December 11, 2004

 

                                                            Human Development

 

The United Nations publishes yearly a 367-page Human Development Report

Its tables, graphs and diagrams portraying for us the state of our development

 

It tells us, for instance, that forty percent of us lack access to adequate sanitation

A third of us lack access to electricity, and a fourth live in countries short of water  

That a fifth of us are living on US $1 a day, and a sixth have no access to safe water

That a seventh of us live in city slums, and that daily, an eighth of us go hungry

It notes that one out of every thirteen of us is less Adeveloped@ now than in 1990 

 

You immediately ask, of course, AWhat do they mean by >development=?@

The United Nations= definition of development is a composite of three items:

Life expectancy at birth B that is, once born, how long you are likely to live

AEducation@ B itself a composite of adult literacy and school enrollment

And Awealth@ B the products and services produced by the country=s inhabitants

 

With a human development index (HDI) potentially ranging from 100 to 0, countries

Are ranked in sequence B from #1: Norway (HDI 944), #7: the United States (937),

#63: Russian Federation (779), #65 Brazil (777), #104: China (721), #127 India (590)

Down to #175: Sierra Leone (275).  Countries which lack the relevant data are listed

Separately B Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Serbia and Montenegro, Somalia...

 

And now, you suddenly realize that Adevelopment@ is then a purely external matter

A view of humans as bundles of needs to be satisfied by means of goods and services B 

Food, housing, health care, education, information, skills, employment, transportation

And indeed, so it may be, for without the basic externals, how can inner life thrive?

Perhaps it is in countries with externals provided, that we should look for human values

 

Of the 24 countries in the highest development category (with an HDI from 944 to 892),

Two give no official development assistance to other countries (Iceland and Israel).

The United States, which has the largest population, ranks 18th, giving $40 per capita yearly. 

The range is from Luxembourg which gives $353, down to Greece which gives $19.

Half of the 24 countries, including the U.S., have decreased their assistance since 1990

 

Armaments might be an indicator of values.  Among the 24 most developed countries

Norway ranks first in worth of exports of conventional arms B $45 per inhabitant yearly. 

Israel ($29), France ($27), the Netherlands ($16), Austria ($15), the United States ($14)

Sweden ($13) and the United Kingdom ($12) follow suit.  Because of its large population

The U.S. is the largest exporter of conventional arms B $4,000,000,000 worth yearly

 

   


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Misleadingly, the Report omits mention of weapons of mass destruction.  In 1998,

The United States had the equivalent of 10 Hiroshima bombs per 10,000 of its inhabitants

The other three nuclear powers in the group of the 24 most developed countries

Were Israel with 3 Hiroshima bomb equivalents for every 10,000 of its population,

France with 1.5, and the United Kingdom, with 0.6.  The total: 294,000 Hiroshima bombs

 

Could trends in biological research within developed countries represent values?

I have no data for other countries, but the United States is conducting research on

Turning bacteria from harmless to lethal, making pathogenic virus more lethal

Synthesizing pathogenic virus Afrom scratch,@ reconstructing now extinct lethal virus

Developing food with antibodies against human sperm, and making insects toxic

 

How else to measure human values?  A look perhaps at the least developed country?

Sierra Leone has a population of 4,600,000 B 44 percent of which is under the age of 15

57 percent of which lives on less than $1 a day, and 47 percent of which is under-nourished.

A third of its newborns die before age five, 7 percent of its young adults live with AIDS

And its TB rate is 129 times that of the U.S.  It receives $73 per capita per year in aid   

 

Human values are indivisible B empathy, ethics, morality, creativity, spirituality, wisdom. 

Our Aless developed@ brothers and sisters have given us some of our greatest religions

How can the insights of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam

Judaism and Christianity be measured and tabulated, much less put in ranking order?

       How invisible the inner development of our fellow earthlings!

