GEOG2400 SPRING 2000 THE GEOGRAPHY OF WORLD DEVELOPMENT

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GEOG2400 SPRING 2000 THE GEOGRAPHY OF WORLD
DEVELOPMENT

• CLASS 3 Indicators of Development

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Indicators of what?

• Indicators of development are the variables we
  can quantify that allow us to make meaningful
  comparisons between nations or groups with
  respect to their relative standings.
• Whether an indicator measures positive or
  negative levels of development determines what
  its value means i.e. what it says if the numbers
  are high or low.
• Does it try and measure beneficial or prejudicial
  dimensions of development?
• Does it try and capture how far an entity still
  has to go or how far it has progressed?
• i.e. (0.0 x) or (1.0 x)

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Glass half empty?

• Deciding on appropriate indicators sparks fierce
  debate.
• Developing nations prefer indicators that give
  them the chance to show how well they are doing,
  not how poorly.
• Development workers want indicators that focus on
  improvement and not on decline (i.e. that set
  positive goals and articulate beneficial
  standings).
• Suites (indices) of indicators must be
  appropriately grouped to facilitate calculations
  and interpretations of what an index means.

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Some indicators
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Popular Indices of Development

• GDP/GNP per cap total wealth of a nation
  divided by its population (can be in adjusted
  PPP or non-adjusted form).
• Physical Quality of Life Index used life
  expectancy at birth, infant mortality and
  literacy (popular in the 1970s).
• Index of Social Progress (Estes, 1988) uses 46
  separate variables to try and include such issues
  as political participation and stability.
• Human Development Index (UNDP, 1991) very
  similar to the PQLI, but instead combines income,
  life expectancy, educational opportunity and
  literacy.
• The HDI is used by the UN for their annual report
  on the state of the world (your text).

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Development Indices

• Difficult to develop meaningful combinations.
• Nations may be consistently high scoring,
  consistently low scoring, or more commonly, may
  vary rank enormously depending on the mix of
  indicators.
• Depends on how strongly the suite of indicators
  favors economic, social or cultural factors.
• What can be the purpose or value of development
  indices?
• Allows us to categorize nations better based on a
  broader notion of development achievement.
• Allows us to capture and track real progress over
  time.
• Permits us to develop more objective criteria for
  the allocation of international aid, debt relief,
  and so forth.