MBEYA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

RUKWA CAMPUS COLLEGE (MRCC)

DEPARTMENT: MECHANICAL AND INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING (MIE)

COURSE: BACHELOR OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

MODULE NAME: DEVELOPMENT STUDIES (DS)

MODULE CODE: ME 8101

TASK: INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

LEVEL: UQF 8

FACILITATOR: MR. GALLEN MLENGE

NAME OF STUDENT: JUMA MOHAMED JUMA

REGISTRATION NUMBER: 23201234430004

SUBMISSION DATE: 15 DECEMBER 2023

QUESTION;
With examples, Explain under current situation, why economic growth is not entirely considered
as Development?

ANSWERS;

Development; this is the situation where by an individual or group of people or a country

takes changes from the lower level to higher level or more advanced one. For example an
increase in national income, improvement of social services like education and health care.
Development looks at wider range of statistics than just GDP per capita. It is concerned with
how people are actually affected and their actual living standards and freedom they have to enjoy
a good standard of living. Development can be measured by different ways such as Human
Development Index (HDI) which reflects the actual view of development by including social
issues such as education standards, transport and health care. HDI combines life expectancy,

education index and income index. Figure 1 below is an example of HDI for top 10 countries,
economies;

Fig 1; example of HDI for top 10 countries in the world.

Economic growth; this is an increase in economic variables over a certain period of time.
For example after month to month or year to year. In economic growth focuses on increase in
real GDP and higher national income/output. Economic growth means increase in national
income or national output. It is basically measures the total volume of goods and services
produced in an economy. Figure 2 below shows GDP growth in UK since 1963 to 2015.

Fig 2: economic growth in UK

Under current situation economic growth is not entirely considered as development due to the
following reasons;

 Weak governance; if the economic growth is accompanied with weak governance that
may have corruption, exploitation, and political instability, the benefits may not reach the
whole population that could hinder the overall population.
 Social services (social issues); in development there is overall improvement of social
issues such as equal access of education to people, health care, water services, transport
and communication to people while economic growth does not accompanied with those
social issues. For example, due to overall development the government has increased
provision of health service through construction of district hospitals in each district
throughout the country since 2015.
 Cultural values; rapid economic growth may lead to moral value erosion such as
behavior social and cultural identities. While development combines both cultural and
social development such as inheritance of cultural values from one generation to another
through education.
 Quality of job; it’s true that economic growth create various jobs like in the sector of
agriculture, manufacturing but it does not ensure the nature and conditions of working
places by means of cleanness, job security and health of workers that may be crucial for
holistic development. Example under Dr. Magufuli, Tanzania supported entrepreneurs by
creating special identities cards that could identify them and conducting their business
freely without disturbance that they could get income and contribute to both economic
growth and development.
 Environmental standards; example environmental degradation due to rapid economic
growth that may results into unbalanced ecosystem (caused by loss of biodiversity such
as trees), climate change, land pollution (due to either mining or agriculture) and air
pollution (caused by industries, vehicles and heavy machines) while development ensures
both economic and environmental development.
 Education standards; development is accompanied with improvement of quality of life
including the ability of reading and writing (literacy rate) while economic growth ensures
only the economic development only. Example in Tanzania literacy rate for 2021 was
81.80%, a 3.91% increased from 2015 due to efforts made by government so as to ensure
development.
 Life expectancy; the overall development may accompanied with the improvement of
social issues including health care that may increase rate or duration of which people may
live hence increasing life expectancy while economic growth is only accompanied with
GDP growth. Due to overall development Tanzanian government has played a vital role
to improve social welfare including health care that has increased life expectancy of
people that is 66.39 in 2023 that has increased by 0.47% from 2022.
 Transport and infrastructure; development would require the improvement in
infrastructure (such as roads and railways) and transport services. This may be important
for regions that cut off from the main areas of economic growth. Example construction of
standard gauge railway that runs from Dar es Salaam to Mwanza is considered as
development. Transport in Tanzania include roads, rail, air, and maritime. Example
Tanzania reached 6.2 million in 2019 compared to 5.2 million in 2015, representing an
increase of 18%. This is an overall development.
 Human Development Index (HDI); is a composite statistic used to measure a country’s
average achievements in three basic dimensions of human development (health,
education and standard of living). This is considered as factor beyond the economic
indicators that it reflects a more comprehensive view of development by including social
welfare/issues such as education and health care, that’s why we say that development
goes beyond the economic growth.
 Per-capita income; economic growth focuses on an increase in the country’s Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) while development focuses abroad with social aspects like
social well-being, equality and environmental sustainability.

In summary, economic growth relates a gradual increase in one of the components of

GDP, consumption, government spending, investment or net exports. It is generally not
concerned with happiness of public life. Therefore we say that it is single dimensional in
nature. While development it is multi-dimensional in nature as it focuses on both income
and improvement of living standards of the people.
That’s why we say economic growth is not entirely considered as Development.
References;
https://www.educba.com
https://www.economicshelp.org
https://www.publichealthnotes.com
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org