Formulation of A Human Security Index and An Environment For Discussing Same
As if to answer the points above, a Human Security Index was prototyped and released in 2008. Project coordinator D. A. Hastings notes that “if one were challenged to create an index on the condition of people-centric Human Security, such as the authors of the Human Development Index faced in 1990 and expanded qualitatively in 1994, one could now begin to do so – at least for the sake of discussion and resultant improvements.” The release document and a United Nations Bangkok Working Paper publish and discuss the original approach, which is based partly on:
- The original Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Programme, made more geographically complete (to 230+ countries) as described in a report issued by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
- The essay on Human Security in the 1994 Human Development Report.
- An Equitability/Inclusiveness Enhanced Human Development Index – in which each of the components of the HDI (education, health, and income) are modified by an indicator of equitability in an attempt to adjust, for example, for the gap between the indicator of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Per Capita (adjusted for purchasing power parity) and the desired measure of financial resources “in the pocket” of a typical person in a country. In that index some countries with relatively equitable ratings compared to their Human Development Index (such as Iceland, the Slovak Republic, and Estonia) do relatively well, whereas some countries with relatively inequitable ratings compared to their HDI (such as Ireland, Greece, and the USA) do less well.
- A Social Fabric Index which enumerates human security with respect to environment, diversity, peacefulness, freedom from corruption, and info empowerment. This was blended with the Human Development Index to form the prototype Human Security Index.
A 2010 enhancement to the HSI recast the composite index around a trinity of Economic, Environmental, and Social Fabric Indices. The result is thus conceptually similar to the Triple Bottom Line of Corporate Social Responsibility as described by John Elkington, as well as to the stated goals of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. The release note of HSI Version 2 also notes efforts to balance local and global context, individual and society concerns, left-right political issues, east-west and north-south cultural and social issues. Current Version 2 of the HSI ingests about 30 datasets and composite indicators, and covers 232 countries and dependencies. It is released at HumanSecurityIndex.org.
Considerable differences in national ratings and standings have been noted between the HSI and indicators such as GDP per capita or the Human Development Index. Several small island countries plus Bhutan, Botswana, and some central-eastern European countries do considerably better in the HSI than they do in GDP per capita or HDI. Conversely, Greece and some Eurozone peers such as Ireland and Spain, several countries in the Gulf, Israel, Equatorial Guinea, the USA and Venezuela do worse in the HSI than in GDP per capita or HDI. Influential factors vary (as is viewed in the data and discussions on the HumanSecurityIndex.org Website), but include diversity and income equality, peacefulness, and governance.
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