By Zubeida Mustafa

THERE was a time when the sole yardstick to measure the level of development of a country was the conventional economic indicator, namely, the per capita income. But economists have now discovered the fallacy of this approach. A country can have a high per capita GNP and yet be severely underdeveloped in terms of the quality of life it can provide to its people.

Very often the national wealth happens to be concentrated in the hands of a few people and the Government’s priorities are such that the social sectors are totally neglected. In such cases the GNP can be quite misleading for it hardly reflects the level of development of the people. Hence economists have come to adopt the basic needs approach and now more emphasis is placed on the social sectors, especially education and health. Thus the conventional economic indicators are no longer the only measure of national development. Continue reading PQLI: A new yardstick to replace ‘per capita income’ →