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Lecture and article summary - International Development - 2024 - Grade 8
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Notes – International Development 2024Seminar 01: 05/02/2024
Introduction
Dimensions of development
- Economic development (GDP per capita)
- Social development (improving healthcare, education, etc.)
- Political development (democracy)
- Psychological development (personal well-being)
How are the multiple dimensions of development related?
- Modernisation Theory
- The idea is that there is a linear transition from the same traditional start to the same modern
end.
- Increasing GDP per capita
- Increasing urbanisation
- Increasing education
- Subjective development
- Each person has different objectives.
- Development as freedom (Sen)
- Freedom for: politics, economics, social opportunities, transparency, and security.
- What limits freedom?
- Violence, repression, restrictions, poverty, poor public services, and lack of opportunities.
- Why does freedom matter?
- Intrinsic/ constitutive reason: freedom matters in itself.
- Instrumental reason: freedom promotes other freedoms.
- For example, democracy prevents famine but also represents political freedoms.
- Development is about complementarities, not trade-offs (Modernisation Theory).
- Freedom lets people choose what they value (Subjective development).
- Freedom also represents capabilities (opportunities) and not just income.
- Needs vary: resources are converted into capabilities.
- People choose specific functions.
- How do we decide which capabilities or freedoms matter?
- Politics is the conflict between people who value different dimensions of development.
- Politics: how public decisions are made (Who gets what, when, and how?).
- Someone who has choices is developed – choices require capabilities which require freedoms.
,Notes – International Development 2024
Sustainable development
- Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs.
- Strong sustainability: natural capital does not fall.
- Weak sustainability: the sum of natural and physical capital does not fall.
- The Development Route to Sustainability
- Wealth and education reduce fertility and support cleaner technologies, reducing environmental
pressures.
- Rapid technological innovation will help us solve problems like climate change and become more
resilient.
- The Kuznets curve:
- The sustainable route to development
- Tackling environmental challenges will stimulate innovations and investments.
- Conserving assets improves their productivity, e.g. new medical cures in the rainforest.
- Avoiding climate stresses prevents conflict and boosts yields.
Post-development critiques
- The discourse of development makes people think of themselves as underdeveloped:
- Poverty is a myth, a construct, and the invention of a particular civilisation.
- Rejection of Modernisation Theory:
- We are not all travelling in the same direction – more is not always better.
- Development is an imposition of power and hierarchy:
- A weapon of the Cold War and post-colonialism.
- Development as planned poverty.
- A top-down, ethnocentric, and technocratic approach.
- Westernisation and eradication of diversity.
- Development has failed on its terms:
- Rising inequality.
- Development is an industry:
- Governments, NGOs, BINGOs, for-profit companies, foundations
- The industry is reliant on the continuation of poverty.
- Actors are lobbying governments for new contracts.
- Governments are seeking markets for their companies.
,Notes – International Development 2024
Measuring development
- Problems:
- Lack of data collection capacity in the countries that matter most.
- Collecting frequent, representative data on the most vulnerable is challenging,
- Hard to attribute progress to specific policies when many things change simultaneously.
- Multi-dimensionality
- Human Development Index (HDI)
- Long and healthy life
- Life expectancy at birth
- Knowledge
- Expected years of schooling / Mean years of schooling
- A decent standard of living
- GNI per capita
- Sustainability
- The HDI and Multidimensional Poverty Index:
- Reward resource use.
- Ignore consequences for future generations.
- While we did not achieve most Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), there are less people in extreme
poverty.
- However, the population is growing faster than the reduction of poverty.
- This is the reason of why the number of people living in extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan
Africa is growing.
- There are certain countries that got poorer overall.
- Now, most developing countries are in Africa, which is a major challenge.
- COVID-19 increased the poverty overall and reduced the HDI level.
- The eradication of illnesses through vaccination (polio, etc.) reduced children mortality.
- Most countries now offer more years of education to their population.
, Notes – International Development 2024
Amartya Sen: Development as Freedom (1999)
- While people want wealth, money is only an intermediate good for something else.
- The same goes for development, an intermediate for freedom and equality.
- While some think authoritarian regimes would bring economic development, this is untrue.
- All famines have been in non-democratic regimes, as democratic pluralism prevents famines from
happening as it provides mechanisms for freedom of expression, political participation, and the
protection of rights.
- Freedom can be described as a process that allows freedom of actions, decisions, and opportunities to
have freedom.
- Development should be understood as expanding human freedoms and capabilities rather than
increasing income.
- The interplay between personal capabilities and societal opportunities underscores the
complexity of development, which must address both individual freedoms and systemic barriers
to those freedoms.
- Economic metrics alone fall short in capturing the essence of development; the enhancement of
freedoms, including political, economic, and social rights, marks actual development.
- Poverty is a multifaceted issue that cannot be resolved solely by addressing income shortages.
- It requires a comprehensive approach that includes access to primary goods such as health,
education, and social security.
- The capability approach offers a framework for assessing well-being and development, focusing on what
individuals can do and the real opportunities available rather than just their income levels.
- Even without high economic growth rates, providing social services can improve the quality of
life.
- The role of freedoms, both as ends and means of development, is central.
- Freedoms are instrumental in driving development by enabling individuals to live lives they value
and by fostering environments that prevent severe deprivations such as famines.
Vijaya Ramachandran: Rich Countries’ Climate Policies are Colonialism in Green (2021)
- Norway and other northern countries benefit from their oil production.
- However, they do not want the global South to produce their oil; instead, they should create
green alternatives, which are far too expensive for the countries to implement.
- The UN lists natural gas among clean energy sources and promotes cooking gas to prevent deaths caused
by air pollution in the global South.
- The global South needs development to be more resilient against climate change; this also means that the
countries need to pollute more.
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