The annual Human Development Report, or HDR, has recorded with depressing regularity India's mediocre performance in seeking to improve the overall well-being of its people. The latest one, for 2014, is no exception. In the last five years (2008-13), India's performance on improving its Human Development Index (HDI) has been poorer than most of its peers in South Asia, and among Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, or the BRICS countries. By most estimates, China leads with a 10-rank improvement; Sri Lanka follows with five; Nepal and Indonesia score an impressive four; South Africa and Bangladesh manage two. If you look at decadal performance, after turning in a decent average annual growth in the HDI in the 1980s, the 1990s were a washout. In this century (2000-13), however, there has been a good comeback, perhaps thanks to the additional spur of the millennium development goals, or the MDGs.
Individual indicators show where action is needed. Among the nine countries mentioned above, in life expectancy, just one country, South Africa (56.9 years), which has been ravaged by AIDS, is behind India (66.4 years). The picture is the same in infant mortality, with only Pakistan (69 deaths per 1,000 live births) being behind India at 44. On maternal mortality, India's performance is a little better. Out of the nine, it is ahead of four (Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa and Indonesia) at 200 deaths per 100,000 live births. What is critical is that the Nepalese live longer and have a lower infant mortality rate. Thus, Nepal is moving ahead in the same way as Bangladesh has done in the recent past. Today, Bangladeshis also live longer (70.7 years) and have a lower infant mortality rate (33). Significantly, both Bangladesh and Nepal have far lower incomes (in per capita purchasing power parity dollars) than India. Indians earn more, but are not able to give themselves a better life.
If today things are not great, the portents are troubling. India is losing the education battle; among the nine, India is ahead of only Nepal (behind Pakistan, too) in terms of mean years of schooling. True, India now has almost universal school enrolment, thanks to government action - but it has high dropout rates as well, indicating the returns to schooling are not considered high enough. India spends a poor 3.7 per cent of its gross domestic product on health - and only two countries in this group - Pakistan (63 per cent) and Bangladesh (61.3 per cent) - have a higher out-of-pocket expenditure on health than India (59.4 per cent).
India's progress on certain indicators - in particular, reductions in the incidence of absolute poverty, the first and most important MDG - is notable, and is perhaps driven by a strong growth performance for much of the 2000s. However, the 2014 HDR should be the starting point for a robust internal discussion on the nature of post-2015 international development goals - the successors to the MDGs. Clearly, issues such as sanitation and health must remain on the agenda. But should other issues also feature as international comparators, and as outcome variables for foreign assistance? What about youth unemployment, for example, which has become particularly acute across middle- and low-income countries of late? India's robust performance on the first, income-related MDG, combined with its sub-par performance in most of the others suggests that a rethink about the objectives and outcomes of development planning is essential. A vibrant domestic debate should inform the Union government as the United Nations seeks to set post-2015 development goals.
