Difficulties in Measuring Living Standards

(a) If you were asked as an economist to show the average person in Namibia is better off than ten years ago, explain what information you would need. (12m)

See Measuring Living standards 

(b) Comment on the difficulties of comparing living standards between countries. (13m)

I have previously written an answer - To what extent does GDP measure living standards?

When comparing living standards between different countries, the only other point to add  is the importance of measuring living standards in terms of purchasing power parity. PPP.

GDP per capita in $ terms does not necessarily reflect the local purchasing power of a country. For example, in Namibia incomes may be quite low say $1,000 per capita. However, living costs are likely to be much lower in Namibia than say the US. With $1,000 you can buy a lot more in Namibia than in the UK or US. Therefore, it is important to take these factors into consideration when comparing living standards.

Also a country like Namibia is likely to have a significant % of economic activity that is not measured by the government. e.g. subsistence farming and the black economy.

See also:

Does economic Growth increase happiness?