Paper and presentation by Kamal Malhotra, Senior Adviser, Inclusive Globalization, Bureau for Development Policy, United Nations Development Programme, New York, at the  Globalization, Law, and Development  conference at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, April 16-18, 2004. This paper covers the topic of defining human development, human poverty, recently neglected human development despite a long history, and measuring human development

Malhotra, Kamal

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University of Michigan School of Law

Michigan Journal of International Law Volume 26 Issue 1 2004 The Purpose of Development Kamal Malhotra United Nations Development Programme Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil  Part of the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Kamal Malhotra, The Purpose of Development, 26 MICH. J. INT'L L. 13 (2004). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil/vol26/iss1/1  This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Journal of International Law at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Journal of International Law by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact mlaw.repository@umich.edu. COMMENTTHE PURPOSE OF DEVELOPMENTKamal Malhotra*I. DEFINING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT .......................................... 13II. H UM AN POVERTY ...................................................................... 15III. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: RECENTLY NEGLECTEDDESPITE A LONG HISTORY ....................................................... 16IV. MEASURING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ...................................... 16V . C ON CLU SION .............................................................................. 18I. DEFINING HUMAN DEVELOPMENTPeople are the real wealth of nations, and the main goal of develop-ment is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long,healthy, creative lives. This may appear to be a simple truth. But for toolong, development efforts have focused on creating financial wealth andimproving material well-being. Forgotten in such pursuits is that devel-opment is about people. The preoccupation with economic growth haspushed people to the periphery of development discussions.The first Human Development Report, published by the United Na-tions Development Programme (UNDP) in 1990,' tried to reverse thattrend. With its concept of human development, construction of a measurefor it, and discussion of the policy implications, the report changed howthe world looked at development.People constantly make choices--economic, social, political, cul-tural. In principle, human choices can be infinite and change over time.But at all levels of development, the three essential ones are for people tolead a long and healthy life, to acquire knowledge, and to have access toresources needed for a decent standard of living.Human development is defined simply as a process of enlargingthese and other choices. The ultimate aim of development is not orshould not be to create more wealth or achieve higher economic growth.It is or should be to expand the range of choices for every human being.* Paper and presentation by Kamal Malhotra, Senior Adviser, Inclusive Globaliza-tion, Bureau for Development Policy, United Nations Development Programme, New York, atthe "Globalization, Law, and Development" conference at the University of Michigan, AnnArbor, April 16-18, 2004. I would like to thank my current and past colleagues at UNDP'sHuman Development Report Office, especially Selim Jahan, previously Deputy Director ofthat office, for their valuable contributions. I would also like to thank Ama Marston for herassistance in providing editorial and other assistance for this paper. The views expressed,however, are my own and do not necessarily represent UNDP policy.1. See UNDP, HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 1990 (1990).Michigan Journal of International LawThus, human development is concerned with enlarging choices and en-hancing their outcomes-and with advancing basic human freedoms andrights.Enlarging human choices is critically linked to two issues-functionings and capabilities on the one hand, and opportunities on theother. The functioning of a person refers to the valuable things a personcan do or be, such as being well-nourished, living a long and high-quality life, and actively taking part in community activities which bene-fit other people.The capability of a person refers to the different combinations offunctionings a person can achieve; it reflects the freedom to achievefunctionings. Enlarging peoples' choices implies formation or enhance-ment of existing capabilities. Human capabilities can, for example, beenhanced through human resource development, e.g., through the provi-sioning and achievement of good health and nutrition, education, andskill training.But capabilities cannot be used unless opportunities exist for the useof those capabilities, e.g., for leisure, productive purposes or social, po-litical, and cultural activities. Economic opportunities can be createdthrough better access to productive resources including credit and em-ployment while political opportunities need democratic space and othercivil liberties.Human development thus represents an equation, the left-hand sideof which reflects human capabilities and the right-hand side economic,political, and social opportunities to use those capabilities.2Defined in this manner, human development is a simple notion withfar-reaching implications and consequences:• People's choices are enlarged if they acquire more capabilitiesand have more opportunities to use them.* Choices are important for current as well as future genera-tions. For human development to be sustainable, today'sgeneration must enlarge its choices without reducing those offuture generations." Though important, economic growth is merely one means todevelopment-not the ultimate goal. Higher income can makean important contribution but only if it improves people'slives. And income growth is not an end in itself. Developmentmust be focused on people, and economic growth must be eq-uitable if its benefits are to be felt in people's lives.2. Id.[Vol. 26:13The Purpose of Development" Gender equality is at the core of human development. A de-velopment process that bypasses women, marginalizes half ofhumanity-or discriminates against it-thereby constrainswomen's choices." By focusing on choices, the human development concept im-plies that people must participate in the processes that shapetheir lives. They must help design and implement decisionsand monitor their outcomes.Human security is distinct from but contributes to human develop-ment.3 Security means safety from chronic hunger, disease, andrepression. It also means protection from sudden, harmful disruptions inthe patterns of daily life. In an economic context, it protects people fromthreats to their incomes, food security, and livelihoods:Economic growth is necessary but insufficient for human devel-opment. And the quality of growth, not just its quantity, iscrucial for human well-being. Growth can be jobless, rather thanjob creating; ruthless, rather than poverty reducing; voiceless,rather than participatory; rootless, rather than culturally en-shrined; and futureless, rather than environmentally friendly.Growth that is jobless, ruthless, voiceless, rootless and futurelessis not conducive to human development.4II. HUMAN POVERTYIf income is not the sum total of human development, then lack of itcannot be the sum total of human deprivation. So, from a human devel-opment perspective, poverty is also multidimensional. Beyond lack ofincome, people can be deprived if they lead short and unhealthy lives,are illiterate, feel personal insecurity, or are not allowed to participate ingovernment.Thus, human poverty is larger than income poverty. Human povertyis more than just a state: it is a process. People living in poverty deploywhatever assets they have to cope with it. A dynamic phenomenon re-produced over time and across generations, poverty is also the result ofstructural inequalities and discrimination-based on class, race, gender,and other characteristics-within and between countries.3. UNDP HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 1994 22 (1994).4. UNDP, MAKING GLOBAL TRADE WORK FOR PEOPLE 23 (2003).Fall 20041Michigan Journal of International LawIII. