 “Development is a strategy to enable a specific group of people, poor, rural women and men, to gain

for themselves and their children more of what they want and need. It involves helping the poorest
among those who seek a livelihood in the rural areas to demand and control more of the benefits of
development”. (Chambers, 1983, p. 147) To Chambers therefore development refers to all efforts to
offer welfare programs, aids, and resources toward the alleviating poverty, transforming rural areas,
and provision of the basic needs of the poor to ensure continuous survival of their race through
posterity.
 Dudley Seers (1969) suggested that development is when a country experiences a reduction or
elimination of poverty, inequality and unemployment.
 Walter Rodney’s Concept of Development

It is in his best celebrated book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” that Walter Rodney
pours his heart out on the meaning of “development”. In the book, Rodney asserts that
development in human society is many sided process. And that what development implies at
level of individual differs from what it implies at level of social groups. According to him,
development at level of individual implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom,
creativity, self-discipline, responsibility and material well-being.

 From an economic perspective, Schumpeter (1984, 1985,1989) cannot be left unmentioned. He used
the term development as evolution, revelation and innovation.
 Edgar Owens (1987) suggested that development is when there is development of people (human
development) and not development of things.
“Gandhi used the term ‘development’ in a very broad sense to mean the total development of society”
(Roy and Tisdell in Gandhi’s Concept of Development; Economic Development & Environment: A Case
Study of India) that include mental, spiritual, and material needs.
 Tayebwa (1992:261) states that development is a broad term which should not be limited to mean
economic welfare or material well-being as per Tayebwa, development in general includes
improvements in economic, social and political aspects of whole society like security, culture, social
activities and political institutions.
 Todaro (1981:56) refers to development as a multi-dimensional process involving the reorganization
and reorientation of the entire economic and social systems. He continues to argue that development
is a physical reality and a state of mind in which society has, through some combinations of social,
economic and political process secured the way of obtaining better life.
 Perroux (1978:65) defines development as “the combination of mental and social changes among the
population which decide to increase its real and global products, cumulatively and in sustainable
manner”.
 Rogers (1990:30) adds “development is a long participatory process of social change in the society
whose objective is the material and social changes for the majority of population through a better
understanding of their environment”.
 In Anthropology, development is the pattern of progressive, orderly and predictable changes that
begin at conception and continue throughout life. Development mostly involves changes- both growth
and decline, as observed during old age.
 Alternative Interpretations of Development (Akin Mobogunje-Geographer)

Development as Economic Growth- focus on commodity output as opposed to people-measurer of

growth in GNP.

Development as Modernization- emphasizes process of social change which is required to produce

economic advancement; examines changes in social, psychological and political processes; Focus on
developing wealth oriented behavior and values in individuals; profit seeking rather than subsistence and
self sufficiency; Shift from commodity to human approach with investment in education and skill training.

Development as Distributive Justice (Rawls) - view development as improving basic needs

Goods and services provided by governments

Access of public goods for all social classes
Burden of development to be shared among all
Development as Freedom (Sen) - moral significance of individuals’ capability

political freedoms
freedom of opportunity (access credit)
economic protection from abject poverty

‘Development’ as long term process of structural societal transformation

The first conceptualization is that ‘development’ is a process of structural societal change. Thomas
(2000, 2004) refers to this meaning of development as ‘a process of historical change’. This view, of ‘structural
transformation’ and ‘long-term transformations of economies and societies’, as Gore noted, is one that
predominated in the 1950s and 1960s in particular. The key characteristics of this perspective are that it is
focused on processes of structural societal change, it is historical and it has a long-term outlook. This means
that a major societal shift in one dimension, for example from a rural or agriculture based society to an urban
or industrial-based society (what is sometimes called the shift from ‘traditional’ to ‘modern’ characteristics),
would also have radical implications in another dimension, such as societal structural changes in the
respective positions of classes and groups within the relations of production for example (by which we mean
the relationship between the owners of capital and labour). This means that development involves changes to
socio-economic structures – including ownership, the organization of production, technology, the institutional
structure and laws. In this conceptualization development relates to a wide view of diverse socio-economic
changes. The process does not relate to any particular set of objectives and so is not necessarily prescriptive.
Equally, it does not base its analysis on any expectations that all societies will follow approximately the same
development process.

