TADASHI HIRAI

The Creation
of the Human
Development
Approach
 CHAPTER 1

History of Development: Towards Human

Development

Introduction
The human development approach has established itself as an alter-
native to the orthodox approach of development. It was initiated in
1990 by the late Mahbub ul Haq with the help of Amartya Sen and
others within the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
However, it seems that his contribution would not have been made
without the ideas accumulated earlier. Human development was
invented not in a vacuum but developed over time in the process of
the conceptual transition between different notions of human-centred
development, especially after the foundation of the United Nations
(UN), which can be seen as the beginning of the current international
order. For example, elements such as empowerment, local culture, free-
dom and diversity were regarded as important for development prior to
the launch of this approach in 1990.
It suggests that human development is not a purely theoretical
approach, unlike the orthodox approach, which follows a bureaucratic
rationale based on mainstream economic theory. As will be argued in this
chapter, this alternative approach was greatly influenced by many, among
which are the basic needs approach and a series of Roundtables organised
by the UNDP and the North-South Roundtable (NSRT). It is still evolv-
ing even after its launch in 1990, to the extent that it places importance on
public discussion and participation in the process of development.

© The Author(s) 2017 1

T. Hirai, The Creation of the Human Development Approach,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51568-7_1
2 T. HIRAI

The outline of this chapter is as follows. It first provides a birds-

eye view of the concepts of development chronologically, along with
historical social and economic events both within and outside the
UN. Following that, it investigates the basic needs approach, which can
be regarded as the most influential alternative to the orthodoxy at that
time, and then examines the human development approach. Finally, a
comparative study is made between the basic needs approach and the
human development approach to fortify the view that the former is the
predecessor of the latter.

Conceptual Shifts in Development—Overview

At the early stage of the UN, the western concept of development (i.e.
development as economic growth) was dominant (Jolly et al. 2009). This
concept was initially influenced by the Marshall Plan which was made for
European countries with the aim of reconstruction after their devastation
during the Second World War. The plan focused on financial aid for capital
formulation, on the condition that human capacity, a basis for economic
growth, already existed in those countries. Despite very different situations
in other parts of the world, consensus was built on this concept of devel-
opment, as the non-western world had fewer UN representatives before
independence and thus tended not to voice their own development.
The first apparent scepticism of the western view of development was
expressed in 1950 as the Prebisch-Singer thesis (Jolly et al. 2009), which
was then extended to structuralism and dependency theory within the
UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). This movement
is important in the sense that development began to be considered from
the non-western perspective. And yet, the sphere of development was still
limited to economic progress, given that their critique was focused on
the terms of trade between ‘centre’ (developed countries) and ‘periphery’
(developing countries).
Another important event in the 1950s was the Asian-African Conference
held in 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia (the so-called Bandung Conference).
This conference was regarded as the non-western protest against the fail-
ure of the western concept of development (Kahin 1956). In other words,
the Bandung Conference is the first historical event where developing
countries made collective demands that helped them to elaborate their
own development thinking. The crucial contribution of this event was to
urge the advent of new international institutions or to avoid the existing
 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 3

development policies created by developed countries, especially the US

(Rist 1997). It led, for example, to the establishment of the UN Special
Fund, one of the predecessors of UNDP; the International Finance
Corporation (IFC) and the International Development Association (IDA)
for anti-poverty programmes within the World Bank; the Group of 77 and
the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD);
and the Non-Aligned Movement, the New International Economic Order
(NIEO) and the South-South cooperation for collective self-reliance.
Moreover, unlike structuralism and dependency theory, the Bandung
Conference covered a wider sphere of development including culture,
human rights, self-determination and world peace.
At the beginning of the 1960s, the UN proposed a plan for the
decade—the UN Development Decade. The idea originated in a speech
by President Kennedy to the US Congress which was then raised at the
UN General Assembly in 1961 (Rist 1997). Following the western con-
cept, it stressed the significance of economic growth according to each
country’s stage of development (Rostow 1960) and set up a global eco-
nomic target for an average increase of gross national product (GNP) of
5 % per annum by the end of the decade. It was taken for granted here that
living conditions and social progress would be improved almost automati-
cally by economic development (Jolly et al. 2004).
In the following year, the Burmese UN secretary-general, U Thant,
published Proposals for Action as a foreword to the UN Development
Decade. He stated:

At the opening of the United Nations Development Decade, we are begin-

ning to understand the real aims of development and the nature of the
development process. We are learning that development concerns not only
man’s material needs, but also the improvement of the social conditions of
his life and his broad human aspirations. Development is not just economic
growth, it is growth plus change (U Thant 1962: 141, italics added).

