Human Development Index (HDI)

Variables in Calculating HDI
When calculating HDI the Human Development Report Office examines four things:
1. They look at the life expectancy from birth rate, or how many years a child expected to live as is estimated at the time of their birth.
2. The literacy rate for all people above age 15 is looked at.
3. The percentage of the population that has combined attendance to primary and secondary schools in the country.
4. The piece of data that is considered is the country's GDP per capita in U.S. dollars.

While these numbers do provide measurable data that can be examined from one country to the next, they do leave out the qualitative things of life, such as the gender equality or human rights, in each country which do also play a role in the real HDI.

Geographic Patterns of HDI
The countries in the high Human Development Index range include the MDCs, or the most developed countries. These countries are primarily in the Northern Hemisphere, specifically in North and Middle America and Europe.
In the middle are the medium Human Development Index countries which include the counties of Asia, Northern Africa, South America, and the Middle East.
Finally, the trend for countries with the lowest Human Development Index, is that they are primarily all within Sub-Saharan Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa and HDI
Almost every country in Sub-Saharan Africa is on the Low Human Development Index list. I think that this rating comes from the fact that the life expectancy for many of these countries such as Sierra Leon, Central African Republic, and Ethiopia are all under 50 years of age. Barely half of the population is literate and less than half of the population goes to school. I think that as we discussed in class, Sub-Saharan Africa has very little room for an industry of any kind. They cannot afford to farm or have a textile industry, so there are no jobs there. Without the schooling and literacy skills, Sub-Saharan Africans have little prospect of finding jobs related to the growing technological industry, so there is very little income available for them to use. Since Sub-Saharan Africa has such a low GDP per capita, they cannot afford substantial health care and therefore do not have a high life expectancy. There is no way for them to break the loop of lack of education, lack of jobs, lack of money, lack of health care, placing them in a perpetual state with a low Human Development Index. This problem is a sad reality, and I do not really know what could be done to help them out of this state. I think that it is important to help people, if we have the resources to do so, but the aid from the U.S. also inhibits the industries available to Sub-Saharan Africans. I think that we can only do our best, pray a lot, and just trust God to work his will in their lives through us.