In the view of the continued innovation, the developing countries will need to act fast to ensure that they can compete in the future world economy. To stay competitive, they will have to harness the benefits of technology and to dull its worst disruptions. For that reason, they will need to invest urgently in their people, especially in health and education, because these two sectors are the building blocks of human capital. Apparently, to this end, individuals and families often cannot afford the costs of acquiring the human capital. Even if it is affordable, individual decisions may vary because of lack of information, or may be restricted because of the established social norms. Normally, individuals also do not consider the wider social benefits created by their collective actions. For these reasons, governments should have an important role to play in fostering human capital acquisition. In this context, I strongly believe that the Human Capital Index (HCI) of the World Bank and its indicators would be useful in nurturing, comparing and tracking progress of human resource development (HRD) activities in Bangladesh as well as in capturing the country’s future productivity effectively from time to time.

1. 1
FINAL PROJECT ASSIGNMENT: DIGITAL ARTIFACT
Participant : KHANDKER HABIB AHMED
Course Name : The Future of Work: Preparing for Disruption
Course No. : WBGx: WDR1901x (WB MOOC course)
Offered by : edX
Title : The Human Capital Index of the World Bank Would be Useful in
Tracking Progress of Human Resource Development (HRD) Activities
in Bangladesh.
Dates attended : From August 19, 2019 to September 22, 2019
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Title: The Human Capital Index of the World Bank Would be Useful in Tracking Progress of
Human Resource Development (HRD) Activities in Bangladesh.
In the view of the continued innovation, the developing countries will need to act fast to
ensure that they can compete in the future world economy. To stay competitive, they will have to
harness the benefits of technology and to dull its worst disruptions. For that reason, they will
need to invest urgently in their people, especially in health and education, because these two
sectors are the building blocks of human capital. Apparently, to this end, individuals and families
often cannot afford the costs of acquiring the human capital. Even if it is affordable, individual
decisions may vary because of lack of information, or may be restricted because of the
established social norms. Normally, individuals also do not consider the wider social benefits
created by their collective actions. For these reasons, governments should have an important role
to play in fostering human capital acquisition. In this context, I strongly believe that the Human
Capital Index (HCI) of the World Bank and its indicators would be useful in nurturing,

2. 2
comparing and tracking progress of human resource development (HRD) activities in
Bangladesh as well as in capturing the country’s future productivity effectively from time to
time.
The World Bank has prepared its Human Capital Index (HCI) of 2018 for the first time. It
gives an idea of accumulated human capital which is linked to productivity of a country. The
HCI is linked to productivity because it basically asks a question: If a child is born today in any
country around the world, what will his/her accumulated human capital be at age eighteen before
entering the labor force or going to universities? In other words, the HCI indicates the extent of
readiness of people of a country (at age 18) to join its workforce and, thus, contribute to its
productivity. The index takes care of child survival, school environment, quality of learning,
healthy growth and adult survival rate. More specifically, the World Bank created Human
Capital Index (HCI) answers the following questions: Will a new born child survive as an infant
(to age 5)? How will she do in school? Will she grow up in an environment that supports health
and learning? Therefore, the index assumes that children born in a given year has to experience
current educational opportunities and health risks over the next 18 years. It then calculates a
single value between 0 and 1 based on how much each indicator contributes to productivity as an
adult. For example, let's say country X has an HCI value of 0.6. This means that as the country’s
children grow up, the productivity of country’s work force will be 60 % of what it could be if
they had benefited from complete education and good health. It is also saying that business as
usual is costing country X 30% of its income in the long run. Thus, it is clear from the foregoing
discussion that the HCI, as mentioned, indicates a country’s future productivity.
According to the HCI of 2018 (as mentioned above), the rank (or position) of Bangladesh
in that table of 157 countries of the world is not satisfactory. This is because it ranks 106 and it

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has a HCI score 0.48. This means that as the children (born today) of Bangladesh grow up to age
18, the productivity of its work force by those children will be 48% of what it could be if they
had benefited from complete education and good health. It is also saying that business as usual is
costing Bangladesh 52% of its income in the long run. The human capital index (HCI), 2018 lists
Chad as the lowest in ranking (157th) country with HCI score of 0.29 as opposed to Singapore
which ranks 1st with a HCI score of 0.88. The World Development Report (WDR) 2019 team of
the World Bank has prepared the human capital index (HCI), 2018 table for 157 countries all
over the world. I have picked a few of them to make my table below as a way to demonstrate a
comparison with the rank and productivity (HCI score) of Bangladesh:
Sl.
No.
Rank Economy HCI Score Remarks (are my won)
1. 157 Chad 0.29 Lowest
2. 134 Pakistan 0.39
3. 133 Afghanistan 0.39 War-torn
4. 115 India 0.44 Neighbor
5. 106 Bangladesh 0.48 Needs to improve a lot
6. 102 Nepal 0.49 Even better than Bangladesh
7. 84 Philippines 0.55 South East Asian nation
8. 81 Brazil 0.56
9. 74 Sri Lanka 0.58 Better than Bangladesh
10. 73 Saudi Arabia 0.58
11. 65 Thailand 0.60
12. 55 Malaysia 0.62
13. 48 Vietnam 0.67 Productivity far better than Bangladesh
14. 46 China 0.67
15. 34 Russian Federation 0.73

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16. 24 United States 0.76 Still room to improve
17. 23 Israel 0.76
18. 15 United Kingdom 0.78
19. 3 Japan 0.84 Good productivity
20. 2 Rep. of Korea 0.84 Good productivity
21. 1 Singapore 0.88 Highest productivity in the world so far
As stated above, the human capital index ranges between 0 and 1. As already mentioned, the
index is measured in terms of the productivity of the next generation of workers relative to the
benchmark of complete education and full health. An economy in which the average worker
achieves both full health and full education potential will score a value of 1 on the index.
Bangladesh could use the indicators of HCI, 2018 in nurturing, comparing and tracking
progress of human capital development activities as a way to contribute to the overall
productivity of the country. For example, according to the HCI 2018, educational indicators are:
expected years of school, test score (out of approx. 600) and quality-adjusted years of school.
Based on the performance of Bangladesh, for example, it will get a value for each indicator.
Contribution to productivity is calculated as the geometric average of the contributions of each
indicator. Contribution to productivity measures how much each component (survival, school
and health) of the index, as well as the overall index, contributes to the expected future
productivity as a worker of a child born in 2018 (the year the HCI index was prepared) relative to
the benchmark of a complete education and full health. Further, component of ‘health’ shows
indicators like fraction of children not stunted and adult survival rate. Similarly, component of
‘survival’ depends on the measurement of an indicator called ‘probability of survival to age 5’.

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To conclude, I must add that building human capital by investing in people is essential for a
developing country like Bangladesh. To this end, the disadvantaged groups and early childhood
education should get a priority to develop the new skills that are increasingly in demand in the
labor market. World Bank’s HCI index could appear as very helpful to do the job at hand.