing the level of development in a country. HDI comes in handy and most accurate when it comes to measuring the level of development of developed countries like the United States of America (USA) as it is easier to obtain the data needed to calculate the HDI. Unfortunately, when it comes to measuring or obtaining data from the less developed countries, they may not be able to submit the data on time or for example in rural areas where the country’s economy relies on only agriculture activities, only their estimates can be used to calculate the income of people there. According to my research, there were some countries are unable or unwilling to provide the necessary data at the time of publication like, Europe, Africa and Oceania, in the year of 2008. Therefore, the final value of the country is unreliable and it is not completely accurate.
Lastly, I agree with Pei Jun on her view regarding the reliability of the HDI. As she had mentioned, HDI may not be completely accurate, when it comes to rural areas and also not taking into consideration of human rights and freedom. Another good point by her is that, it may take time to publish and the year of publishing of the HDI value.
HDI are only accurate when the data was under the more development countrys,because it's easier to obtain datas that needed. But it was not that accurate when it comes to the less development country as they are not developed enough to have the ability to provide accurate date and unable to save the data.the limitations of the HDI are such as they could not used to measure human rights and the time gap between the data is collect and date it is publish, the gap could be as far as two years time.Therefore, HDI is not the most accurate indicator to measure the level to development,i agreed whih as what hong keng and elaine have said, althought its the only method to use,but the accuracy and reliabily of HDI does not provided the best result.
Human Development Index is used by the United Nations Development to measure the development in a country. HDI does not provide a complete accurate assessment of the level of development of all countries. This is because in places where the economy relies on informal trading, only estimates can be used to calculate the income of the people. The HDI also fails to take human rights and freedom into account. These factors are also important in determining the level of development in a country. The Human Development Index has been criticised on a number of grounds, including failure to include any ecological considerations, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective. The index has further been criticized for having an inappropriate treatment of income, lacking year-to-year comparability, and assessing development differently in different groups of countries.
I agree with Hong Keng that HDI is the only way to measure the development of the country even thought it is not accurate. This is because it is not possible to be able to obtained detailed information in every single part of the world as there will be unaccessible areas and other unforseen circumstances.
HDI is known as the human development index which is used to measure the level of development in the country. The HDI takes into consideration three main aspects: economic well-being, the health standards and the education standards. HDI is a reliable indicator, however, there are limitations of the HDI. In LDCs, the UNDP cannot obtain the dat easily as they do not have the technology to save the data. The measurement will not be able to measure human rights and freedom. Last but not least, there will be a time lag between the time of publishing and the year of data published.
i agree with what Elaine have said, the HDI will come in handy in developed countries because of the high technology and hence, it is easier to obtain their level of development. Conversely, it would be difficult to obtain datas of the LDCs as they do not have the technology and these countries' economy will depend on the agriculture activities.
Human Development Index(HDI) is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to measure the level of development in a country.
I do not agree that HDI is a reliable indicator as it cannot measure the most important factor like human rights and freedom in a country. HDI is most accurate only when it take measure in the developed country and not less developed country. Therefore, it would be unfair if we only use HDI to measure the level of development in a country.
I agree with Zhuang Min that LDCs do not have the ability to provide accurate date and unable to save the data and the time gap between the data collect and date it is publish may be as long as two years time.Therefore, it is not so accurate.
HDI refers to the Human Development Index. It is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to measure the level of development in a country. It takes into consideration of economic well-being, health standards and education standards of a country.
In my opinion, HDI is an unreliable indicator of development. Though it is widely used for assessing the level of development of a country, it is not always accurate for assessing every country. This is because in places where the majority of the economy relies on informal trading, like in a rural area, only estimates can be used to calculate the people's earnings. As a result, HDI becomes an inaccurate development indicator.
Additionally, it also fails to take into account the measurement of human rights and freedom, even though it is not easy to measure these factors.These factors plays a significant role in determining the level of development in a country.
Moreover,the 2 years time lag between the publishing time and the year of the data published also makes HDI an unreliable indicator of development.
According to my research, HDI has been criticised for failing to include any ecological considerations and not paing attention to development from the global point of view. It focus too much on national performance and ranking, neglecting the above mentioned factors which are important points to take into account to. It has also been criticized for having an inappropriate treatment of income, lacking year-to-year comparability, and assessing development differently in different groups of countries.
Thus, I can conclude that HDI is not a reliable indicator of development.
I agree with Hong Keng and Marcus that even though HDI does not provide an accurate assessment of a country, it is the only way to measure the development of a country.Thus, I hope there would be some ways to solve the shortcomings of the HDI so that countries can see how developed they are accurately.
HDI stands for human development index. its takes into consideration of the ecomnomic well being, health standards and education of a country.
HDI is accurate in accessing developed country however in contrast it is inaccurate in accessing the less developed country. because these country rely much on informal trading. for example in the rural areas where estimate is ued to cacualate the people's earning. as a result HDI is inaccuarare.
in addition HDI also do no take into consideration of human rights. human rights play a significant role in the development of a country. also human rights are not easy to measure.
i agree with shi li. HDI cannot provide a complete assessment of the country. it focuses on the national performances of the country and does not take into account of factors such as human right which is very important. it refers to the quality of life of the people which is important in the development of the country. this is one of the factor that cannot be measure. hence HDI isn't accurate.
The HDI is an important toll used by the United Nations to asses the level of development that a particular country has attained. The value of the HDI reading is dependent on many factors such as economic well-being, the health standards and literacy rates of a country. However so, the HDI fails to take into account the level of freedom and human rights that exist in a particular country. Therefore this might affect the precision of the HDI as a tool to measure the level of development that a country has. To cite an example, though the People's Republic of Korea has minimal level of human rights and although this is an important factor, the HDI fails to take into account intangible factors as such. The HDI though relatively successful in assessing core countries such as Sweden, its accuracy of assessing periphery countries on the other hand is adversely affected by the lack of data accessible or available for the necessary calculations needed to cough out the HDI reading. As such countries such as Myanmar and rural areas of Indonesia, only estimates could be derived from the "butter-trade" business that run there. Thus this results in a relatively inaccurate HDI value. In addition, the time taken to calculate these values may also be inaccurate seeing that the table for the HDI values of respective countries are derived from data collected two to three years back. during this span of time, the country in question might have developed and alleviated its situation for the better. Thus if the HDI value of a particular year is used, it might prove to be inaccurate as compare to the current status of the country.
As per what had been said by Marcus, the HDI also fails to consider the ecological situation that a particular country might have.
HDI stands for Human Development Index. It is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme to measure the level of development of any country in the world.
It takes the economic well-being, health standards and education standards into consideration to know how developed a country is. It is because these factors can be easily measured.
Countries that have an HDI value that is closer to 1 means that they are likely to be DCs. On the other hand, countries that have a value that is further away from 1 means that they are likely to be LDCs. In addition, HDI does not provide an accurate assessment for every country. It is only accurate when data is available. It also fails to take into consideration of human rights and freedom.
In order to know whether a country is developed or not, other factors like employment structure, employment opportunities, life expectancy, sanitation and literacy rate must also be taken into consideration. Thus, HDI can only be served as a guide to tell us the development level of a country. Besides that, I found out that not all countries around the world have their own HDI. Therefore, I feel that HDI might not always be a reliable indicator of development.
I agree with Rebecca on the point that HDI is only accurate in developed countries but not in less developed countries.
The Human Development Index(HDI) is an index that is used to measure the level of development in a country.
