Health: a factor of Human Development

Sinergias
Sep 7, 2015
3 min read

Shielding the population against diseases, especially preventable ones, is a way of contributing to a country's development, since, in addition to strengthening the scenarios in which people develop, it makes them more dignified and suitable for them to develop their capabilities and potential to the fullest.

The health of the population, or the state of the population, conditions development. If the population does not have favorable living conditions, its development can be critical because it can compromise labor and productive capacity as well as affect its learning and growth.

In the case of Early Childhood, it is essential to strengthen the spaces in which children develop their actions. They contribute to the socioeconomic development of a country because they are the adults of tomorrow, their first years of life are fundamental for their formation as people and citizens, and fighting for their living conditions to be dignified is the first step for our country to increase its development.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) defined development in the 1990s as a process of expanding opportunities for individuals, ensuring a quality of life that allows people to develop their cognitive and social capacities to the fullest. Then, leaving behind the logic of economics (which often focuses more on the growth of figures and accounting variables than on qualitative aspects), it decided to focus on a single objective: people. And to do so, it chose to complement the concept, making it more palpable, more human.

Human development, then, is the development of the people, by the people and for the people, and concerns all the opportunities that a person should have to live a full and healthy life. Health is part of this development, and more than an end, it is a means to improve the lives of the inhabitants of a country.

Providing health, from the State or Non-Governmental Organizations, is to contribute to the development of people's physical, psychological (in affective and cognitive terms) and social capacities. And when this service is ensured from the birth of a child, it is contributing to the future of humanity, since the individual and collective suffering caused by diseases, especially neglected ones, is being progressively suppressed.

Those of us who are committed to the field of health are also committed to development, because we are helping to bring people to a dignified scenario, one that allows them to have stable conditions that enable the development of their individual potential, without obstacles associated with the lack of care for illnesses.

How is the HDI in Colombia?

The Human Development Index in Colombia is 0.72 (where zero is low and 1 is high), a misleading figure, since adjusted for inequality it decreases to 0.52, a value that shows that we are a country with low human development. This situation is due to the inequality between regions and the existing gaps in terms of quality health care, income and satisfaction of basic needs (housing, health services, education, among others).

Inequality is the basis of the difficulties that prevent people from potentially developing, and unequal health care is synonymous with backwardness. This is why ensuring quality health care must be a priority in every region of the country.

It is essential to create decent living conditions for Colombians to contribute from birth to the social and productive development of the country, and what better way than to do it from our field?

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How is the HDI in Colombia?

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