In contrast to the statement of the UN Development Decade which focused

on economic growth, the proposal can be seen as an adjustment or indeed
a protest against the plan designed by the US. In addition, it elsewhere
questioned the disappointing foreign trade record of developing coun-
tries due to obstacles formed by developed countries and advocated the
importance of disarmament to economic and social development. Many
issues addressed in the proposal led to the main arguments put forward by
4 T. HIRAI

the forthcoming UN agencies. Indeed, U Thant had played an important

role as Secretary of the Bandung Conference, and certainly, under his
­mastership, some UN agencies sensitive to developing countries’ demands
were established (e.g. UNCTAD in 1964, UNDP in 1966).
Further important events in the 1960s accompanied decolonisation.
While some of the institutions suggested at the Bandung Conference
were convened outside the UN (e.g. the Non-Aligned Movement and the
Group of 77), the establishment of UNCTAD can be seen as an institu-
tionalisation of the North-South debates within the UN where developing
countries subsequently played a growing role in framing debates and in set-
ting the UN’s agenda, above all in challenging orthodoxy about the distri-
bution of benefits from the international economic system (Emmerij et al.
2001). Indeed, Prebisch, after his duty as executive secretary at ECLA,
served as the founding secretary-general of the UNCTAD. In 1967,
Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere announced the Arusha Declaration
outside the UN in order to diversify development paths respecting history,
cultures, self-reliance, and most importantly freedom, against the domi-
nant strategy of a single path of development (Nyerere 1967, 1973).1 He
later became a chairperson of the South Commission founded in 1987.
The 1970s had witnessed a dramatic shift in the concept of develop-
ment both inside and outside the UN, by acknowledging the inadequacy
of economic growth as the sole development target and the necessity of a
more extensive understanding of development. On the one hand, the UN
proclaimed the Second UN Development Decade in 1970. Unlike the pre-
vious version, it put forward a more comprehensive view of development
although the ultimate goal was still economic growth. It is this document
which introduced the term ‘human development’ for the first time in a
context intended for wider dissemination (UN 1970: 326–7), despite the
meaning being different from the current concept as will be discussed later
in this chapter. Another main movement in the UN occurred with the
NIEO in 1974. It was established by the bargaining power of developing
countries, more precisely the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) members, caused by the imposition of the oil embargo
during the Arab-Israeli War of 1973. This, however, ended up reinforcing
the predominant view of development: economic growth, expansion of
world trade and increased aid by developed countries, because national
leaders in developing countries prioritised their own share from economic
growth over benefit to the people (Haq 1994; Rist 1997).
 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 5

On the other hand, the NSRT was established in 1978 by the Society for
International Development (SID). It was triggered by the Pearson Report
which questioned the effectiveness of the World Bank’s d ­ evelopment
assistance. In order to tackle the issue, the NSRT needed to be indepen-
dent of the SID given that the SID was founded mainly by Americans
who were interested in foreign aid in favour of US and Bretton Woods
policies. It was launched by Paul-Marc Henry, the then President of SID
(1972–4) and the previous deputy administrator of UNDP (1961–71),
while the idea of this institution was developed initially by Mahbub ul
Haq, who acknowledged the significance of the Trilateral Commission,
in which meetings were held over time by the same members with one
key theme discussed each time instead of one big meeting held intermit-
tently with prominent but infrequently attending members.2 Above all,
the independent and unofficial status seems essential for the NSRT to fulfil
its vital role in the development field. To put it another way, it has been
less influenced by powerful countries thanks to an intellectual forum of
policy-makers, academics and research analysts independent of bureaucra-
cies. Indeed, it contributed greatly to the promotion of human-centred
development leading to human development.

The Basic Needs Approach

In this context, the concept of basic needs emerged within the UN. It
originated in 1972 in the annual speech ‘To the Board of Governors’ given
by Robert McNamara, President of the World Bank (McNamara 1981),
in which the importance of the ‘essential human needs’ was announced
for the first time in a context intended for wide dissemination. The main
message was that special attention should be given directly to the poor,
facing the reality that the orthodox approach underestimated distribu-
tive issues and could not effectively reduce poverty. It coincided with the
advance of the NIEO’s influence, however. Under this political situation,
its adoption was particularly sensitive. Indeed, the basic needs concept was
often regarded as opposed to the NIEO, not only because it may discour-
age industrialisation but also because it may be used as conditionality for
development assistance (Singh 1979). Furthermore, it was seen as a vio-
lation of national sovereignty and a diversionary tactic to draw attention
away from the NIEO (Streeten et al. 1981).
In such a controversial background, the concept of basic needs was
officially developed in 1976 under the employment-oriented strategies
6 T. HIRAI

