11.
Understanding Development Theory
In the Context of Social and Community Change

by Michel Adjibodou[1]

I. INTRODUCTION

If you are fortunate enough to have walked the land and worked with the people of South Central Los Angeles in California, the mountains of Chiapas in Mexico, the plains of Tanga in Tanzania, the hills of Save in Benin, the streets of Hartford, Dorchester and Roxbury, the hills of Funyula in Western Kenya, one common characteristic you probably noticed is the resolve and resilience of those communities. Despite the daily challenges and stresses on their health, income, environment, land, and physical security, the residents are determined to improve their communities and create greater opportunities for their children.

Many of us who chose to work in “development”, or who accidently ended up doing this work, must learn how to work in communities which face horrendous challenges. Engaging people in improving their own communities and, perhaps, working on broader issues demands that we develop great skills and knowledge, not to mention a certain attitude, some character, plenty of courage, and listening skills. Most of us simply behave like backpackers on our way to solve the world’s problems and save humanity from itself. Mistakes are made along the way, success stories abound, lives are damaged and rebuilt, hopes restored, and life goes on.

Many practitioners working in communities around the world, and people who want to become development practitioners, will admit that they are constantly struggling with the true definition of “development”. The key word describing their goal could well have been “progress”, “modernization”, “transformation” or something else.

A great many definitions of “development” have been used in the past few decades, and these different definitions have affected the content of training sessions, seminars, symposia, workshops, certificate programs, college and postgraduate degree programs and books and other materials. When it was first discussed, development (or “progress” as it was called by the early bourgeoisie) was synonymous with the improvement of an individual’s lot in society. As time goes by and crises unfold, new initiatives emerge with new approaches – which may simply rebrand conventional approaches or be highly innovative – further adding to the confusion about what “development” is or should be.

With this confusion on terminology, there also is great uncertainty as to the skills and knowledge required to be a decent development practitioner.

For the International Working Group, “development” should be an integral part of a broader process of community and social change. The goal of that broader process of “change” is a shift in power relationships which leads to greater economic and social justice as well as greater freedom and voice for people who are poor, excluded or otherwise marginalized. The change process begins at the grassroots level, with the needs, assets, energies, ideas and aspirations of ordinary people. With help from “development” practitioners and others, they are helped to gain ground gradually, focusing on addressing their community’s needs and eventually having a larger and larger impact.

Within this context, development focuses largely on improving people’s material conditions. It thus includes issues of access to land, water, shelter, employment, income, assets, community facilities, and other essentials.

Development practitioners, therefore, must develop the knowledge and skills which will help them help people address these issues through a “bottom-up” process of change. In addition to technical skills, this requires that practitioners be skilled in working with people, listening to them and bringing them together to address issues through community projects and campaigns and the building of their own community capacity. Also invaluable is experience helping people build viable informal or formal organizations through which they can achieve their goals.

Other papers address many of these issues. In particular, the papers by Denise Fairchild on Development Skills for Social and Community Change and by Andrew Mott on The Tools of Collective Action concentrate on learning the process and other skills which are essential for effective community work.

This paper addresses another key area of knowledge for development practitioners and for others involved in community and social change. It provides an initial historical review and theoretical background to introduce development practitioners to the debate on alternative development strategies and policies. It analyzes major theories of development to help people understand the different views of development’s goals and processes. This provides essential background for understanding why different nations, international institutions and other actors behave as they do on development issues.

An audit of groups of nations and their paths to development over decades suggests that they have been guided by a variety of development policies and strategies which have taken them in different directions with mixed results and fortune. This section will review the string of such development initiatives as economic development, community development, asset-based community development, sustainable community development, local economic development, international development, and community economic development which have been unleashed by civil society organizations, government organizations, and citizens groups alike in their quest to “attain” development.

II. CRISIS

We live in a time of great crises, entirely new opportunities, and the need for massive change and appropriate development.

Every day we see stories of horrible deaths from preventable illnesses, shortages of food and water, fights over land, homelessness, natural disasters, and precarious living conditions on all the continents. The news media usually cover the stories so extensively that none of us can miss them.

Recently, the news media have been reporting on stories of mass movements, rioting, and civil unrest due to the food and energy crises.

In Haiti, protesters took to the streets of the capital Port-au-Prince and Les Cayes in reaction to increased food prices. At least five people were killed. The majority of Haitians, who live on less than $2.00 a day, is now confronted with price increase of up to 50% on staples like beans, rice, fruit and condensed milk.

In recent months, “food riots” have exploded in Burkina-Faso, Cameroon, Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

In the U.S., the food aid programs are increasingly being stretched since their inception in the 1960s, with the number of people receiving food stamps expected to reach 28 million in 2009.

In Europe, angry port workers fought with the riot police in Marseilles and truckers blocked traffic in London to demand fuel rebates. Protests spread to other cities as French farmers prevented access to oil depots, while Italian and Spanish fishermen were setting up for strikes.

Over the decades, the most mind-boggling challenge to civilized societies has been, and still is, to “manage the city” and ensure that all citizens have access to basic services, and enjoy the full protection of the law. However, of the world’s billions of people, very few can boast of having the benefit of adequate basic services, and human rights protection.

With current trends in global warming, population growth, runaway increases in food and energy prices, and the risks of social unrest in many countries -- developed and less developed alike -- put a growing number of governments around the world in a precarious situation.

Political oppositions groups, civil society organizations, community-based groups, and regular citizens have linked the troubles, wars, rebellions, and civil unrests, to the failures of the state to provide development opportunities to their citizens, mainly the socially excluded masses. Some have also criticized the leaders’ inability to forecast these events and mitigate their consequences.

Despite all these grim trends, there are also stories which give us a glimpse of a very positive future. Stories of great economic successes, transformed livelihoods, countless medical and technological discoveries abound, demonstrating humanity’s capacity to tame nature and develop new approaches for the good of mankind.

Against this backdrop of crisis and potential, the essential goal must be to help people develop the capacity to envision a better future and work systematically to achieve it.

III. DEVELOPMENT

A. DIFFERING VIEWS -- WHAT IS “DEVELOPMENT”?

“Development” and “Economic Development” have often been used interchangeably by politicians, academicians, civil society organizations, community groups, and economists to describe industrialization, modernization, or westernization.

Building on the classical western concepts of evolution and unending progress, the idea of development is mainly a post-World War II phenomenon. Seen as describing progress from a simpler to a more complex phase, development of a community, a region or a country could be seen as a process by which a traditional low-technology society is transformed into a modern, high-technology society, with a matching increase in incomes. With the mounting challenges to the traditional understanding of development, a number of definitions have emerged.