HDI takes into consideration three main aspects: the economic well-being, health standards and education indicators. These aspect are chosen as they can be measured and compare across nations easily. The higher the HDI value of a country, the higher the chances of that country to be a DCs.
HDI is only effective and most accurate when it is used to acess DCs, where data is easier to obtain and calculate the HDI. In places where data is unavailable, the final value of HDI may be less reliable. HDI also fails to take into account the measurement of human rights and freedom.
Thus, I agreed with Pei Jun that with the limitations of HDI, it is not a reliable indicator to determine the level of development in a country.
The Human Development Index,or in short HDI,is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme to measure the level of development in a country.It takes into consideration of economic well-being, health standards and education standards of a country.
In response to whether the HDI is a trustworthy source,I personally feel that it is undependable.
Firstly,based on my research,the HDI emphasizes largely on national performance and ranking and thus,neglecting other crucial factors like human rights and freedom.If a country is well-developed,we cannot be certain that its people are happy with their quality of life.Why?Because we are not able to see if their basic rights are restricted,which may give them the capabilities to expand their freedom.
Moving on,a number of authors have recognised the HDI as a "redundant" invention to measure a country's development.Many of such studies have been exhaustively studied.Furthermore,these studies are assessed in different groups in countries.
Lastly,the two-year comparability to evaluate the level of development in a country makes the HDI even more unreliable especially with the growing trend of globalisation.
I agree with Haiqal that the period in between the process of publishing may have lead to that particular country being more developed and progressed further.
However,according to the news made by the United Nations last year,it seeks to improve the HDI by taking into consideration of gender equality and women's empowerment.In addition,it it involves a major reexmanination about the achievements of the human development approach,as well as continuing to address the challenges of the 21st Century.Therefore,we cannot completely abandon the existence of the HDI.
Keep it up people... lots of interesting points brought up :)
Even some new arguments on the strengths/limitations of the HDI that are not found in the textbk which shows me that you have done useful research ! :)
HDI is an index used by United Nation Development Index ( UNDP ) to measure the level of development in a country.But HDI does not provide an accurate assessment for LDCs. Because HDI takes economic well-being, health standard and education standards of a country. Therefore, it's is not accurate as they were estimated. HDI also fails to take into account the measurement of human rights and freedom
HDI is the most accurate when it is used to a DCs. I agree with peijun that HDI are not accurate as time lag was not taken into consideration. Thus, I agreed with Pei Jun that with the limitations of HDI, it is not a reliable indicator to determine the level of development in a country.
HDI is often used to determine whether the country has reached a certain kind of development based on mainly factors like health standards, economic well-being and education standards. Although some of these factors can determine the level of development of the country, it is still not reliable due to the fact that some parts of the country might not have modern technology and therefore unable to access their health standard and economic well-being.This also fail to take into consideration of human rights. I agree on Hong keng's comment because this is not a very accurate way to assess the development of a country
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country. It is calculated mainly based on factors such as health standards, economic well-being and education standard.From the comments earlier by my peers i believe they neglected ecological as a factor. The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including failure to include any ecological considerations, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective. Therefore i conclude that the HDI should take different aspect into account which would give a higher accuracy,as the developing world is no longer the same as the past.
Ivy: The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country by combines normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide.the closer the index is to 1, the higher is the level of development. The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including failure to include any ecological considerations, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective. The index has also been criticized as "redundant" and a "reinvention of the wheel", measuring aspects of development that have already been exhaustively studied.The index has further been criticized for having an inappropriate treatment of income, lacking year-to-year comparability, and assessing development differently in different groups of countries. Therefore, I agree with Rebecca Lai that HDI is not a reliable indicator of development as HDI is only effective and most accurate when it is used to acess DCs.
Human Development Index is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country. A nation's HDI is composed of life expectancy, adult literacy and Gross National Product per capita.Comparing the HDI rating with the traditional GNP per capita rating reveals some poor countries' remarkable progress in human development. These countries got more bang for their development buck by giving their aid to the most needy people. The comparison also shows that some countries, including the U.S., did not translate their wealth into social benefits. The HDI has had a significant impact on drawing the attention of governments, corporations and international organizations to aspects of development that focus on the expansion of choices and freedoms, not just income.
However HDI has been criticized as a redundant measure that adds little to the value of the individual measures composing it so it means it is not accurate but I have to agree to Marcus that it is impossible to obtain exact detail of each country’s development.
Used to measure the level of development of countries,the Human Development Index(HDI) is a composite scale that has three basic dimensions.Namely,the life expectancy,knowledge and education and the standard of living of the country.However,it fails to take into account other factors such as human rights and freedom,which play a prominent role in deciding the level of development of the country.Take for example,the HDI listing in 2008.Canada was ranked 3rd in the list which is a far cry compared to its weak 17th position on the Fraser Institute's Index of Human Development.The Fraser Institute index uses 10 indicators of human progress while the UN uses just four.One example of the indicators used is technology.It measures the number of televisions(per 1000 persons),number of radios(per 100 persons) and the telephone service(per 1000 persons) in the country.The availability of leisure goods indicate that citizens have choices about how to spend their time and money.Telephone service is included as an effective communcation infrastructure is vital for a country to soar beyond an average level of development.Furthermore,the HDI is flawed by its irrational adjustment of the GDP per capita. In addition,the HDI is inaccurate in its assessing the level of development of countries where the economy is heavily dependent on informal trading and places where data is unavailable.Then,only estimates can be made to determine the incomes of the people there. On the other hand,the HDI is not totally incompetent.It still is rather accurate in assessing the level of development of the developed countries and gives a rough idea of the level of development of the country.To conclude,the HDI does not produce optimum results , but is nonetheless a useful comparative measure of the well-being of a population.
According to Sherileen,the United Nations is making every endeavour to improve the HDI readings.Till then,the HDI is certainly unreliable in the results it produces.
J.Long: Capitalized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Human Development Index (HDI) is used to pitch the level of development in a country. It takes into account the economic well-being of the people, the health standards as well as the education standards which are key factors in deciding the level of development of a country. The HDI is highly accurate when use to access the Developed Countries (DC) such as the United States Of America (USA), Norway and Australia. Such countries provide accurate data which is used to tabulate the HDI value. In Less Developed Countries (LDC), the HDI value is inaccurate in as data is unavailable. This affects the overall reading of the country’s HDI due to the fact that some information is not included. In addition, human rights and freedom are crucial in judging if a country is developed or not, which the HDI fails to take into account. No doubt that such factors are tough to measure, they are important in determining the level of development of the country. I affirm that HDI is not always a reliable indicator of development as based on my research; I’ve gathered information that some less developed parts of Africa are not able to report the exact value thus affecting the final reading of the HDI value. I agree with Hong Keng that HDI is the only but not the best way to measure the level of development. Since it’s not the best way to measure the level of development, surely there must be other alternatives to do so…
Valerie Lee says: The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country. The HDI takes into consideration of three main aspects: Economic well-being, the health standards and the education standards of a country. It includes Income per capita,Employment Structure, employment opportunities, life expentancy, Infant mortality rate, water supply, sanitaion and literacy rate. Although HDI is widely used in assessing the level of development, it still does not provide an accurate assessment for each country. The HDI is most accurate when used in Developed Countries as it is easier to get hold of the data needed to calculate the HDI. The HDI fails to take into account of the measurement of human rights and freedom. It is not accurate as data is unreliable and it doesn't measure politics or gender equality. Hence, I agree with Zhuang Min that HDI is not that accurate when it comes to the less development country as they are not developed enough to have the ability to provide accurate date and unable to save the data.
