Indicators: their merits and limits - a country report from Thailand

Abstract

Indicators are becoming more and more popular these days. They are attempts to measure the unmeasurables and qualify the unquantifiables. But sometime some indicators are used so often that people believe them as ends rather than some means to guage a more complex being. An obvious example is the GNP per capita which has become synonymous with development. At the other extreme, there are skeptics who do not believe in any use of indicators. To be fair, indicators have both merits and limits. For complex issues like developments, it is obvious that a set of indicators rather than a single one is needed to shed lights on its various aspects. This is analogous to obtaining a complete picture of a solid object which is three dimensionals. One can obtain a number of two dimensional pictures from various angles. Yet a series of two dimensional pictures can only possess as much information as a solid object when the number of pictures approaches infinity. Only with the new technology of holography that a 360 degree image can be formed. Therefore, we may conclude that a set of indicators is needed, but how to select the minimum set of relevant indicators is the first question. The second question is how to utilize them effectively. This seminar attempts to integrate three sets of indicators on human resources, sociocultural and technological change indicators in development planning process. To serve the objectives of this Seminar, this paper will try to propose a set of indicators for each of the three topics of the Seminar, and come up where possible with figures of Thailand. Some ideas To integrate on how to utilize some of the indicators will be presented. these three sets of indicators into the development planning process will need further efforts and contributions from the participants of the Seminar.