In his analysis of the feudal society and the destiny of individuals, well-known economic historian Richard Henry Tawney wrote:

“ Rapid economic change as a fact, and continuous economic progress as an ideal, are the notes, not of the history of the West, but of little more than the last four centuries…[prior to that] the common man looked to the good days of the past, not to the possibilities of the future, for a standard of conduct and criterion of the present; accepted the world, with plague, pestilence and famine, as heaven have made it; and were incurious as to the arts by which restless spirits would improve on nature, if not actually suspicious of them as smelling of complicity with malign powers.”

In those times, a common person would never imagine that his or her fortune could be changed and that nature could be conquered.

According to Shaffer (1989), the process of “development involves change, improvement and vitality; a directed attempt to improve participation, flexibility, equity, attitude, the function of institutions and quality of life. It is the creation of wealth. Wealth meaning the things people value, not just dollars”.

The South Commission Report (1990) defines development as “a process which enables human beings to realize their potential, build self-confidence, and lead lives of dignity and fulfillment. It is a process which frees people from fear, exploitation, and oppression. Through development, political independence acquires true significance.”

Korten (1990) sees development as “a process by which the members of a society increase their personal and institutional capacities to mobilize and manage resources to produce sustainable and justly distributed improvement in their quality of life, consistent with their own aspiration”.

For the United Nation Development Program, in its Human Development Report (1991), “the basic objective of human development is to enlarge the range of people’s choices to make development more democratic and participatory.”

In most cases, it is widely accepted that the meaning given to the word “development” is informed by one’s culture, tradition, environment, philosophical beliefs, and epoch. Some people propose that development must be viewed in relation to time, place, and circumstance. They reject any attempt by academics to settle on a universally accepted definition.

As an indication of the shifts in thinking, some have introduced the concept of “development redefined”. In our work, our attempt to define or redefine development will be confined to the economic dimensions of development.

B. WHY IS DEVELOPMENT IMPORTANT?

The past and on-going tensions between community development and social change practices are palpable. Community organizing traditions – of direct action and social movements that seek to realign power and resources – seem at odds with the legacy of community development with its collaborative, project-based roots. The market-based strategies of community developers that align with financial institutions, corporations, government agencies and other development partners are especially viewed as antithetical to a social change agenda.

The fact is, however, development knowledge and skills are essential for change agents for several reasons. First, even in its most conservative applications, development practices expand the consciousness and capacity of affected individuals and can set the preconditions for change over time. This recognizes the significance of a capacity- building process that is analogous to the relationship-building work in Collective Action. The cross sector collaboration and project-related experiential learning are essential prerequisites to unveiling the inequities, fallacies, contradictions and ineffectiveness of traditional development schemes, leading communities to find alternative, more authentic social change paradigms. The quantum theory of social change developed by the Issues Task Force of the International Network in Mexico City suggests that this incremental social change process is not only legitimate, but quite often necessary. Many change agents and change agendas will be compromised by their social, geo-political context, requiring a more flexible and forgiving social change paradigm. Quantum theory acknowledges that the entry point for social change work is radically different in African, Southeast Asian, Western and South American countries. Community change can be revolutionary, subversive or incremental in nature and depends upon the region’s history and political context. Social change is possible everywhere, but requires different tools, strategies and timeframes. And if taught effectively, all social change efforts will gradually migrate away form their bi-polar extremes ( ex…. ) toward the social change epicenter – energy field that leads to transformation. The awareness and social change work related to Global Warming, for example, are radically different throughout the world, some countries and grassroots efforts are more advanced and proactive, others are less so; yet, it is fair to say that work is underway everywhere to address this global challenge. (Show Quantum theory diagram…. Ask Dick to explain better.. and cite Tanzanian experience, case example). This calls for applying a contextual framework for teaching development strategies that foster real social change.

Second, and most important, the right development theories and practice can and do redistribute power and resources (see Michel’s development theories and Building Block #1 discussion below). These values based development schemes incorporate democratic and social change principles, such as process over product, the distribution of growth over growth itself, community control over corporate control. And they more often embrace alternative vs. mainstream development plans; plans that are driven by notions of self reliance and self determination and new, more democratic institutions. Cooperative movements – such as housing, business, food – throughout the world are emblematic of these development strategies (Chiapis example).

In essence, several compelling factors mandate a development curriculum in the toolkit of social change students: 1) it is a precondition for eradicating poverty and global economic and environmental challenges; 2) it offer strategies and tools for human and social development; 3) development issues are powerful tools for collective action and structural changes; and 4) it helps organizers convert policy and organizing wins into effective programs.

1. Global Issues and Challenges

If there is but one reason to teach students of social and community change development skills, it is to equip them to engage in the world-wide struggle to solve the food, housing/shelter, environmental, financial and other crises. With growing consciousness and movements around many of these issues, a new call to action is to do something – to do things differently -- to solve the problems. The United Nation’s historic Millennium Development Goals, for example, establishes an unprecedented global consensus, vision and goal to change inequalities in income, assets, jobs, social services and political power by 2015. While there are differing views about the Millennium Development Goals – around participants, beneficiaries, strategies, etc. --- imagine an army of change agents with the right development skills and knowledge to effectively realize this vision to eradicate poverty by 2015 on a global scale. Clearly, all community and social change agents will and should be about the business of eradicating power.

The struggle for social and community change is, by definition, a quest for social and economic development. Find the homeless/landless, the jobless, the sick and indigent and you find both the manifestation of injustice and the fodder for community change. Self-reliant development schemes engage the disenfranchised in their own development… and empower them in not only collective power, but also knowledge and competencies to meet their own basic needs…. Food, shelter, clothing and income.

Thus, the most effective development programs embrace a social change agenda that focuses on equity in the decision-making process, as well as equitable outcomes (by-products) of that process. Accordingly, community driven development theories and practices are potential antidote to uneven and inequitable development, offering the critical analyses, process skills, varying development strategies and development outcomes for the most excluded populations.

2. Building Human and Social Capital

The starting point for collective action and social change education, as discussed in the previous chapters, is self-awareness and consciousness, as well as individual competencies and group process skills. As such, development initiatives provide the necessary (albeit not always sufficient) preconditions for social and community change. Among the mix of development schemes practiced world-wide are some of the best individual and collective empowerment strategies for engaging indigenous communities in defining and regulating their own lives and communities. That is, many development strategies are as much about changing power relationships – bringing the excluded into the decision making apparatus -- as they are about the intended outcomes of that empowerment. Individuals are forced to build contextual knowledge – historical, geopolitical and spatial context – of their material conditions. What does economic justice look like? What has it been…? What are the essential elements? How do we see things differently in the process?

