Blog Post #5

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a way of measuring development in a country and throughout the world. As a whole, HDI uses three basic characteristics to measure including health, knowledge, and a decent standard of living. Life expectancy is used for calculating health. Knowledge is based off the combination of the adults literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratios. Finally, the standard of living is figured through the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) dollars. The PPP takes into account the price differences between countries.

Through the human development index you can see the differences in development throughout the world. Over time, the human development has improved greatly. In 1980, practically all of Africa, Asia, and most of Europe had low human development. Just ten years later, most every country had improved and Russia jumped to high human development, but ten years following, fell back to low again. By 2000, most of Asia had reached a medium level of human development. The world is off balance when looking at HDI. North America, Australia, and Europe are pretty much all either in high or very high ranking for human development where as Asia and especially Africa are undoubtedly lacking. Although Asia is improving, Africa still struggles to this day with human development.

When looking at the HDI rankings, it didn't surprise me to find most of the low human development countries to be in Africa. Reasons for Africa's low human development may be unknown, but numerous factors may play a roll in the ratings. The fact that AIDS is spreading throughout several countries results in the health rates for calculating HDI to drop. Knowledge is hard to calculate because there are so many things to apply as knowledge or ignorance. Education in schools is very low due to affordability and adequate facilities. Besides that, most African people live in less than adequate homes or on the street because of the lack of money to afford better options. The amount of money a person makes each day in Sub-Saharan Africa cannot even be compared to the amount Americans make each hour. All these factors uncover a few of the reasons Africa is ranked so low in human development. Other countries are so well off; it is crazy to think that anyone living somewhere else, especially in the United States, can feel like they are without money when there are so many people elsewhere with so much less. Looking at these statistics really opens eyes for people who don't realize how blessed they truly are.