 

        How long can we survive not including human values in our concept of development?                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                     Definitions

 

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The gross national product (GNP) purports to measure the income-generating production of the residents of a country.  It equals the sum of consumer expenditures, gross investment outlay and government expenditures on goods and services.  There is no deficit side.  It thus includes the cost of weapons, stored or used, the sale of weapons and the cost of armies.  

 

The gross domestic product (GDP) is the GNP but including the interest and profit from income generated in the country which accrue to non-residents.  It thus gives priority to economic growth and investment at the cost of obscuring the needs of the population.

 

Neither measure contains indices referring to:

1.                  The goods produced and consumed by Aunoccupied,@ Ainactive@ (that is, not gainfully employed) women.

2.                  Investments in the care of children.

3.                  Whether the economy is in equilibrium.

4.                  The distribution of wealth within the country.

5.                  Environmental degradation.

6.                  People=s well-being.

7.                  Peace (Waring).

 

Human Development Index (HDI)

A composite measure of

Life expectancy at birth.

 

Adult literacy (2/3 weight) and combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio (1/3 weight).                                              

 

Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in purchasing power parity (PPP) U.S. dollars.                                                                         

 

Purchasing power parity is a rate of exchange which accounts for price differences across countries, thus allowing international comparisons of real output and incomes.  At the PPP US $ rate (as used in the UN Report), PPP US $1 has the same purchasing power in the domestic economy as $1 has in the United States (UN 2003, pp. 341 and 356).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sanitation

The percentage of the population without access to improved sanitation facilities is the percentage without access to adequate excreta disposal facilities, such as a connection to a sewer or septic tank system, a pour-flush latrine, a simple pit latrine or a ventilated improved pit latrine.  An excreta disposal system is considered inadequate if it is public (that is, not private or shared) and if it cannot effectively prevent human, animal and insect contact with excreta (UN 2003, p. 357).

 

Water Stress

Countries facing water stress are those consuming each year more than 20 percent of their renewable water supply (UN 2003, p. 125).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                     References

 

Human Development Report

United Nations Human Development Programme, Human Development Report 2003 B Millennium Development Goals, A Compact among Nations to end Human Poverty, (Oxford University Press, New York, N.Y.), 2003. 

 

Forty percent of us lack access to adequate sanitation    

UN 2003, pp. 103 and 253.                                                                           

In 2000, there were 2,400,000,000 people without access to improved sanitation out of a 2001 global population of 6,148,100,000 (39 percent).

 

A third of us lack access to electricity

UN 2003, pp. 126 and 253.

In 2000, there were 2,000,000,000 people without access to electricity out of a 2001 global population of 6,148,100,000 (33 percent).

 

A fourth live in countries short of water                   

UN 2003, pp. 10, 125 and 253.

In 2001, there were 1,700,000,000 people living in countries facing water stress out of a global population of 6,148,100,000 (28 percent).

 

A fifth of us are living on US $1 a day

UN 2003, pp. 40-41 and 253.

In 1999, there were 1,169,000,000 people living on $1 a day out of a 2001 global population of 6,148,100,000 (19 percent).

 

A sixth have no access to safe water

UN 2003, pp. 103 and 253.

In 2000, there were 1,100,000,000 people without access to safe water out of a 2001 global population of 6,148,100,000 (18 percent).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A seventh of us live in city slums

UN 2003, pp. 127 and 253.

In 2001, there were 924,000,000 people in urban slums out of a global population of 6,148,100,000 (15 percent).

 

Daily, an eighth of us go hungry

UN 2003, pp. 87-88 and 253.                        

In 2000, there were on any one day 799,000,000 people going hungry out of a 2001 global population of 6,148,100,000 (13 percent).

 

One out of every thirteen of us is less Adeveloped@ now than in 1990       

UN 2003, pp. 40, 242-244 and 253.

In 2001, people living in countries whose human development index (HDI) had decreased since 1990, numbered 467,300,000 out of a global population of 6,148,100,000 (8 percent). 

 

The countries were Armenia, Belarus, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cote d=Ivoire, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lesotho, Moldova, Russian Federation, South Africa,  Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Ukraine, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

 

With a Ahuman development index@ (HDI) potentially ranging from 100 to 0

UN 2003, pp. 237-240. 

