In the 21st century measuring human development has been key in understanding people’s lives while assisting policy makers and organizations in decision making. A key measure has been the Human Development Index (HDI). HDI offers a holistic measure of development that incorporates three key dimensions of human development: Health, Education and Standard of living, into a single score ranging from 0 to 1, with 0 being the minimum value and 1 being the maximum value.
A long and healthy life is measured by life expectancy at birth, Education and Knowledge is measured by measured by expected years of schooling (for children of school entering age) and average years of schooling (for adults aged 25 and older), Standard of living is measured using the Gross National Income (GNI) per capital.
HDI has been termed the new GDP because of its emphasis on human development and not just the total value of goods and services in a country over time. HDI was first introduced by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) through the publication of the first annual Human Development Report in 1990
HDI TRENDS IN AFRICA
Let’s dive into the HDI trends for African nations:
🌍 Africa nations have an average HDI score of 0.557
🌍30 African countries are in the Low Human Development category
🌍16 in the Medium Human Development category
🌍7 in the High Human Development category
🌍1 in the Very High Human Development Category
⬆️ Seychelles tops African nations with a HDI of 0.802
⬇️ Niger has the lowest HDI with 0.394
For a deeper understanding, i created a simple African focused dashboard which allows policymakers, NGOs, businesses and global citizens to move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach and respond to the unique realities shaping human development in African nations through informed and impactful interventions
In Africa, HDI has steadily improved over the years as shown in the visualization below
CORELATION MATRIX OF THE HDI COMPONENTS
To understand what lies beneath the single HDI score, let’s explore the intricate relationships between the HDI of African Countries and its components using a correlation analysis done in R.
From the analysis, HDI has a strong positive correlations with all its components, ranging from 0.70 to 0.86. The strongest correlation is with GNI per capita (0.86), closely followed by Expected years of schooling (0.85). This suggests that economic factors and education opportunities are the most influential in determining a country’s HDI score. GNI is strongly correlated with Mean years of schooling (0.70), suggesting that economic prosperity and educational achievement often go hand in hand.
Life expectancy at birth, while positively correlated with HDI (0.70), has the weakest correlation among the components. This doesn’t diminish its importance; rather, it suggests that improvements in health might have more complex relationships with other development factors.
This correlation analysis provides valuable insights into the complex web of factors contributing to human development. While each component plays a crucial role, their interrelationships remind us that development strategies should be holistic, addressing multiple facets simultaneously for the most significant impact.
As we strive to improve human development globally, understanding these connections can help policymakers and development practitioners craft more effective, synergistic strategies to elevate the quality of life for people around the world.
