Comparing Human Development Patterns Across Countries: Is it Possible to Reconcile Multidimensional Measures and Intuitive Appeal?

The aims of this paper are two. The first is to to present a framework that facilitates the identification and analysis of human development patterns in terms of outcomes performance from a cross and time perspective. The second is to find a method that is effective in summarizing different dimensions that concerns human development progress. We consider human development progress as enhanced throughout virtuous synergies among positive human development outcomes and between these and `positive' economic outcomes. The methodology aims to take into consideration these synergies, while the theoretical framework captures different patterns of human development progress through the distinction between the social dimensions (SD) and the economic dimensions (ED) as `command over resources'. Although this framework is not a sufficient guide for policy, the research findings are an explicit recognition of the need to analyse and to integrate economic and social policies. Furthermore, the explorative empirical results highlight different human development patterns between countries and their connection to the different policies adopted by each country (e.g. by transition economies) and by the impact of different type of crises.Human Development, HDI, Multidimensional Index

Child Poverty Measurement: the Case of Afghanistan

This paper examines child poverty from a multidimensional perspective. The main goal is to apply a general methodology in order to measure child poverty as a deprivation of capabilities and achieved functionings. In the capability perspective, child poverty is intended as the lack of freedom to choose to do and to be what children have reason to value. Although the various approaches to conceptualising, defining and measuring poverty, several researchers underline the need for children to be separated from their adult nexus, and treated according to their own specificities. The case study is focused on Afghan children, and it is based on a survey carried out by Handicap International that took into consideration many dimensions of children’s wellbeing, including concepts that are usually missing in standard surveys.Afghanistan, Multidimensional poverty measurement, Capability Approach, Children

Dalle Capability Esterne alle Capability Collettive

The aim of this paper is to enhance the capability framework by building the link between external and collective capabilities. In the first part of the paper we concentrate on human obligation and the “care relationship”. In the second we focus on external capabilities and their connection to collective capabilities. The paper then focuses on the difficulties that collective capabilities encounter during their development.Disability Studies; Capability Approach, Collective action

An Integrated Framework for Child Poverty and Well-Being Measurement: Reconciling Theories

AbstractMultidimensional child poverty (MDCP) and well-being measures are increasingly developed in the literature. Much more effort has gone to highlight the differences across measurement approaches than to stress the multiple conceptual and practical similarities across measures. We propose a new framework, the Integrated Framework for Child Poverty—IFCP––that combines three main conceptual approaches, the Capability Approach, Human Rights, and Basic Needs into an integrated bio-ecological framework. This integrated approach aims to bring more clarity about the concept and dynamics of multidimensional poverty and well-being and to disentangle causes from effects, outcomes from opportunities, dynamic from static elements, and observed from assumed behaviours. Moreover, the IFCP explains the MDCP dynamics that link the resources (goods and services), to child capabilities (opportunities) and achieved functionings (outcomes), and describes how these are mediated by the individual, social and environmental conversion factors as specified in the capability approach. Access to safe water is taken as a conceptual illustrative case, while the extended measurement of child poverty and well-being among Egyptian children ages 0 to 5 as an empirical example using IFCP. The proposed framework marks a step forward in understanding child poverty and well-being multidimensional linkages and suggesting desirable features and data requirements of MDCP and well-being measures

Integrated local development in Mediterranean marginal territories: the case study of Casentino (Italy), Algarve (Portugal) and Corse (France)

Today, Mediterranean marginal territories are facing tremendous challenges but at the same time they have relevant endogenous resources, which are often underutilized and unexploited and that could be pivotal for the strategic recovery and economic and social development of the whole European territory. In the last decades, they have been characterised by a progressive abandonment in favour to urban areas, with consequent high social costs such as the hydrogeological instability, degradation and soil erosion. This research investigates the potential active role of Mediterranean "marginal territories" with respect to the re-formulation, adaptation, interpretation and implementation of the European development policies. The paper aims to verify the idea that Mediterranean marginal territories, in the sense of weak, mountainous and inland, could take part at the construction of their own development trajectories and actively contribute to the harmonious development of Europe, creating new jobs opportunities and stable development patterns. Moreover, the paper aims to formulate policy implications and strategies for the studied areas and for Mediterranean marginal territories more in general. The structure of this paper starts from general theoretical arguments and a short description of European policies for development; it follows with the diagnostic analysis of three local territorial contexts - i.e. Casentino (Italy), Algarve (Portugal) and Corse (France) - and then it comes back on the general European issues proposing implications and lessons learnt in the analysis of the development processes at the local level

Life project, peer counselling and self-help groups as tools to expand capabilities, agency and human rights

Abstract The aim of this article is to present the life project as a relevant and comprehensive tool towards expanding capabilities, agency and enforcing human rights for persons with disabilities. The first part analyses the theoretical elements common to the frameworks of the capability approach and the human rights perspectives, which are omnipresent at the implementation level in tools such as the life project, peer counselling and self-help groups. In the second part of the article, the relevance and the limits of the life project, peer counselling and self-help groups are examined

La Disabilità nell'Approccio delle Capability

In this paper, we introduce a framework based on the capability approach of Amartya Sen as a base to analyse the concept of disability in a dynamic context for the disabled person. In the first part the base for equality among human beings is discussed and a critical review of disability models presented. In the following part the concept of disability is redefined throughout the capability approach. The second part of the paper introduces new concepts in the capability approach framework. The aim is to try to explain the dynamics among expectation, adaptation, and change for a disabled person in the evaluative space of capabilities.Disability Studies; Capability Approach

China’s subnational policies and the performance of provinces towards meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

China has recorded impressive economic achievements driving the structural transformation of its society. However, this transformation is marked by rising inequality, environmental pollution and stark provincial disparities. In 2015, the launching of the Agenda 2030 provided a common ground at the international level conceptualizing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper analyses the provincial performances towards the Agenda 2030 in the period 2015–19 by introducing the integrated sustainable development index cluster; convergence and econometric analyses are then used to explore synergies and trade-offs among SDGs. The empirical results capture the dynamics of sustainable development of China’s provinces and provide a clearer understanding of how policies may influence different the SDGs’ achievements, exploring the relationship between environmental versus different aspects of development. These results are used to draw policy recommendations that highlight the importance of identifying the appropriate mix of strategies to promote integrated sustainable development