Data are for 2001.

 

Countries which lack the relevant data

UN 2003, p. 339.

Countries listed separately are Afghanistan, Andora, Iraq, Kiribati, Democratic Republic of Korea, Libera, Liechtenstein, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Monaco, Nauru, Palau, San Marino, Serbia and Montenegro, Somalia, Timor-Leste, Tonga and Tuvalu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of the 24 countries in the highest development category

UN 2003, pp. 250 and 290.

 

                     Country           Population       Net Official                 Assistance           Rank

  Development Assistance      per capita

Disbursed                of Donor Country

(millions)    (millions, US $)               (US $)    

 (2001)              (2001)                        (2001)

 

Luxembourg         0.4                            141                                       353                   1

Denmark              5.3               1,634                             308                    2

Norway                4.5                1,346                            299                    3

Netherlands        16.0                3,172                            198                    4

Sweden                 8.9                1,666                            187                    5

Switzerland          7.2                    908                            126                    6

Belgium              10.3                   867                              84                    7

United Kingdom 58.9                4,579                              78                    8

Japan                 127.3                9,847                              77                    9

Finland                  5.2                   389                              75                  10

Ireland                   3.9                   287                              74                   11

France                  59.6               4,198                               70                  12

Austria                  8.1                  533                               66                  13

                          Germany              82.3                4,990                              61                   14

Canada                 31.0                1,533                              49                   15

Australia               19.4                   873                              45                   16

Spain                    40.9                1,737                              42                   17

United States     288.0              11,429                              40                   18

New Zealand          3.8                   112                              29                   19  

Italy                       57.5                1,627                             28                   20

Portugal                10.0                    268                             27                   21 

Greece                  10.9                    202                             19                   22

Iceland                    0.3                       0                      0                        23-24

Israel                       6.2                       0                            0                23-24

 

Half of the 24 countries have decreased their assistance since 1990

UN 2003, (p. 228) and p. 290.

These countries are (in order of their HDI rank) Norway, Sweden, Australia, Netherlands, Belgium, United States, Canada, Japan, Finland, France, Germany and Italy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Norway ranks first in worth of exports of conventional arms

UN 2003, pp. 250 and 304.

 

Country *        Population        Conventional           Arms Exports           Rank

                                                                         Arms Exports **       per capita of

(millions)             (millions)           Exporting Country

                                                                              (US $)                     (US $) 

    (2001)              (2002)                     (2002)

 

Norway                   4.5           203                         45                              1

Israel                       6.2                    178                         29                       2

France                   59.6                  1,617                        27                       3

Netherlands           16.0                     260                       16                       4

Austria                     8.1                    124                        15                       5

United States       288.0                  3,941                       14                       6

Sweden                    8.9                     120                       13                       7

United Kingdom    58.9                     719                       12                       8

Canada                   31.0                     318                       10                       9

Italy                        57.5                     490                         8.5                  10 

Finland                     5.2                       12                         2.3                  11

Denmark                  5.3                          9                        1.7                  12

Australia                19.4                        30                        1.6               13-14 

Spain                      40.9                        65                        1.6               13-14  

Switzerland              7.2                        11                        1.5                 15  

Belgium                  10.3                       14                         1.4                 16

Ireland                      3.9                         0                          0                 17-18  

Greece                     10.9                        0                          0                 17-18

 

*          There are no data for Germany, Iceland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Portugal.

 

**        At 1990 prices.                                               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Dumas, Lloyd, Lethal Arrogance B Human Fallibility and Dangerous Technologies (St. Martin=s, New York. N.Y.), 1999, pp. 16-17.

 

United Nations Human Development Programme, Human Development Report 2001 B Making New Technologies work for Human Development (Oxford University Press, New York, N.Y.), 2001, p. 197.

