BCI 2008 country by country

BCI 2008 country by country

• Download BCI 2008 (Countries listed in alphabetical order, PDF) BCI-2008-alphabetical-eng.pdf
• Download BCI 2008 (Countries listed according to BCI value, PDF) BCI-2008-value-eng.pdf

BCI 2008 evolution

BCI by region

BCI evolution and projection

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CZECH VERSION OF THE BASIC CAPABILITIES INDEX 2008 (pdf)

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How is China really doing?

Methodology (PDF)

The BASIC CAPABILITIES INDEX

THE BASIC CAPABILITIES INDEX
a measure of “dignity for all”

There are many ways to define “poverty” and many methods to measure it. How a society defines which of its members are “poor” is a relative concept that changes over time but, generally, expresses the insufficient satisfaction of a set of basic needs that includes housing, clothing, education, access to health services, food and entertainment. Thus, lack of a TV set can become, in many places, a factor defining a family as poor, while possessing one was an expression of luxury 50 years ago.

While not being able to satisfy some basic needs in a dignified way defines a household as poor, the inability to reach a minimum daily intake of food defines the condition of “extreme poverty” or “absolute poverty”. Based on empirical research conducted a couple of decades ago, the World Bank determined a daily income equivalent to one dollar a day as being the universal line to define extreme poverty.

Poverty indicators based on income are extremely difficult to compute, as they require extensive and expensive household surveys. Further, low income countries have a bigger informal and non-monetized economy and vulnerable social sectors within them -- particularly those not living in the major towns tend to satisfy a bigger proportion of their needs outside the market economy, making income estimates and their international comparisons even more difficult. When those estimates exist, their evolution over time is extremely hard to assess, since many years pass between one survey and the next one.

Thus, for example, prior to a major worldwide survey on income poverty carried out in 2005, the estimates on the one dollar poverty line were based on surveys conducted in 1993 for most countries and in 1985 for India, while no such study had ever been carried out in China before and all figures for the most populated country in the world were just educated guesses.

Further, since income poverty definitions based on household surveys usually express national averages, they are useless for analyzing variations in poverty levels between provinces or municipalities. When civil society organizations monitor social policies, like the Social Watch national coalitions around the world do, the trends are even more important than the absolute number. Is poverty increasing or diminishing? Is the trend faster or slower than in the neighbouring countries? And what about the neighbour provinces?

Thus, Social Watch developed a Basic Capabilities Index (BCI) as a tool to monitor the evolution of basic social indicators and compare them between and within countries without using income statistics*.

The BCI indicators express different areas addressed by internationally agreed development goals (education, children’s health and reproductive health). By not using income as an indicator, the BCI is consistent with a definition of poverty based on capabilities and (the denial of) human rights. At the same time, the index is comparatively easy to compute at sub-national and municipal levels.

As a summary index, the BCI provides a consistent general overview of the health status and basic educational performance of a population. It has also proven to be closely correlated to the measurement of other human capabilities related to countries’ social development. The index makes it possible to assign a score to each country and compare it with other countries, or assess its evolution over time.

The highest possible BCI score is reached when all women receive medical assistance during labour, no child leaves school before completing the fifth grade and infant mortality is less than five deaths for every thousand live births, seemingly the lowest possible level attainable. These indicators are closely linked to the minimum capabilities that members of any society should have and which mutually reinforce one another. They focus especially on capabilities that incorporate the youngest members of society and reflect a concern for women’s wellbeing, thereby fostering future development.

A BCI value close of 99+ means in essence that practically all of the inhabitants in a country benefit from very basic education and health. Since a high BCI can only be achieved without malnourishment (of children and their mothers) and when basic housing and sanitation are provided, at Social Watch we understand a BCI value close to the maximum to be synonymous with the “dignity for all” that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights wants to achieve. Such dignity is not the objective of social development but a necessary starting point to achieve it.

Thus, the BCI is not especially useful to distinguish between countries that have achieved minimum social standards, but it turns up extremely helpful to assess the situation and trends whenever comparatively high levels of poverty prevail.

*The current formulation of the BCI is an elaboration of the Social Watch research team, based on an idea first developed as “Quality of Life Index” by Action for Economic Reforms for the Social Watch coalition in the Philippines. In turn, it was inspired in the Capability Poverty Measure (CPM) proposed by Professor Amartya Sen and popularized by the Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). For a detailed methodological explanation and the complete tables on which the BCI is based, see www.socialwatch.org

The MDGs, easier said than measured

In September 2000, world leaders adopted the Millennium Declaration committing their nations to achieve a set of poverty reduction targets by 2015.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has highlighted that “the MDGs set time-bound targets, by which progress can be measured.”

The measurability of the MDGs is key to their success. Same as the Olympic Games (or any other tournament, for the matter) base their appeal in the simple notion that all players abide by the same rule and a set of impartial referees and scorekeepers guard the integrity of “fair play”, the MDGs derive their capacity to motivate decision-makers and mobilize public support in their being time-bound and measurable.

In order to monitor progress towards the MDGs at a global level and country by country, the 8 goals were subdivided in 48 indicators, ranging from the proportion of the population below USD 1 a day (adjusted by the purchasing power parity of their income) to the percentage of internet users. Since January 15, 2008 the list of indicators has been officially expanded to more than 60, so as to be able to include data on issues like employment that were not counted before.

In real life, though, for most of the developing countries there are no accurate or updated data for many, if not most, of those 60 indicators, and the set is too complicated for non-experts. Thus, the World Bank-defined poverty line of USD 1 a day became the de facto yardstick with which progress was being measured. In 2000 the figure of 1.2 billion people living in poverty was massively circulated and quoted indirectly by the heads of state themselves in the Millennium Declaration: “We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected.”

By October 2007 the number of people living in extreme poverty had been reduced substantially: “Nearly one billion people live on just USD 1 a day” said World Bank President Robert B. Zoelick in his address to the Board of Governors of his institution. By June 2008, the draft Accra Action Agenda on aid, authored mainly by donor governments and the secretariats of the World Bank and the OECD stated that “progress has been made. Fifteen years ago, one of every three people lived on less than one dollar a day; today, that figure has been reduced to one in five. Yet one billion people still live in extreme poverty”.

All of a sudden, in August 26, 2008 the World Bank announced that poverty estimates had been revised and the number of extremely poor people was actually 1.4 billion in 2005. An overnight increase of almost 50%! Yet, according to Martin Ravallion, director of the Bank’s Research Group, “the developing world is poorer than we thought but no less successful in the fight against poverty”. In order to substantiate such an optimistic view, the team led by Ravallion and Shaohua Chen revised the poverty figures all the way back to 1981 and claimed that previous estimates were mistaken, that the proportion of poor people has been cut to half in the last 25 years and that, therefore, it can still be reduced enough to meet the MDG number 1 by 2015.
Social Watch has argued repeatedly that the USD 1 a day indicator is the wrong indicator. But even if the concept behind that indicator had been right, we know now that the estimates were wrong. And even if the new estimates and their recalculated history are right, the trend of the last years is not a forecast of the future, among other things because, as the Bank itself recognizes,“the new estimates do not yet reflect the potentially large adverse effects on poor people of rising food and fuel prices since 2005”.

Using three simple indicators available for most countries in the world and averaging them in a way that any secondary school student can repeat, the national and international trends in the fight against poverty can easily and convincingly be assessed. The resulting picture is not rosy. Policy makers need to understand that the credibility of their commitments relies, like in the Olympic Games, in honest scorekeeping, independent referees and rules that do not change in the middle of the game. An adverse half time result might be bad news for the coach, but it allows to change strategies for the second half.