What do we mean by Development?

Introduction: Development is a complex issue, with many different and sometimes contentious
definitions. The concept of development has encompassed several ideas in the past sixty years.
The idea of modernization of economic and social institutions, the idea of sustained economic
growth within a national economy , the idea of the continuing improvement of the material
well-being of the earth’s human population, the idea of more extensive utilization of the world’s
resources, and the idea of the replacement of traditional; institutions and values with modern
successors.
Development is the word we use to describe the worldwide effort to eradicate poverty and its
associated ills. Since the end of world war II, a veritable development industry has arisen,
focused on improving life for billions of people around the world. However, the outcome and
fruits of development has not been trickled down although there has been an increase in rate of
growth, per-capita income and reduction of poverty all over the world. The fact remains that
inequality has increased in the midst of reduction of poverty. There are millions of people
remaining unemployed, underemployed, lacking access to primary health care facilities and even
not having reasonable income to pay for food and other essentials. This has indeed led to a
difference in the ways people think and describe development and I have called this perception
of development.
Traditional Economic Measures: Development has traditionally meant achieving sustained
rates of growth of income per capita to enable a nation to expand its output at a rate faster than
the growth rate of its population. Levels and rates of growth of “real” per capita gross national
income (GNI) are then used to measure the overall economic well-being of a population.

The New Economic View of Development: The experience of the 1950s and 1960s, when
many developing nations did reach their economic growth targets but the levels of living of the
masses of people remained for the most part unchanged. During the 1970s, economic
development came to be redefined in terms of the reduction or elimination of poverty, inequality,
and unemployment within the context of a growing economy. “Redistribution from growth”
became a common slogan.

 According to Dudley Seers, “The questions to ask about a country’s development are
three: What has been happening to poverty? What has been happening to unemployment?
What has been happening to inequality? If all three of these have declined from high
levels, then beyond doubt this has been a period of development for the country
concerned.”
These three things are considered the central challenges that nations battle with and try to combat
or at least try to minimize. To Seers, all these 3 must be at low levels before we can declare that
society as a developed one. This invariably means that a rise in any one of these central
challenges disqualifies that society from being called developed.
 According to Robert Chambers, “Rural development is a strategy to enable a specific
group of people, poor rural women and men, to gain for themselves and their children

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 more of what they want and need. It involves helping the poorest among those who seek
a livelihood in the rural areas to demand and control more of the benefits of
development.”
In the opinion of Chambers, therefore, development refers to all efforts to offer welfare
programs, aids, and resources toward the alleviating poverty, transforming rural areas, and
provision of the basic needs of the poor to ensure continuous survival of their race through
posterity.
Development as Modernization: It emphasizes process of social change which is required to
produce economic advancement; examines changes in social, psychological and political
processes. How to develop wealth oriented behavior and values in individuals; profit seeking
rather than subsistence and self sufficiency. Shift from commodity to human approach with
investment in education and skill training
Amartya Sen’s “Capability” Approach: The capability approach reinvented the concept of
poverty and linked it to a broader discussion on human development. This approach emerged in
the 1980s. Amartya Sen, who is a major contributor of the capability approach. It aims to
empower people through developing their capabilities so that they can look after themselves.
Amartya Sen argued that it comprises of two indispensible elements. These are-
 Functionings and
 Freedom of Choices.
i) Functionings: The concept of functioning’s reflects the various things a person may value
doing or being. The valued functionings may vary from elementary ones, such as being
adequately nourished and being free from avoidable disease. Functionings includes working,
resting, being literate, being healthy, being part of a community, being respected, and so on.

ii) Freedom of Choices: Apart from functioning’s, freedom is another element that constitutes
capability. It refers to the ability to choose and prioritize different functioning’s – or freedom to
choose the way of life.
So, development has to be more concerned with enhancing the lives we lead and the freedoms
we enjoy.

Development as Distributive Justice: It views development as improving basic needs. Interest

in social justice which has raised three issues:
 Nature of goods and services provided by governments
 Matter of access of these public goods to different social classes
 How burden of development can be shared among these classes
Human Development: According to the Human Development Report 1996, “Human
development is the end of economic growth a means.”
It is true that economic growth, by increasing a nation’s total wealth, also enhances its potential
for reducing poverty and solving other social problems. But history offers a number of examples
where economic growth was not followed by similar progress in human development. Instead

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growth was achieved at the cost of greater inequality, higher unemployment, weakened
democracy, loss of cultural identity, or overconsumption of natural resources needed by future
generations.
Human development can be simply defined as a process of enlarging choices such as some
economic, some social, some political and some cultural. Enlarging these choices, building
human capabilities is needed. The most basic capabilities for human development are to lead
long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have access to the resources needed for a decent
standard of living and to be able to participate in the life of the community.
 According to Sen, “Human development is concerned with what I take to be the basic
development idea: namely, advancing the richness of human life, rather than the richness
of the economy in which human being live, which is only a part of it.”
Development is here thus people have to lead lives that they value by expanding the choices.
Three Core Values of Development: Three basic components or core values serve as a
conceptual basis and practical guideline for understanding the inner meaning of development.
These core values are
 Sustenance
 Self-esteem
 Freedom
i) Sustenance or The Ability to Meet Basic Needs:- All people have certain basic
needs without which life would be impossible. These life-sustaining basic human
needs include food, shelter, health, and protection. When any of these is absent or in
critically short supply, a condition of “absolute underdevelopment” exists.

ii) Self-Esteem or to Be a Person: A second universal component of the good life is

self-esteem. Self-esteem is the feeling of worthiness that a society enjoys when its
social, political, and economic systems and institutions promote human values such
as respect, dignity, integrity, and self determination.

iii) Freedom or to Be Able to Choose: A third and final universal value that we suggest
should constitute the meaning of development is the concept of human freedom.
Freedom here is to be understood in the sense of emancipation from alienating
material conditions of life and from social servitude to nature, other people, misery,
oppressive institutions, and dogmatic beliefs, especially that poverty is predestination.

Freedom involves an expanded range of choices for societies and their members together with a
minimization of external constraints in the pursuit of some social goal we call development.

Millennium Development Goals: A set of eight goals adopted by the United Nations in 2000.
They asserted that development means to fulfill the following eight goals:-
 To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;
 Achieve universal primary education;
 Promote gender equality and empower women;
 Reduce child mortality;
 Improve maternal health;
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  Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;
 Ensure environmental sustainability;
 Develop a global partnership for development.

Sustainable Development: The term sustainable development came into popular use after the
1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, popularly known as
the Brundtland Report and the Brundtland Commission, respectively. The report was largely a
response to the growing international environmental and ecological lobby. It defined sustainable
development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
According to Donald Brooks (1990), the paradigm, or worldview, emerging around this concept
recognized the need to ensure and facilitate the following:
 Integration of conservation and development
 Maintenance of ecological integrity
 Satisfaction of basic human needs
 Achievement of equity and social justice and
 Provision of social self-determination and cultural diversity.
Conclusion: Finally, it can be said development is not only about rising economic growth of a
country but also entire society’s improvement is essential here. It is about happiness of human
being. If people are free from hunger, diseases and have health security, high literacy rate,
freedom of choices, nutrition then a nation will have happiness and can achieve development.

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World bank measures

Rostow theory

Dudly seers

Capability approach

HDI

MDG

SDG

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