Geography Long Answer questions (5 Marks)

Human development is a process that enlarges people’s choices and improves their lives. The four pillars of Human Development

• Equity
• Sustainability
• Productivity
• Empowerment

Equity involves equal opportunity for all the citizens to improve their standard of living in all areas of life. Growth and development should be in such a way that it is sustainable in the long term. This specially relates to the preservation of the environment. Productivity is important for efficient use of scarce resources. Productivity also results ill higher production which leads to better satisfaction of human wants. Empowerment relates to giving more power to the people so that they are able to strengthen themselves socially and economically.

Equity refers to making equal access to opportunities available to everybody. The opportunities available to people must be equal irrespective of their gender, race, income and in the Indian case, caste. It aims at providing equal opportunities to all with no special privileges or restriction to any person or group of persons. It is essential for human development to ensure access to resources in order to fulfill choices and lead a meaningful life.
For example, in any country, it is interesting to see which group the most of the school dropouts belong to. This should then lead to an understanding of the reasons for such behavior. In India, a large number of women and persons belonging to socially and economically backward groups drop out of school. This shows how the choices of these groups get limited by not having access to knowledge. Sustainability can be defined as “using resources in a way that fulfill the needs of present generation without compromising on their availability for future generations.” Sustainability refers to continuity in the availability of opportunities. To have sustainable human development, each generation must have the same opportunities. All environmental, financial and human resources must be used keeping in mind the future. Misuse of any of these resources will lead to fewer opportunities for future generations.
Example; If the key resource of coal is being overused by the present generation, it will lead to its paucity in future. When adequate coal will not be available to future generation, the power generation capability wifi be hindered which in turn will affect several infrastructural, industrial and other activities, which in turn will negatively affect the available choices and quality of life of future generations.

Dr. Mahbub-ul-Haq introduced the concept of human development. He described human development as a development that enlarges people’s choices and improves their lives. People are central to all development under this concept. These choices are not fixed but keep on changing. The basic goal of human development is to create conditions where people can live meaningful lives.
A meaningful life is not just a long one. It must be a life with some purpose. This means that people must be healthy, be able to develop their talents, participate in society and be free to achieve their goals by full access to resources, education and health facilities. There should be no hindrance to a person’s progress due to deprivation of life chances. Leading a long and healthy life, being able to gain knowledge and having enough means to be able to live a decent life are the most important aspects of human development. Building people’s capabilities in areas of health, education and access to resources is therefore, important in enlarging their choices. If people do not have capabilities in these areas, their choices also get limited.

The human development index measures attainments in human development. It reflects what has been achieved in the key areas of human development. Yet it is not the most , reliable measure. This is because it does not say anything about the distribution. The human poverty index is related to the human development index. This , index measures the shortfall in human development. It is a non-income measure. The probability of not surviving till the age of 40, the adult illiteracy rate, the number of people who do not have access to clean water, and the number of small children who are underweight are all taken into account to show the shortfall in human development in any region. Often the human poverty index is more revealing than the human development index.
Looking at both these measures of human development together gives an accurate picture of the human development situation in a country.
The ways to measure human development are constantly being refined and newer ways of capturing different elements of human development are being researched. Researchers have found links between the level of corruption or political freedom in a particular region. There is also a discussion regarding a political freedom index and, a listing of the most corrupt countries.

Some of the important approaches of looking at human development are:
(a) Income Approach: This is one of the oldest approaches to human development. Human development is seen as being linked to income. The idea is that the level of income reflects the level of freedom an individual enjoys. Higher the level of income, the higher is the level of human development.
(b) Welfare Approach: This approach looks at human beings as beneficiaries or targets of all development activities. The approach argues for higher government expenditure on education, health, social secondary and amenities. People are not participants in development but only passive recipients. The government is responsible for increasing levels of human development by maximising expenditure on welfare.
(c) Basic Needs Approach: This approach was initially proposed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Six basic needs i.ehealth, education, food, water supply, sanitation, and housing were identified. The question of human choices is ignored and the emphasis is on the provision of basic needs of defined sections.
(d) Capability Approach: This approach is associated with Prof. Amartya Sen. Building human capabilities in the areas of health, education and access to resources is the key to increasing human development.

The idea of human development is supported by the concepts of equity, sustainability, productivity and empowerment.
Equity refers to making equal access to opportunities available to everybody. The opportunities available to, people must be equal irrespective of their gender, race, income and in the Indian case, caste. Yet this is veiy often not the case and happens in almost every society. For example, in any country, it is interesting to see which group the most of the school dropouts belong to. In India, a large number of women and persons belonging to socially and economically backward groups drop out of school. This shows how the choices of these groups get limited by not having access to knowledge.
Sustainability means continuity in the availability of opportunities. To have sustainable human development, each generation must have the same opportunities. All environmental, financial and human resources must be used keeping in mind the future. Misuse of any of these resources will lead to fewer opportunities for future generations.
A good example is about the importance of sending girls to school. If a community does not stress the importance of sending its girl children to school, many opportunities will be lost to these young women when they grow up. Their career choices will be severely curtailed and this would affect other aspects of their lives. So each generation must ensure the availability of choices and opportunities to its future generations.
Productivity means human labour productivity or productivity in terms of human work. Such productivity must be constantly enriched by building capabilities in people. Ultimately, it is people who are the real wealth of nations. Therefore, efforts to increase their knowledge, or provide better health facilities ultimately leads to better work efficiency.
Empowerment means to have the power to make choices. Such power comes from increasing freedom and capability. Good governance and people-oriented policies are required to empower people. The empowerment of socially and economically disadvantaged groups is of special importance.

High level of human development group has 53 countries. Providing education and healthcare is an important government priority. Countries with higher human development are those where a lot of investment in the social sector has taken place. Altogether, a higher investment in people and good governance has set this group of countries apart from the others. Many of these countries have been the former imperial powers. The degree of social diversity in these countries is not very high. Many of the countries with a high human development score are located in Europe and represent the industrialized western world. Yet there are striking numbers of non-European countries also who have made it to this list.
Countries with medium levels of human development form the largest group. There are 42 countries in the medium level of human development. Most of these are countries which have emerged in the period after the Second World War. Some countries from this group were former colonies while many others have emerged after the break up of the erstwhile Soviet Union in 1990. Many of these countries have been rapidly improving their human development score by adopting more people-oriented policies and reducing social discrimination. Most of these countries have a much higher social diversity than the countries with higher human development scores. Many in this group have faced political instability and social uprisings at some point of time in their recent history.
As many as 43 countries record low levels of human development. A large proportion of these are small countries which have been going through political turmoil and social instability in the form of civil war, famine or a high incidence of diseases. There is an urgent need to address the human development requirements of this group through well thought out policies.