Activity 2: Development Policy-Planning for All People?
Introduction
Consensus emerged from the Cairo Conference that population and development are closely intertwined. Population indicators are frequently used as measures of development and population policy is generally a part of national development planning.
Many international groups attempt to measure levels of development and quality of life in the world's countries. Although age/gender-specific data is available, many popular sources, including many textbooks, still use only aggregate data—no distinction is made in terms of age or gender. Aggregate data, such as life expectancy or literacy rate, represent the total population without taking into account significant differences between sub-groups within the population. For example, in 2002, aggregate adult literacy in Turkey was 85 percent; but when broken down by gender, the rates were 94 percent for males and only 78 percent for females.
Aggregate data can disguise disparities in social conditions. As a result, the status of women and children can be lost in aggregate data, which is often the basis for policy formulation and decision making. Data that are disaggregated—by age, sex, residence, socioeconomic status—provide more detailed and useful information for identifying vulnerable groups and areas of greatest need.
One development ranking is the "Human Development Index" (HDI), published annually in the Human Development Report (HDR) by the United Nations Development Program. This report attempts to assess development and quality of life in terms broader than just economic measures. The HDI is based primarily on life expectancy, literacy, and gross domestic product per capita, although the final ranking is an aggregate of many different indicators.
Part One: What is the Human Development Index?
Materials Needed
- Reading: "Executive Summary from Women's Rights and Status: Questions of Analysis and Measurement" (UNDP)
http://www.sdnp.undp.org/gender/resources/mono7.html
- Computers with Internet access
- PowerPoint slide: "Human Development Index" (PPT: 41KB)
- Handout 1. "Evaluating the Status of Women and Children in Africa" (PDF: 17KB)
- Handout 2. "Data Collection Sheet" (6-8 copies per group) (PDF: 21KB)
- Handout 3. "Human Development Report 2004 Statistics" (Excel: 49KB)
Instructions
Review the reading "Executive Summary from Women's Rights and Status" and discussion questions from Activity One: The Cairo Conference. If the activity was not used, then have students complete this reading and lead a class discussion of the questions before beginning this activity.
- Introduce students to the Human Development Report and the Human Development Index (HDI). Use the PowerPoint slide to discuss the indicators that are the basis of this system of ranking countries in terms of development. Look at the countries in the HDI with the highest and lowest rankings. While the countries with low rankings may be predictable, the top-ranked countries may be surprising, especially the rank of the United States.
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What is HDI?
"The HDI—human development index—is a summary composite index that measures a country's average achievements in three basic aspects of human development: longevity, knowledge, and a decent standard of living. Longevity is measured by life expectancy at birth; knowledge is measured by a combination of the adult literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrolment ratio; and standard of living by GDP per capita (PPP US$)."
Source: http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/faq/#21 |
- Discuss some problems inherent in using the aggregate data that is shown in this table from the Human Development Report.
Part Two: Could Use of Aggregate Data in Development Assessment or Policy Planning Disadvantage Women and Children?
Materials Needed
- See materials in Part One.
Instructions
In this exercise, students will examine 22 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa to test for gender bias in the aggregate Human Development Index. [See Alternative Strategies (below).]
- Divide the class into groups of four to six. Distribute to each group a copy of Handout 1, "Evaluating the Status of Women and Children in Africa." Have students consider the categories included in the chart, drawing on the Executive Summary from "Women's Rights and Status: Questions of Analysis and Measurement." As a class, discuss how each of these indicators is gender sensitive. Have each group select six to eight indicators (at least one from each category) that they think would be most useful in measuring the welfare of women and children. [Note: The different groups do not have to choose the same indicators.]
- Direct students to the table of data for selected African countries taken from the HDR 2004 (Handout 3). Using data from the chart, complete a Data Collection Sheet (Handout 2) for each selected indicator. In addition to the African countries listed, note also the indicator values for All Developing Countries, High Income Countries, and the World for comparison. Also, be sure to note the HDI rank for each African country.
- Rank the 22 African countries from 1-22, in order according to each evaluation indicator, assigning "1" to that country that has the "best" indicator value and "22" to that country that has the "poorest" indicator value. If data are not available for any given country, leave it blank and exclude it from the ranking. Record the ranking for each indicator.
- Calculate a total score for each country by averaging each country's rankings to arrive at a composite ranking. Then use these averages to reorder the countries to reflect the status of women and children, based on the selected indicators. Enter the countries in a new table according to your new ranking. Also note in parentheses each country's relative HDI rank.
- Post the new charts with rankings from each group of students. Use the class charts and these new indices to evaluate the status of women and children in Africa.
- How do the countries of the Africa region compare among themselves? How do they compare with all developing countries? ... industrial countries? ... the world?
- How does the index of each class group compare with the Human Development Index? Did the indices created by the different class groups agree with each other? Why or why not?
- Evaluate this method of ranking countries? What are the benefits of an index? What are some weaknesses?
Alternative Strategies
Follow the steps in Part Two using a mix of more developed and less developed countries representing diverse world regions. Use the full HDI or the "build table" feature on the Human Development Report website to generate a new table with data for different countries.