What is development? Perceptions and relevance for the Global SouthNyovani Madise,

Centre for Global Health, Population, Poverty and Policy, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences

31 October 2012

definitions of development..• “development”.. the act or process of developing

– progress, moving up, expansion, growth, maturity

– value judgements, whose judgements?

• Overall quality of life approach

– include health, gender equality, economic growth, good governance, environment, freedoms and rights etc

• Foreign aid as a tool for promoting international development

the meaning of development Essay by Seers (1969)

•Our fascination with money as a measure of progress

•National incomes - easy option because

– single number, quantifiable economic variable, can be used in model-building, easy tracking

•Assumption that growing incomes will solve social problems

the meaning of development• History proves this assumption wrong

– social and political problems affect nations at any level of development

– growth in national incomes can be a cause of social and political problems

Angola: GNI PPP$

the meaning of development

• Seers’ 3-pronged test:

– What has been happening to poverty?

– What is happening with unemployment?

– What is happening with inequality?

development: lessons from historyEnglish Poor Laws of 16th-17th century.

•Progressive taxation to create a Parish fund for “impotent poor” (infirm, young children, elderly)

– Able-bodied worked, children went into apprenticeship

•Parish registers- births, marriages, deaths for social protection and identity rights

•Justice of the Peace- to address corruption

•Settlement laws- to establish eligibility to relief; prevent land grabbing

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Measuring development

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“If you can’t measure it, you can’t track it. If you can’t track it, it ceases to matter”

measuring development - $$$• Many money-metric measures

– Gross domestic product, GDP per capita

– Gross national product

– GNI Purchasing Power Parity

– Etc

– Emphasis on measuring economic growth

• Should we be measuring development only in terms of economic growth?

measures of development: whose yardstick?Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness

“ The pursuit of happiness is collective, though it can be experienced deeply personally. Different people can be happy in spite of their disparate circumstances and the options for diversity must be wide”

•Source: http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Short-GNH-Index-edited.pdf

•Photo: The Guardian, “How do you measure development progress? 2011

world happiness report• Launched at UN, April 2012. Published by Earth

Institute

• Happiest countries are Denmark, Norway, Finland, Netherlands

– Richer, strong social support, low levels of corruption, degree of personal freedom,

– behaving well, mental health

– Women happier than men in rich countries

• Least happy are Togo, Benin, CAR, Sierra Leone

– Unemployment, bereavement, separation

– http://issuu.com/earthinstitute/docs/world-happiness-report 10

happiness questions in social surveys• Taking all things together,

how happy would you say you are? (where 0 means extremely unhappy, and 10 means extremely happy)

• All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole nowadays? (where 0 means extremely dissatisfied and 10 means extremely satisfied.)

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measuring development; whose yardsticK?• Social indices to measure quality of life

– Child mortality

– Life expectancy

– Access to safe water, schooling,

– Energy consumption

– Pollution levels (air, water)

– Crime levels, corruption perception index

– Internet access, mobile phone access

– Good governance

“Give me a measure – a single measure – which is as vulgar as GNP per capita, but not as insensitive to broader aspects of human life.”

Mahbub ul Haq to Amartya Sen (1989).

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measuring development – human development indices

• Human Development Index (HDI) – values 0-1

– GDP per capita (PPP$), life expectancy, adult literacy, years of schooling

• Gender-related Development Index (GDI) – lower values gender disparity.

• Human Poverty Index - HPI-1 for developing & HPI-2 for developed countries

• Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM)

trends in human development: uneven progress

Note: Non-SSA countries are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Pakistan, Djibouti, India, Morocco,

China, OmanSource: UNDP, Human Development Report website

when being wealthy is not enough• People and capabilities - ultimate measure of

development.

• What can we learn from countries who perform better (or worse) than their wealth?

• http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/gni/

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millennium development goals

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Criticisms of MDGs-Confusion between goals, targets, indicators

-Sector-specific targets; no mention of sustainable development nor equity

-Why these?

-Reflects development paradigms of the 1980s and 1990s

-Chosen for ease of measurement

-Buy-in from international community?

perception of development – insights of rural AfricaRural Kenya, Sept 2010-May 2011

- household interviews (1000+)

-focus group discussions with adults from 18 years

- Perceptions of development and poverty

- Participation in development activities

- Links with other aspects of wellbeing

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map of Kenya

Meaning of development; rural perceptions• Development – upward mobility of all spheres of life

– Personal, community, national spheres of development

• Personal (focus on addressing poverty)

– Meeting basic needs – esp water

– Education and empowerment

– Having a family

• National

– Good governance, credible judicial system

– Entertainment, leisure (electricity, “facebook”)

perceptions of development

• Community development

• Free movement, connectedness- infrastructure

• Participation; Trickle up effects of personal development

“Development for me as a man from this community… I should be in a position to work and contribute to something to this sub location for example, I am a businessman and I spend my profit just within the community…I also educate children and if they would perform well, they would come back and help the people of this community as a whole” Male 41+ FGD, Kitonyoni.

Aspects of development- Eastern Kenya

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TO AID OR NOT TO AID? THAT IS THE QUESTION

“I don’t know of any country in the world where a bunch of foreigners came and developed the country. I don’t know one: Japan? Korea? No! No country did that. I know about countries that developed on trade and innovation and business”.

---- Herman Chinery-Hesse, Software Entrepreneur, Ghana

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it wasn’t aid after all• Declan Garney (Irish Entrepreneur)

– “ Some people like to perpetuate the myth that Ireland was a huge welfare recipient from Europe and that was the reason for its economic success. That’s not true. …what was valuable was access to markets and the freedom to take advantage of unique Irish aspects and Irish competitiveness and bring those strengths to bear on a market of 500 million instead of a market of just 4 million people…”

• http://www.povertycure.org/

• http://www.povertycure.org/issues/foreign-aid/

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referencesThe Centre for Bhutan Studies “Rethinking Development”, 2007

Seers D. “The meaning of development”, Institute of Development Communication 44, 1969

UNDP Human Development Reports (http://hdr.undp.org.)

Waage J. et al. “The Millennium Development Goals: a cross-sectoral analysis and principles for goal setting after 2015”. Lancet, 2010; 376 (9745):991-1023

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