THE CONTEXT: India ranks 132 out of 191 countries and territories on the 2021\-22 Human Development Index, tracking the global decline in human development. Ninety percent of countries have registered a reduction in their Human Development Index (HDI) value in 2020 or 2021, reversing much of the progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX (HDI) VALUE FOR 2021: AN OVERVIEW
- India’s Human Development Index (HDI) value for 2021 is 0.633, which put the country in the medium human development category.
- The global trend is toward a continued decline in human development, with many countries stagnating or moving down through the human development categories.
High human development economies like the Philippines and Venezuela have slipped to a medium development category. Latin America, the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia have been hit particularly hard. India’s HDI value continues to exceed South Asia’s average human development.
- European states like Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden remained the top performer.
ABOUT HDI
- HDI’ was started in 1990 as a composite measurement of development that challenged purely economic assessments of national progress.
- The HDI is a measure for assessing human development based on three basic dimensions:
- a long and healthy life
- access to knowledge
- access to a decent standard of living
- It captures inequality in the distribution of human development across the population at the country level.
FINDINGS ON INDIAN PERFORMANCE
- Life expectancy: In 2021, India’s life expectancy at birth was recorded at 67.2 years.
- Schooling: Expected years of schooling at 11.9 years, mean years of schooling at 6.7 years,
- Gross National Income: The gross national income per capita stood at USD 6,590.
- Gender Inequality Index: India has been ranked 122 on the Gender Inequality Index.
A NEW UNCERTAINTY COMPLEX
The COVID-19 pandemic, beyond its damage to people’s health and mental well-being, has also devastated economies and exacerbated gender inequality. Gender inequality witnessed a near-global rise – the world suffered a 6.7 percent increase in gender inequality. South Asian economies like Bangladesh and Bhutan bucked the trend and registered an improvement.
The report also suggests that stress, sadness, anger, and worry have been increasing over the last decade, now reaching record levels. On average, countries spend less than 2 percent of their healthcare budgets on mental health, which limits access to mental health services for citizens globally.
Uncertainty, inequality, and insecurity go hand in hand with polarization and lack of trust. Polarization and mistrust shrink our capacity for social dialogue and stifle collective action. Globally, less than 30 percent of people think most people can be trusted, its the lowest recorded value.
The world is not transitioning to a post-Covid-19 build-back-better scenario. On the contrary, developing countries in every region are entering a sharply divergent social, political, and economic period with especially sharp downside risks for the most vulnerable and regression in gender equality.
HOW CAN INDIA IMPROVE ITS RANKING?
- Developing and empowering human capital should be the top priority of the government. For this, health and education should be on the government’s priority list.
1. HEALTH
SDG Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
CURRENT SITUATION
- The Centre and states spend approx. 1.2% of GDP on health in 2015-16, which is well below the world average of 5.99 per cent.
- Due to low investment in health and due to high out-of-pocket expenditure (85.6%, which according to the World Bank is among the highest in the world), nearly 60 million people are pushed further into poverty and into the poverty trap from that they are unable to escape.
- IMR (Infant Mortality Rate) which was 81 in 1990 reduced to 40 per 1,000 live births in 2015 (SRS, 2015). However, it still is much higher than the global average for the same period of 33.6 per 1,000 live births (World Health Statistics 2015).
- MMR (Maternal Mortality Rate) was reported at 174 in 2015 than 215 in 2010 (World Bank). Still, in absolute numbers, nearly 45,000 mothers die due to causes related to childbirth every year which accounts for 17% of such deaths globally.
- India has one of the lowest density of health workforce; with density of physicians (7 per 10 000 population) and nurses (17.1 per 10 000 population) as against the global average of 13.9 and 28.6 respectively (World Health Statistics, 2015).
- Government started the ‘Ayushman Bharat’ programme for providing the health insurance to the poor people but Solution of Indian healthcare crisis lies in “preventive and promotive” Healthcare instead of focussing on only “curative” healthcare.
- The country at present suffers from the triple burden of disease —
- The unfinished agenda of infectious diseases.
- The challenge of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), linked with lifestyle changes.
- Emergence of new pathogens causing epidemics and pandemics.
HOW TO IMPROVE HEALTH STATUS IN INDIA
A well-nourished and healthy population is necessary for building a futuristic workforce. Here, a four pronged approach is required:
- Raise public healthcare spending to 3 per cent of GDP;
- Increase commitment to Non-communicable diseases at par with infectious diseases;
- Develop a sustainable mechanism to fund universal healthcare;
- Build a robust referral and preventive healthcare mechanism to reduce the burden on tertiary care.
Leverage technology to transform public health. Modern technology has great potential in bringing efficiency in service delivery and enhancing the reach of the health services. Mobile technology holds great promise especially due to its ubiquitous nature.
2. EDUCATION
SDG Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning.
CURRENT SITUATION
NATIONAL HEALTH POLICY 2017
✔ It aims at achieving universal health coverage and delivering quality health care services to all at affordable cost.
✔ The policy is patient centric and quality driven. It addresses health security and make in India for drugs and devices.
