Jahan’s basic definition of human development is the process of enlarging human choices. He stressed that choices are made everyday and that is why human development is neceessary. He goes into detail by talking about how there are two sides. One is that the capabilities of human beings have to be enhanced. The other is that the opportunities of human beings to use capabilities have to be improved. When there is a mismatch between these two sides, then there is an issue. He also stresses that there must be balance. Jahan states that we are too obsessed with materialistic economic growth. One of the main things he talks about is income and how it is important in enhancing human development, but is not everything needed. Human development is much more holistic than other topics mentioned and is more than just independent parts. Among the issues he brings up are gender differences and youth workers and how they are important. Jahan then talks about how the Human Development Index influences people’s perception. The Human Development index allows people to compare countries between each other. He then addresses a common perception that the HDI is just a measure, so it can not be completely and fully accurate in measuring human development. Although there is a breadth measure which includes mortality rate and birth rate among other things, there is also a focus portion, which used the measures of a long and healthy life, knowledge, and decent standard of living. These two measures are crucial to gauging human development. I believe that there are only so much that hard statistics can offer you, and that sometimes you have to look beyond those in order to fully understand and compare countries. Even then, comparisons can lead to false information, and Rosling’s TED Talk provides information to show that even when a country or area’s economic or social situation is bad, there is always potential for change for the better.
Hans Rosling brings up different examples of family size and even though some countries may have a shorter life expectancy over time their standard of living may still be good. In Vietnam, although different events happened that changed how people lived in Vietnam, eventually over time the life expectancy grew to become the same as the United States, who were farther ahead and had a long life expectancy in the past. He also brings up income and how although there were many people who were in poverty, it is possible to see those people in poverty eventually get out and have a larger proportion of people in the middle class area of income. Overall, although countries may be in dire situation at the moment or be in a seemingly bad state of existence, it is always possible in the future for such countries to change the trajectories of growth and data.
There are many different parts that must combine and balance out in order to improve or maintain human development. It is not good enough to just focus on one portion as there is a lot of potential for growth. In order to achieve that growth, we must look to keep the balance between materialistic and intellectual growth and ignore common misconceptions when it comes to comparing countries to each other.