India climbed one spot to 129 among 189 countries in the 2019 human development index, according to a report released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on December 9.

In 2018, India’s human development index (HDI) value of 0.647 had put it at 130 rank.

Norway is on the top of the index, followed by Switzerland and Ireland. Among India’s neighbours, Sri Lanka (71) and China (85) are higher up the rank scale, while Bhutan (134), Bangladesh (135), Myanmar (145), Nepal (147), Pakistan (152) and Afghanistan (170) were ranked lower on the list.

In India, 27.1 crore people were lifted out of poverty from 2005-06 to 2015-16, UNDP India resident representative Shoko Noda said while releasing the report ‘Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today: inequalities in human development in the 21st century’.

India’s development initiatives like the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (for financial inclusion) and Ayushman Bharat (for universal health care) were crucial in ensuring that “we meet our promise to leave no one behind and fulfil PM’s vision of development for all,” she said.

Noda said India’s steady progress was due to nearly three decades of rapid development, which had seen a dramatic reduction in absolute poverty, along with gains in life expectancy, education and access to health care.

As per the HDI, no other region has experienced such rapid human development progress, she said.

What is the Human Development Index?

The HDI was created by the UNDP to emphasise that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone.

The HDI can also be used to question national policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of GNI per capita can end up with different human development outcomes. These contrasts can stimulate debate about government policy priorities.

The HDI is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalised indices for each of the three dimensions.

The health dimension is assessed by life expectancy at birth, the education dimension is measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and more and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age. The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita.

The HDI uses the logarithm of income, to reflect the diminishing importance of income with increasing gross national income (GNI). The scores for the three HDI dimension indices are then aggregated into a composite index using geometric mean.

South Asia registers big growth

South Asia was the fastest growing region, witnessing 46 per cent growth during 1990-2018, followed by East Asia and the Pacific at 43 per cent.

“India’s HDI value increased by 50 per cent (from 0.431 to 0.647), which places it above the average for countries in the medium human development group (0.634) and above the average for other South Asian countries (0.642),” Noda said.

Elsewhere in the region, Indonesia and the Philippines both joined the ranks of countries with high human development.

She said for countries like India, which had shown great success in reducing absolute poverty, “We hope that HDR 2019 sheds light on inequalities and deprivations that go beyond income. How we tackle old and new inequalities, ranging from access to basic services such as housing to things like access to quality university education, will be critical to whether we achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.”

South Asia also saw the greatest leap in life expectancy and years of schooling. For India, between 1990 and 2018, life expectancy at birth increased by 11.6 years, mean years of schooling increased by 3.5 years and expected years of schooling increased by 4.7 years. Per capita incomes rose by over 250 per cent, according to the report.

Beyond these gains in basic standards and capabilities, however, the picture becomes more complex, Noda added.

India home to 28% of the world’s poor

According to the HDI report, the incidence of mult-dimensional poverty varies enormously across countries and is still high. Out of the 1.3 billion multi-dimensional poor, 661 million are in Asia and the Pacific, which shares almost half of the multi-dimensional poor living in 101 countries of the world.

South Asia alone shares more than 41 per cent of the total number of multi-dimensional poor. Despite India’s significant progress, it accounts for 28 per cent of the 1.3 billion multi-dimensional poor.

Horizontal inequalities persist in India

There has been a sharp reduction in multi-dimensional poverty in India, the report said.  

Between 2005-06 and 2015-16 the number of multidimensionally poor people in India fell by more than 271 million.

On average, progress was more intense among the poorest states and the poorest groups.

Despite progress on human development indicators, horizontal inequalities persist, and their dynamics follow the same pattern described in the context of vertical inequalities in human development: significant gaps, convergence in basic capabilities and divergence in enhanced capabilities.

First, SCs and STs and Other Backward Classes underperform the rest of society across human development indicators, including education attainment and access to digital technologies. These groups have suffered from stigma and exclusion for centuries. Modern India has tried to constitutionally redress the disparities through affirmative action, positive discrimination and reservation policies for these groups.

Second, since 2005-06 there has been a reduction in inequalities in basic areas of human development. For example, there is a convergence of education attainment, with historically marginalised groups catching up with the rest of the population in the proportion of people with five or more years of education. Similarly, there is convergence in access to and uptake of mobile phones.

Third, there has been an increase in inequalities in enhanced areas of human development, such as access to computers and to 12 or more years of education. Groups that were more advantaged in 2005-06 have made the most gains, and marginalised groups are moving forward but in comparative terms are lagging further behind, despite progress.

India at 122 in gender inequality index

The report also found that despite progress, group-based inequalities persist in India, especially affecting women and girls. While East Asia and the Pacific ranks second highest on the gender development index, South Korea stood first in the region.

However, South Asia has the widest gender gap on the HDI among regions. Singapore has the region’s lowest incidence of intimate partner violence against women.

The report stated that a staggering 31 per cent of women in South Asia have experienced intimate partner violence.

India is only marginally better than the South Asian average on the gender development index (0.829 vs 0.828), and ranks at a low 122 of 162 countries on the 2018 gender inequality index.

“The next generation of inequalities is opening up, particularly around technology, education, and the climate crisis  These inequalities in human development are a roadblock to achieving the 2030 agenda for sustainable development,” the report stated.

For example, in countries with very high human development, subscriptions to fixed broadband are growing 15 times faster and the proportion of adults with tertiary education is growing more than six times faster than in countries with low human development, it said.

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