The concept of development has changed over periods of time and gained momentum particularly after

the end of World War two. The establishment of the United Nations (UN) brought about a new
dimension to this concept in international relations. This essay will discuss how the measurement of
development has changed over time and use the latest HDI report to analyze Namibia’s level of
development.

Gross National Product (GNP) is one of the measurements of developments that is used. GNP is simply
the total market value of all final goods and services produced by a country in one year. It is a measure
of economic activity, or how much is produced in a country. The more that a country produces per
person, the more "developed" it is assumed to be. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is equally used to
measure development in a country. GDP is s how much money a country makes from its products over
the course of a year, usually converted to US Dollars. The sum of gross value added by all resident
producers in the economy + product taxes any subsidies not included in the value of the products
(Stephen, 2004).

In addition, economics have also over the years used the Gross National Product (GNP) and GNP per
capita of the national to measure its development. GNP is the GDP of a nation together with any money
that has been earned by investment abroad minus the income earned by non-nationals within the
nation. sGNP per capita is calculated as GNP divided by population; it is usually expressed in US Dollars.
It's a common indicator used for measuring development, but is imperfect as the calculation doesn’t
take into account certain forms of production, such as subsistence production. The human development
index (HDI) is another measurement of development that have evolved over time, HDI is composed of
three indicators: life expectancy, education which refers to adult literacy and combined secondary and
tertiary school enrollment and real GDP per capita (Potter, Binns, Elliott, & Smith, 2008).

The latest Human Development Index (HDI) released by the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) in 2019, indicates that Namibia is still a high-middle income-earning country, and competes well
with Botswana and South Africa, although it as serious gap between the rich and the poor. The report in
part does state that key among inequality drivers are unemployment among the youth, soaring above
40%; poor access to sanitation for the poor; as well as substandard housing for the middle-income to
poor and very poor groups. The country has managed to improve on its HDI from 1990 to 2018,
recorded at 0,579 to 0,645, respectively (UNPD, 2019).
 References

Potter, R. B., Binns, T., Elliott, J.A. & Smith, D. (2008). Geographies of development: An introduction to
development studies, 3rd Edition. Harlow: Pearson-Prentice-Hall.

Stephen, M. (2004). Indices and indicators in development: An unhealthy obsession with numbers?
USA: Earthscan Publication Limited.

UNPD (2019). Human Development Report 2019 Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today:
Inequalities in human development in the 21st century. New York: UNPD.