✔ The policy proposes raising public health expenditure to 2.5% of the GDP in a time bound manner.
✔ It aims to raise public healthcare expenditure to 2.5% of GDP from the current 1.4%, with more than two-thirds of those resources going towards primary healthcare.
✔ It aims to reduce the total fertility rate (TFR) to 2.1 at the sub-national and national level by 2025, the mortality rate (MR) of children under 5 years of age to 23 per 1000 by 2025 and the maternal mortality rate (MMR) to 100 by 2020. It also aims to reduce the infant mortality rate to 28 by 2019 and reduce neo-natal mortality to 16 and still birth rate to ‘single digit’ by 2025.
✔ The policy talks about yoga in preventive healthcare system.
- The government spent nearly 3% of GDP on Education, which is lower than other developing and developed nations. World Bank data shows that countries like Brazil and South Africa were spending at least 6% of their GDP on education. The Kothari Education Commission had recommended an allocation of 6 percent of GDP on education, which has never been achieved.
- India ranked 104 out of 149 countries on the Legatum Prosperity Index 2016. The index takes health and education along with other measures of prosperity.
- There is a mismatch between learning outcomes and education spending trends. According to the 2016 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), the percentage of children in standard five who can do division has declined from 42.5% in 2007 to 26% in 2016, while the percentage of those who can read a standard two text has worsened from 53% in 2006 to 48% in 2016.This decline has happened despite enhanced spending on school education.
- The problem of absenteeism of teachers is still a problem in India. According to a study, 23.6% of teachers in India’s government-run schools in rural areas were found absent during unannounced inspections.
- Spending on teachers training has one of the lowest priorities in expenditure.
- The educational system is out of tune with the job market despite having skill India programmer. Being placed at a poor 105 out of 130 nations in the WEF human capital index ranking clearly shows this. India is placed much below China, ranked 71st, and even Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka are better placed than it.
HOW TO IMPROVE EDUCATION STATUS IN INDIA
- There is a need to increase public spending on education at least to 6% as recommended by Kothari Commission.
- Increasing government spending alone, in education is not enough to improve educational outcomes. There is need to put in place better accountability and monitoring mechanisms to exploit the gains of increase in fiscal outlays on education.
- Also, the need is to overcome institutional inertia and outdated socio-cultural norms so that the gap between widening skills gaps and skilling systems can be bridged.
- Some structural changes which are needed for transforming education :
- Integration of higher education with skills and vocational education;
- Attracting the most credible talent to the teaching profession;
- Building global recognition to the education system; and
- Streamlining regulation to attract credible private sector entities to education.
INDIA LEAD THE WAY
- The report confirms that a business-as-usual policy and programmatic response are not tenable in the current circumstances.
- The report recommends implementing policies that focus on 3 Is – investment — from renewable energy to preparedness for pandemics and insurance—including social protection— to prepare our societies for the ups and downs of an uncertain world. While innovation in its many forms—technological, economic, cultural—can also build capacities to respond to whatever challenges come next.
- “Policies that focus on the 3Is will enable people to thrive in the face of uncertainty. India is already a frontrunner in these areas with its push towards renewable energy, boosting social security for the most vulnerable and driving the world’s largest vaccination drive through Co-WIN, supported by UNDP.
- Over the last decade, India has lifted a staggering 271 million out of multidimensional poverty. The country is improving access to clean water, sanitation, and affordable clean energy.
- India has also boosted access to social protection for vulnerable sections of society, especially during and after the pandemic, with a 9.8 percent increase in the budgetary allocation to the Social Services sector in 2021-22 over 2020-21.
- India’s international contributions to sustainable development continue to grow. A leader of the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster-Resilient Infrastructure, India is a champion of South-South cooperation and emerged as a major global supplier of COVID-19 vaccines and medicines. India’s climate leadership is demonstrated by its ambitious targets and commitment to net zero by 2070.
- The world’s largest democracy is also fast-tracking the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs at the national and sub-national levels to meet the ambitious goals.
THE WAY FORWARD
It is virtually impossible to learn future skills for future jobs. Even the best crystal gazing is unlikely to predict the changes across industries. However, there are certain quintessential for making a future ready workforce which should not be ignored by the government –
- A well-nourished and healthy population
- Access to high-speed internet,
- Multidisciplinary learning
- design thinking
- Data Science
- Information filtration capabilities.
The government requires investing quantitatively as well as qualitatively in human capital.
New Dimensions Need Inclusion: although, it is true that the concept of human development is a broader one than the traditional concept of development. But there are many other aspects such as civil and political rights, environmental quality, food and nutrition security, job security, health security and energy security should be added in the HDI.
Looking beyond the HDI at the Quality of Development.
THE CONCLUSION: HDI bring out a very real and necessary picture about India but India needs much more to achieve the vision of the superpower. The investment in human capital is the best option in this regard. Health and education will be the first basic inputs to develop and sustain a healthy, highly skilled workforce.
MAINS PRACTICE QUESTION
- What is HDI? Evaluate India’s performance amidst the pandemic with respect to indicators of HDI.
- Analyze the factors responsible for its consecutive low rank of India in the Human Development Index.