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: RECENTLY NEGLECTEDDESPITE A LONG HISTORYLooking at development through a human development lens is notnew. The idea that social arrangements must be judged by how muchthey promote human goods dates back to at least Aristotle, who said:"[W]ealth is not the Good we are in search of, for it is only good in be-ing useful, a means to something." He argued for seeing the "differencebetween a good political arrangement and a bad one" in its successes andfailures in facilitating people's ability to lead "flourishing lives."5 View-ing people as the real end of all activities was a recurring theme in thewritings of most early philosophers. The same concern can be found inthe writings of the early leaders on quantification in economics: WilliamPetty, Gregory King, Francois Quesnay, Antoine Lavoisier, and JosephLagrange, the grandparent of the concepts of gross national product(GNP) and gross domestic product (GDP). It is also clear in the writingsof the leading political economists: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, RobertMalthus, Karl Marx, and John Stuart Mill.The human development concept is an extension of that long tradi-tion and is broader than other people-oriented approaches todevelopment. The human resource approach emphasizes human capitaland treats human beings as inputs into the production process, not as itsbeneficiaries. The basic needs approach focuses on people's minimumrequirements, not their choices. The human welfare approach looks atpeople as recipients, not as active participants in the processes that shapetheir lives.Human development treats people as the subject of development, notthe object. It is both distinct from and more holistic than other ap-proaches to development. Development of the people builds humancapabilities. Development for the people translates the benefits of growthinto people's lives. And development by the people emphasizes that peo-ple must actively participate in the processes that shape their lives.IV. MEASURING HUMAN DEVELOPMENTAs a holistic concept, human development is broader than any of itsmeasures, such as the human development index. It cannot fully capturethe richness and breadth of the concept. Nevertheless, as earlier stated,three essential choices are those that allow people to lead long andhealthy lives, to acquire knowledge, and to have access to resources for adecent standard of living. The human development index (HDI) meas-5. ARISTOTLE, THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, Book I v. 8 (1982).[Vol. 26:13The Purpose of Developmentures these three basic dimensions of human development. Though notcomprehensive, it is better than other economic measures-such as percapita income-in assessing human well-being.HDI contains four variables-life expectancy at birth to representthe dimension of a long and healthy life; adult literacy rate and com-bined enrollment ratio at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels torepresent the knowledge dimension; and real GDP per capita to serve asa proxy for the resources needed for a decent standard of living.A number of observations are relevant to an informed analysis aboutHDI. First, as already stated, HDI is not a comprehensive measure ofhuman development. It merely focuses on the basic dimensions of hu-man development and does not take into account a number of otherimportant dimensions.Second, it is composed of long-term human development outcomes.It does not, therefore, reflect the input efforts in terms of policies nor canit measure short-term human development achievements.Third, it is an average measure and thus masks a series of disparitiesand inequalities within countries. Disaggregation of HDI in terms ofgender, regions, race, and ethnic groups can unmask HDI.Fourth, income enters into HDI not in its own right but as a proxyfor resources needed to have a decent standard of living.All the quantitative information about human development and itsvarious indicators constitutes what may be termed human developmentaccounting. This accounting has both a focus and breadth dimension.HDI, concentrating only on the basic dimensions of human development,represents the focus aspect of the accounting. All the data and quantita-tive information on various human development indicators represent thebreadth dimension of the accounting.HDI thus has limited scope. It cannot provide a complete picture ofhuman development in any situation. It has to be supplemented withother useful indicators in order to get a comprehensive view of humandevelopment. It is human development accounting, rather than HDI,which is more capable of portraying the complete picture. Yet, HDI hasits strengths. While it may be viewed as crude, just like GNP or GDP percapita clearly are, it is not as blind as GNP or GDP per capita to broaderissues of human well-being.Fall 2004]Michigan Journal of International LawV. CONCLUSIONThe objectives of human development were recently codified in theMillennium Development Goals.6 The goals set numerical, time-boundtargets for advancing human development in developing countries, in-cluding halving extreme income poverty and hunger, achieving universalprimary education and gender equality in primary education, reducingunder-five mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters, reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other major diseases,and halving the portion of people without access to safe water. Thesetargets are to be achieved by 2015, with reductions based on 1990 levels.As a result, human development, while not a new concept, is an im-portant one that has been placed at the core of ambitious UNdevelopment programs such as the Millennium Development Goals. Thisapproach is important in that it places people at the heart of develop-ment, allowing expansion of human capabilities and opportunities whileemphasizing that people must actively participate in the processes thatshape their lives. While important for all people, this is of particular im-portance for women worldwide, who have traditionally had less accessto opportunities and have often been excluded from defining develop-ment for themselves and their communities.6. G.A. Res. 55/2, U.N. GAOR, 55th Sess., at 1, U.N. Doc. A/55/L2 (2000).[Vol. 26:13

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