understanding human development
figure 1
California’s Budget Gap in Perspective
$25 BILLION
$ California’s projected budget gap (2011–2012)
$
Combined wealth of the two richest Californians
Total GDP of the 30 poorest nations
Source: Forbes.com 2010; World Bank 2011.
in the Central Valley. Californians enjoy the third-highest life expectancy in the nation, just behind Hawaii and Minnesota, but rank third-from-last in high school graduation, just before Mississippi and Texas. California faces many challenges, but the human development approach and Index provide innovative tools to help overcome them. Since 1990, and in over 160 countries around the world, human development reports have proved to be powerful vehicles for questioning priorities, fostering accountability, pointing to successes, and shaping alternative solutions. What accounts for the success of the Index around the world, and what can it bring to California? The Index: •
Provides a powerful, readily grasped alternative to GDP and other money metrics for understanding the opportunities available to ordinary people.
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Synthesizes a complex reality into a single number that allows for easy comparisons between population groups and over time.
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Is built around a limited number of universally valued, intuitively understood ingredients for living a freely chosen life of value—health, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living.
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Captures the key interlocking factors that enable people to realize their full potential—or that hold them back.
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Generates fact-based dialogue within a shared frame of reference in a time of polarized politics.
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Provides benchmarks that enable people to hold elected officials accountable on issues we all care about.
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Rests on a robust conceptual framework—the capabilities approach of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen—and is based on a road-tested international tool that is the global gold standard for measuring human well-being.
California . faces many challenges, but the human development approach and Index provide innovative . tools to help . overcome them.
A P O R T R A I T O F CA L I FO R N I A 2 0 1 1
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