of the International Labour Organization (ILO). Part of the prepara-

tory work for the Tripartite (ILO, World Bank and Third World Forum)
World Conference, the so-called World Employment Conference (Jolly
et al. 2004), it was indeed the ILO’s principal contribution to the Second
UN Development Decade (UN 1970). Given the possible suspicion by
developing countries towards this approach, the World Employment
Conference declared in the Programme of Action the indispensability
of the success of the NIEO for the basic needs approach (ILO 1977).
Similarly, Singh (1979) argued for no contradiction between this
approach and industrialisation, the main objective of the NIEO, and
further justified their interdependence for sustainable development,
while Streeten et al. (1981) advocated the complementary features of
this approach and the NIEO in general. By stressing the necessity of the
NIEO, therefore, the basic needs approach was successfully adopted by
consensus (UN 1976).
The original concept of basic needs was composed of two elements:
private consumption (e.g. adequate food, shelter and clothing) and public
services (e.g. safe drinking water, sanitation, transport, health and educa-
tional facilities) (ILO 1977). Obviously, the first element can be identified
as so-called basic material needs; the second element is not necessarily
so but regarded people rather as passive agents. To supplement them, it
referred to the importance of participation of the people in the process of
decision-making: ‘A basic-needs oriented policy implies the participation
of the people in making the decisions which affect them’ (ILO 1977: 32).
It was seen at the early stage as an implication (‘implies’) to the basic needs
approach, not the main focus of the approach.
Four years after, the concept of basic needs focused less on material
needs and placed the active side of human beings at the centre of the
approach: ‘A basic needs approach to development attempts to provide
the opportunities for the full physical, mental, and social development of
the human personality’ (Streeten et al. 1981: 33–4, italics added). Whereas
the original concept also considered the importance of human beings as
active agents by proposing the necessity of people’s participation in the
process of development, it was the later version which brought this feature
into front. Indeed, for the purpose of clarification, the term ‘basic material
needs’ was replaced with ‘basic human needs’. The intention of stressing
the latter can be seen from the title of the book by Streeten et al. (1981):
First Things First: meeting basic human needs in the developing countries
 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 7

(underline added). This also led to later work by Stewart who stressed the
‘full-life’ objective of the basic needs approach (Stewart 1985).
Since its launch, the concept of basic needs was widely accepted
as an alternative approach of development. When the ILO faced the
financial limitation in putting it into practice (Jolly et al. 2009), UNDP
financed the policy activities to a great degree (Emmerij et al. 2001). At
the same time, it was developed further by the Overseas Development
Council (ODC).3 Indeed, it is the ODC that introduced the Physical
Quality of Life Index (PQLI) (Sewell 1977) which can be seen as a
composite index of basic needs (ILO 1977; Liser 1977; Grant 1981).
The connection between the PQLI and the basic needs approach is
highly likely, given that the ILO worked at that time closely with the
ODC, to which the creator of the index, D.M. Morris, belonged. One
example is a co-publication of an influential book on the basic needs
approach: Employment, Growth and Basic Needs: A One-World Problem
(1977). According to Grant (1981), this publication first brought to
public attention the idea of seeking to quantify the problem of basic
human needs. In this way, the basic needs approach became prominent
and was even adopted by the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs) by
the end of the 1970s. Under McNamara’s presidency, Mahbub ul Haq,
Paul Streeten and Hollis Chenery contributed greatly to the advance-
ment of the approach within the World Bank (Emmerij et al. 2001).
Given that the US was reluctant to accept it at the World Employment
Conference (Grant 1977), the shift could be indicative of a paradigm
change.
In the early 1980s, however, the basic needs approach became less influ-
ential. Some reasons can be found for this turn. Generally the approach
had not been welcomed by developing countries since it did not allow
them to maximise their international influence (Kirdar 1986, 1989). This
stance was not coherent, however, given that it was adopted by consen-
sus including developing countries at the World Employment Conference
and was even proposed to be incorporated in the strategy for the Third
UN Development Decade (UN 1976). One possibility would be that the
concept was skewed over time in favour of developed countries, whereas
another possibility would be that participation, a core feature in the latter
version of the approach, was undervalued severely at the practical stage.
These possibilities would be more likely in centralised institutions. Indeed,
the employment of this approach by the World Bank since the end of
the 1970s could have made them accelerate.4 Concurrently, the following
8 T. HIRAI

three events had a hand in the weakening of the approach: (1) the onset
of a world recession triggered by a second round of oil price increases;
(2) a return to economic orthodoxy driven by the rise of Thatcherism
and Reaganism in some developed countries; and (3) banking policies
designed to ensure that developing countries repaid their debts (Jolly et al.
2009). Furthermore, the PQLI ceased to be effective after James Grant
stepped down as the President of the ODC.5 The index indeed stopped
being updated annually.
The basic needs approach was consequently replaced by a single-minded
focus on economic policies. The 1980s were notorious for the stabilisa-
tion and adjustment policies forced on developing countries by the BWIs.
Even though the Third UN Development Decade sounded promising by
declaring the importance of the full participation of the entire population
in the process of development, a fair distribution of the benefits there-
from, and more specifically targeted goals not only for economic growth
but also for a wider dimension of development including health and edu-
cation (Jolly et al. 2004), it was not put into practice.6