In my perspective, the HDI measure is an useful tool in helping to measure the level of development in a certain country by taking in consideration the main aspects-economic well-being, health standards and education standards. Although I have to say that HDI can be easily measured, there are a couple of limitations that made this widely used method of accessing the level of development in a country less reliable. As proven that data is easily obtained from DCs but otherwise for LDCs, the HDI is not able to provide an accurate value of HDI of a country. In rural areas especially, only estimates can be used to determine the HDI value. A report stated that "Life expectancy value for a country is the given is an average of the total population. There are many communities in the country that will not all have access to good healthcare services and so there will be variations of life expectancy values." To give an example, countries like Mali with a low HDI value of 0.333 reflects a low human development. As HDI fails to take account the measure of human rights and freedom of people in Mali,I believe that HDI should be use only as a guide due to its ineffectiveness.
Lim Wen Yong The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country by combines normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide.the closer the index is to 1, the higher is the level of development.But it cannot measure the freedom that the people have in the country and the human rights that they have. I agree with jing yi that HDI is not accurate in comparing the level of development in LDCs as LDCs dun have the type of basic system and economic power to follow the requirements of the HDI . Therefore i think HDI is not reliable indicator of development.
I feel that the HDI is simple, it makes it easier for users to understand what it means. There are three main criticisms of the HDI. First is the extreme way in which is discounts GDP. The simplicity of the HDI can be viewed as an advantage, at the same time also a disadvantage. Not forgetting that is has a time lag of 2 years and it also fails to take human rights and freedom into consideration. So what about countries that are extremely poor?
The Human Development Index (HDI)is and index used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to measure the level of development in a country.
I think that the HDI is not a reliable tool to assess a country's development because there is a two-year time lag in the data – the HDI for 2006 uses data from 2004 – and gaps are filled in various ways, typically by making assumptions based upon data available from the ‘peers’.
The HDI focuses attention on aspects of development more sensible and useful than the income per capita.
The HDI does not measure whether the money produced by the workers is actually improving people's lives and this is important because in many country where there are large increases in wealth over time but only small increases in happiness.
The HDI rarely takes into account the unofficial economy, which includes subsistence agriculture and cash-in-hand or unpaid work, which is often substantial in LDCs. In LDCs, it is often too expensive to accurately collect this data from the governments.
Lastly, the Gross National Product per capita(GNP) figure is usually measure in US dollars. Due to the changing currency exchange rates, it can distort the money's true street value. It is often converted using purchasing power parity (PPP) in which the actual comparative purchasing power of the money in the country is calculated. Hence it is not accurate when the HDI uses GNP to assess the level of development of a country.
In conclusion, I believe the HDI is NOT a reliable tool to assess a country's level of development.
I agree with Shi Li that the HDI focuses exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective. I hope there will be a better tool in future to assess the level of development of a country, so as to be fair to some country, be it DCs or LDCs.
HDI refers to the Human Development Index. It is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to measure the level of development in a country. It takes into consideration of economic well-being, health standards and education standards of a country. I disagree that the HDI is reliable as it may only be accurate in develop country than less develop country as they may not have stable income like farmers. HDI also do not measure the human rights and internal factors. The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including failure to include any ecological considerations, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective. Based on my research a redundant measure that adds little to the value of the individual measures composing it; as a means to provide legitimacy to arbitrary weightings of a few aspects of social development; as a number producing a relative ranking which is useless for inter-temporal comparisons, and difficult to compare a country's progress or regression because the HDI for a country in a given year depends on the levels of, say, life expectancy or GDP per capita of other countries in that year. In conclusion I agree with both fazillah and zhuang min that HDI is not realiable indicator and it is not really accurate.
The Human Development Index(HDI) is an index that is used to measure the level of development in a country. HDI takes into consideration of three main aspects. They are Economic well-being, the health standards and the education standards of a country.
HDI can be reliable but not always as it provides only an summary, indicators whether a country is developed or less developed. It fails to take human rights and freedom into consideration and it's not very accurate.
I agree with Yan Long that HDI focuses attention on aspects of development more sensible and useful than the income per capita and HDI does not measure whether the money produced by the workers is actually improving people's lives and this is important because in many country where there are large increases in wealth over time but only small increases in happiness. Therefore, HDI is not always reliable.
HDI is an index used by U.N.D.P to measure the level of development in a county.The indicators of HDI are health standards,economic well-beings and educations standards that determines the level of development.But HDI has its limitation which they are unable to measure example human rights and freedoms.The limitations are also important indicators for the development level of a country. Thus i conclude that HDI is not a reliable indicators of development because it does not provide accurate reading for the development of a country.As some of the county can report fake document as they want to be rank on the top of the chart. Lastly,i feel that numbers cannot represent the level of development of a county.
HDI is an index used by the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) to mesure the level of development in a country. HDI takes economic well-being, the health standards and education standards of a country. These aspects are chosen because they can be easily measured and compared across country. However, due to the lack of technologies in some countries, data is unavailable. In addition, since majority of the economy in rural places relies on informal trading, only estimates can be used to calculate the income of the people living there. Therefore this shows that HDI is not very reliable. Moreover, HDI also fails to take into account of the most important measurement of a human life, and these factors are human rights and freedom. These factors are important to the extent that they also determine the level of development of a country.
Based on my research and opinion, i personally feel that it is only right to say that HDI is reliable however it is only to a certain extent as there are limitations to it. Coming to think of it, if a country is developed, it should have mordern technologies such as the computers, thus measuring and calculating would be easier compared to those developing countries that do not have technologies like us, hence calculating their HDI would somewhat be around there. However to be precise, HDI does not fully function well enough. The standard of living and quality of life is not taken into consideration. Perhaps, people living in the rural parts of the country are more happier and carefree compare to us living in the modern society with stress while working and studying...
Last but not least, i would have to agree with yan long,
The HDI does not measure whether the income of the workers is actually improving their lives. In relation, like i have mentioned earlier on, living in the modern society with computers and other modern fascinations does not necessary means you are satisfied with your living condition. Truly, huge increase in wealth may not always mean the same as huge increase in happiness!
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country.
I think that the HDI is not reliable as it is unable to give an accurate value of HDI in rural places. It also does not take into account freedom and human rights.
I agree with Kingston that the HDI is not reliable to a certain extent and that the lack of modern technology limits the usefulness of HDI in developing countries.
As we all know, HDI - Human Development Index is an index used by United Nations Development programme(UNDP) to measure the level of development in a country.
It takes into account for 3 main aspects:Econmic well-being,health standards and education for the country.HDI also combines three basic dimensions: life expectancy where by a person is expected to live in the country , knowledge and education as measured by the adult , standard of living,as measured by the natural logarithum of GDP per capita.
As what Valerie Goh had mention,there also could be fake documents reported when accessing the repot.Therefore,is not always accurate.
HDI also doesnt take into account of the measurement for the rights and freedom for the people in the country.Althought it is difficult to measure these factors,human rights and freedom are important in determining the level for development in the country.
HDI refers to Human Development Index, which is used to measure the level of development in a country.
The HDI takes into consideration of three main aspects: Econmic well-being,health standards and education standards. These aspects were chosen because they can be easily measured and compared across countries, this proves that they are reliable but on the other hand, there are also limitations of the HDI which causes criticisms. Data used to measure the HDI are easier to obtain in DCs but not LDCs because LDCs do not have the good facilities and technologies. The HDI also fails to take into account for the measurement of human rights and freedom, therefore the HDI was proven not to be totally reliable.
