Strengths and Weakness of Human Development Index - Literature review Example

Strengths and weakness of Human Development Index and Happy Planet Index in Country X OR Inequality, impact and current policies in country X Course Name Instructor 15/08/14 Inequality is the distribution of resources with a country in not equal manner. In most of the developing world, there is a great boundary between those who have and those who don’t have in the society. In other words, there is a great unfairness in the distribution of the national resources. On the other hand, the developed world figures a more fair way in which resources are being shared. There is a near equal way of sharing the national resources. When there is a great inequality in the society, the gap between the poor and the rich is huge but when there is no inequality in the world, the gap between the poor and the rich is small. Kenya, a country in the East Africa, is one of the countries in which inequality have flourished. In Kenya, inequality have been portrayed in various social dimensions(Union, 2009). 40 percent of Kenyan economy lies on the hands of 10 percent richest Kenyans while one percent of the economy is controlled by 10 percent poor Kenyans. When we focus on this data, our attention is on the 10 percent extremes of the richest and the poorest Kenyans. The statement implies that the rich hand in 40 percent of the country’s resources that are near to half of the resources. In other words, only a small percentage of Kenyans have an income that is desirable(Union, 2009).The majority of Kenyan, therefore, are left to crumble at the remaining 60 percent. Inequality brought about by the distribution of national resources, or income brings in with them some struggles into the nation. The unemployment rate rises up, poor education to the struggling families and poor healthcare facilities. The fact is without resources it will be very difficult to acquire this resource. There are various means by which inequality determined. One of the way is by the use of the Gini coefficient. The Gini coefficient was developed by an Italian Corrado Gini(Rivlin, 2010). He was a great sociologist and statistian whose interest was to come up with the measure of disparities or inequality in the society. The Gini coefficient ranges from 0 to 1 or 0 percent to 100 percent(Rivlin, 2010). The 0 or 0 percent represents a perfect equal society. The society is said to have an equal distribution of resources. At 1 or 100 percent, there is perfect inequality in distribution of resources(Rivlin, 2010). In most cases, the two extremes rarely do not occur(Rivlin, 2010). The Gini coefficient is represented in a curve recognized as the Lorenz curve. In this curve, both the x-axis and the y-axis are equal(Hackett, 2011). The cumulative percentage of people income from the lowest to the highest is plotted on the x-axis and the cumulative share of the income on the y-axis(Hackett, 2011). A straight diagonal line is drawn from the end of the x-axis to the y-axis making an angle of 45 degrees with both the axis(Hackett, 2011). The slope is referred to as the line of equality(Hackett, 2011). The inequality in Kenya when pictured in this model comes in different folds. The sharing of national income is unequal. The Kenyan government spends almost over half of its income in the payment of salaries. Most of the civil servants are paid less amount compared to a small group of the civil servants who earn a lion’s share. The Kenyan legislature, the cabinet secretaries, heads of Parastatals and the heads of commissions usually earn over one million Kenyan shillings every month. In the same category of the civil servants, there are some who earns below ten thousand Kenyan shillings. Their salary amounts are about US$ 120 as 1 US$ is roughly equal to KSH 85. According to the United States of Americas Central intelligent Agency that ranks the nations of the world by the merit of equality, Kenya is so far the 48th nation out of 141 nations. The Gini coefficient stands at 42.5% as per the year 2008 data(Hackett, 2011). The percentage is below the half way mark of 50% and shows that even though the country is not badly off, there is more to be done to curb the inequality. Another model that is used to determine the level of inequality is the income inequality metrics. This method determines the distribution of income in a particular economy. The difference between the income distribution metrics and the Gini-coefficient is that while the Gini coefficient is used to measure the inequality in the sharing of the national cake, the income distribution metrics is used to measure how the income is dispersed in the economy. There are three basic components that are very essential when measuring the income distribution of the economy. These factors are the scale of independence, the population within an economy and the transfer rule. The scale of independence states that the nature of the economy should remain constant even though the income of an individual within that economy is multiplied by a positive scalar. Therefore, the inequality metric should be independent of the change of an individual income. The principle is applicable both to the affluent and the poor economies.The population within an economy is another independent variable when working with this measure of inequality. The