 

Country               Population           Number of           Hiroshima          Rank                                                                 (millions)      Nuclear Warheads        Bombs

                                                       (1997)              (1998)                   Equivalents*  

                                                                                                  (per 10,000 inhabitants)

 

United States         271.8              15,500                        10.3                   1      

Israel                          5.9                   100                          3.1                   2

France                      58.5                   482                          1.5                   3

United Kingdom      58.5                   200                          0.6                   4 

 

Total                       394.7           16,282                       7.5                -          

 

*          Assuming that each warhead contains a typical 4.5 kilograms of plutonium B that is, the explosive yield of 18.06 Hiroshima bombs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turning bacteria from harmless to lethal                    

The Sunshine Project, Background Paper #12, November 2003, p. 5.

See www.sunshine-project.org/publications/bk/bk12.html.

In 1986, a U.S.-based research team transferred the lethal factor from anthrax bacteria into the harmless gut bacteria, E. coli.  The E. coli began to produce the corresponding toxin which turned out to be as lethal as the natural one from the anthrax bacteria.                                                                                

 

Making pathogenic virus more lethal

The Sunshine Project, Background Paper #12, November 2002, p. 4.

In 2003, U.S. scientists at the University of St. Louis, used a genetic insert (another gene inserted) to boost the lethality of their genetically-engineered cow-pox virus.  The virus may also affect humans.

 

Synthesizing pathogenic virus

The Sunshine Project, Background Paper #12, November 2002, p. 5.

AFrom Scratch@: In 2002, a U.S. research team at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, synthesized the polio virus, producing a living, pathogenic virus Afrom scratch.@  The experiment was funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).

 

By altering a Related Virus: In 2002, A. Rosengard published the first steps of a technique which would permit the synthesis of a virus pathogenic for humans (such as the smallpox virus) by starting with a closely related virus (such as the monkey-pox or mouse-pox virus) and altering those base pairs and sequences which differ from the virus aimed at (smallpox), to make them similar to that virus.

 

Specifically, Rosengard started with the Vaccinia virus (related to the smallpox virus) and transformed one of its pathogenicity-producing genes into the corresponding smallpox gene by inducing targeted mutations of 13 base pairs.  The work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

The full sequence of at least two different smallpox strains are available on the internet.  One of these was published by an American team (Variola major virus strain Bangladesh 1975, GenBank code L22579).

 

 

 

Reconstructing now extinct lethal virus

The Sunshine Project, Background Paper #12, November 2002, pp. 6-7.

In the mid-1990's, Jeffrey Taubenberger from the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, began to screen preserved tissue samples from victims of the 1918 pandemic of  ASpanish flu@ B a pandemic which killed an estimated 20-40 million people worldwide.

 

In 1997, Taubenberger found that a sample of lung tissue from a 21-year-old soldier who had died, in 1918, at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, had intact pieces of viral RNA.

 

In 2001, teaming up with a microbiologist from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, the scientists began to reconstruct the Spanish flu virus.

 

By 2002, the scientists had:

1.                  Sequenced four of the eight viral RNA segments of the virus, including the two segments of greatest importance to the virulence of the virus B the genes for hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). 

 

2.                  Reconstructed a virus with two 1918 genes.  This virus was found to be much more deadly to mice than similar constructs containing genes from contemporary influenza virus.  The work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

Developing food with antibodies against human sperm

The Sunshine Project, Background Paper #12, November 2002, pp. 8 and 17.

On August 12, 2002, the company ProdiGene published a press release entitled, AProdiGene and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) beginning Phase I Study on Oral Vaccine derived from Transgenic Corn.@

 

Several U.S. companies are using genetically engineered crops (such as corn and tobacco plants) to produce industrial enzymes, growth hormones and other pharmaceutical compounds.  Engineered crops with growth hormone and trichosanthin have been field-tested.  Trichosanthin, a strong abortifacient, is a ribosomal inhibitor protein B like ricin, the poisonous protein in the castor bean.  Ricin has been developed as a biological warfare agent. 

 

The U.S. company Epicyte has genetically engineered corn to produce an antibody against human sperm.     