I agree with everyone that the HDI is not accurate or reliable and i read that the HDI are criticised for things that they did not take into account but nothing is always perfect. I believe that when the HDI was first introduced, many people would praise UNDP for coming out with HDI but over time, as people start to find faults in HDI, the crowds would start to complain and criticise how lousy the HDI can be.
HDI (Human Development Index) is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme to rank countries by "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is developed, developing or undeveloped countries. The HDI combines normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment and GDP per Capita for countries worldwide. It is claimed as a standard means of measuring human development—a concept that, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), refers to the process of widening the options of persons, giving them greater opportunities for education, health care, income, employment, etc. The basic use of HDI is to measure a country's development.
In my opinion, I feel that HDI is not a reliable index to measure the development of the countries.Firstly, HDI is most accurate when it is used to assess the developed countries. However, in developed countries, it is easier to obtain data needed to caluclate the HDI. This is because they have up to date facilities and technology to save the data. Conversely, some LDCs do not have facilties and technology to save the data. Secondly, HDI also fails to take into account the measurement of human rights and freedom. Although there is a difficulty to measure these factors, human rights and freedom are important in determining the level of development in a country. Thirdly, due to the time required for international agaencies to collect, compile and publish the data, there is a time lag between the time of publishing and the year of the data published. There will be a lag of two years. For example, a UNDP report published in 2005 will reflect data from 2003. The index has further been criticized for having an inappropriate treatment of income, lacking year-to-year comparability, and assessing development differently in different groups of countries. criticized the way scores in each of the three components are bounded between zero and one, so rich countries effectively cannot improve their ranking in certain categories, even though there is a lot of scope for economic growth and longevity left. criticized as a redundant measure that adds little to the value of the individual measures composing it; as a means to provide legitimacy to arbitrary weightings of a few aspects of social development; as a number producing a relative ranking which is useless for inter-temporal comparisons, and difficult to compare a country's progress or regression because the HDI for a country in a given year depends on the levels of, say, life expectancy or GDP per capita of other countries in that year.
I agree with Sherileen that when the earth keep rotating every day, it will grow the globalisation trend everyday. When globalisation keep growing,the index will be unreliable to measure the level of development of the countries. Therefore, i believe that UNDP will improve HDI index, making it more reliable to measure the level of development in countries.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country.
It's not reliable due to failure to include any ecological considerations, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective. Two authors claimed that the human development reports "have lost touch with their original vision and the index fails to capture the essence of the world it seeks to portray". The index has also been criticized as "redundant" and a "reinvention of the wheel", measuring aspects of development that have already been exhaustively studied.The index has further been criticized for having an inappropriate treatment of income, lacking year-to-year comparability, and assessing development differently in different groups of countries
Economist Bryan Caplan has criticized the way scores in each of the three components are bounded between zero and one, so rich countries effectively cannot improve their ranking in certain categories, even though there is a lot of scope for economic growth and longevity left, "This effectively means that a country of immortals with infinite per-capita GDP would get a score of .666 (lower than South Africa and Tajikistan) if its population were illiterate and never went to school."Scandinavian countries consistently come out top on the list, he argues, "because the HDI is basically a measure of how Scandinavian your country is."
The HDI has been criticized as a redundant measure that adds little to the value of the individual measures composing it; as a means to provide legitimacy to arbitrary weightings of a few aspects of social development; as a number producing a relative ranking which is useless for inter-temporal comparisons, and difficult to compare a country's progress or regression because the HDI for a ountry in a given year depends on the levels of, say, life expectancy or GDP per capita of other countries in that year. However, each year, UN member states are listed and ranked according to the computed HDI. If high, the rank in the list can be easily used as a means of national aggrandizement; alternatively, if low, it can be used to highlight national insufficiencies. Using the HDI as an absolute index of social welfare, some authors have used panel HDI data to measure the impact of economic policies on quality of life .
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country.The HDI combines normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide. The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including failure to include any ecological considerations, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective.The index has further been criticized for having an inappropriate treatment of income, lacking year-to-year comparability, and assessing development differently in different groups of countries.The HDI has been criticized as a redundant measure that adds little to the value of the individual measures composing it; as a means to provide legitimacy to arbitrary weightings of a few aspects of social development; as a number producing a relative ranking which is useless for inter-temporal comparisons, and difficult to compare a country's progress or regression because the HDI for a country in a given year depends on the levels of, say, life expectancy or GDP per capita of other countries in that year. Therefore, i conclude that HDI is not a very reliable indicator of development, but i think that researchers are trying to inprove on the negative ponts.
HDI can only use as an index of development but it not an useful indicator.The closer the index is closer to 1 it show the higher the level of the country is developed.But HDI does not provide an assessment for every country.It not accurate as it only estimate but does not provide an accurate assessment of level of development in the country.HDI also fails to take in account of human rights and freedom as human rights and freedom is also an important indicator of level of development in the country.other than HDI there are other more suitable alternatives and indicators to measure the development of a country which will be better than HDI.Hence i say HDI is not an reliable indicator of develpment as it does not acess the full development of a country well.
44 Comments:
HDI is usually assessing development of the country. this is the most accurate when assessig the DCs country, where technology is updated. But places where data is unavaliable, the final value of HDI may be less reliable.E.g Ethiopia.
The HDI also fails to take into account the measurement of human rights and freedom. Thus, i conclude that until now, HDI is the only way to measure the development of the country but it is not the best result. =)
HDI is an index used by the UNDP to measure the level of debelopment in a country but there are limitations of the HDI. Firstly, HDI does not provide an accurate assessment for every country. It is most accurate when it is used to assess the DCs as it is easier to obtain. While in the rural areas, as infrastucture and technology is not as developed HDI can only be estimated. Therefore, the HDI does not provide a completely accurate assessment of the lovel of development. It also fails to take into account the measurement of human rights and freedom. Lastly, there is a time lag between the time of publishing and the year of the date published.
As Hongkeng have mentioned, HDI is not the best result to measure the development of a country. I agree, but I would suggest that there are other alternatives and indicators to measure the development of a country.
Hence, HDI is not always a reliable indicator of development.
Human Development Index(HDI) are used to measure the level of development of a country, which is used by the UNDP. It is a reliable indicator of development as it takes into consideration health standards, economic well-being and education standards, which determines the level of development of a country. However, it does not take into consideration human rights and freedom which is also important for the development of a country. There is also the time lag between the time of publishing and year of data published. Thus, this minor problems cause the HDI not to be always a reliable indicator of development.
As Evangeline had mentioned, HDI does not provide a completely accurate assessment of the level of development, i agree with her and thus, i can conclude that, HDI is not always a reliable indicator of Development
Alan:
HDI is an index used by the United Nations Development programme to measure the level of development in a country. HDI is use to measure the economic, health standards and education standards of a country. Although it is effective, but there are still some limitations of the HDI. The HDI is the most accurate when it is used to assess the DCs. Beacause, in DCs, it is easier to obtain data needed to calculate the HDI. In rural area, it will be diffcult to measure the HDI of that particular place. The HDI also cannot measure human rights and freedom and these two are very important in determining the level of development of a country. But in conclusion, HDI is still very reliable in measuring a country's standard as there is nothing else that are more accurate than the HDI.
As what Hong Keng had said, HDI is the only way to measure the development of a country but not always accurate results will be obtained. I agree with the point he had made.
