Occasional Speaker Series on Research Topics in Sustainable Development
"Rescuing Human Development from the Human Development Index"
Speaker: Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Research Fellow, Science, Technology and Globalization Project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Hosted by Prof. William Clark, Science, Environment and Development Group, Center for International Development
Thursday, 18 November 2004
12:00-1:30 pm
Lunch will be served
Perkins Room (Room 415), Rubenstein Building, KSG
RSVP required - please contact cid_events@harvard.edu if you plan to attend
The human development index (HDI) was created in 1990 by Mahbub ul Haq, Amartya Sen and Sudhir Anand to rival GDP per capita as a barometer of development progress. It has been quite effective in the purpose for which it was created: to shift policy attention to human well being as the end of development. The broad goal was to introduce an alternative paradigm of development. A number of elements in the way that the HDI was constructed and disseminated explain this success. But this experience also demonstrates the power of numbers as a communication device in shifting mindsets. But as work on the human development paradigm deepens, and tackles policy concerns about such dimensions of human well being as political freedoms, cultural choice, and human rights, the HDI and measurement tools have not developed at the same pace. Now, the success of HDI is undermining communication of human development as a paradigm.
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr is a Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs working on the socio-economic risks of agricultural biotechnology. For the last decade (1995-2004) she led UNDP’s Human Development Reports as director and lead author. She has written and spoken widely on a broad range of development policy issues, particularly human rights, poverty, technology, and capacity development. She is co-editor of Capacity for Development: Old Problems, New Solutions; and Readings in Human Development: Concepts, Measures and Policies for a Development Paradigm. She is founding editor of the Journal of Human Development: Alternative Economics in Action.
Background Documents:
Haq, Mahbub ul. 2003. "The Birth of the Human Development Index." Ch. 2.1 in Readings in Human Development, edited by Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and A. K. Shiva Kumar. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Secondary readings:
Sen, Amartya. 2000. "A Decade of Human Development." Journal of Human Development 1(1): 17-23.
Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko. 2003. "The Human Development Paradigm: Operationalizing Sen's Ideas on Capabilities." Feminist Economics 9(2-3): 301-317.
Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko. 2003. "Rescuing the Human Development Concept from the HDI: Reflections on a New Agenda." Pp. 117-124 in Readings in Human Development, edited by Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and A. K. Shiva Kumar. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
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Last revised 08/22/2007