Extended Version of Human Development Index with Millennium Development Goals: A Case Study of Pakistan

The objective of the study is to extend the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI) with Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) -2015 and construct the new extended version of HDI, called Millennium Development Index (MDI), by considering a case study of Pakistan. Prior Work The study extended HDI with MDGs in order to assess country’s performance in 7 different dimensions, which previously less utilized in academic and research arena. The actual values of Pakistan’s data set is assessed by the progress towards MDGs and constructed the comprehensive index score, which is based upon 7 quantitative goals as assigned by the United Nations in the year 2015. The MDI score for each goal is calculated as follows, i.e., poverty index value is 0.128, educational index value is 0.421, empowerment index value is 0.458, life expectancy is 0.729, HIV/AIDS value is 0.10, maternal index value is 0.200, and clean water index value is 0.744. The stated index values indicate that Pakistan’s economy weakly perform in 5 out of 7 goals, where the index value is less than the 0.50 threshold, while in the case of life expectancy and clean water access, the index value is more than the threshold value and correspond that the economy is progressing efficiently in both of the dimension factors. The overall MDI value is 0.444, which is less than the threshold value as designated by the United Nation’s HDI and conclude that Pakistan’s economy was low progress towards MDGs that need significant economic reforms to combat poverty, hunger, and other socio-economic and environmental factors for sustained growth. The calculated MDI score value is the first initiative to extend the HDI values with MDGs, which should be consider for food-of-thoughts to the policy makers to rank the economies on the basis of MDI instead of existing HDI values.