HDI is most widely used indicator to assess the level of development in a country and the UNDP uses it. It takes into consideration of three main aspects economic well-being,health standard and education level. HDI is a number, which is computed and valued between 0 and 1. The closer the country is to index 1,higher the level of development.Yes,HDI might be most accurate when it assessed in developed countries but in countries where no data is available,the HDI is not reliable,particulary in rural areas.The measurement of human rights and freedom are also important factors in determining the level of development in a country however the HDI fails to take it into consideration. Not only that, there is a time lag between the time of publishing and year of the data published. Therefore,HDI is not always a reliable indicator of development.
Finally,I agree with Amalina that with all these limitations,HDI is not always a reliable indicator of development as it do not reflect the accurate HDI value of a country which do not allow comparison with other country.
Human Development Index is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) to measure th level of development in a country. The HDI takes into consideration three main aspects which are economic well-being, the health standards and the education standards of a country.This also includes the economic indicators such as employment structure, health indicators such as life expectancy and education indicators such as the literacy rate. All these three aspects are chosen because they can be easily measured and compared acroos country. This shows that the HDI is reliable.On the other hand, there are also limitations of HDI. There are three reasons to why HDI is not accurate.Firstly, it is not accurate in LDC as LDC does not have facilities and technology to save the data. Secondly, it does not take into account human rights. Lastly, There is a time lag in publishing.Hence, HDI is not a reliable indicator of development.
As what Hong Keng mentioned,HDI is the only way to measure the development of a country but it is not the best result.Therefore, I agree with Hong Keng and conclude that HDI is not always accurate and reliable.
First and foremost, Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to measure the level of development in a country. It takes into consideration three main aspects, economic well-being, health standards and the education standards of a country which include individual indicators for each main aspect.
However, there are also limitations of the HDI like; it does not provide an accurate assessment for every country, even though it is the most widely used methods of assessing the level of development in a country.
HDI comes in handy and most accurate when it comes to measuring the level of development of developed countries like the United States of America (USA) as it is easier to obtain the data needed to calculate the HDI. Unfortunately, when it comes to measuring or obtaining data from the less developed countries, they may not be able to submit the data on time or for example in rural areas where the country’s economy relies on only agriculture activities, only their estimates can be used to calculate the income of people there. According to my research, there were some countries are unable or unwilling to provide the necessary data at the time of publication like, Europe, Africa and Oceania, in the year of 2008. Therefore, the final value of the country is unreliable and it is not completely accurate.
Lastly, I agree with Pei Jun on her view regarding the reliability of the HDI. As she had mentioned, HDI may not be completely accurate, when it comes to rural areas and also not taking into consideration of human rights and freedom. Another good point by her is that, it may take time to publish and the year of publishing of the HDI value.
HDI are only accurate when the data was under the more development countrys,because it's easier to obtain datas that needed. But it was not that accurate when it comes to the less development country as they are not developed enough to have the ability to provide accurate date and unable to save the data.the limitations of the HDI are such as they could not used to measure human rights and the time gap between the data is collect and date it is publish, the gap could be as far as two years time.Therefore, HDI is not the most accurate indicator to measure the level to development,i agreed whih as what hong keng and elaine have said, althought its the only method to use,but the accuracy and reliabily of HDI does not provided the best result.
Human Development Index is used by the United Nations Development to measure the development in a country. HDI does not provide a complete accurate assessment of the level of development of all countries. This is because in places where the economy relies on informal trading, only estimates can be used to calculate the income of the people. The HDI also fails to take human rights and freedom into account. These factors are also important in determining the level of development in a country. The Human Development Index has been criticised on a number of grounds, including failure to include any ecological considerations, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective. The index has further been criticized for having an inappropriate treatment of income, lacking year-to-year comparability, and assessing development differently in different groups of countries.
I agree with Hong Keng that HDI is the only way to measure the development of the country even thought it is not accurate. This is because it is not possible to be able to obtained detailed information in every single part of the world as there will be unaccessible areas and other unforseen circumstances.
HDI is known as the human development index which is used to measure the level of development in the country. The HDI takes into consideration three main aspects: economic well-being, the health standards and the education standards. HDI is a reliable indicator, however, there are limitations of the HDI. In LDCs, the UNDP cannot obtain the dat easily as they do not have the technology to save the data. The measurement will not be able to measure human rights and freedom. Last but not least, there will be a time lag between the time of publishing and the year of data published.
i agree with what Elaine have said, the HDI will come in handy in developed countries because of the high technology and hence, it is easier to obtain their level of development. Conversely, it would be difficult to obtain datas of the LDCs as they do not have the technology and these countries' economy will depend on the agriculture activities.
Human Development Index(HDI) is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to measure the level of development in a country.
I do not agree that HDI is a reliable indicator as it cannot measure the most important factor like human rights and freedom in a country. HDI is most accurate only when it take measure in the developed country and not less developed country. Therefore, it would be unfair if we only use HDI to measure the level of development in a country.
I agree with Zhuang Min that LDCs do not have the ability to provide accurate date and unable to save the data and the time gap between the data collect and date it is publish may be as long as two years time.Therefore, it is not so accurate.
HDI refers to the Human Development Index. It is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to measure the level of development in a country. It takes into consideration of economic well-being, health standards and education standards of a country.
In my opinion, HDI is an unreliable indicator of development. Though it is widely used for assessing the level of development of a country, it is not always accurate for assessing every country. This is because in places where the majority of the economy relies on informal trading, like in a rural area, only estimates can be used to calculate the people's earnings.
As a result, HDI becomes an inaccurate development indicator.
Additionally, it also fails to take into account the measurement of human rights and freedom, even though it is not easy to measure these factors.These factors plays a significant role in determining the level of development in a country.
Moreover,the 2 years time lag between the publishing time and the year of the data published also makes HDI an unreliable indicator of development.
According to my research, HDI has been criticised for failing to include any ecological considerations and not paing attention to development from the global point of view. It focus too much on national performance and ranking, neglecting the above mentioned factors which are important points to take into account to. It has also been criticized for having an inappropriate treatment of income, lacking year-to-year comparability, and assessing development differently in different groups of countries.
Thus, I can conclude that HDI is not a reliable indicator of development.
I agree with Hong Keng and Marcus that even though HDI does not provide an accurate assessment of a country, it is the only way to measure the development of a country.Thus, I hope there would be some ways to solve the shortcomings of the HDI so that countries can see how developed they are accurately.
HDI stands for human development index. its takes into consideration of the ecomnomic well being, health standards and education of a country.
HDI is accurate in accessing developed country however in contrast it is inaccurate in accessing the less developed country. because these country rely much on informal trading. for example in the rural areas where estimate is ued to cacualate the people's earning. as a result HDI is inaccuarare.
in addition HDI also do no take into consideration of human rights. human rights play a significant role in the development of a country. also human rights are not easy to measure.
i agree with shi li.
HDI cannot provide a complete assessment of the country. it focuses on the national performances of the country and does not take into account of factors such as human right which is very important. it refers to the quality of life of the people which is important in the development of the country. this is one of the factor that cannot be measure. hence HDI isn't accurate.