Beyond learning and critiquing the historic and global dimensions of economic and social injustices, development training deepens the knowledge and capacity of indigenous leaders and communities to transform their conditions. Invariably, development imparts specialized technical knowledge around such issues as: trade, private investments, productivity and growth, agriculture and infrastructure development, and environmental consciousness. People learning development must develop practical planning and development skills such as financing, research/data analyses, project management process, and other subject matter. This form of “knowledge empowerment” or human capital development is a powerful tool in the social change process. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.

3. Collective Action and Structural Change

Development studies for social and community change agents provide an opportunity for concrete, specific issues around which to educate, empower and mobilize grassroots citizens to control their own destinies. Issues-specific organizing builds the foundation around which an active citizenry can mobilize for broader community and social change.

In addition, skill-building initiatives related to development strategies go a long way to increase overall human capacity to engage in collective action. Increasing individual access to food, clothing, education and housing are among the “services” that development programs offer. While some may argue that “servicing people does not alleviate poverty”, it does play an instrumental role in meeting the basic needs that act as impediments to self-actualization and collection action. Literacy programs, for example, are converted into powerful tools for popular education and the mobilization of community power.

4. Transforming Policies into Action.

Development issues provide excellent opportunities for people to engage directly with power structures and institutions to change policies that affect their well-being. What can be more motivating and engaging than the prospect of winning concrete gains in the material conditions of communities and families?

Furthermore, development studies can provide the critical skills needed to convert radical thought into concrete radical solutions. Development issues are directly connected to far larger issues, including increasing opportunities, enhancing the capacity of people, and the redistribution of resources and power.

However, it is essential to be realistic. While liberation and national level political and economic struggles exist throughout the world, especially throughout the Southern Hemisphere, they represent fairly rare occurrences in the context of global community change. Very few places and only very daring people take on the larger political and economic structure for social change.

Far more frequently, social change occurs incrementally and is centered around issue- specific challenges which people experience in their everyday lives. In this context, “development” issues are central as sources of concern, motivation, and potential action to improve the quality of life of people and communities.

IV. THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT

A. THEORIES ADDRESSING THE OVERALL PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIETAL CHANGE

Development theory focuses on an assortment of alternative theories on how societal change can best be realized. As a result, a multitude of approaches form the basis of these development theories.

Four major schools of thought have played especially influential roles in framing the discussion on broad development theories – 1. the Modernization Theory 2. the Dependency Theory 3. the World Systems Theory and 4. the State Theory

Each of these is an attempt to explain and predict how nations develop to more advanced levels. They go well beyond issues of economics and wealth to address the broader transformation of societies over time. (The next section of this paper focuses more intensely on the somewhat narrower question of economic development.)

1. Modernization Theory and the Take-Off Stage of Development

French philosopher Marquis de Condorcet was involved in the origins of Modernization Theory, which suggests that technological advancements and economic changes will trigger change in people’s moral and cultural values. His expose of the role of technology in contributing to social progress brought to the fore the connection between economic and social development.

Emile Durkheim, one of the founding fathers of sociology, stressed the interdependence of any society’s institutions and their interaction in maintaining cultural and social order. In “The Division of Labour in Society”, he describes how social order was to be maintained in a society and how “primitive” societies would make the transition to more economically advanced industrial societies. Likening societies to organisms, he contends that the former progresses through several stages, starting at a simplistic level and developing into a more complex one.

According to this theory’s proponents, development can only be achieved through the same processes and strategies that developed countries used. Strong propositions came from capitalists and communists alike after WWII, intimating that “primitive” societies should be “modernized” or “westernized” and that more modern values should supplant their traditional values.

Walt Rostow and A.F.K. Organski came up with stages through which each country can develop. Rostow stresses the importance of the “take-off” stage as the point at which an economy takes off and accelerates toward becoming a modern, industrialized, increasingly prosperous economy.

Historically, this concept is somewhat new. It depicts how societies and nations develop from being prehistoric to becoming modern by passing through necessary stages. Major emphasis is put on economic development, political stability, and social and cultural change. One important characteristic of this theory’s proponents is that they look at social progress over a certain period with a view toward identifying and isolating social variables which are believed to have contributed to change or progress.

Rostow and his colleagues came under heavy criticism in the 1970s and 1980s because of their conclusion that, since economic and social progress was achieved in some countries, it would work similarly elsewhere.

2. Structuralism and Dependency Theory

Influenced by Marx, the proponents of the Structuralism and Dependency Theory contend that development and underdevelopment are intertwined. They see some countries achieving development by keeping others underdeveloped. In their view, underdevelopment is therefore a by-product of development and progress therefore depends upon changing the relationships among nations.

In the late 1950s, Raul Prebisch, the Director of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, and colleagues discovered that economic growth in advanced industrialized countries did not necessarily translate into growth for poorer nations. Actually, their investigations concluded that increased economic activity in the industrialized nations repeatedly caused serious economic problems in less developed nations.

Highly critical of the modernization theory, the dependentistas contented that the proponents of modernization had failed to recognize the deeply rooted effects of colonialism on former colonies like trade inequities.

Prebisch explained that less developed nations traditionally exported primary commodities to the industrialized nations which then used those commodities to manufacture products that are then sold back to the less developed nations. This “Value Added” process creates a vicious circle for poorer nations. The proceeds from exportingf commodities to industrialized nations are not enough to enable poorer nations to afford the cost of importing the value-added products.

The dependentistas are of the belief that –

• poor nations constitute the repository of outdated and obsolete technology, and much needed markets to the industrialized nations • industrialized nations are responsible for the state of underdevelopment of poorer nations through unjust policies and initiatives • poorer nations in their attempt to break the status quo are met with economic sanctions and military interventions.

As a solution, Prebisch recommended that less developed nations develop programs of import substitution to reduce and subsequently eliminate the need to purchase manufactured goods from industrialized countries. He maintains that less developed countries should use the world market to build up their foreign exchange reserves by still exporting raw materials to industrialized countries.

In practice, import substitution turned out to be difficult to implement for three reasons. The economies of scale used by the industrialized countries to keep prices low could not benefit the less developed countries due to the small size of their internal markets. There were serious challenges to the commitment of less developed countries to moving from primary products producers to value added products manufactures. And, lastly, less developed countries were limited in their ability to control the prices of commodities exported to industrialized countries.

The dependentistas have been strongly criticized by Peter Bauer and Martin Wolf, free-market economists, who contend that lack of competition and corruption could occur as a result of the implementation of dependency theory.

3. World Systems Theory

World Systems Theory was born out of strong criticism of the dependency theory.
Developed mostly by Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein, the world-system theory is an approach to social analysis and social change. Samir Amin, Giovani Arrighi, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Peter Turchin, Andrey Korotayev, Janet Abu Lughod, Tom Hall, and others greatly contributed to development of this theory.