The Human Development Approach

The debut of the term ‘human development’ in the international context
dates back to as early as 1970 when the Second UN Development Decade
was proposed (UN 1970). It appeared before the basic needs approach,
which is often known as a predecessor of human development (e.g. Jolly
1989b; Streeten 1995a, b; Stewart 2006; Haq and Jolly 2008; Ponzio
2008; Jolly et al. 2009). The original concept was, however, very dif-
ferent from its current version. Human development at the beginning
consisted of one of the ten policy measures for the promotion of eco-
nomic and social progress; its scope was therefore much smaller than that
of the current one. Related to this, it stressed a means-value framework
(e.g. employment for growth, education for productivity) rather than an
end-value method, even though it appreciated the importance of mul-
tidimensionality to development. For example, education for workers
was prioritised over universal primary education. Moreover, it strongly
depended on technical assistance from developed countries and interna-
tional institutions, thus to a lesser extent taking into account self-reliance
and local knowledge. Overall, human development was not formulated as
an approach despite the debut of the term and thus did not prevail over
the decade.7
 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 9

The next public appearance of ‘human development’ was in the World

Development Report (WDR; 1980) published by the World Bank.8 It
defined human development to stress the improvement of human well-­
being as the ultimate end of development and differentiated it from the
conventional concept of human resource development which tends to
consider human concerns only indirectly and thus regard human beings as
a means of development:

[H]uman resource development, here called human development to empha-

size that it is an end as well as a means of economic progress. … The case
for human development is not only, or even primarily, an economic one.
Less hunger, fewer child deaths and a better chance of primary education
are almost universally accepted as important ends in themselves (World Bank
1980: 32).9

Insofar as human well-being was subsequently accorded the top priority

of development, the concept as put forward by the World Bank cor-
responds to its current understanding. However, it was more focused
on the poor population and often identified as poverty reduction in
the report as well as in its background papers (e.g. ‘antipoverty pol-
icy—human development’ (World Bank 1980: 45), ‘poverty-oriented
human development’ (Uphoff 1980: 6)). Moreover, it undervalued the
importance of local knowledge by participation and adapted rather a
top-down structure (e.g. ‘making basic human development services
available to all’ (World Bank 1980: 93), ‘state intervention into promot-
ing human development’ (Meerman 1980: 119)). Alternatively, Robert
McNamara considered human development as a concept broader than
mere poverty reduction. Indeed, he defined it in his address to the
Board of Governors as follows: ‘it is essentially human development;
that is, the individual’s realization of his or her own inherent potential’
(McNamara 1981: 631). Considering that he was the President of the
World Bank at the time, the narrow concept focusing on poverty reduc-
tion was supposedly employed in the WDRs to make a compromise with
mainstream economists in the World Bank. Despite such an innovative
vision, the idea of human development ceased to be used in the institu-
tion after his resignation in 1982.
Soon after, the concept of human development reappeared and devel-
oped further through a series of Roundtables by the collaborative work
between the UNDP Development Study Programme and the NSRT.10
10 T. HIRAI

The Roundtable started in Istanbul in 1983. With countries facing dif-

ficulties in the structural adjustment imposed by the BWIs at that time,
the Istanbul Roundtable called for human welfare as the ultimate purpose
of development:

Solutions which do not take the human dimension and human resource
building into account will fail to provide an enduring answer to the world’s
financial and monetary crisis. … let us not forget that people must be at the
center of all our concerns. In the last analysis, we must judge all adjustment
processes, all policy options, all institutional alternatives by the same yardstick:
the impact they have on human welfare. (Istanbul Statement, in NSRT and
UNDP 1983: 11, italics added)

Clearly, the human dimension came at the centre of development, and

the concept of ‘human resource’ used in this statement is broader than in
common usage which represents human beings as a means of economic
growth. The Santiago Roundtable convened in the following year also
stressed the significance of the human condition along with conditionality
(Santiago Statement, in Haq and Massad 1984).
Whereas these two Roundtables viewed the human condition as essential
in the context of structural adjustment and conditionality, the subsequent
four Roundtables treated people as agents of development in general. The
Istanbul Roundtable on ‘Development: The Human Dimension’ in 1985
(different from the Istanbul Roundtable in 1983) reconfirmed the indis-
pensable status of the human condition to the process of development,
as stated: ‘The objective of development is people. The process of devel-
opment may be measured in economic aggregates or technological and
physical achievements, but the human dimension of development is the
only dimension of intrinsic worth’ (UNDP and NSRT 1985: 10; Haq and
Kirdar 1986: 1). At the same meeting, human development was clearly for-
mulated by Kirdar with a broader meaning than by the UN and the World
Bank in the past. As he put it, ‘the shaping of comprehensive and coherent
global strategy and policies on human development, fuelling public opinion
and attracting the attention of political leaders to this neglected area of the
development process’ (Kirdar 1986: 424, italics added). Clearly, it stressed
the importance of public discussion, one of the key elements of the cur-
rent usage of human development. Whereas the Salzburg Roundtable on
‘Adjustment and Growth with Human Development’ in 1986 reconsid-
ered the significance of human concerns along with structural adjustment
 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 11

