A new set of criteria for measuring the progress of nations needs to be employed, said former CEO of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and head of Statistics South Africa, Dr Mark Orkin.

Speaking at a HSRC lecture in Pretoria this week, Orkin argued that previous development indicators, such as the Human Development Indicators (HDI), and the Millennium Development Goals, were too narrow to achieve an accurate reflection on the progress of nations.

He said that previous indicators focused too much on financial wealth through gross domestic product measures and other forms of balance of trade measures. Although Orkin conceded that more contemporary approaches to development, such as the Balanced Development Indicator (BDI), included phenomena such as democracy as a development indicator, he argued that these indicators lacked the "holistic essence" of what a comprehensive development indicator model required.

To overcome these challenges, Orkin followed on from the previous work and proposals outlined by the Stiglitz Commission commissioned by the European Union, which added subjective and other elements of "wellbeing" as development indicators. These measures were mainly confined to global constraints and linkages; specifically CO2 emissions and trade relations. However, he maintains that the HDI model remained an influential indicator in measuring human wellbeing in terms of life expectancy, levels of education and standards of living.

Orkin noted that previous indicators were important in gauging individual measures, but said that he had attempted to create a more rounded approach that incorporated a series of indicators providing a balanced view of progress among nations.

THE BALANCED DEVELOPMENT INDICATOR

Orkin's model measured six indicators, consisting of: CO2 emissions; the gender gap in the socioeconomic sphere; the HDI; the Gini coefficient (measuring income and wealth inequality); democracy and producer support estimates (transfers to local farmers as percentage of total farm receipts).

Orkin used a sample of 25 countries to test his model, which produced interesting results. One of the most noticeable, was that developed countries, such as the US and Japan, measured considerably lower on the BDI as opposed to previous development indicators. Orkin put this down to the high contribution of CO2 emission by these countries. Conversely, countries such as South Africa, Brazil and India made great improvements owing to their high levels of democracy. China's ranking suffered as a result of the democratic measure. In the sample measure, New Zealand ranks first, Japan tenth, the US eleventh, Brazil twelfth, India thirteenth, South Africa eighteenth and China nineteenth.

When asked about any potential shortcomings of the BDI, Orkin replied by citing a lack of information as a potential shortcoming, as a sample of only 25 countries was available as a result. Further, when asked if he would use any other indicators, Orkin identified economic and social governance (including crime and safety), and the subjective relations between States as potential indicators.