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the poverty gap between the rich and the poor. The human rights-based
approach can also ease the pain of trade-offs associated with development.
The human rights-based approach enables 'incremental trade-off, by which
no single right has to be curtailed from an existing level in order to raise other
rights' (Osmani, 2006). Reflecting such changes in development paradigms,
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have changed their
focuses towards more socially conscious development (Eide, 2006).
Indices of Social and Economic Development
In this era of globalisation, knowledge of the state of the social and eco-
nomic development of each nation has become highly sought-after informa-
tion. As mentioned above, information from each country typically has been
measured against indices created by economically developed nations. The
indices used to measure levels of development have become more complex
over time, from initially focusing on purely economic measurements such
as gross domestic product (GDP) per capita to later rating elements such as
literacy rates, levels of political freedom and the status of the environment.
The changes in measuring development and under-development are also
explored in Chapter 1. The deficiencies of relying on economic growth mea-
sures and per-capita income as measures of human well-being can be illus-
trated by the United Nations' Development Programme's 'development
diamond'. Two countries may have a similar GDP per capita but, when com-
pared to the other three indices on the 'development diamond', including life
expectancy, adult literacy and infant mortality, it becomes very apparent
that the countries may differ vastly in terms of quality of life (Yeung &
Mathieson, 1998). The United States Agency for International Development
(USAID) created a broader approach to measuring development using the
following variables: economic performance, competitiveness foundations,
health, education, environment and democracy and freedom. Sen (1999) con-
centrates on freedoms in his discussion of development and focuses on eco-
nomic opportunities, political freedoms, social facilities, transparency
guarantees and protective security. Sklair's (1995) five types of classification
used by international organisations to measure the level of social economic
development include income-based classifications, trade-based classifica-
tions, resource-based classifications, quality of life classifications and bloc-
based classifications. However, the fifth classification is disappearing today
as socio-economic blocs (i.e. socialist economic systems versus capitalist eco-
nomic systems) are rapidly disintegrating and disappearing in the modern
world. Moreover, Sklair warns that all measures are theory-laden: '[t]his is
particularly the case for quality of life, for the ways in which the quality of
life is measured, and specifically the role and definition of basic needs, virtu-
ally define our concepts of development within the global system' (1995: 23).
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