The HDI is an important toll used by the United Nations to asses the level of development that a particular country has attained. The value of the HDI reading is dependent on many factors such as economic well-being, the health standards and literacy rates of a country. However so, the HDI fails to take into account the level of freedom and human rights that exist in a particular country. Therefore this might affect the precision of the HDI as a tool to measure the level of development that a country has. To cite an example, though the People's Republic of Korea has minimal level of human rights and although this is an important factor, the HDI fails to take into account intangible factors as such. The HDI though relatively successful in assessing core countries such as Sweden, its accuracy of assessing periphery countries on the other hand is adversely affected by the lack of data accessible or available for the necessary calculations needed to cough out the HDI reading. As such countries such as Myanmar and rural areas of Indonesia, only estimates could be derived from the "butter-trade" business that run there. Thus this results in a relatively inaccurate HDI value. In addition, the time taken to calculate these values may also be inaccurate seeing that the table for the HDI values of respective countries are derived from data collected two to three years back. during this span of time, the country in question might have developed and alleviated its situation for the better. Thus if the HDI value of a particular year is used, it might prove to be inaccurate as compare to the current status of the country.
As per what had been said by Marcus, the HDI also fails to consider the ecological situation that a particular country might have.
HDI stands for Human Development Index. It is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme to measure the level of development of any country in the world.
It takes the economic well-being, health standards and education standards into consideration to know how developed a country is.
It is because these factors can be easily measured.
Countries that have an HDI value that is closer to 1 means that they are likely to be DCs. On the other hand, countries that have a value that is further away from 1 means that they are likely to be LDCs. In addition, HDI does not provide an accurate assessment for every country. It is only accurate when data is available. It also fails to take into consideration of human rights and freedom.
In order to know whether a country is developed or not, other factors like employment structure, employment opportunities, life expectancy, sanitation and literacy rate must also be taken into consideration. Thus, HDI can only be served as a guide to tell us the development level of a country. Besides that, I found out that not all countries around the world have their own HDI.
Therefore, I feel that HDI might not always be a reliable indicator of development.
I agree with Rebecca on the point that HDI is only accurate in developed countries but not in less developed countries.
The Human Development Index(HDI) is an index that is used to measure the level of development in a country.
HDI takes into consideration three main aspects: the economic well-being, health standards and education indicators. These aspect are chosen as they can be measured and compare across nations easily. The higher the HDI value of a country, the higher the chances of that country to be a DCs.
HDI is only effective and most accurate when it is used to acess DCs, where data is easier to obtain and calculate the HDI. In places where data is unavailable, the final value of HDI may be less reliable. HDI also fails to take into account the measurement of human rights and freedom.
Thus, I agreed with Pei Jun that with the limitations of HDI, it is not a reliable indicator to determine the level of development in a country.
The Human Development Index,or in short HDI,is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme to measure the level of development in a country.It takes into consideration of economic well-being, health standards and education standards of a country.
In response to whether the HDI is a trustworthy source,I personally feel that it is undependable.
Firstly,based on my research,the HDI emphasizes largely on national performance and ranking and thus,neglecting other crucial factors like human rights and freedom.If a country is well-developed,we cannot be certain that its people are happy with their quality of life.Why?Because we are not able to see if their basic rights are restricted,which may give them the capabilities to expand their freedom.
Moving on,a number of authors have recognised the HDI as a "redundant" invention to measure a country's development.Many of such studies have been exhaustively studied.Furthermore,these studies are assessed in different groups in countries.
Lastly,the two-year comparability to evaluate the level of development in a country makes the HDI even more unreliable especially with the growing trend of globalisation.
I agree with Haiqal that the period in between the process of publishing may have lead to that particular country being more developed and progressed further.
However,according to the news made by the United Nations last year,it seeks to improve the HDI by taking into consideration of gender equality and women's empowerment.In addition,it it involves a major reexmanination about the achievements of the human development approach,as well as continuing to address the challenges of the 21st Century.Therefore,we cannot completely abandon the existence of the HDI.
Keep it up people... lots of interesting points brought up :)
Even some new arguments on the strengths/limitations of the HDI that are not found in the textbk which shows me that you have done useful research ! :)
Remember to leave your name...
Huixiang
HDI is an index used by United Nation Development Index ( UNDP ) to measure the level of development in a country.But HDI does not provide an accurate assessment for LDCs. Because HDI takes economic well-being, health standard and education standards of a country. Therefore, it's is not accurate as they were estimated. HDI also fails to take into account the measurement of human rights and freedom
HDI is the most accurate when it is used to a DCs.
I agree with peijun that HDI are not accurate as time lag was not taken into consideration.
Thus, I agreed with Pei Jun that with the limitations of HDI, it is not a reliable indicator to determine the level of development in a country.
WAITHONG
HDI is often used to determine whether the country has reached a certain kind of development based on mainly factors like health standards, economic well-being and education standards. Although some of these factors can determine the level of development of the country, it is still not reliable due to the fact that some parts of the country might not have modern technology and therefore unable to access their health standard and economic well-being.This also fail to take into consideration of human rights. I agree on Hong keng's comment because this is not a very accurate way to assess the development of a country
koh jia xing say that :
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country. It is calculated mainly based on factors such as health standards, economic well-being and education standard.From the comments earlier by my peers i believe they neglected ecological as a factor. The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including failure to include any ecological considerations, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective. Therefore i conclude that the HDI should take different aspect into account which would give a higher accuracy,as the developing world is no longer the same as the past.
Ivy:
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country by combines normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide.the closer the index is to 1, the higher is the level of development.
The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including failure to include any ecological considerations, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective. The index has also been criticized as "redundant" and a "reinvention of the wheel", measuring aspects of development that have already been exhaustively studied.The index has further been criticized for having an inappropriate treatment of income, lacking year-to-year comparability, and assessing development differently in different groups of countries.
Therefore, I agree with Rebecca Lai that HDI is not a reliable indicator of development as HDI is only effective and most accurate when it is used to acess DCs.
Human Development Index is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country. A nation's HDI is composed of life expectancy, adult literacy and Gross National Product per capita.Comparing the HDI rating with the traditional GNP per capita rating reveals some poor countries' remarkable progress in human development. These countries got more bang for their development buck by giving their aid to the most needy people. The comparison also shows that some countries, including the U.S., did not translate their wealth into social benefits. The HDI has had a significant impact on drawing the attention of governments, corporations and international organizations to aspects of development that focus on the expansion of choices and freedoms, not just income.
However HDI has been criticized as a redundant measure that adds little to the value of the individual measures composing it so it means it is not accurate but I have to agree to Marcus that it is impossible to obtain exact detail of each country’s development.
Used to measure the level of development of countries,the Human Development Index(HDI) is a composite scale that has three basic dimensions.Namely,the life expectancy,knowledge and education and the standard of living of the country.However,it fails to take into account other factors such as human rights and freedom,which play a prominent role in deciding the level of development of the country.Take for example,the HDI listing in 2008.Canada was ranked 3rd in the list which is a far cry compared to its weak 17th position on the Fraser Institute's Index of Human Development.The Fraser Institute index uses 10 indicators of human progress while the UN uses just four.One example of the indicators used is technology.It measures the number of televisions(per 1000 persons),number of radios(per 100 persons) and the telephone service(per 1000 persons) in the country.The availability of leisure goods indicate that citizens have choices about how to spend their time and money.Telephone service is included as an effective communcation infrastructure is vital for a country to soar beyond an average level of development.Furthermore,the HDI is flawed by its irrational adjustment of the GDP per capita.
In addition,the HDI is inaccurate in its assessing the level of development of countries where the economy is heavily dependent on informal trading and places where data is unavailable.Then,only estimates can be made to determine the incomes of the people there.
On the other hand,the HDI is not totally incompetent.It still is rather accurate in assessing the level of development of the developed countries and gives a rough idea of the level of development of the country.To conclude,the HDI does not produce optimum results , but is nonetheless a useful comparative measure of the well-being of a population.
