India looks at devising its own standards to assess socio-economic progress

Health activists are divided about the Central Government’s move to discard what it calls the one-size-fit-all international data parameters used to measure the socio-economic progress of the country. Central Government has cited three widely used data-driven development indicators — childhood stunting, female labour force participation rate by International Labour Organization and life expectancy at birth by United Nations in its working paper “Re-examining the estimates of India’s development indicators by international organisations’’ by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister – stating that global standards often present a misleading picture of important socio-economic development indicators. “The examination of well-known development indicators suggest that international agencies systematically underestimate socio-economic progress and this then feeds into wider global indices, but also clouds feedback on policy interventions,’’ says the paper co-authored by Sanjeev Sanyal, member of the Economic Advisory Council. Favoured patterns may look at the half-empty glass, whereas India wants to look at the half-full glass and charge forward.” Dr. Antaryami Dash, deputy director, Save the Children, India said, ”The WHO 2006 growth standards have provided a valuable framework for comparing the growth of children under five across various races and ethnicities, enabling objective and straightforward assessments, particularly when making cross-country comparisons. Pooled data from 21 developing countries demonstrated that the prevalence of severe wasting in infants under six months increased by 3.5 times, while severe child wasting was 1.7 times higher when applying the WHO standard as the new case definition.” “While the WHO 2006 growth standards prove invaluable for global growth comparisons, exercising caution is crucial when applying them to modify clinical protocols or formulate feeding recommendations.