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making insects toxic

The Sunshine Project, Background Paper #12, November 2002, p. 9.

The use of insects to deliver biological warfare agents was explored by the United States, as part of its post World War II biological warfare program.  In the same way that genetically engineered plants may be used as Afood weapons,@ insects may be engineered to produce toxic compounds and deliver them by means of their natural feeding habits B for example, mosquitoes delivering toxic compounds through their saliva.

 

Techniques for the use of insects to deliver vaccines have been developed and patented.  On September 5, 2002, the Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, London, England, registered an application for such a Adelivery system= in the United States (U.S. patent application 20020124274).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sierra Leone

UN 2003:

Population:

P. 253.  Data are for 2001.

 

44 percent of which is under the age of 15:

P. 253.  Data are for 2001.

 

57 percent of which lives on less that $1 a day:

Pp. 200 and 247.  Data are for approximately the period 1990-2001.

 

47 percent of which is undernourished:

P. 200.  Data are for the average during the period 1998-2000.

 

A third of its newborns die before age five:

P. 210.  In 2001, Sierra Leone had an under-five mortality rate of 316 per 1,000 live births.

 

                       7 percent of its young adults live with AIDS:

P. 261.  In 2001, 7 percent of Sierra Leone=s adults ages 15-49, were living with HIV/AIDS.

 

Its TB rate is 129 times that of the U.S.:

Pp. 258 and 261.  In 2001, Sierra Leone had a tuberculosis case rate (prevalence of smear-positive cases) of 258 per 100,000 people.  The rate in the United States was 2 per 100,000.

 

It receives $73 per capita per year in assistance:

P. 294.  Data are for official development assistance, for the year 2001, in US $.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                   Bibliography

 

Dumas, Lloyd, Lethal Arrogance B Human Fallibility and Dangerous Technologies (St. Martin=s, New York. N.Y.), 1999, pp. 16-17.

 

Sunshine Project, Background Paper #12, November 2003.

See www.sunshine-project.org/publications/bk/bk12.html.

 

United Nations Human Development Programme, Human Development Report 2001 B Making New Technologies work for Human Development (Oxford University Press, New York, N.Y.), 2001, p. 197.

 

United Nations Human Development Programme, Human Development Report 2003 B Millennium Development Goals, A Compact among Nations to end Human Poverty, (Oxford University Press, New York, N.Y.), 2003. 

 

United Nations, AWhat is Human Development?@: http://undp.org/hd, December 9, 2004.

 

Waring, Marilyn, Counting for Nothing B What Men value and What Women are Worth, 2nd Edition (University of Toronto, Toronto, ON), 1999.  

See my own summary of this book, AWar Institutionalized B The United Nations System of National Accounts,@ October 31, 2003, 7 pages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                     Addendum

 

                       The United Nations Development Programme B Self-Description

                                                               (From the Internet)

                                                                          2004

 

                                                                     What is Human Development?

 

Human development is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes.  It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests.  People are the real wealth of nations.  Development is thus about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value.  And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means B if a very important one B of enlarging people=s choices.

 

Fundamental to enlarging these choices is building human capabilities B the range of things that people can do or be in life.  The most basic capabilities for human development are to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living and to be able to participate in the life of the community.  Without these, many choices are simply not available, and many opportunities in life remain inaccessible.

 

This way of looking at development, often forgotten in the immediate concern with accumulating commodities and financial wealth, is not new.  Philosophers, economists and political leaders have long emphasized human well-being as the purpose, the end, of development.  As Aristotle said in ancient Greece, AWealth is evidently not the good we are seeking, for it is merely useful for the sake of something else.@

 

In seeking that something else, human development shares a common vision with human rights.  The goal is human freedom.  And in pursuing capabilities and realizing rights, this freedom is vital.  People must be free to exercise their choices and to participate in decision-making that affects their lives.  Human development and human rights are mutually reinforcing, helping to secure the well-being and dignity of all people, building self-respect and the respect of others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                           ***