Immanuel Wallerstein, who is considered the father of the most well-known version of the world-system approach, defines “a system as a unit with single division of labour and multiple cultural systems.” He identified the “world-economy” as a system of polities integrated within a single economy, and “world-empires” a the situation when a single polity dominates and integrates an economy. [2]

One noticeable attribute of the world-systems theory is that the state is viewed as a group of elites, and that industrialization is not synonymous with development. The social democratic and labor movements to undo the inequalities the system produced were born out of this approach.

The world systems theory examines the relationships among the core, semiperiphery and periphery of the world economy. It points out that the semi-periphery lies between the core and the periphery and is exploited by the core while it exploits the periphery. This explains the lack of industrialization in less-developed countries.

Contemporary applications of the theory attempt to provide explanations of the shifting relations between industrialized nations and poorer nations, pointing towards the jostling of the U.S. and Europe around newly independent states.

4. State Theory

In reaction to the world systems theory, the State Theory supports the view that the economy is intertwined with politics. This claim reinforces the idea that the take-off period in development is unique to each country, and stresses that government can play a huge role in determining how, and even whether, development occurs in a particular country.

The state’s role has always been a central concern for economists. Postwar Japan was an early focus for study of the “developmental state” and the key roles of political will, doctrinal consistency, bureaucratic apparatus, and repressive power in formulating and implementing effective economic policies to encourage high speed capitalist growth.

In East Asia, specifically South Korea and Taiwan, attempts were made to recreate this bureaucratic-authoritarian model with the coercive capacity and exclusionary policies of the “developmental state”. The economic and political influence of the United States and Japan in the region combined with gradual liberalization to reinforce these trends.

China, Vietnam, and other rapidly developing economies are but the latest examples of this strategy for development combined with a more or less repressive government.

In Africa, the absence of autonomous development-oriented bureaucracies compounded with the rental state have prevented most nations from formulating and implementing the sorts of national economic strategies encountered in other less developed regions. In some Latin American countries, there has been a strong trend away from authoritarian governments controlling the economy toward “redemocratization”, heralded by bloodless transitions from authoritarian to democratic rule in Latin America.

These differences have forced economists to position each region in a world systems framework.

Critics of the State Theory have suggested that the states most likely to foster development are those which confine the state to administration of only those aspects of public policy that other bodies cannot discharge with efficiency and commitment to the interests of the general public. They see it as vital that the state be in a position to provide sufficient independence to civil society and the market and allowing self-regulating mechanisms to operate through the system.

In summary, a review of patterns of the economic development process over the last two centuries shows that nations have not followed similar cycles of institutional, economic and social change. To say the least, the process of economic development has been extremely non-linear and complex. In retrospect, four distinct development paths are clearly identifiable through the history of nations:

• Autonomous export-led industrialization, heralded by the industrial revolution, with Great Britain, Belgium, and France the first comers. • The government-led, inward-oriented group of nations such as Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia, which are labeled late comers. • The balanced-growth, open economy, limited-government intervention such as Denmark, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden. • The agricultural, primary-export oriented, dualistic land-abundant group of nations -- Australia, Argentina, Canada, and New Zealand, and the densely populated nations such as Burma, China, and India.

In the same vein, in present-day developing countries the relations among economic and institutional changes differ sharply among nations which are characterized by different initial social, institutional, and economic conditions.

• At the lowest level, there is a weak political system with weak market institutions compounded by strong tribal influence. Economic growth has been induced through the dualistic development of a modern, export-oriented, primary sector which brought significant of social structure. • The second group is transitional economies characterized by intermediate socio-political, and economic degrees of institutional development. The process of socio-economic and political transformation has advanced enough to upset the traditional way of life and institutions profoundly but is short of setting them on the path of self-sustained economic development. This transformation is justified by dualistic industrialization, the buildup of financial systems, and the development of physical infrastructure. • The most advanced nations have effective economic institutions and a degree of leadership commitment and national mobilization for economic development. They are undergoing increased investment and the technological modernization of agriculture and industry.

From this review, one must conclude that policy-makers in developing and industrialized countries must commit to radical changes in the global trading and international payments systems if they are to respond to the development needs of developing nations. It is also critical that all the key actors develop a better understanding of the need to match institutions and policies to the stages and realities of each nation.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT THEORIES

Let us now focus on the somewhat narrower area of economic development – the process of developing the national, regional or local economy to improve living conditions. There has been a rich history of theories competing to explain how this process occurs and how it can best be channeled to benefit a maximum number of people. Issues of maximizing the production of income and assets vs. ensuring their just distribution are central to these historic debates, as are questions of strategy and technique – How can society best address these issues of economic development?

While the entire purpose of Adam Smith’s work more than two centuries ago was to find the “nature and causes” of economic development, the contemporary notion of economic development emerged during the 1930s when economists were preoccupied by the issue of how to re-start the world’s economy and climb out of the Depression. After World War II, their greatest concern became the industrialization and reconstruction of Eastern Europe. [3]

Thereafter, the waves of decolonization in Africa, Asia, and Latin America gradually took center stage. Early on, their economic development theory was viewed as requiring a simple extension of traditional economic theory which equated “development” with growth and industrialization. This approach suggested that the newly independent “underdeveloped” nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America might possibly, given time, “develop” the infrastructures and institutions leading to improved standards of living observed in Europe. This pushed the “stage theory” concept brought by Alexander Gerschenkron and Walt W. Rostow who argued that all countries passed through the same historical stages of economic development and that currently less developed countries were merely at an earlier stage in this linear historical progress while developed nations were at a later stage.

To accomplish development in the shorter possible time, some development economists were tasked to suggest “short-cuts” through which less developed countries might “catch up” with the developed countries and skip over a few stages. However, the young nations had infrastructures, institutions, cultures, traditions, and standards of living completely dissimilar from Europe’s, and modern development theory grew to focus on analyzing the institutions needed to stimulate, sustain and accelerate growth. [4]

Some economists suggested various strategies as crucial to development, such as capital formation advocated by Ragnar Nurske (1952); the dual economy constructed by W. Arthur Lewis (1954, 1955) stressing the role of savings in development; the issue of income distribution as a variable of savings and growth proposed by early Keynesians, like Kaldor and Robinson. Others adopted international trade as the giant vehicle to growth on the assumption that trade and specialization would increase the “extent of the market”.

As for the Central Place Theory, it proposes that there is a hierarchy of places and that resource allocation should be based upon this hierarchy. The theory has fallen in and out of favor as resources have ebbed and flowed, but it does have applications on a regional basis.

