the estimation of human development index for provinces

objectives: each year, the united nations publishes an annual report titled by “human development report” for all countries around the world which in which the complex index for human development for achieving health life alongside education and economic welfare is examined. the innate ambiguity in estimation of human development index has brought about numerous criticism against the method of investigating human development index. therefore, many methods are suggested for this examination. in this study, the fuzzy ranking method that is most relevant to the concept of human development index is suggested. method: this study attempts to apply a suitable mathematical fuzzy model in order to rank human development index for provinces. fuzzy logic has recently entered into such concepts as poverty and welfare. the multidimensional and ambiguity of human development concept paves the way for the use of fuzzy ranking. in this paper, fuzzy logic and fuzzy sets are used to estimate human development index during the years 1996, 2001 and 2005 for all provinces of iran. findings: in ranking human development index through deferent scenarios, tehran, isfahan, ghazvin and guilan provinces have first to forth rank respectively. but from this point onwards, ranking of provinces by human development index differs. tehran province during three time periods, through different methods obtained the highest rank in all components. kurdestan and sistan-balouchestan have the lowest degree in human development index. also these provinces have the lowest degree in all components. results: the result show that by changing the methods of investigation, the rank of some provinces goes under some changes. regarding the gradual transition in fuzzy ranking method it seems that this method is more appropriate for measuring the ambiguous outcomes. in 2005, changing the method of investigation brought about -8 degree of decrease for ghom province and therank of this province fell from 13 into 21. this also caused +8 degree of increase in golestan province’s rank. thus, choosing a suitable method for policy makers in distributing the resources and facilities is of critical importance so as to avoid such problems as population density, traffic, environmental pollution. regarding the aforementioned numbers and for the purpose of decentralization, a need for local plans is now felt than ever before. by investing more in underdeveloped areas, hopefully we will be able to witness a substantial growth in human development index of these areas and that of the country