‘Development’ as a short-to-medium-term outcome of desirable targets

A second perspective on ‘development’ can be seen in the light of some of the criticisms which have
been outlined above. Thomas (2000, 2004) characterizes this second approach as ‘a vision or measure of
progressive change’ and Gore (2000: 794) relates it to ‘performance assessment’. This view is narrower in
definition and is technocratic or instrumental – indeed, some might argue that it is too technocratic. At its
most basic level it is simply concerned with development as occurring in terms of a set of short- to medium-
term ‘performance indicators’ – goals or outcomes – which can be measured and compared with targets (for
example changes in poverty or income levels).

The key feature of this second perspective is that it is focused on the outcomes of change so that it has
a relatively short-term outlook, leading some commentators, such as Gore, to label it as ‘ahistorical’. This is
somewhat problematic to many of the more academic members of the development community because it
presupposes a set of (essentially bureaucratic or government) goals or objectives which may not be shared by
many of the people who are supposedly benefiting from development. This means that there is a paternalistic
assumption as to what is good for people’s wellbeing based on a set of universal values and characteristics.
This raises the question of ‘ownership’ not so much in the context of governments or of countries but more in
the context of peoples, and the poor in particular. In other words there is an issue over whose objectives and
values are expressed within the context of this second approach to development, and whether the articulation
of the objectives is in any sense democratic or involves the effective participation of civil society (this issue is
discussed in more detail in the edited collection of PRSP country case studies in Booth (2004).

‘Development as a dominant ‘discourse’ of Western Modernity

The first two of our characterizations of development are based, respectively, on visions of change and
on outcomes. The third definition is based on the view that development has consisted of ‘bad’ change and
‘bad’ outcomes through the imposition of Western ethnocentric notions of development upon the Third
World. This is the ‘post-modern’ conceptualization of development (one might also refer to this as the ‘post-
development’, ‘post-colonial’ or ‘post-structuralist’ position.

This third perspective emerged as a reaction to the deliberate efforts at progress made in the name of
development since World War II and was triggered in particular by the 1949 Declaration by the US President
Truman that: we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and
industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. (cited in Esteva, 1992:
6)

The ‘post-modern’ approach is not so much a conceptualization of development as a frontal onslaught

onto the ‘development industry’ (including researchers, practitioners and aid institutions). The ‘post-modern’
approach draws upon, amongst others, Michel Foucault (1966, 1969). The key element of this approach is
that, for post-modernists, development(and poverty) are social constructs that do not exist in an objective
sense outside of the discourse (a body of ideas, concepts and theory) and that one can only ‘know’ reality
through discourse. In this approach there is no such thing as ‘objective reality’. Such a ‘discourse’ approach
might be said to: examine how people use particular types of language and imagery to represent themselves
and others in particular ways. The focus is on how these images are underlain by, and reproduced through,
power relations, and on what their social, political and economic effects are – rather than whether or not they
are ‘true’… …. The power to define reality is a crucial aspect of power and one of the major means by which
certain groups … … are silenced and suppressed. (Booth et al., 2006: 12–13)
 REFERENCES

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Thomas, A. (2004) The Study of Development. Paper prepared for DSA Annual Conference, 6 November,
Church House, London.

Esteva, G. (1992) ‘Development’, in Sachs, W. (ed.), The Development Dictionary, London: Zed.

Foucault, M. (1966) The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. Paris: Gallimard.

Gore, C. (2000) ‘The rise and fall of the Washington consensus as a paradigm for developing countries’, World
Development, 28 (5): 789–804.

Schumpeter, J. (1984). Capitalismo, socialismo e democracia. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar Editores. (Obra original
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