by Leela Ramdeen, Chair of the Catholic Commission for Social Justice
Recently I attended the launch of the UNDP’s 20th Human Development Report (2010). The report, entitled: “The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development”, opens with the words uttered by Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen, in the first report published in 1990: “People are the real wealth of a nation.”
These words reflect the teachings of our Church through the ages. We recognise that people are more important than things e.g. as is stated in the Vatican II document: The Church in the Modern World (1965):
“The social order and its development must constantly yield to the good of the person, since the order of things must be subordinate to the order of persons and not the other way around…. The social order requires constant improvement; it must be founded in truth, built on justice, and enlivened by love: it should grow in freedom towards a more humane equilibrium” (#26).
The UNDP’s report outlines the components of human development:
• “Well-being: expanding people’s real freedoms – so that people can flourish.
• Empowerment and agency: enabling people and groups to act – to drive valuable outcomes.
• Justice: expanding equity, sustaining outcomes over time and respecting human rights and other goals of society.”
This year the Human Development Index (HDI), which is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living, has been informed by the introduction of three new measures to evaluate progress: inequality, gender inequality, and multidimensional poverty. The HDI categorises countries into four broad areas: Very high human development (developed countries), High human development (developing countries), Medium human development (developing countries) and Low human development (developing countries).
Trinidad and Tobago has made some gains over the past 20 years: “Between 1980 and 2010 T&T’s HDI rose by 0.4% annually from 0.656 to 0.736 today”. However, it is noted that this year T&T has moved down from the rank of 48 to 59 – out of 169 countries on the HDI. We fall in the category: High human development (developing countries). 25 UN member states are not included in the HDI due to lack of data.
The words of the UN’s Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, are instructive: “The Human Development Reports have changed the way we see the world. We have learned that while economic growth is very important, what ultimately matters is using national income to give all people a chance at a longer, healthier and more productive life.”
The first report had rightly concluded, “there is no automatic link between economic growth and human progress.” This is so true for us in T&T. Senator the Honourable Mary King, Minister of Planning, Economic and Social Restructuring and Gender Affairs, delivered the feature address at the launch. She rightly noted that the marginalisation of young males, particularly in our region, is not addressed in the report.
Inter alia, she acknowledged that: human development is multidisciplinary in nature; a poverty rate of approximately 17% in T&T is unacceptable; progress in achieving each of the Millennium Development Goals in T&T is varied; T&T’s economic model is not sustainable and must be restructured because it depends too much on commodities.
The vision for development, she said, “is for prosperity for all.” Sadly, with all the economic growth we have had over the years, we have not used our resources effectively to improve the lives of ALL our people.
I look forward to the production next year of the UNDP sponsored “Caribbean Human Development Report on Citizens’ Security for the English and Dutch speaking Caribbean Countries”. Dr Anthony Harriot and Dr Randy Seepersad, shared information about this report which will “provide evidence based recommendations for the development of public policies and programmes to address citizen security issues.” As Dr Seepersad said: “There is a link between citizen security and human development. Crime and the insecurity it creates represent some of the biggest challenges facing T&T and the Caribbean.”
I agree with Dr Marcia de Castro, UNDP Resident Representative, that T&T can use the 2010 Human Development Report to: analyse and re-energise our work on Human Development; engage with policy makers to evaluate investment in social development; and learn lessons from countries that show that non-economic growth can be achieved even in times of slow economic growth.