According to Sherileen,the United Nations is making every endeavour to improve the HDI readings.Till then,the HDI is certainly unreliable in the results it produces.
J.Long:
Capitalized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Human Development Index (HDI) is used to pitch the level of development in a country. It takes into account the economic well-being of the people, the health standards as well as the education standards which are key factors in deciding the level of development of a country. The HDI is highly accurate when use to access the Developed Countries (DC) such as the United States Of America (USA), Norway and Australia. Such countries provide accurate data which is used to tabulate the HDI value. In Less Developed Countries (LDC), the HDI value is inaccurate in as data is unavailable. This affects the overall reading of the country’s HDI due to the fact that some information is not included. In addition, human rights and freedom are crucial in judging if a country is developed or not, which the HDI fails to take into account. No doubt that such factors are tough to measure, they are important in determining the level of development of the country. I affirm that HDI is not always a reliable indicator of development as based on my research; I’ve gathered information that some less developed parts of Africa are not able to report the exact value thus affecting the final reading of the HDI value.
I agree with Hong Keng that HDI is the only but not the best way to measure the level of development. Since it’s not the best way to measure the level of development, surely there must be other alternatives to do so…
Valerie Lee says:
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country. The HDI takes into consideration of three main aspects: Economic well-being, the health standards and the education standards of a country. It includes Income per capita,Employment Structure, employment opportunities, life expentancy, Infant mortality rate, water supply, sanitaion and literacy rate. Although HDI is widely used in assessing the level of development, it still does not provide an accurate assessment for each country. The HDI is most accurate when used in Developed Countries as it is easier to get hold of the data needed to calculate the HDI. The HDI fails to take into account of the measurement of human rights and freedom. It is not accurate as data is unreliable and it doesn't measure politics or gender equality.
Hence, I agree with Zhuang Min that HDI is not that accurate when it comes to the less development country as they are not developed enough to have the ability to provide accurate date and unable to save the data.
This comment has been removed by the author.
In my perspective, the HDI measure is an useful tool in helping to measure the level of development in a certain country by taking in consideration the main aspects-economic well-being, health standards and education standards. Although I have to say that HDI can be easily measured, there are a couple of limitations that made this widely used method of accessing the level of development in a country less reliable. As proven that data is easily obtained from DCs but otherwise for LDCs, the HDI is not able to provide an accurate value of HDI of a country. In rural areas especially, only estimates can be used to determine the HDI value. A report stated that "Life expectancy value for a country is the given is an average of the total population. There are many communities in the country that will not all have access to good healthcare services and so there will be variations of life expectancy values." To give an example, countries like Mali with a low HDI value of 0.333 reflects a low human development. As HDI fails to take account the measure of human rights and freedom of people in Mali,I believe that HDI should be use only as a guide due to its ineffectiveness.
source:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=470106
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Human_Development_Index
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lim Wen Yong
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country by combines normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide.the closer the index is to 1, the higher is the level of development.But it cannot measure the freedom that the people have in the country and the human rights that they have.
I agree with jing yi that HDI is not accurate in comparing the level of development in LDCs as LDCs dun have the type of basic system and economic power to follow the requirements of the HDI . Therefore i think HDI is not reliable indicator of development.
I feel that the HDI is simple, it makes it easier for users to understand what it means. There are three main criticisms of the HDI. First is the extreme way in which is discounts GDP. The simplicity of the HDI can be viewed as an advantage, at the same time also a disadvantage. Not forgetting that is has a time lag of 2 years and it also fails to take human rights and freedom into consideration. So what about countries that are extremely poor?
Yan Long:
The Human Development Index (HDI)is and index used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to measure the level of development in a country.
I think that the HDI is not a reliable tool to assess a country's development because
there is a two-year time lag in the data – the HDI for 2006 uses data from 2004 – and gaps are filled in various ways, typically by making assumptions based upon data available from the ‘peers’.
The HDI focuses attention on aspects of development more sensible and useful than the income per capita.
The HDI does not measure whether the money produced by the workers is actually improving people's lives and this is important because in many country where there are large increases in wealth over time but only small increases in happiness.
The HDI rarely takes into account the unofficial economy, which includes subsistence agriculture and cash-in-hand or unpaid work, which is often substantial in LDCs. In LDCs, it is often too expensive to accurately collect this data from the governments.
Lastly, the Gross National Product per capita(GNP) figure is usually measure in US dollars. Due to the changing currency exchange rates, it can distort the money's true street value. It is often converted using purchasing power parity (PPP) in which the actual comparative purchasing power of the money in the country is calculated. Hence it is not accurate when the HDI uses GNP to assess the level of development of a country.
In conclusion, I believe the HDI is NOT a reliable tool to assess a country's level of development.
I agree with Shi Li that the HDI focuses exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective. I hope there will be a better tool in future to assess the level of development of a country, so as to be fair to some country, be it DCs or LDCs.
HDI refers to the Human Development Index. It is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to measure the level of development in a country. It takes into consideration of economic well-being, health standards and education standards of a country. I disagree that the HDI is reliable as it may only be accurate in develop country than less develop country as they may not have stable income like farmers. HDI also do not measure the human rights and internal factors. The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including failure to include any ecological considerations, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective. Based on my research a redundant measure that adds little to the value of the individual measures composing it; as a means to provide legitimacy to arbitrary weightings of a few aspects of social development; as a number producing a relative ranking which is useless for inter-temporal comparisons, and difficult to compare a country's progress or regression because the HDI for a country in a given year depends on the levels of, say, life expectancy or GDP per capita of other countries in that year. In conclusion I agree with both fazillah and zhuang min that HDI is not realiable indicator and it is not really accurate.
Maisie Chew:
The Human Development Index(HDI) is an index that is used to measure the level of development in a country.
HDI takes into consideration of three main aspects. They are Economic well-being, the health standards and the education standards of a country.
HDI can be reliable but not always as it provides only an summary, indicators whether a country is developed or less developed. It fails to take human rights and freedom into consideration and it's not very accurate.
I agree with Yan Long that HDI focuses attention on aspects of development more sensible and useful than the income per capita and HDI does not measure whether the money produced by the workers is actually improving people's lives and this is important because in many country where there are large increases in wealth over time but only small increases in happiness. Therefore, HDI is not always reliable.
HDI is an index used by U.N.D.P to measure the level of development in a county.The indicators of HDI are health standards,economic well-beings and educations standards that determines the level of development.But HDI has its limitation which they are unable to measure example human rights and freedoms.The limitations are also important indicators for the development level of a country.
Thus i conclude that HDI is not a reliable indicators of development because it does not provide accurate reading for the development of a country.As some of the county can report fake document as they want to be rank on the top of the chart.
Lastly,i feel that numbers cannot represent the level of development of a county.
Valerie.Goh.
Kingston:
HDI is an index used by the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) to mesure the level of development in a country.
HDI takes economic well-being, the health standards and education standards of a country. These aspects are chosen because they can be easily measured and compared across country. However, due to the lack of technologies in some countries, data is unavailable. In addition, since majority of the economy in rural places relies on informal trading, only estimates can be used to calculate the income of the people living there. Therefore this shows that HDI is not very reliable. Moreover, HDI also fails to take into account of the most important measurement of a human life, and these factors are human rights and freedom. These factors are important to the extent that they also determine the level of development of a country.