size of the population in an economy does not influence this measure as the average economy is put into consideration. The transferred payment is another consideration that influences the inequality levels of the economy. The transfer rule means refer to the mobility of funds from the communities with affluent to those in deficiency. High transfer of funds or other factors of production, the inequality levels go down. Moreover, the level of transfer is low, the inequality increases. In simple terms, when funds are transferred from the rich to the poor, the gap between them lessens, but if the rich does not give to the poor, their level of income remains high while that of the poor in the society remains low. Considering the low rate of transfer payment in Kenya, the country’s level of inequality is growing daily. Some of the highly paid civil servants are exempted from paying taxes. The Kenyan legislatures and majority of the wealthiest Kenyans usually evade the payment of taxes. This taxes may be used as a donation to the poor Kenyans in the essence of trying to minimize inequality. Therefore, the inequality gap will continue to expand year after another if the trend continues. There are a lot of impacts that result from the inequality that is being witnessed in the country. The consequences spreads to the social setup as well as the economy of the country. Poverty is a central concern when inequality flourishes in any economy. Since there is a problem in the distribution of wealth, the status quo is opening wide. Majority of Kenyans have been damped to poverty. Thus, they cannot afford even the most-basic needs such as good housing, clothes and quality food. They, therefore, live in slums and eats from the garbage sites(Sharma & Morrissey, 2006). Most of them are also sleeping in the cold as they cannot afford the cheapest house in the country. Since poverty stricken most of the rural as well as the urban population, most of the poor families cannot afford to take their children to school. It has been established that formal education leads to a better life in the future. When a child lack to be enlightened, there is no way he or she can emerge as a saviour to the family. Therefore, the family will remain in poverty, and the subsequent generation will still the same challenge that the former faced. The Kenyan government have tried to offer free primary education. The Kenyan community have risen from the ground and embraced it. Not all of them enjoys the free education as some communities do not have food and clothing to offer to their children as they go to school. They, therefore, do not benefit from the free services. Poverty has also made it impossible for most of the people to access quality medical facilities. Most of the poor families are still dying from diseases that could otherwise be prevented. For example, malaria is one of the diseases that is killing a lot of people. The disease could be prevented if the communities were using a mosquito net. These nets are not affordable and thus only the rich can afford them. Although the government has tried to curb this menace by offering the nets to pregnant women and lactating mothers, the poverty stricken people in the Nyanza region in Kenya do not afford them hence succumb to death due to the disease. Inequality has also led to the lack of jobs and poverty. Most of the youth engage in immoral activities in search for food and better life. Women and young girls have run to prostitution to earn a living. Given the dangers of the act, most of them have been infected by HIV/AIDS disease. Majority of people from the Nyanza region in Kenya are dying each day from the infections. The crime rate has also gone up in major cities in Kenya. Youths do not have any activity they can do to generate income. They have organised themselves in crime groups, and their work is to rob those in the working fields. They impact to the decrease of security in the country. Extremist and terrorist groups like Alshabaab have entered the country and are now recruiting the youths to join them in terrorism. They do so in agreement that they are going to earn some income when their mission is complete. The terrorists usually use them as spies in their country. They use them to carry out terrorism activities in their country for pay. Kenyans and foreigners have lost their lives from the activity(Hackett, 2011). They have also threatened some industries such as the tourism industry in Kenya. Some of the industry that depends on the foreigners have also been affected by the high rate of insecurity in Kenya. Most of the foreign governments such as the United States of America and other western nations regularly offers travel advisory and travel ban in Kenya. The tourism sector is the worst hit by the insufficiency of this social welfare. The government is, therefore, going a loss in the revenue collected that could have enabled it in setting out development projects in different sectors. Foreign investors have also been threatened, and most of them have opted to invest in other countries that are more secure than Kenya. Most of the jobs that could have been created by the investors get lost, and most of the people remain jobless. Inequality has also led to the unequal development or what could be termed as unbalanced development. Most of the urban areas where the rich