These economic development theories informed and influenced program design and implementation. They relied heavily on a belief that the benefits of economic growth and expansion would “trickle down” to improve the conditions of the poor. They focused almost exclusively on a combination of macroeconomic policies and attempts to remedy perceived “defects” in poor people – inadequate education or skills, weak community supports, lack of motivation, ignoring the very real, potent barriers in the structure of opportunities the poor confront on the “demand” side of the labor market equation (Blakely: 1989).

As a result, traditional economic development policies operate on the principle that an infusion of capital from outside the community can result in the development of a community. Neoclassic economic theory contends that economic systems operate in such a manner as to reach a natural equilibrium if resources, primarily capital and labor, are allowed to “flow” without artificial restrictions. This theory holds these two resources are absolutely mobile and will move to areas that will provide the highest return on “investment”. Neoclassic economic theory has had great acceptance in the past and its proponents persist. It is the most obvious “free market”, anti-interventionist of the major economic theories and so enjoys periodic revivals at varying levels of decision-making.

The traditional model assumes that the residents of a community are not capable of pursuing or managing projects, or making appropriate decisions concerning the allocation of resources within the community (Swack and Mason: 1987).

T. W. Schultz of the Chicago School moved beyond the concept of capital accumulation to emphasize the importance of human capital formation, meaning education and training. In 1969, Seers argued that “development” was a social phenomenon that involved more than increasing per capita output, and Singer, Myrdal and Adelman supported his assertion that development should be promoting the elimination of poverty, unemployment and inequality. Many economists like Mahbub ul Haq joined the fray in calling for redefining economic development to address such structural matters as agricultural transformation, dualism, education, health, population growth, unemployment, and urbanization.

| |
|Recently, a group of development workers formulated the following definition: “Economic development is a process by |
|which people through their own individual and / or joint efforts boost production for direct consumption and to have a |
|surplus to sell for cash. This requires that the people themselves analyze the problems, identify the causes, set their |
|priorities and acquire new knowledge. It also requires them to organize themselves in order to coordinate and mobilize |
|the effective application of all the factors of production at their disposal. This means that they must plan, implement|
|and manage their own economic activities. The higher income that accrues through increased savings and investment can |
|be used to satisfy a wider range of the people’s wants enabling them to realize greater well-being. However, continued |
|progress requires the reinvestment of part of this surplus. (Burkey, 1993 …) |

International Development

The differentiation between developed and underdeveloped nations was made on January 20th 1949 by Harry S Truman when he stated:

“We must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances in industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. The old imperialism – exploitation for foreign profit – has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development based on the concept of democratic fair dealing.”

Just four years before, the United States had taken the lead in helping establish the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations.

In the 1950s, the modernization theory provided a conceptual framework for the Marshall Plan under Walt Rostow and his colleagues. By the late 1960s, in reaction to Rostow and his colleagues, the dependentistas Prebisch and Frank used the dependency theory to explain the complex relation between industrialized and poorer nations. In the 1970s and 1980s, modernists at the World Bank and IMF opted for the neoliberal economic ideas advocated by Milton Friedman and Bela Balassa in the form of Structural Adjustment Programs. Seeing disastrous results, their critics pressed for “bottom up” approaches and more participation by citizens in decision-making processes.

Under the influence of Mahboub Ul Haq and Amartya Sen, the United Nations decided to change the development discourse from a free-market and growth-crazed model to focus more on human needs and capabilities, thus birthing the Human Development Concept.

Contemporary Changes in Concepts of International Development

With the shift in development theories from modernization and structural adjustment programs to poverty reduction, the United Nations system has supported poverty reduction strategies consisting of direct budget support for social welfare programs, with the goal of creating macroeconomic stability resulting in increased economic growth.

Increasingly, concepts like poverty, dignity, participation, appropriate technology, sustainability and capacity-building have been emphasized to form the fundamental basis of contemporary development strategies and policies.

International development is focused on long-term solutions to issues facing developing nations, by helping them to build the capacity required to develop sustainable solutions to their problems. It is to be distinguished from disaster relief and humanitarian aid which provide short-term solutions to problems associated with a lack of development and which is not necessarily sustainable.

There is recognition that International Non-Government Organizations and Intergovernmental Organizations often play key roles in less developed nations in the areas of education, environment, finance, health, human rights, housing, livelihoods, and water and sanitation. Their growth and effectiveness therefore must be a key consideration for international development policy.[5]

B. ALTERNATIVE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES

Nowadays it is nearly impossible to go through a day without hearing, talking, worrying and arguing about the plight of individuals, citizens, groups of people, and communities affected by social exclusion.

“Social exclusion is very much a lived experience that occurs in many different settings and affects many groups of people: street children, former prisoners, single parents, ethnic minorities and more. It can occur as a result of an equally wide variety of factors,” including unemployment, poor health, a lack of education or affordable housing, racism, fear of differences or political disempowerment (Guildford 2000:4).

Fortunately through voluntary initiatives by grassroots groups and other nonprofits/
NGOs, some of these communities have succeeded in reversing their downward spiral. They have accomplished this through a number of related strategies with an assortment of names -- Community Development, Local Economic Development, International Development and Community Economic Development.

In order to appreciate the context in which various initiatives find their roots, it is useful to define and clarify these somewhat loaded terms.

A. Community Development

| |
|Karen Jones (1995: 7), taking into accounts the complexity of the relations |
|within a community, the concept of time, space, and purpose, states that |
|…community is a dynamic interplay of historic processes and complex |
|relationships, acted out in environments. Community embodies a wholeness; it|
|is not enough to describe it as a sense of place, or as a product (of |
|relationship between individuals) or as a social system. Rather, community |
|comes into existence and defines its own form, out of the interaction of the|
|participating elements, in environments and over time. |

Community development rejects the traditional top-down approach to adopt a more participatory and bottom-up approach, valuing local input into solutions in order to promote positive outcomes.

| |
|According to C. St. Clair, “Community development is the process of helping |
|people in communities identify common goals and work together to achieve those|
|goals. The process of community development involves not just individuals or |
|one or two groups, but, ideally, the entire community since the entire |
|community gains or loses through the action of any member of the community.” |

Campfens (1997: 25) defines community development in the following terms:
“From a humanitarian perspective, it may be seen as a search for community, mutual aid, social support, and human liberation in an alienating, oppressive, competitive, and individualistic society. In its more pragmatic institutional sense, it may be viewed as a means for mobilizing communities to join state or institutional initiatives that are aimed at alleviating poverty, solving social problems, strengthening families, fostering democracy, and achieving modernization and socio-economic development.”

For Frank and Smith, Community Development is –

“The planned evolution of all aspects of community well-being (economic, social, environmental and cultural). It is a process whereby community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems.”