by the BWIs and other international financial institutions (Haq and Kirdar
1987), the Budapest Roundtable on ‘Managing Human Development’
held in 1987 underlined the basic needs perspective in practice. In fact,
the concept of ‘basic human needs’ was frequently employed in rela-
tion to human development in the Budapest Statement (Haq and Kirdar
1988). Finally, a clear change occurred at the final meeting, the Amman
Roundtable on ‘Human Development: Goals and Strategies for the Year
2000’ in 1988, when human development benefited from a discussion
informed by the capability approach: ‘This ‘capabilities approach’ neces-
sarily emphasizes the centrality of human initiative and creativity, indi-
vidual and collective, and hence the need to democratize the development
process’ (Amman Statement, in Haq and Kirdar, 1989: 13). While being
universal in its applicability, the capability approach requires the bottom-
­up planning by means of the participation of all sections of society for
effective policies.11
Overall, there is an evidence of the shift in terminology through this
series of Statements. While various terms were used for human-centred
development (e.g. human dimension, human condition, human situa-
tion, human development, human capacities, human potential, human
investment, human resource), the overall trend was from ‘human
resource’ (NSRT and UNDP, 1983) through ‘human dimension’ (Haq
and Massad 1984; Haq and Kirdar 1986) to ‘human development’ (Haq
and Kirdar 1987, 1988, 1989). Indeed, ‘human development’ became
predominant at the final meeting synchronised with the debut of ‘capa-
bilities’. Although ‘human resource development’ was still used by some
participants at the meeting, it disappeared from the Amman Statement.
Given this, it seems not coincidental that ‘human resource development’
does not appear in the first Human Development Report (HDR) in
1990.
Another point to note concerns the composition of participants in the
Roundtables. Given that the leading scholars on the basic needs approach
participated in the meetings (e.g. Giovanni Andrea Cornia, Mahbub ul
Haq, Richard Jolly, Gustav Ranis, Frances Stewart), the meetings can be
regarded as a collaborative work on the basic needs approach and the
capability approach to establish the human development approach in the
present form (although Sen, a founder of the capability approach, did not
attend any of the Roundtables). Indeed, Stewart described the second half
of the 1980s as an era of agreement between the basic needs school and
Sen’s capabilities before the first HDR (Ponzio 2008).
12 T. HIRAI

Now what can explain the sudden appearance of the capability approach
at the final Roundtable? A clue is provided in one of the papers presented
at the Amman Roundtable, according to which it is Amartya Sen and Keith
Griffin who addressed development as an expansion of people’s ‘capa-
bilities’ (Kirdar 1989). Indeed, Griffin was rapporteur in the Committee
for Development Planning (CDP) from 1987 to 1989, prepared for the
research on human development and invited Sen to contribute.12 While
the UNDP Development Study Programme and the NSRT had a lively
discussion on human-centred development towards human development
in a series of Roundtables, the CDP put human development as one of
four themes in formulating an international development strategy for the
coming decade and reconfirmed it as the ultimate objective of develop-
ment: ‘The ultimate objective of economic development should be human
development’ (CDP 1988: 2). At the same time, human development
was defined from the viewpoint of capabilities by adapting the work of
Sen (1983) (Griffin and Knight 1989b: 2) and stressed the importance of
participation in the process of development by recognising people ‘as an
agent of constructive change’ (CDP 1988: 29; Griffin and Knight 1989a:
23). Apart from the indirect contribution, Sen himself took part in the
debate by contributing his paper ‘Development as a Capability Expansion’
(Sen 1989). It thus seems that the latter stage of the Roundtables would
have been influenced by the debate developed in the CDP.
In light of these historical facts, human development work had been
done by four institutions with different concepts over the years before the
current version introduced in the first HDR. The shift is summarised in
Table 1.1.

Table 1.1. Evolution of the Concept of Human Development

Period Institution Concept

1970 UN Improvement in human resource in a narrow

sense
Early 1980s World Bank Poverty reduction
Through UNDP + NSRT Improvement in human capacities (i.e. human
1980s (Roundtables) capital/human resource building)
Late 1980s CDP Expansion of human capabilities
1990s onwards UNDP Expansion of human capabilities/people’s
choices/substantive freedoms

Source: Original based on references shown in the main text

 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 13

The first concept introduced by the UN (1970) regarded people as a

means of development and was therefore quite similar to the concept of
human resource in a narrow sense common to mainstream economics. The
concept defined by the World Bank (1980) was broader by seeing people
as an ultimate goal of development, and yet narrower by focusing on pov-
erty reduction. By contrast, the concepts adopted by the Roundtables and
the CDP had much in common; whereas the Roundtables (in particular,
the last in Amman) viewed human development as an improvement in
human capacities (i.e. human capital/human resource building), the CDP
saw it as a process of expanding human capabilities based on the work
by Sen. Although Sen criticised the inadequacy of the concept of human
capital (Sen 1997), ‘human resource’ as conceived by the Roundtables
differed from the common usage, in that people are regarded as intrinsic
and placed at the centre in a process of development. Thus, the concept of
human development as the expansion of human capabilities seems shared
by both the Roundtables and the CDP, before the initiation of the human
development approach within the UNDP in 1990.
Overall, apart from the first concept by the UN (1970), the human
development perspective shows a substantial difference from the growth
perspective in terms of the respective treatment given to the means and
ends of development. Whereas the growth perspective regards health,
nutrition and education as investments for extra income or output and
therefore considers people as means for achieving economic development,
the human development perspective sees the empowerment of people
through health and educational programmes as end-points of develop-
ment (Anand and Ravallion 1993). In this context, Streeten emphasised
the distinction and reaffirmed the improvement of human conditions and
the expansion of people’s choices as the ultimate purpose of develop-
ment in his well-known article ‘Human Development: means and ends’
(Streeten 1994).

