Least Developed Countries
The common notion of development with the measure of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) as a yardstick of progress is sometimes misleading. Since the ratio between the rich and the poor and the wealth gap have to be considered as well, GDP fails to accurately convey the well being of the people of the country. A better measure of overall well being of a country is the Human Development Index or HDI that takes a broad view of the overall economic and social well being of the citizens of a country.
China
As the website on the composite HDI shows, “The HPI-1 value of 11.7 for China, ranks 29th among 108 developing countries for which the index has been calculated. The HPI-1 measures severe deprivation in health by the proportion of people who are not expected to survive age 40. Education is measured by the adult illiteracy rate. And a decent standard of living is measured by the un-weighted average of people without access to an improved water source and the proportion of children under age 5 who are underweight for their age”.
On the other hand, “The HDI measures average achievements in a country, but it does not incorporate the degree of gender imbalance in these achievements. The gender-related development index (GDI), introduced in Human Development Report 1995, measures achievements in the same dimensions using the same indicators as the HDI but captures inequalities in achievement between women and men”. The GDI index compares favorably for China that is at the 15th spot in the rankings of the countries.
Thus, it is amply clear that in both cases of HDI and GDI, China is doing a better job at alleviating poverty as well as the social life of its citizens. It is accepted among economists that a country while raising the GDP and growing faster needs to improve social infrastructure as well. As we shall see in the next section related to Brazil, that country though on a growth trajectory is unable to provide the much needed social services to its people. As sociologists point out, it is the combination of poverty and lack of social opportunity that provides for a deadly cocktail of social unrest.
Brazil
When one looks at the composite HDI for Brazil, it becomes apparent that it has failed to bring about a transformation in the social services space. According to the data, “The HDI for Brazil is 0.800, which gives the country a rank of 70th out of 177 countries with data”. Thus, Brazil ranks among the lower half of the countries in the proportion of people who have access to social services.
Brazil is the classic example of a LDC (Least Developed Country) that has posted high rates of growth in its GDP but has failed to bring about a substantial improvement in the measures like life expectancy, improving literacy etc. Even in parameters like PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) Brazil fails to live up to the expectations thus making its growth story hollow.
Brazil is often bracketed along with Russia, China and India giving rise to the acronym BRIC countries as a bloc of nations to watch out for in the 21st century. However, as we have seen it fails in the HDI indexes that are so crucial to the overall well being of the people.
Conclusion
We looked at a couple of countries that are on opposite sides of the development as measured by the HDI but are growing in terms of GDP. As the paper has pointed out previously, economists like Amartya Sen have maintained that unless a country improves on the measures like providing education, clean and safe drinking water and sanitation and other forms of social infrastructure, the possibility of further economic growth may be stunted due to lack of a pool of educated workforce and quality “human capital”.
The last statement is crucial as the LDC’s may lose out on growth trajectory and their growth rates may taper off unless they provide for the needed parameters in the human development indices. The HDI statistics tell an important story. There have been instances of countries in East Asia that have progressed significantly since the 1970’s and have managed to obtain a measure of progress in this front. However, the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa have stagnated to a large extent in this regard. And Brazil is one of those countries that are midway through the process of adjusting itself to the human element of development. China, on the other hand has made progress on the GDP as well as the HDI front making it a true powerhouse to reckon with.