The Community Development Foundation in the UK defines it as follows:

“Community development is a range of practices dedicated to increasing the strength and effectiveness of community life, improving local conditions, especially for people in disadvantaged situations, and enabling people to participate in public decision-making and to achieve greater long term control over their circumstances.”

Key issues for the success of community development activity include:

▪ Local participation ▪ Identification of needs and response to them ▪ Social interaction and the building of inter-group relations ▪ On-going support
[i]

Community Economic Development

Over the years, a growing number of disadvantaged communities, neighborhoods and populations have grown disillusioned with the traditional models of economic development. The search for alternative models has led to great experimentation and the emergence of a series of principles for community-driven economic development, or CED.

CED usually emerges in situations where chronic unemployment, low wages, and agricultural or industrial failure is high and where conventional approaches to economic and social development have failed or been ruled out. CED represents a new way of approaching economic issues by promoting community self-reliance and control, inclusion and broad participation. It deliberately attempts to involve those who are marginalized by existing social and economic policy. (Kemp and Coyle, 1994: 261)

Community economic development (CED) has been defined in many ways over the years.

In 1990, the Economic Council of Canada in 1990 used the following wording:

“In this context, the ‘local community’ is a geographic area whose residents participate in interdependent economic, social and political institutions and activities and share a variety of public and private services.… Local-community economic development means improvement of job opportunities, income levels and other features of the economy, not only on Main Street, but by Main Street.”

For the Canadian Community Economic Development Network, the vision of CED is not limited to participatory local economic development. It also envisions equitable and sustainable social and economic change:

“Community economic development is local action to create economic opportunity and enhance the social and environmental conditions of communities. Its strength lies in its long-term vision and integrated approach – CED concurrently addresses multiple issues. Strategic priorities include but are not limited to: structural economic change, local ownership of resources, social development, environmental stewardship, labor market development and access to capital. These strategies renew community economies by managing and strengthening community resources for local benefit.”

| |
|CED is a people-initiated strategy which seeks to develop |
|the economy of a community, region, or country for the |
|benefit of its residents. CED is a systematic planned |
|intervention that is intended to promote economic |
|self-reliance. A principal objective of CED is to help |
|consumers in becoming producers, users in becoming |
|providers, and employees in becoming owners of enterprises. |
|CED does not assume that the market alone will solve the |
|economic problems of communities. CED utilizes |
|entrepreneurial methods similar to those used by traditional|
|businesses in the private sector; methods such as market |
|studies, business plans, and financial packaging. CED seeks |
|to develop efficient productive and profitable ventures and |
|enterprises, but it does so in the context of a community’s |
|social, cultural and political values. Thus, CED will often |
|focus on issues such as local ownership, building the |
|capacity of local people, and public needs, rather than |
|focusing solely on business profits (Sanyika 1989) |

The British Columbia Working Group on CED, 1991 see CED as:

“A community-based and community-directed process that explicitly combines social and economic development and is directed towards fostering the economic, social, ecological, and cultural well-being of communities and regions. CED has emerged as an alternative to conventional approaches to economic development. It is founded on the belief that problems facing communities – unemployment, poverty, job loss, environmental degradation, and loss of community control – need to be addressed in a holistic participatory way.”

The CED Knowledge Base from Simon Fraser University states:

“CED is the process by which communities can initiate and generate their own solutions to common economic problems. Engaging in this process builds long-term community capacity and fosters the integration of economic, social and environmental objectives.” This is not to be confused with the Local Economic Development, which offers local government, the private and not-for-profit sectors, and local communities the opportunity to work together to improve the local economy. It focuses on enhancing competitiveness, increasing sustainable growth and ensuring that growth is inclusive.

The Community Economic Development Approach

The approach taken by Community Economic Development practitioners relies on a distinctive blend of principles, strategies, and tactics.

Principles of Community Economic Development

In an effort to build a theory of CED and to establish best practices, a group of CED practitioners formed the Working Group on CED in British Columbia, Canada in 1991. As a result of a one-year consultation they came up with the following guiding principles:

CED is an evolving, on-going process based on equity; participation; community-building; cooperation and collaboration; self-reliance and community control; integration; interdependence; respect for ecological limit; capacity-building; diversity; and the use of appropriate indicators.

Strategies and Tactics of Community Economic Development

A number of strategies and tactics have been identified to help ensure that the guiding principles of CED are implemented. CED practitioners’ efforts concentrate on:

• Addressing the primary needs of all community members through; sustainable supply of nourishing food and safe drinking water, security and safety of persons and property, adequate and affordable housing, opportunity for health and recreation, increased quality of community life through mutual support, and opportunities for meaningful work. • Developing a strong and sustainable local market economy through; local economic planning process, keeping money circulating in the community and stopping leakage, encouraging enterprise in the community, building local capacity to sustain CED, and developing means to access local capital to finance CED initiatives. • Strengthening civil society and increasing civic participation through; citizenship, cultural development, responsible government, community infrastructure, participatory democracy, and public involvement. • Creating and supporting opportunities for community learning through; education and skills development, sharing knowledge of locality, opportunities to learn through doing, participatory action research, engaging elders in sharing wisdom and experience, and creating computer networks,. • Strengthening natural ecosystems by; increasing awareness of bio-regionalism and ecology, planning for a sustainable environment, reducing exploitation of resources, engaging in environmental restoration, developing and supporting appropriate technology, creating land trusts for nature and natural resources, and establishing a community forest. • Strengthening the social / cultural economy through recognition, validation and structural support by; valuing, encouraging and supporting volunteerism, setting up a skill exchange program, creating supports for housework, creating support for home health care, and supporting cultural diversity and development.

B. Sustainable Community Development

Dresner (2002:1) states that sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Sustainable development is multi-faceted and includes four central components namely; economic, political, social, and environmental aspects.

Sustainable economic development emphasizes the enhancing of existing local assets without degrading their quality. Political sustainability hinges upon the support of the majority of the community and must be effective over the long-term. Social sustainability requires that a project or initiative be integrated into, and connected with, a community’s particular social structure. Environmental sustainability relates to the impact of a project or proposal on the local environment, with enhancement rather than degradation being the important outcome.

It is important to recognize that the concept of sustainable development with all its elements has tremendous usefulness for community development

▪ It introduces consideration of the long-term consequences from today’s actions and decisions. This changing of the temporal framework is very different from standard economic modeling. ▪ It also encourages practitioners to think broadly across issues, disciplines, physical and social boundaries. It suggests searching out new ways to: a) create economic vitality, b) maintain a healthy environment, c) build healthy communities, and d) meet local needs.