The Basic Needs Approach and the Human

Development Approach
Whereas human development has a direct influence from basic needs as is
clear from the examination above, they seem to be discriminated unduly.
Indeed, basic needs was replaced with human development in the first
HDR. It is true that the basic needs approach tends to focus more on
14 T. HIRAI

the fundamentals of life. For example, Jolly, a leading scholar of the basic
needs approach, acknowledges that the basic needs approach is limited,
compared with the human development approach, both in terms of human
rights (e.g. working rights) and targeted population (i.e. the deprived).13
Similarly, Stewart, another leading scholar of the basic needs approach,
confirmed that the capability approach, the philosophical b ­ ackground of
the human development approach, is philosophically more elegant than
the basic needs approach in terms of its wider coverage of population
and its focus more on individual capacities and needs (Stewart 2006).
Nonetheless, the two approaches seem have more in common than is gen-
erally recognised, including the points Jolly and Stewart have raised at
least on their conceptual ground.
Firstly, it must be emphasised that, apart from Amartya Sen, most of
the main contributors to human development come from the basic needs
school. Indeed, the project director for the first HDR was Mahbub ul
Haq, and the panel of consultants included Meghnad Desai, Gustav Ranis,
Frances Stewart and Paul Streeten, in addition to Amartya Sen. Moreover,
many of them participated in the Roundtables where the concept of
human development was developed before the launch of the HDRs, as
mentioned earlier. This supports the view that the basic needs approach
is a conceptual predecessor of the human development approach (Jolly
1989b; Streeten 1995a, b; Stewart 2006; Haq and Jolly 2008; Ponzio
2008; Jolly et al. 2009). Sen himself regards the basic needs approach
‘as just one part of the capabilities approach’ (Sen 1984: 515), although
he seems to have some reservations to labelling it a predecessor. More
modestly, it is evident that the human development approach has been
influenced by the basic needs approach in a series of HDRs.
Secondly, human development is very similar to basic needs in practice,
particularly in terms of the introduction of a composite index. Whilst a
part of the success of human development derives from the introduction
of the human development index (HDI) strongly proposed by Mahbub ul
Haq together with the launch of the HDRs, the importance of compos-
ite indices was acknowledged in the basic needs approach for monitoring
purposes (Streeten 1977: 56).14 Indeed, the PQLI was constructed by
Morris in the mid-1970s under the auspices of the ODC. Given that Haq
worked closely with the ODC at that time (not only contributing with a
paper to the ODC publication (McLaughlin 1979) but also collaborating
with James Grant, the then President of ODC, on the RIO Report to
the Club of Rome (Tinbergen et al. 1977)), he was surely aware of this
 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 15

index and observed its strength and weakness, which implies the PQLI
might be considered a predecessor of the HDI. The existence of the com-
posite index for the basic needs approach can thus strengthen the practi-
cal similarity previously argued in the past (e.g. Alkire 2002; Stewart and
Deneulin 2002; Gasper 2004).
Thirdly, both approaches take seriously the means-end argument and
criticise the orthodox approach which focuses on the means rather than
the ends of development. As early as 1984, Streeten distinguished between
‘human resource development’ and ‘human development’ in relation to
basic needs: human resource development sees meeting basic needs as a
means to growth and productivity; and human development sees meeting
basic needs as an end in itself (Streeten 1984).15 In other words, both the
basic needs approach and the human development approach regard meet-
ing basic needs as an end, rather than a means, of development. The cru-
cial difference between the two approaches would be that the basic needs
approach regarded ‘meeting basic human needs’ as an end (Streeten 1977,
1984; Grant 1981; Haq 1989a), whereas human development regards
‘expanding human choices and capabilities’ as an end (HDR 1990). This
difference will become insignificant, however, by the recognition of the
importance of non-material needs in the basic needs approach, as will be
examined next.
Fourthly, the basic needs approach took non-material needs (e.g. free-
dom, participatory process) into account from the beginning, as can be
seen from the quotations below:

It [the satisfaction of basic needs] should further imply the satisfaction of

needs of a more qualitative nature: a healthy, humane and satisfying environ-
ment, and popular participation in the making of decisions that affect the
lives and livelihood of the people and individual freedoms (ILO 1977: 7);

BN [basic needs] encompasses ‘non-material’ needs. … They include the

need for self-determination, self-reliance, political freedom and security,
participation in making the decisions that affect workers and citizens,
national and cultural identity, and a sense of purpose in life and work
(Streeten 1977: 50).

