World inequalities in the Human Development Index (1980-2012) - Time Distance View

This blog, by Pavle Sicherl, is about a Gaptimer measure, which helps perceive inequalities using time distance methodology, and presents the Gaptimer Report No. 1. This post is a part of the Wikiprogress series on Inequalities.

Inequalities in the world, between and within countries, are - together with the environment - the critical issues for the 21st century. Official data from the 2013 UNDP Report for 187 countries are here analysed and presented by the novel generic time distance methodology. The main proposition is that people compare over many dimensions and over time. The time distance perspective can thus contribute a useful piece of the mosaic in building up an internationally supported methodology to measure and assess the overall “position” and “progress” among and within countries. It offers a new view of data that is exceptionally easy to understand and communicate, and it allows for developing and exploring new hypotheses and perspectives. The analysis deals mostly with the first part of the statement of Aristotle, “Let us first understand the facts, and then we may seek the cause”.

Much effort has been invested in building statistical databases at a national and international levels, and in the notionally related field of Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Measurement is costly and it is important to exploit existing data efficiently for building knowledge and for policy debate.

Describing and perceiving inequalities in terms of percentages and ranks is not enough. Development processes take place in time and to get additional insights from existing data we complement the static measures of inequality by measuring the gap in time when two compared countries achieved the same level of the indicator (i.e., the HDI level of 0.55 was attained in China in 1996 and in India in 2011, showing S-time-distance lag of 15 years behind Sweden). For life expectancy the static difference for China against Sweden was less than 10 percent (which may appear to be small) while the time distance was around 50 years (which gives a very different perception of the magnitude of the gap, the life expectancy in China in 2012 was attained in Sweden in 1964).

Gaptimer measure gives the perception of larger inequality in HDI than percentages

The time distance methodology applied to Human Development Index opens new dynamic vistas of inequalities in the world. Empirically, when comparing across indicators and across time, static and time distance measures can give different perceptions of the order of magnitude of inequality within and between countries, so both dimensions matter. Gaptimer Report No. 1 ‘World Inequalities in Human Development Index (1980-2012)’ presents a new way of understanding and discussing development and world inequalities in a new dynamic framework.

In the study, Chapter 2 presents the time distance methodology on the example of inequalities in life expectancy. Chapters 3 and 4 analyse trends in HDI and its components over the three decades (1980-2012) for four human development groups. The time matrix table-graph below is an innovative way of added presentation of time series data over many units and over time (descriptors are units and levels of the indicator and the values in the field of the table are times when such levels were attained). Further details can be attained in the presentation on www.gaptimer.eu/summary by groups. 

S-time-matrix: The world view over 4 HD groups and 4 indices (trends 1980-2012)

SOURCE: Own calculations based on data from Human Development Report 2013.

Chapter 5 presents S-time-distance estimates for HDI inequalities within the four groups for 187 countries. Further details on time matrices for HDI, S-time-step as a measure of dynamics, and time distance inequalities within HD groups can be obtained in the presentation www.gaptimer.eu/time matrices by countries. For interested users the time matrices for countries can be obtained in the Excel format at www.gaptimer.eu/esm1.zip. Telling new stories in Chapters 6, 7, and 8 includes inequalities within EU27, BRICS countries, and Gulf Coordination Council countries, respectively.

Conclusions

Gaptimer approach is a new way of seeing the past reality revealing new stories and options how to treat and interpret inter-temporal distances and dynamic changes in composite indicators.

S-time-distance gives a rough perception of the magnitude of world inequality expressed as gap in time that can be rather different from the respective percentage measure.   The time distance between the HD groups (or countries) measured in years (or even decades) are relevant statistical descriptive measures of the situation easily understandable by everyone, balancing the static view. It indicates both the challenge of the starting point in the post-2015 agenda and the urgency to tackle inequalities between and within countries.

Potential users of this methodology and results are very many at various levels: international and national organisations, NGOs, experts, businesses, managers, educators, students, interest groups, media, and the general public. It can be used for other types of units like gender, regions, poverty groups, or inequality adjusted HDI, if data would be available.

Pavle Sicherl is Founder of Sicenter (Socio-economic Indicators Center) and professor of economics at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

See Also:

Time Distance Progress Chart of MDG implementation
Gaptimer Progress Chart of MDG implementation 2013

Issues for a Global Human Development Agenda

Issues for a Global Human Development Agenda is a new paper from the Human Development Report Office at UNDP. Building on a wealth of Post-2015 reflections and analysis, the paper discusses some of the key issues that need to be tackled in making the development agenda Human Development-focused. We argue that looking at progress through a human development lens could contribute to a coherent framework that many hope will underpin the next set of development goals.

The world of 2013 is different from that of 2000 and the next set of development goals needs to reflect this. Our planet is more global - more interconnected - than ever before. What happens in one country affects others. Major crises – food, financial and climate – blight the lives of billions. Issues that were a concern in 2000 have risen in urgency. And the development landscape has changed too: nations that are home to almost three-quarters of the world’s poor are now classified as middle income countries. Just some of the changes we need to keep in mind when we consider the next global development agenda.

But do we even need a new set of goals? What could they achieve? At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, we use goals because we hope they can help achieve global sustainable human development. We may all hold different views about what sustainable or development means in practice, let alone how to achieve it, but - as a lowest common development denominator - few in the world would argue against the basic sentiment. Therefore, goals are useful if they can help achieve this.