Key principles of sustainable community development include:

▪ Fostering a commitment to place, ▪ Promoting community vitality, ▪ Building local capacity to support resilience and adaptability when confronted with change, ▪ Promoting a sense of responsibility as stewardship, ▪ Reinforcing the importance of a connection between the local and broader levels, and ▪ Promoting equity within the local social structure.

C. Local Development

Locally focused economic development (LED) offers local communities, local government, the private and not-for-profit sectors the opportunity to work together to improve a local economy. It focuses on enhancing competitiveness, increasing sustainable growth and, in some cases, ensuring that growth is inclusive. Traditional LED links a range of disciplines including physical planning, economics and marketing. It also incorporates many local government and private sector functions including environmental planning, business development, infrastructure provision, real estate development and finance.

To achieve this, localities are required to:

• Develop a holistic strategy aimed at growing local firms • Provide a competitive local investment climate • Support and encourage networking and collaboration • Encourage the development of business clusters • Encourage workforce development and education • Closely target inward investment to support cluster growth, and • Support quality of life improvements.

Local communities respond to their LED needs in many ways, and a variety of approaches can be taken that include: • Ensuring that the local investment climate is functional for local businesses; • Supporting small and medium sized enterprises; • Encouraging the formation of new enterprises; • Attracting external investment (nationally and internationally); • Investing in physical (hard) infrastructure; • Investing in soft infrastructure (educational and workforce development, institutional support systems and regulatory issues); • Supporting the growth of particular clusters of businesses; • Targeting particular parts of the city for regeneration or growth (areas based initiatives); • Supporting informal and newly emerging businesses; • Targeting certain disadvantaged groups.
By the year 2025, close to half the poor around the world will live in urban areas. Unprecedented urbanization in the third world requires a sustainable development strategy to improve the quality of urban management and foster an economically competitive environment. Without a city development strategy there will be decrease in welfare and quality of life for urban inhabitants. However, the high concentration of persons in cities suggests that with the proper approach to growth the benefits of development can be more widely dispersed.
The World Bank not only works with leaders on the international and national level but on the local level as well. Since greater decentralization in recent years increased the responsibility of municipal or local government, it is the aim of the Local Economic Development (LED) Specialists in the Urban Development Sector to assist local governments in determining the most effective strategy to increase jobs and revitalize their city’s economy. Whereas urban development in the past included primarily critical but non-holistic approaches, such as infrastructure improvement, the new urban agenda is now deepening to encompass a sustainable and self-regenerating approach that corrects for market failure. The LED approach is effective not only in urban areas but also in peri-urban and rural areas. The LED strategic approach assists local governments in pursuing good practices in building environments that are livable, competitive, well-governed and managed, and bankable.
The LED approach acknowledges autonomy of the local government. Thus, the objectives of LED initiatives are to encourage local participation and consensus building in determining economic and social welfare initiatives for the community. While focusing the local economy and the importance of local ownership of the development process, the strategic LED approach concurrently views development within the context of the governance and civil society on all levels. The LED strategy reflects the view that urban areas can effectively contribute to the national government through public policies coupled with community action, private sector commitment, accountable local government, and supportive national government.

APPENDIX ON REDEFINING DEVELOPMENT

The contemporary notion of development was born in New Hampshire at the Bretton Woods Economic Summit. The Summit which was organized at the end of World War II resulted in the establishment of two of the most powerful financial institutions of the 20th Century; the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. Initially designed to finance the reconstruction of Europe after the far, they functioned in an environment sold to the benefits of capitalism. Owing to fifty years of intervention in less developed countries, and implementation of “structural adjustment programs” and “poverty reduction papers”, famine, poverty, environmental disasters, and food and energy crisis constitute the lot of very many less developed countries around the world. No wonder a great majority of economists are now demanding the reform of these institutions. The models advocated by the IMF and the World Bank simply did not work.

In traditional development, bigger is considered better, with large-scale, centralized projects which necessitate substantial infusion of capital. Increased Gross National Product, per capita income, and worker’s productivity all constitute the quantitative means by which development in measured. Usually, development initiatives conceived and designed using quantitative criteria expose sets of statistical data which say little about the impact of those initiatives on the lives of the people. Many economists, might we say, with a “social conscience” began to introduce other disciplines into economics with a focus on quality of life.

In the mid-1970s, the concept of Physical Quality of Life Index was developed by Morris David Morris in response to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund policies of growth.

For the calculation of PQLI, Morris came up with three indicators; life expectancy at age 1, infant mortality, and literacy. Though his study found that countries with low per capita incomes were more likely to have low quality of life, and country with high per capita incomes tended to have high quality of life, he could not establish close correlations between GNP and PQLI.

With his study of a number of countries, “developed” and “underdeveloped”, he set out to demonstrate flaws in the use of the gross national product (GNP) as a main indicator of the level of development of a country. Morris then shifted the focus from GNP to the quality of life instead. He discovered that some countries with a high GNP did not rank high on the PQLI, while some of the countries with very low incomes scored very high on the quality index.

Most economists recognize that it is hard to quantify “quality of life”. They also agree that the foremost purpose of development must be to provide people with adequate food and shelter, economic security, and equitable distribution of resources, all elements forming the base of social capital.

The new attitude and thinking on development was in line with the first 1960-1970 United Nations Decade was driven by the notion that development meant growth plus change in all aspects including social, cultural, qualitative and quantitative. The center piece was quality in people’s life.

Following the same concerns, the 1974 Declaration of Cocoyoc in Mexico emphasized the “development of man not of things” and stressed the need for diversity and the right to follow different roads to development so as to achieve self-reliance. Similarly, in 1975, there was a call for “another development” focusing on human-centered development. In 1977, UNESCO in Paris suggested a total multi-relational process that includes all aspects of life of a collectivity, of its relationship with the outside world and of its own consciousness. The Brundtland Commission has recently recommended sustainable development for our common future.

Poor nations, after decolonization, were encouraged to adopt the western model of modernization as a way out of abject poverty. Some former colonies tried their hands at the “basic needs” approach and the participatory approach with very limited success and a good dose of confusion. In the midst of all this, there is an ongoing debate between neo-liberal economists and globalization supporters. This debate is fiercely challenged by the centre-left, post-capitalist Third Way, and by Another Way is Possible of the anti neo-liberal World Social Forum.

Today, most economists contend that more economic growth is not synonymous of development. Equally, it is clearly understood that development and human development do not necessarily translate into well-being and happiness.

Recent development initiatives tend focus on people, communities, grass-roots, redistribution of wealth, social capital, environment, culture, tradition, local or indigenous knowledge, participation, diversity, local ownership, sustainability, interdependence, multidisciplinary approaches, connectedness, and more.

There is a strong movement and commitment from a group of development practitioners to redefine development in terms of well-being, human development, sustainability, human rights and happiness. Consequently, traditional development indicators like gross national product purely based on economic criteria are increasingly deemed insufficient and seriously challenged.