As investigated in the section of the Basic Needs Approach, the signifi-

cance of non-material needs had been gradually emphasised, and conse-
quently the term ‘basic human needs’ appeared (Streeten et al. 1981) to
16 T. HIRAI

distinguish from a narrower concept of ‘basic material needs’.16 In this

respect, non-material needs such as participatory and dynamic process is
not exclusive to the human development approach, despite the following
statement in the first HDR: ‘Human Development is … concerned not
only with basic needs satisfaction but also with human development as
a ­participatory and dynamic process’ (HDR 1990: 11). The difference
derives simply from the interpretation of participation: the basic needs
approach viewed participation as basic whereas the human development
approach does not, while both regard it as indispensable for human-­
centred development.
Finally and related to the fifth point, meeting basic needs was an agenda
not only for developing countries but also for developed countries, despite
the common understanding that basic needs focuses exclusively on the
poor while human development covers both the poor and the non-poor.
This point was revealingly expressed by Grant in his following lines:

[T]he ILO’s excellent articulation of a basic-needs strategy … is clearly,

though briefly, placed within the broader framework of attaining human
freedom, physical security and the range of factors which contribute to the
individual’s sense of ‘identity’, achievement and satisfaction. True develop-
ment to meet basic needs must ultimately encompass progress in all these
areas of concerns. Under such an appropriately broader definition of ‘basic
needs’, all countries must still be considered ‘underdeveloped’ today. (Grant
1977: x)

This evidence runs counter to the use of human development against basic
needs which only focuses on developing countries and the poor. The sat-
isfaction of freedom and participatory process is a core objective of both
basic needs and human development, to the extent that the satisfaction of
them is regarded as essential and yet hard to achieve. This leads the basic
needs approach to have claimed the universal applicability of these basic
needs (ILO 1977), whereas the capability approach, the philosophical
background of human development, to advocate the solution of injustice
in society rather than transcendental justice (Sen 2009) or the fulfilment
of the minimum objective of society (Nussbaum 2000). The bottom line
is that freedom and participatory process are thought of as universally
important in both approaches.
In retrospect, Emmerij et al. (2001) divided the basic needs approach
into two types: a strong and a weak approach. This classification corre-
sponds to a distinction between the concept and the application of the
 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 17

approach—whereas the strong approach involves the rich concept includ-

ing the necessity of non-material needs such as empowerment, freedom
and participatory process, the weak approach corresponds to the simplified
version in the process of policy application in which non-material needs
are ignored or undervalued at best. To put it another way, the strong
approach (i.e. the original concept) was converted into the weak approach
in its application.
With these similarities in mind, Sen’s criticism of the basic needs
approach labelled as ‘commodity fetishism’ seems only applicable to its
practical stage. Indeed, all four critical aspects Sen (1984) proposed to the
basic needs approach can be disproved: his first, second and fourth cri-
tiques (basic needs as commodities; disregard for social interdependence;
passivity) are counter-argued by the coverage of non-material needs (the
fourth point above) and his third critique (focus on minima only) by the
universal applicability (the fifth point above).17 In this respect, Stewart
remarked: ‘A certain reductionism has tended to creep into practical inter-
pretations, …, which explains the prevalence of such criticism’ (Stewart
2006: 15). Ultimately, public discussion is required to determine the con-
tent and level of basic needs, as Haq articulated: ‘There must be an open
discussion of what level of basic needs the society can afford at its current
per capita income and the projected growth rates. … In other words,
we should proceed from ends to means and not the other way around’
(Haq 1989a: 251). Apart from reconfirming basic needs as an end rather
than a means of development, this statement implies that not much dif-
ference was seen between basic needs and human development, given not
only that this was written in 1989, a year before the birth of the human
development approach in a global context as well as just after a series of
Roundtables (1985–88) which developed the concept of human develop-
ment, but also that what Haq addressed is directly applicable to human
development, namely the requirement of public discussion to determine
the content and level of human development and capabilities. In this view,
it is fair to interpret that central capabilities can be seen as equivalent to
basic needs.