Based on my research and opinion, i personally feel that it is only right to say that HDI is reliable however it is only to a certain extent as there are limitations to it. Coming to think of it, if a country is developed, it should have mordern technologies such as the computers, thus measuring and calculating would be easier compared to those developing countries that do not have technologies like us, hence calculating their HDI would somewhat be around there. However to be precise, HDI does not fully function well enough. The standard of living and quality of life is not taken into consideration. Perhaps, people living in the rural parts of the country are more happier and carefree compare to us living in the modern society with stress while working and studying...
Last but not least, i would have to agree with yan long,
The HDI does not measure whether the income of the workers is actually improving their lives. In relation, like i have mentioned earlier on, living in the modern society with computers and other modern fascinations does not necessary means you are satisfied with your living condition. Truly, huge increase in wealth may not always mean the same as huge increase in happiness!
Zhihao:
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country.
I think that the HDI is not reliable as it is unable to give an accurate value of HDI in rural places. It also does not take into account freedom and human rights.
I agree with Kingston that the HDI is not reliable to a certain extent and that the lack of modern technology limits the usefulness of HDI in developing countries.
Siew Ming:
As we all know,
HDI - Human Development Index is an index used by United Nations Development programme(UNDP) to measure the level of development in a country.
It takes into account for 3 main aspects:Econmic well-being,health standards and education for the country.HDI also combines three basic dimensions: life expectancy where by a person is expected to live in the country , knowledge and education as measured by the adult , standard of living,as measured by the natural logarithum of GDP per capita.
As what Valerie Goh had mention,there also could be fake documents reported when accessing the repot.Therefore,is not always accurate.
HDI also doesnt take into account of the measurement for the rights and freedom for the people in the country.Althought it is difficult to measure these factors,human rights and freedom are important in determining the level for development in the country.
Shawn
HDI refers to Human Development Index, which is used to measure the level of development in a country.
The HDI takes into consideration of three main aspects: Econmic well-being,health standards and education standards.
These aspects were chosen because they can be easily measured and compared across countries, this proves that they are reliable but on the other hand, there are also limitations of the HDI which causes criticisms.
Data used to measure the HDI are easier to obtain in DCs but not LDCs because LDCs do not have the good facilities and technologies. The HDI also fails to take into account for the measurement of human rights and freedom, therefore the HDI was proven not to be totally reliable.
I agree with everyone that the HDI is not accurate or reliable and i read that the HDI are criticised for things that they did not take into account but nothing is always perfect. I believe that when the HDI was first introduced, many people would praise UNDP for coming out with HDI but over time, as people start to find faults in HDI, the crowds would start to complain and criticise how lousy the HDI can be.
Felicia:
HDI (Human Development Index) is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme to rank countries by "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is developed, developing or undeveloped countries.
The HDI combines normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment and GDP per Capita for countries worldwide. It is claimed as a standard means of measuring human development—a concept that, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), refers to the process of widening the options of persons, giving them greater opportunities for education, health care, income, employment, etc. The basic use of HDI is to measure a country's development.
In my opinion, I feel that HDI is not a reliable index to measure the development of the countries.Firstly, HDI is most accurate when it is used to assess the developed countries. However, in developed countries, it is easier to obtain data needed to caluclate the HDI. This is because they have up to date facilities and technology to save the data. Conversely, some LDCs do not have facilties and technology to save the data.
Secondly, HDI also fails to take into account the measurement of human rights and freedom. Although there is a difficulty to measure these factors, human rights and freedom are important in determining the level of development in a country.
Thirdly, due to the time required for international agaencies to collect, compile and publish the data, there is a time lag between the time of publishing and the year of the data published. There will be a lag of two years. For example, a UNDP report published in 2005 will reflect data from 2003.
The index has further been criticized for having an inappropriate treatment of income, lacking year-to-year comparability, and assessing development differently in different groups of countries. criticized the way scores in each of the three components are bounded between zero and one, so rich countries effectively cannot improve their ranking in certain categories, even though there is a lot of scope for economic growth and longevity left. criticized as a redundant measure that adds little to the value of the individual measures composing it; as a means to provide legitimacy to arbitrary weightings of a few aspects of social development; as a number producing a relative ranking which is useless for inter-temporal comparisons, and difficult to compare a country's progress or regression because the HDI for a country in a given year depends on the levels of, say, life expectancy or GDP per capita of other countries in that year.
I agree with Sherileen that when the earth keep rotating every day, it will grow the globalisation trend everyday. When globalisation keep growing,the index will be unreliable to measure the level of development of the countries. Therefore, i believe that UNDP will improve HDI index, making it more reliable to measure the level of development in countries.
This comment has been removed by the author.
VIVIAN-
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country.
It's not reliable due to failure to include any ecological
considerations, focusing exclusively on national performance and
ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global
perspective. Two authors claimed that the human development reports
"have lost touch with their original vision and the index fails to
capture the essence of the world it seeks to portray". The
index has also been criticized as "redundant" and a "reinvention of
the wheel", measuring aspects of development that have already been
exhaustively studied.The index has further been criticized for
having an inappropriate treatment of income, lacking year-to-year
comparability, and assessing development differently in different
groups of countries
Economist Bryan Caplan has
criticized the way scores in each of the three components are
bounded between zero and one, so rich countries effectively cannot
improve their ranking in certain categories, even though there is a
lot of scope for economic growth and longevity left,
"This effectively means that a country of immortals with infinite
per-capita GDP would get a score of .666 (lower than South Africa
and Tajikistan) if its population were illiterate and never went to
school."Scandinavian countries consistently come out top on the
list, he argues, "because the HDI is basically a measure of how
Scandinavian your country is."
The HDI has been criticized as a redundant measure that adds
little to the value of the individual measures composing it; as a
means to provide legitimacy to arbitrary weightings of a few aspects
of social development; as a number producing a relative ranking
which is useless for inter-temporal comparisons, and difficult to
compare a country's progress or regression because the HDI for a
ountry in a given year depends on the levels of, say, life expectancy
or GDP per capita of other countries in that year.
However, each year, UN member states are listed and ranked according
to the computed HDI. If high, the rank in the list can be easily
used as a means of national aggrandizement; alternatively, if low,
it can be used to highlight national insufficiencies. Using the HDI
as an absolute index of social welfare, some authors have used panel
HDI data to measure the impact of economic policies on quality of life
.
i agree with everyone that HDI is not reliable.
Hui Pin
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country.The HDI combines normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide.
The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including failure to include any ecological considerations, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective.The index has further been criticized for having an inappropriate treatment of income, lacking year-to-year comparability, and assessing development differently in different groups of countries.The HDI has been criticized as a redundant measure that adds little to the value of the individual measures composing it; as a means to provide legitimacy to arbitrary weightings of a few aspects of social development; as a number producing a relative ranking which is useless for inter-temporal comparisons, and difficult to compare a country's progress or regression because the HDI for a country in a given year depends on the levels of, say, life expectancy or GDP per capita of other countries in that year.
Therefore, i conclude that HDI is not a very reliable indicator of development, but i think that researchers are trying to inprove on the negative ponts.
HDI can only use as an index of development but it not an useful indicator.The closer the index is closer to 1 it show the higher the level of the country is developed.But HDI does not provide an assessment for every country.It not accurate as it only estimate but does not provide an accurate assessment of level of development in the country.HDI also fails to take in account of human rights and freedom as human rights and freedom is also an important indicator of level of development in the country.other than HDI there are other more suitable alternatives and indicators to measure the development of a country which will be better than HDI.Hence i say HDI is not an reliable indicator of develpment as it does not acess the full development of a country well.
Post a Comment
<< Home