Human Development Index

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite summary measure of average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living. Conceived by Mahbub ul Haq with Amartya Sen and first published in the UNDP Human Development Report of 1990, it was designed as a deliberate alternative to GNI per capita, asserting that people and their capabilities — not economic growth alone — are the ultimate criterion for assessing the development of a country. Each dimension is reduced to a normalized index between zero and one, and the three are combined by a geometric mean.