Human Rights EQ1 Flashcards
Traditional measures of development
- GDP: This is the monetary value of goods and services produced by a country within a year. (This fails to show the disparity between rich and poor. Subsistence farming is not included, which provides for many).
- GDP per capita: GDP divided by total population
- GNI: GDP including earnings from abroad
- HDI: This is a composite measure which considers life expectancy, education and GDP per capita. (It does not take into account environmental quality, inequality, democracy or national security).
In 2015, Qatar had the highest GDP
In 2015, Norway scored the highest for HDI
Alternative measures of development
- Happy planet index: This combines impacts on environment with the wellbeing of people, and considers the efficiency of resource use in improving people’s lives without damaging the environment
- World happiness index: This measures a country’s social support, generosity, life expectancy, corruption, GDP per capita and freedom to make choices
- Freedom index: This considers political rights, civil liberties and freedom status
In 2015, Costa Rica scored the highest on the Happy planet index
The 3 ways of measuring improvements in human development
- Rosling believed that economic growth is the best way to promote development (there is a correlation between GDP and life expectancy/HDI).
- He also accepted that human welfare (Sharia law) and governance (Bolivia) are essential for economic growth
Sharia Law
- This is the Law of Islam
- Muslims believe that God sent prophets and books to humanity to show them the way to happiness in this life, and success in the hereafter, and that the welfare of humans is based on the fulfilment: necessities and needs and comforts
Bolivia under Evo Morales
- Evo Morales became the first Bolivian president to come from it’s indigenous majority.
- He is an avowed socialist
- His election followed years of excluding indigenous people from the political system, an economy with rampant inflation, the selling off of State assets, and high levels of poverty.
- He transformed Bolivia. He renationalised Bolivia’s oil and gas industries, using profits to fund public works projects and programmes to fight poverty
- Extreme poverty has fallen by 43% as a result
How important is education?
- Education is central to economic development; a literate population is a population skilled in reasoning and cultural appreciation.
- Investment in education and health is therefore regarded as investment in human capital.
- Education is also central to understanding and assertion of human rights, and to democratic participation
- The International Bill of Human Rights passed by the UN was signed by 163 counties since 1948. It asserts that education is key to ‘the full development of the human personality and the sense of it’s education’, and education also enables all people to participate effectively in society.
- A lack of universal education can have long-term negative impacts on a country.
- Children vary in educational standards when they leave school, many without having acquired even basic educational skills. This lack of basic education then hinders the social and economic development of low-achieving countries- providing them with low levels of human capital
Variations in education
- Despite improvements in the numbers of children attending school worldwide, UNESCO has found that education is still inaccessible to over 60 million children of primary school age worldwide
- Children often don’t have access to education because of inequalities such as their gender, health or cultural identity
- Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of children without access to education (32 million primary school aged children in this region don’t have access)
- Among these countries, gender imbalance is significant, because girls make up 54% of the world’s non-schooled population. This is prevalent in cultures and tradition that give privileged treatment to males
There are variations in health and life expectancy in developing countries
- Africa is increasingly becoming a continent of contrasts. Considerable variations in both health indicators and average life expectancy still exist across Africa.
- There is a positive correlation between life expectancy and per capita income. This relationship is explained by the fact that with diminishing income, the following critical necessities of life become less guaranteed
Democratic Republic of Congo (example of developing country with lack of access to basic needs)
- DRC is one of the poorest countries in the world.
- It is country full of conflict since 1998, where many live in fear.
- Poverty is deeply established and ranked among the lowest countries in global HDI in 2014
- It is one of the richest countries in term of natural resources, however this has caused conflict with it’s neighbouring countries. This has had a large impact on food distribution and supply, and resulted in 6 million people dying from ‘lack of food’ related illnesses.
- Much of the issues result from unstable governance, civil conflict and power struggle
- 40% of children under the age of 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition
- The water supply for almost 50% of the population is ‘unimproved’, so water-borne diseases are rife
- The average life expectancy is 56
There are variations in health and life expectancy in developed countries
- Despite higher levels of economic development and income, there are significant national differences, for example life expectancies varying significantly between Eastern and Western Europe
- There are variations in wealth across developed countries; wealth determines diet, housing and healthcare; these effect health and ultimately life expectancy
- The lifestyles of the wealthy also carry health risks such as obesity, smoking, alcoholism and heart disease
- The type of healthcare system is significant too, whether it is a national health service or private. While it may seem that a national health service is better, there are variations in healthcare spending, which are reflected in the range of healthcare services and effectiveness
There are variations in health and life expectancy within countries
- The main factors that play are role in this are ethnicity, poverty and deprivation, lifestyle and healthcare. There is also another factor of government, whereby policies and interventions can have a profound impact on the other factors
UK (life expectancy and health varying within counties example)
By country and county:
- The differences between the three UK countries are small
- There are more than 15 years different in the healthy life expectancy of men in Richmond upon thames (London) and parts of Manchester.
By socio-economic group:
- Unskilled workers have a life expectancy 8 years lower than professional workers. This could be explained by differences in lifestyle and housing conditions, but also differing attitudes towards health and diet, as well as levels of safety at work
By ethnic group:
- There is generally little differences. The variations may be as result of differences in genes, but the factors mentioned previously may play a role too
The influence government decisions have on development (welfare states to totalitarianism regimes)
The links between economic development and social development are complex and vary greatly between countries of different types.
- Some countries are committed to a welfare state, whereby the wellbeing of all citizens is regarded as a priority and spending on healthcare and education systems is high. Examples include Norway and Sweden
- A few countries have prioritised other areas, such as military spending, as in North Korea, and others have Totalitarian regimes. This is where the political or ruling elite may allocate only small budgets to health and education as means of controlling people. Examples include China and Uzbekistan
- In 2015, China (totalitarianism/authoritarianism) spent 10% of total expenditure on health, compared to 17.3% in Australia (democracy) . This clearly shows the effect the type of government and their policies can have on the level of investment on health services, that will in turn potentially impacts the life expectancy and health of the population.
Aims of IGOs to improve environmental quality, health, education and human health
World Bank:
- They are a founding member of the GPE. This was created to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals
- The GPE invests in early childhood education and aims to develop a sound educational system for children through developing early reading and numeracy skills
- In 2015, the GPE invested over US$35 billion in it’s educational programmes
IMF:
- They imposed Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) to force the State to play a reduced part in the economy and in social welfare
- Since the 2000s, they have shifted to global poverty, though the Poverty Reduction Programme. This involves giving aid and loans to countries who develop their own medium-term development plan. For example they are working with the government of Haiti to implement a development strategy to enable it’s economy to become more resilient, particularly after Hurricane Matthew in 2016
WTO:
- Their policies have encouraged countries to increase trade as a way of promoting economic development and reduce their depts
- However this led to environmental problems such as land degradation, so aimed to tackle these issues too, for example restrictions on endangered or potentially harmful products and species, and challenging trade agreements that may have implications for climate change e.g forest clearance
Millennium development goals
These were a set of 8 goals created by the UN to be achieved between 2000 and 2015
