DEVELOPMENT

1. Introduction

• Development is a process that creates growth, progress, positive change or the addition of physical, economic, environmental, social and demographic components.
• The purpose of development is a rise in the level and quality of life of the population, and the creation or expansion of local regional income and employment opportunities, without damaging the resources of the environment.
• Development is visible and useful, not necessarily immediately, and includes an aspect of quality change and the creation of conditions for a continuation of that change.
• The international agenda began to focus on development beginning in the second half of the twentieth century.
• An understanding developed that economic growth did not necessarily lead to a rise in the level and quality of life for populations all over the world; there was a need to emphasize specific policies that would channel resources and enable social and economic mobility for various layers of the population.
• In the broadest sense of the term, development conveys the ideas of improvement, progress, well-being and an aspiration for a better life.
• However, the term development is also often used in a narrower sense to refer to more limited goals such as increasing the rate of economic growth or modernizing society.
• Development has unfortunately often come to be identified with achieving pre-set targets or completing projects like dams, factories, and hospitals, rather than with realizing the broader vision of development which the society upholds.
• In the process some sections of society may have benefited while others may have had to suffer loss of their homes, lands, or way of life, without any compensatory gains.

2. The Challenge of Development

• The concept of development has undergone many changes over the years.
• In the initial years the focus was on catching up with the West in terms of economic growth and modernisation of societies.
• Developing countries adopted goals like faster economic growth through industrialisation, modernisation of agriculture and extending and modernizing education
• Many countries embarked upon ambitious projects of development, often with the help of loans and aid from the developed countries.
• In India a series of Five Year Plans for development were made starting from the 1950s, and these included several mega projects such as the Bhakra Nangal Dam, setting up steel plants in different parts of the country, mining, fertilizer production and improving agricultural techniques.
• It was hoped that the emerging prosperity would gradually ‘trickle down’ to the poorest sections of society and help to reduce inequality.
• However, the model of development adopted by India and other countries has come under a great deal of criticism over the years and this has led to some rethinking about the goals and processes of development today.

3. Criticisms of Development Models 

• Critics of development have pointed out that the kind of development models which have been adopted in many countries have proved very costly for developing countries.
• The financial costs have been enormous, putting many countries into long-term debt.
• Africa is still suffering from the enormous debts which it ran up by borrowing from the richer countries.
• The gains in terms of growth have not been commensurate and poverty and disease continue to plague the continent.

4. Every Development Comes at a Cost

The Social Costs of Development 

• This model of development has also had high social costs.
• A large number of people have been displaced from their homes and localities due to the construction of big dams, industrial activities mining activities, or other projects.
• Displacement results in loss of livelihood and increases impoverishment.
• If rural agricultural communities are displaced from their traditional occupations and regions they end up at the margins of society, swelling the large number of urban and rural poor.
• Traditional skills acquired over an extended period may be lost.
• There is also a loss of culture because when people are relocated they lose a whole way of community life.
• Such displacement has led to struggles in many countries. Displaced people have not always accepted their fate passively.

Environmental Costs of Development

• Development has indeed caused a high degree of environmental degradation in many countries and not just the displaced people but all of the population is beginning to feel the consequences.
• When the ‘tsunami’ hit the South and Southeast Asian coasts in 2004, it was observed that the destruction of mangroves and the building of commercial enterprises along the shoreline was the reason for the greater extent of the damage caused
• In the long term, the ecological crisis will adversely affect all of us.
• Air pollution is already a problem which does not discriminate between the rich and the poor.
• But in the short term, indiscriminate use of resources tends to adversely affect the under-privileged more sharply.
• Loss of forests affects the poor who use forest resources for a variety of subsistence needs like firewood, medicinal herbs or food.
• Drying up of rivers and ponds and falling groundwater levels means that women have to walk longer to procure water.

5. Assessing Development

• It could not of course be said that development has had only negative effects on the world.
• Some countries have had some success in increasing their rate of economic growth and even in reducing poverty.
• But overall, inequalities have not been seriously reduced and poverty continues to be a problem in the developing world.
• When economic growth and redistribution do not go together, the benefits are likely to be cornered by those who are already privileged.
• If development is understood as a process which aims to improve the quality of life of people, it could be argued that measuring the rate of economic growth alone would be an inadequate and at times misleading indicator of development.
• There is now a search for alternative ways of measuring development.
• One such attempt is the Human Development Report which is annually brought out by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
• According to this conception, development should be a process which allows more and more people to make meaningful choices and the precondition for this is the fulfilment of basic needs like food, education, health and shelter.
• This is called the basic needs approach.
• Popular slogans like ‘roti, kapda aur makaan’, ‘garibi hatao’ or ‘bijli, sadak, pani’ convey the sentiment that without the fulfilment of basic needs, an individual can't live a dignified life and pursue her desires.

6. Alternative Conceptions of Development 

• There have been huge costs both human and environmental of development policies and the costs and benefits of development have been unequally distributed among people.
• The strategies of development adopted in most countries have been ‘top-down’, that is, the selection of development priorities and strategies and the actual implementation of projects were all generally decided by the higher levels of the political leadership and bureaucracy.
• There was often little consultation with the people whose lives would be most immediately affected by development projects.
• Neither was their experience and the knowledge acquired over centuries utilized nor were their interests taken into account.

 Rights Claims

• In many democratic countries the people are barely consulted before any sort of decision-making regarding developing projects
• The rights of tribal and aboriginal communities who have a specific way of community life and relationship to the environment are completely ignored in the name of development.
• If we understand resources as common to humanity, then humanity would include future generations as well.
• Negotiating the competing demands of different sections of a population as well as achieving a balance between the claims of the present and future is the task of democracies.

Democratic Participation

• In a concerned development, if everyone in a society has a common stake in achieving a better life, then everyone needs to be involved in formulating the plans of development and in devising ways of implementing them.
• In democratic countries, the right of people to participate in decision-making is emphasized.
• One of the ways which has been suggested to ensure participation is to allow local decision-making bodies to make decisions about development projects in the local area.
• A decentralized approach to development makes it possible to use various kinds of technologies — traditional and modern — in a creative manner.

Development and Lifestyle

• An alternative model of development would also try to move away from the high-cost, ecologically wasteful, technology-driven notion of development.
• Development should not be measured only by the number of cell phones in the country, by the sophisticated weapons which are developed, or by the size of the cars which people drive, but by the quality of life enjoyed by people in terms of happiness and harmony and satisfaction of essential needs.
• At one level, efforts should be made to conserve natural resources and use renewable sources of energy as far as possible Examples:rain-water harvesting, solar and biogas plants, micro-hydel projects etc
• At another level, there is also a need to scale down our need for non-renewable resources by changing lifestyles.
• If we understand development as a process of enhancing one’s freedoms, and think of people not as passive consumers but as active participants in deciding development goals, it should be possible to reach an agreement on such issues.
• In the process, our notions of rights, freedom and justice would be extended.

• The idea of development refers to the desire for a better life. This is a very powerful desire and the hope of improvement is a driving force of human action.
• In the process, several concepts of political theory such as equality, democracy and rights, have been reinterpreted. The issues that have arisen while pursuing the goal of development reveal that the choices we make have an impact on other human beings and other species in the world.
• We must therefore see ourselves as part of the larger universe for our fates are linked together
• Besides, my actions not only affect others, but they also have an impact on my future possibilities.
• We need therefore to choose carefully, keeping in mind not just our present needs but also our long-term interests.