live have been fitted with good infrastructure. Tarmacked roads have been constructed, and there is a well-developed communication network. Modern hospitals have been built as well as high-class schools with well-qualified teachers. The security system have been heightened and therefore they members of that society live in a well-kept area. People living in the slums and rural villages experience a deficit of development. Even though some areas are very productive in food production, the society remains poor since they do not have good roads that they can use to link their production with the market. Since most of the food they produce is perishable, they usually lose a lot of food. They cannot sell them and keep money for the future. Some communities that are not blessed with productive lands cannot also secure food from these areas since there are no roads. Secondly, there are not suitable schools in some communities. They, therefore, perform poorly and do not join good colleges that would enable them to harness their talents. There are no sources of energy that would enable the community to process food so that they can last long for the future. Moreover, the security in major areas is highly a threat. The communities also lack safe water for domestic use. When these and more characteristics that resembles the poor Kenyan regions, they do lack hope for the future. The Kenyan government has established a system to curb inequality. First of all, Kenyans have a working new constitution that have given a lot of power to the people. The devolution that was given in the new constitution has led to the creation of the county governments that would bring resources nearer to the citizens. The county government will pay more attention to the projects that were overlooked by the former central government. The process of devolving fund to every constituency in Kenya was first made possible by the retired president Mwai Kibaki in 2003. The renowned president who is a great economist deployed these funds through a popular scheme that was called the Constituency Development Funds CDF(Union, 2009)(Knight & Sabot, 2010). The members of parliament were given some funds that they were supposed to spend in their constituency in order to bring some developments that were necessary, but overlooked by the central government. Majority of the Members of Parliament spent these funds in a good way while some never used them for the right purpose. The Kenya government during Kibaki’s era established a free basic education to enable poor parents to take their children to school. The level of entry to the primary school increased to almost 200% by the end of his era. Since most of these pupils came from a poor background, there was a presidential decree that the secondary education be made free. Although the government does not pay all the secondary school fees for every student, the fees require is few compared to what was asked there before the order was issued. Major roads have been constructed although not all the parts of the country have been opened up. Electricity services have been high offered to the people including those in the rural area under the project that was referred as the rural electricity(Union, 2009). There most of the companies processing perishable food like milk have found their way into the villages to save the farmer from a loss. The security system is also under going some reforms that will enable the country to reach the united nation requirement of one police to two hundred citizens(Sharma & Morrissey, 2006). The Konza city that is a technological city is underway, and it will give youth an upper hand by offering employment opportunities. Although the government has done much in ensuring that equality have been identified in Kenya, there are some issues that need to be addressed in urgency(Mwanzia & Strathdee, 2010). The institutions that have been put in place to eradicate corruption are not competitive. There is a need to ensure that they are placed well so that the peoples’ tax may not be wasted. We also need to have sufficient human resources that will efficiently offer the social services to the citizens. There is a deficit of human resources at schools, hospitals and other government institutions(Mwanzia & Strathdee, 2010). The resources are readily available since they are graduating every year from the colleges. If the Kenya government takes these measures into consideration, equality will prevail in the country. References Hackett, S. C., 2011. Environmental and Natural Resources Economics: Theory, Policy, and the Sustainable Society. New York: M.E. Sharpe. Knight, J. B. & Sabot, R. H., 2010. Education, Productivity, and Inequality: The East African Natural Experiment. New York: Oxford University Press. Mwanzia, J. S. & Strathdee, R., 2010. Participatory Development in Kenya. Nairobi: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Rivlin, P., 2010. The Israeli Economy from the Foundation of the State through the 21st Century. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sharma, K. & Morrissey, O., 2006. Trade, Growth and Inequality in the Era of Globalization. London: Routledge. Union, C. o. E., 2009. REFLECTIONS ON CHANGE FOR KENYA. [Online] Available at: http://www.fahamu.org/change/sites/default/files/sida_report_june18_v2_opt.pdf [Accessed 15 08 2014]. Read More