AR5: Mitigation of Climate Change - Chapters - Annex l

Gender reference

Annex l Glossary, Acronyms and Chemical Symbols

Human Development Index (HDI): The Human Development Index allows the assessment of countries’ progress regarding social and economic development as a composite index of three indicators: (1) health measured by life expectancy at birth; (2) knowledge as measured by a combination of the adult literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary school enrolment ratio; and (3) standard of living as gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (in purchasing power parity). The HDI sets a minimum and a maximum for each dimension, called goalposts, and then shows where each country stands in relation to these goalposts, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. The HDI only acts as a broad proxy for some of the key issues of human development; for instance, it does not reflect issues such as political participation or gender inequalities.

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): A set of eight time-bound and measurable goals for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, discrimination against women and environmental degradation. These goals were agreed to at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000 together with an action plan to reach the goals.