INTERNATIONAL

ORGANIZATIONS’ COUNTRY
CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS
 Human Development Index (HDI)

•was created to emphasize that people and their

capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for
assessing the development of a country, not
economic growth alone.
•can also be used to question national policy choices,
asking how two countries with the same level of GNI
per capita can end up with different human
development outcomes.
 a summary measure of average
achievement in key dimensions of
human development:
Human • a long and healthy life (health dimension)
• being knowledgeable (education
Developmen dimension) and
• have a decent standard of living.
t Index (HDI)
The HDI is the geometric mean of
normalized indices for each of the
three dimensions.
Human Development Index
(HDI)
• The health dimension is assessed by life expectancy at
birth
 Life Expectancy Index

Broader than the narrow metric of

the infant and child mortality, which
Life expectancy is a measure of
focus solely on mortality at a young
the key metric for assessing premature death, and it shows large
age, life expectancy captures the
population health. differences in health across the
mortality along the entire life
world
course. It tells us the average age of
death in a population.

Life expectancy at age 65 years old

Life expectancy at birth is defined as
is the average number of years that
how long, on average, a newborn
a person at that age can be expected
can expect to live, if current death
to live, if age-specific mortality levels
rates do not change
remain constant.
Human Development Index
(HDI)
• The education dimension is measured by mean of years of
schooling for adults aged 25 years and more and expected
years of schooling for children of school entering age.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/data

Education Index
• is calculated as the simple geometric average of two
indicators: mean years of schooling and the expected years
of schooling (UNDP, 2010, 2011).
Human Development Index
(HDI)
• The standard of living dimension is measured by gross
national income per capita.
GNI or Gross National
Income
• Gross National Income, or GNI, is the total amount of money
made inside a country, plus any income generated by
citizens living abroad and any foreign investment and aid.
Per capita translates to “per person.”
 The global Multidimensional Poverty
Index (MPI) produced by the United
Nations Development Programme
Global (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and
Human Development Initiative
Multidimensiona
l Poverty Index measures poverty by considering
(MPI) various deprivations experienced by
people in their daily lives, including
poor health, insufficient education
and a low standard of living.
Dimensions of Poverty Indicator Deprived if living in the household where… Weight

Health
Any adult under 70 years of age or any child for whom there is nutritional
Nutrition 1/6
information is undernourished.1

Any child under the age of 18 years has died in the family in the five-year period
Child mortality 1/6
preceding the survey.2,3

Education
No household member aged ‘school entrance age + six4 years or older has
Years of schooling 1/6
completed at least six years of schooling.

Any school-aged child is not attending school up to the age at which he/she would
School attendance 1/6
complete class eight.5

Standard of living Cooking Fuel The household cooks with dung, wood, charcoal or coal. 1/18

The household’s sanitation facility is not improved (according to SDG guidelines) or

Sanitation 1/18
it is improved but shared with other households.6

The household does not have access to improved drinking water (according to
Drinking Water SDG guidelines) or improved drinking water is at least a 30-minute walk from 1/18
home, round trip.7

Electricity The household has no electricity.8 1/18

At least one of the three housing materials for roof, walls and floor are inadequate:
Housing the floor is of natural materials and/or the roof and/or walls are of natural or 1/18
rudimentary materials.9

The household does not own more than one of these assets: radio, television,
Assets telephone, computer, animal cart, bicycle, motorbike or refrigerator, and does not 1/18
own a car or truck.10
Developed,
developing and • https://www.un.org/development/
least-develope desa/dpad/wp-content/uploads/sit
es/45/WESP2020_Annex.pdf
d countries-
by United
nation
References
• https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy
• https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-65.htm#indicator-
chart
• https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-94-007-
0753-5_840
• https://academy4sc.org/video/human-development-index-quantifying
-quality-of-life/
• https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2016/12/31/Classifica
tions-of-Countries-Basedon-their-Level-of-Development-How-it-is-Don
e-and-How-it-24628