Conclusions
The concept of human-centred development has a long history of man-
kind. Even after the dominance of the economic growth model after
the Second World War, it has remained and developed as an alternative
18 T. HIRAI

approach to development though various historical events, figures and

ideas—the Bandung Conference in the 1950s, U Thant and the Arusha
Declaration in the 1960s; the basic needs approach and Robert McNamara
in the 1970s; and a series of Roundtables by the UNDP Development
Study Programme and NSRT, and the CDP in the 1980s. Based on such
a background, Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen among others succeeded
in a direct contribution to the human development approach within the
UNDP since 1990. This chapter aims to analyse a historical trajectory of
the concept in order to reflect the approach more accurately.
Among such historical legacy, the human development approach
has drawn a strong and direct influence from the basic needs approach.
Unlike the common recognition about their similarity only in prac-
tice, it has found that they have much in common also in concept. The
basic needs approach (based particularly on the concept of basic human
needs) covered not only material needs but also non-material needs such
as participatory process and freedom. Indeed, the significance of par-
ticipation and public discussion was articulated clearly to determine the
content and level of basic needs. Furthermore, the basic needs approach
was applicable not only to developing countries and the poor but also
to developed countries and the non-poor, insofar as non-material needs
such as freedom are regarded as one of the basic human needs. All
these points are familiar in the human development approach and thus
strengthen the view that both approaches have much more in common
both practically and conceptually than generally recognised. Eventually,
central capabilities are basic needs.
Why then was the basic needs approach required to be replaced with
the human development approach? A possible reason would be embedded
in a gap between concept and practice; the concept of basic needs was
too simplified and skewed in practice to keep its richness. It seems that a
new term was required to escape from the simplified and skewed image
of ‘basic needs’ and to implement and institutionalise the concept more
faithfully under the banner of ‘human development’.

Notes
1. Nyerere later became a chairperson of the South Commission
founded at the Non-Aligned Summit Meeting in 1987. The South
Commission represented a union among developing countries
outside the UN and allowed them to discuss their own develop-
 HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 19

ment issues before bringing them to the UN. It was transformed

into the South Centre in 1995. However, it has never become
influential because of scant financing, in contrast to its counterpart,
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) for developed countries (Jolly et al. 2009).
2. R. Jolly, personal communication, 26 February 2010. This feature
has fallen heir to the HDRs, in that different topics have been
raised each year in relation to human development (i.e. ‘through
the lens of people and human impact’ (Jolly 2000: 15)). According
to him, this function has not been carried out by any other report
or international institution.
3. The ODC was established in Washington DC in 1969 at the initia-
tive of James Grant to make the US understand the economic and
social problems confronting developing countries (Howe 1974).
That is, the aim of this institution was to influence US policy,
unlike the SID whose aim was converse.
4. See the section of the Basic Needs Approach and the Human
Development Approach for the relevance of this argument to the
two approaches of basic needs.
5. R. Jolly, personal communication, 30 July 2010. According to
him, Grant initially intended to take the PQLI over to the United
Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) publication the State of the
World’s Children when he became the executive director, although
it had never been achieved.
6. Nonetheless, these features in the Third UN Development Decade
seem outstanding, in comparison with the First UN Development
Decade which focused on economic growth and the Second UN
Development Decade which was more comprehensive and yet
growth-led.
7. Around the same time, Goulet academically argued about the
indispensability of ‘human development’ (Goulet 1971b) and
‘human capabilities’ (Goulet 1971a) in the context of develop-
ment. For detailed work on Goulet, refer to Gasper (2006, 2008a).
8. It seems go against a trend, given that the World Bank is a main
body of the BWIs which tend to undervalue the human develop-
ment perspective while overvaluing the growth perspective.
9. This distinction was not fully recognised at that time even by most
authors of the background papers. Indeed, the term ‘human
20 T. HIRAI

(resource) development’ was used instead (Meerman 1980: 111;

Esman and Montgomery 1980: 185; Rogers et al. 1980: 240).
10. It can be understood as an extension of the idea of human-centred
development since the mid-1970s in the UNDP. For details, refer
to Chap. 2.
11. The UNDP would be an ideal institution to put the human devel-
opment and capability approach in practice. While keeping a uni-
versal frame of the approach, it values the needs of each region and
country, given that it holds local offices worldwide. For details,
refer to Chaps. 2 and 5.
12. The CDP (renamed the Committee for Development Policy
(CDP) in 1998) was established in 1965 by the Economic and
Social Council (ECOSOC) as an independent group which offers
expert advice on development trends, projections and the activities
in these fields of the UN system (CDP 1989).
13. R. Jolly, personal communication, 26 February and 3 July 2010.
14. However, Streeten soon suggested a single indicator rather than a
composite, considering the complicacy of weighting issues (Hicks
and Streeten 1979).
15. Streeten’s concept of human development corresponds to the one
by Robert McNamara (i.e. wider than poverty reduction). It makes
sense given that Streeten worked as an advisor in the World Bank
under the presidency of MacNamara.
16. The core element of expression, participation and self-­determination
in the basic needs approach (the basic human needs approach in
particular) was reconfirmed by Doyal and Gough (1991), Max-­
Neef (1992) and Gasper (2006, 2004).
17. Elsewhere, these critiques Sen proposed were considered by Alkire
(2002) and Crocker (1992, 2008). On the one hand, Alkire
accepted his third critique while counter-arguing the others. On
the other hand, even though Crocker (1992) had not been critical
of Sen’s arguments by recognising basic needs as basic material
needs, Crocker (2008) reached a conclusion similar to Alkire’s,
based on his extensive interpretation of Max-Neef (1992), Alkire
(2002) and Gasper (2004).