Reflections on the status of human development index in the Philippines

Human development is the process of increasing people’s choices by expanding their human capabilities, functioning and opportunities, and at the same time, raising the level of their achieved well-being in a sustainable manner. Human development therefore focuses on people and the satisfaction of their basic needs. United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) is regularly publishing their global Human Develop-ment Reports (HDRs) since 1990 to measure the country’s status in Human Development through Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI 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 through 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 is measured through GDP per capita (PPP US$). The value of HDI is ranging between 0 and 1.

UNDP has published their global HDR for the year 2013 entitled ‘The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World’, according to the report Philippines ranked 114th out of 187 countries with an index of 0.654. In 2011, the Philippines also ranked 114th with an HDI value of 0.651. In the Philippines, life expectancy at birth stood at 69 years, the expected years and mean years of schooling were at 11.7 and 8.9, respectively. The county’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita reached $3,752, while the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, $3,631. The UNDP said 18.4 percent of the country’s population lived below the poverty line of $1.25 per day during 2002-2011. 9% of the population is considered vulnerable to poverty while 5.7 percent is living in severe poverty.

The Philippines’ HDI was lower than Thailand (0.690), Malaysia (0.769) and Singapore (0.895), but was higher than Indonesia (0.629), Vietnam (0.617) and India (0.554). During 1980 to 2012 Philippines’s HDI rose by 0.4% annually from 0.561 to 0.654. The HDI of East Asia and the Pacific as a region increased from 0.432 in 1980 to 0.683 in 2012, placing Philippines below the regional average. 

The progress of increase in the value of HDI during last 33 years is observed very slow, as it took more than 3 decades to increase less than .1 in the value of HDI. If country will experience the same pace of increase in the value of HDI, it is expected that the Philippines will take minimum 60 to 70 years to enter in to High Human Development phase.

Despite the slow increase in the overall value of HDI in the Philippines, the Health Index, Education Index and Income Index were separately estimated as 0.773, 0.679 and 0.535 respectively for the year 2013. This suggests that development is not uniform among the three indicators of HDI. When one compares status of Education, Health and Income in the Philippines, it is observed that status of education and health is reasonably good, but status of income is comparatively lower among these three. To overall improvements in the value of HDI, along with education and health, government has to give proper importance and priority to income generation among the people.

In the recent past despite of economics boom in the Philippines, it has not trickled down, the economic growth into human development. During 1980 to 2013 the pace and intensity of increase in the value of HDI remains very slow compared to many Asian and South Asian countries. This may be due to weak implementation of various social security and social protection schemes in the country. The UNDP report noted that the various policies and significant investments in people’s capabilities — through focus on education, nutrition and health, and employment skills — can expand access to decent work and provide for sustained progress. It is evident from experience of many countries that there is a clear positive significant correlation exists between past public investment in social (which includes education, health, social security and social protection for socially and economically excluded) and physical infrastructure (which includes transportation and communication) and progress on the HDI.

Dr. Gaurang Rami is Visiting Professor at Cebu Normal University, Cebu City, Philippines; working as Associate Professor at Department of Economics, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat, India. The views expressed in the article are personal. E-mail: [email protected]