And a set of development goals can contribute in several ways – from focusing attention to mobilizing resources to making governments more accountable. But it is important to remember that one of the distinguishing features of the MDGs is that they are a set of goals… not a collection of disparate targets. In the paper we argue that by focusing on the whole, rather than the sum of its parts, setting goals could be instrumental in promoting a more holistic view of development. One that encourages whole-of-government and multi-sectoral thinking. One that lays out the linkages between the different areas. So let’s not try to construct a set of goals one target at a time. Let’s build a coherent set instead. Thankfully the Human Development approach can help with this.

At the same time, and as debate continues about whether the goals should be universal or targeted, there are a number of issues that just about every country is grappling with. Issues that must surely have a place in the next set of development goals.

• How can development be sustained within the planet’s boundaries?
• How can poverty—in all its dimensions—be reduced for this and future generations?
• How can decent employment be provided for all?
• And how can inequity, within and among nations, be reduced?

We believe the HD approach can help not just with goal setting, but can also help government and societies design the policies needed to address these challenges. The HD approach can help ensure that development challenges are tackled in a way that recognizes their complexity. And these problems are nothing if not complex. The approach can also promote a coherent set of economic, social and environmental solutions that complement, rather than contradict, one another.

Development goals and indicators must be chosen to ensure that the root causes of development challenges are addressed, not just their symptoms. The smartest indicators will provide national policy-makers with support and focus, without dictating the specific actions they need to take: local problems often require local solutions.
Our paper touches on other issues too, ranging from the importance of new global governance arrangements to the different roles (and types) of goals and targets. You can read the whole thing here

We welcome your comments.

Jon Hall

This blog first appeared on the HDRO Human Development Blog site on 20 March 2013

Human Development Report: a glass half full

This ProgBlog article written by Susan Nicolai is part of the Wikiprogress Post-2015 series.

Questions over whether the glass is half full or half empty seem to be a common backdrop these days in the world of international development. With the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) deadline of 2015 fast approaching, and prospects of very few targets being met, a kind of angst is leaving many to wonder whether there is greater cause for optimism or despair. At first glance, a quick appraisal presents a depressingly mixed picture, with the biggest emerging story being persistent inequalities both within and between countries. Not terribly encouraging.

Yet the 2013 Human Development Report (HDR) – ‘The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World’ – sits firmly in the glass half full camp, even in the face of unmet targets and an unequal world. What has put it there? First of all, much of the report’s analysis is framed by a view that considers the starting rather than the finish line, that is, life for many on the planet is better than it used to be, even if it doesn’t yet look as it should. Second – and although there’s a clue in the title, this needs a drumroll – the report lays claim to a kind of ‘delta’ of development, presenting the case for how ‘the South as a whole is driving global economic growth and societal change for the first time in centuries’. We’ll come back to this.

But first, the evidence laid out in the report does a pretty good job of justifying its optimistic lens. Most strikingly, it shows that more than 40 developing countries have outpaced expected gains in human development in recent decades – going beyond the better-known growth stories like those of the BRICS(Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to include a number of smaller countries such as Chile, Ghana and Thailand. Analysis presented includes the following:

• Worldwide, the proportion of people in extreme income poverty fell from 43% to 22% between 1990 and 2008, meaning the first of the MDGs, on poverty eradication, has been achieved ahead of schedule.
• The South’s share of the middle-class population expanded rapidly between 1990 and 2010, rising from 26% to 58%.
• Fourteen countries have recorded rates of progress of more than 2% on the Human Development Index annually since 2000, with Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia perhaps unexpectedly at the top of this list.
• No country for which complete data are available has regressed from where it was at in 2000.

Not a bad run – yet amid this good news the bad is not ignored, with acknowledgement that, for many, the glass may still appear half empty. Severe poverty remains a problem for more than 1.57 billion people, and, while there have been reductions in inequality in areas such as health and education, income inequality is on the rise. Pockets of deprivation remain in every region of the world, and, as the report notes, ‘There is a “south” in the North and a “north” in the South’.

Geographical similes aside, and getting back to the main cause for optimism highlighted in the report, recognition of the rise of the South is significant, if not exactly breaking, news. The fact that there has been a dramatic rebalancing of economic strength increasingly places developing countries in the driver’s seat. This naturally leads on to questions of what works once countries are in this position. While the report’s exploration of some of the key characteristics is helpful – operating as a proactive ‘developmental state’, taking advantage of global markets, social policy investment and innovation – it is just a taster; a closer look at the where, how and who of progress is needed.

Luckily, a number of other efforts are underway to further explore and present what works in development. The Overseas Development Institute’s (ODI’s) Development Progress project, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Better Life Initiative and Princeton’s Innovations for Successful Societies  are but a few of these initiatives, with others highlighted on WikiProgress, a growing global platform for sharing information on progress.

Moreover, the changing face of Africa is a particularly hot topic at the moment, with a closer look at progress on the continent through the Africa Progress Panel, the campaign to See Africa Differently, recent research showing the strength of progress by African ‘lions’ and an Economist debate on how real the rise of progress is in Africa, among others. The changing role of the South in development is also beginning to receive its due consideration, and was the focus of a recent conference by ODI’s Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure.

Today’s report is another reminder that the world isn’t changing – it has already changed, and in many places for the better. The optimism of its message is important in maintaining momentum to further improve development outcomes and balance out frustration that poverty and deprivation remain. Clearly, countries across the global South are playing a central role in driving development and in shaping the global future.

This article first appeared on the ODI's Development Progress blog.

Thank you everyone who commented on our online consultation. - “Reducing poverty is achievable: Finding those who are hidden by inequalities”. In the end we got over 50 comments and we look forward to bringing you our report on the discussion in the coming months. If you still want to contribute then never fear, The discussion continues on #OECDgfd website http://bit.ly/13XwOgu.

The Wikiprogress Team