Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
low-levels of human development. Recently, the classification has been
extended to also include a 'very high' human development category. It
should be stressed that the HDI is a summary and not a comprehensive
measure of development. For example, over the years since its introduc-
tion various methodological refinements have been tried by the United
Nations, including the Human Poverty Indices 1 and 2, the Gender-
related Development Index and the Gender Empowerment Measure.
These are all variations on the basic Human Development Index. In
each case, additional variables were brought in to reflect the revised
index. HPI 1 and HPI 2 are explained in Chapter 1.4, along with the
recent development of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). In
2010, the Gender Inequality Index (GII) was introduced, looking at
disparities existing between males and females over the dimensions of
reproductive health, empowerment and participation in the labour
force, as shown in Figure 1.2.2B.
The Worldmapper depiction of global HDI around 2009 is shown in
Figure 1.2.3. The imbalance between the global North and South is
shown once more, but this time it is somewhat less pronounced than in
the case of GDP. Some of the features of the HDI are shown if we look
at the HDI scores and associated data for a selection of countries, as
displayed in Table 1.2.1. These data have been taken from the
2009
Human Development Report
(UNDP, 2009). It is noticeable that within
the 'very high' human development category, Qatar shows the highest
31
Figure 1.2.3
Human Development Index (size of country shows the
proportion of world human development accounted for by that country).
Source
: Worldmapper map number 173 © Copyright SASI Group (University of Sheffield)
