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The concept of development: Africa’s human development

Guest post by: African Development Bank

Article Overview: The concept of human development centres around the notion that human welfare depends on various dimensions, many of which are not well captured by conventional measures of economic income.

The concept of development: Africa’s human development

The concept of human development centres around the notion that human welfare depends on various
dimensions, many of which are not well captured by conventional measures of economic income (see Griffin and Knight, 1990; UNDP, 1990). Particular attention has been given to using measures of health
and education as welfare indicators in addition to GDP per capita. Education, good health and longevity
are intrinsically valuable outputs. In conventional measures of economic output, health and education’s
contribution is measured essentially by the costs of producing the outcomes, ie expenditures on schools
and medical facilities. Such a procedure identifies inputs rather than outputs. The valuation of both
health and education is difficult as both are goods with attributes different from most types of goods
produced in an economy. Whilst high incomes may be conducive to health, health cannot be directly
purchased like material goods and services. Health and education are often subsidised by the state and
in some countries education is compulsory for certain minimum length of times. Many, if not most,
health and education services are produced by the public sector. Governments play a direct part in
providing services very directly linked to human welfare.
In this paper, health outcomes are measured mainly through mortality statistics. Of these, life
expectancy at birth is perhaps the most comprehensive, depending as it does on the current agespecific
mortality rates for all age groups. Educational indicators are either stock or flow measures.
Stock measures of educational indicators include the literacy of the population, the average number of
years of education of the population and the extent of educational attainment by level. These measures
are appropriate for assessing the accumulated achievement of a country or for estimating the contribution
of education to economic performance. Flow measures are school enrolment ratios and measure
investment in the future capacities of the population.1
The UNDP has developed a composite indicator, the human development index (HDI),
which gives equal weight to three indicators: real GDP per capita (measured at purchasing power
parity in constant prices); life expectancy at birth; and educational attainment, measured by adult
literacy (two-thirds weight) and combined primary, secondary and tertiary enrolment ratios (onethird
weight) (see UNDP, 1997, p122 for details). The index is valuable in extending the economic
concept of welfare, but for many purposes it is more useful to focus on the individual components
of the index than the index itself. Africa has performed very differently in each of the three
dimensions of the welfare and the dimensions are not independent.
The most recent UNDP Human Development Report shows that Africa has the lowest level
of human development of any region but its income per capita is higher than that of South Asia.2
In what follows, we often compare Africa with South Asia. This comparison provides a useful
benchmark, since South Asia is the region most similar to Africa in terms of income and overall
development. For example, it is instructive to consider why Africa has a lower HDI than South
Asia despite having higher income. The proximate cause is the relatively low life expectancy at
birth of Africans.

Human Capital and Economic Development
Simon Appleton and Francis Teal

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Article Tags: age groups, capita education, conventional measures, economic income, economic output, economic performance, education services, educational attainment, educational indicators, good health, health health, health outcomes, human welfare, life expectancy, material goods, medical facilities, mortality rates, mortality statistics, school enrolment, services health



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