Abstract

Border areas play a crucial role in the economic, political and cultural life of countries. Due to many
reasons, these areas have a lower developmental level than other parts of the country, and this requires
more attention and planning for the development of these provinces. The first step in improving the
status of the border provinces is to determine the level of development of these provinces. In this
regard, the Human Development Index is currently the most acceptable tool for measuring prosperity
and economic development, and calculating this indicator is essential for understanding and analyzing
the welfare status of border regions. Therefore, this study aimed to measure and compare the
development level of the northwest provinces using the Human Development Index and analyse the
level of HDI components such as income, education and health in these provinces. To do this, the
Human Development Index has been calculated using the data from 1391 to 1393 for the northwest
border provinces and their development level has been determined. The results of the research show
that East Azarbaijan province has a better status in terms of educational, health and income indicators
than other provinces, and has a higher human development index than them. Kurdistan province has
the worst situation as the indicators and has the lowest level of human development. Also, the human
development index showed that the studied provinces had a moderate developmental level and their
human development index was between 0.5 and 0.8. Also, the results indicate that the trend of human
development index is increasing in all provinces during the study period.