In the 1970s, the term “Gross National Happiness” was coined by the 4th King of Bhutan as a substitute to “Gross National Product” or “Gross Domestic Product”. His move has inspired a growing international movement who are revitalizing the directions of “progress”. In February 2004, his son, the 5th King of Bhutan, H.M. Jigme Khesar Wangchuk stated at the First International Conference on Gross National Happiness: “I feel that there must be some convergence among nations on the idea of what the primary objective of development and progress should be – something Gross National Happiness seeks to bring about”.

At the Third International Gross National Happiness meeting in Bangkok held in November 2007, the outgoing Prime Minister of Thailand, Surayud Chulanont affirmed:” An enormous challenge is to develop new ways to measure appropriately the success or failure of innovative policies. Using old standards for new policies will not help. I do hope that this Conference can help to advance our search for new approaches and indicators that will enhance contribution to sustainability. A cooperative framework for research should not only include Thailand and Bhutan, but also our colleagues within ASEAN and indeed from all regions of the world”.

The Right to Development, which was proposed in 1972 by the Senegalese jurist Keba M’baye, remains controversial to this day. This concept was given legal recognition in the 1981 African Charter on Human and People’s Right, to be later incorporated in the Global Human Right Framework through the adoption in 1986 of the Declaration on the Right to Development by the United Nations General Assembly. The 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, the 2000 Millennium Declaration, and the recent Durban Declaration and Programme of Action reaffirmed the Right to Development as a universal and inalienable human right. A number of elements constitute the core content of the Right to Development: comprehensive development, respect for all human rights, participation, social justice, international cooperation, and self-determination.

Even though the content of the Right to Development is straightforward, clarifying the nature of the right is more challenging. Added to the fold as a series of concerns like: what kind of right is it? Who are the duty-holders and right-bearers? How can it be implemented, monitored, and enforced? Better yet, there is a lack of consensus regarding the meaning and status of the Right to Development, provoking a fierce political debate among academicians, northern governments, southern governments, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations.

As in the search for consensus on the definitions and contents of new development approaches, agreeing on sets of indicators to comprehensively reflect new definitions of development present daunting challenges. However, a survey of development indicators used the past decades suggests a strong tendency to incorporate new indicators that are not necessarily easy to measure.

The Human Development approach, which is interested in building capabilities and the abilities to function, concentrates on knowledge, a decent standard of income, and a long and healthy life. Elements of human development are productivity, sustainability, equality and empowerment. Human Development Index can be listed as: 1) life expectancy, 2) education measured by combined estimate of adult literacy and average years of schooling, and 3) economic standard of living in terms of purchasing power after adjusting for the local cost of living.

Developed by Hazel Henderson, the Country Futures Indicator is a more comprehensive approach with a bias in cross-cultural characteristics. These indicators suggest criteria to make governments and institutions more accountable using the principles of social, democratic, and environmental audit. Some of the indicators are: 1) income distribution, 2) informal and household sector production, 3) deduction of social and environmental costs, 4) community-based accounting, and 5) military / civilian budget ratio. In addition, some complementary indicators of progress include: 1) education, 2) health, 3) nutrition, 4) basic services, 5) shelter, 6) political participation and democratic progress, and 7) status of minorities, women, etc.

In the United States, the project on Redefining Progress has developed the Genuine Progress Indicators. They take into account quality and distribution of economic growth. Principally considered are: 1) value of housework, 2) care for children and the elderly, 3) volunteer work, and 4) free time or family and community activities. Even though money is not exchanged, these activities contribute to the economy and the well-being of people. In Canada, indicators developed include democracy index. They have suggested projects to include ecological footprint, common assets, climate justice coalition and environmental tax reform.

UNESCO and the United Nations Research in Social Development have proposed cultural indicators, such as: 1) the Cultural Freedom Index which includes freedom of thought, belief and expression, 2) the Creative Empowerment Index which includes encouragement to innovative expression, and 3) the Cultural Dialogue Index which includes opportunities to mutually benefit communication among people of different cultures.

A Welfare Index in observance in Scandinavian countries combines the three aspects of having, loving and being. The index includes: 1) income, 2) quality of housing, 3) political support, 4) social relations, 5) health, 6) education, 7) being irreplaceable, 8) doing interesting things, and 9) life satisfaction.

The World Health Organization Quality of Life indicators include: physical environment, home environment, financial resources, social support, safety, information, and transportation. The inner quality consists of physical health, mental health, work capacity, learning capacity, energy, absence or presence of pain and depression, satisfaction with self, and satisfaction with life.

The Council for Social Development in Canada describes quality of life in terms of being, belonging and becoming. Being includes physical health, psychological thoughts and feelings, and spiritual beliefs and values. Belonging includes physical as in a living place, social as in having people around, and community resources. Becoming includes a practical as in daily things to do, leisure for fun and enjoyment, and growth as in coping with change.

A much simpler approach is advocated by the WIDER Institute in Finland. This approach consists of outer qualities, which means living in a good environment and being worth for the world, and inner qualities, which means being able to cope with life and enjoy life.

DEVELOPMENT REDEFINED: PRINCIPLES

OUR VALUES AND FRAME

WHAT IS NEEDED FOR EDUCATION OF……

DEVELOPMENT KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS FOR CHANGE AGENTS

Summary

Community Economic Development is a process by which people living in a community work together to create a diversified and sustainable local economy.

REFERENCES:

Toye, Michael and Jennifer Infanti, 2004. Social Inclusion and Community Economic Development. The Canadian CED Network. Available online: http://www.ccednet-rcdec.ca

Guilford, Janet, 2000. Making the Case for Social and Economic Inclusion. Population and Public Health Branch, Atlantic Region, Health Canada. Available online: http://www.hc.sc.gc.ca/hppb/regions/atlantic/documents/index.html#social

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 1998b. Integrating Distressed Urban Areas. Paris: OECD

St. Clair, Charles, 2003. Community and Economic Development: A Manual for Practitioners. Outreach and Extension. University of Missouri. Lincoln University.

Jones, Karen , 1995. People and Participation in Rural Areas. A Report on relationship between local governments and communities in the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland. Wellington: Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.
(Charles St. Clair, 2003)

Bartle, Phil, (2003) Handbook for Mobilizers. Available online: http://www.scn.org/cmp/

Bryant, C, 1999. Community change in context, In: Communities, Development and Sustainability Across Canada. Pierce, J. and A. Dale(eds.), UBC Press, Vancouver.

McRobie, G. and D. Ross. 1987 What is Community Economic Development? Excerpt from A Feasibility Study for a Centre for Community Economic Development at Simon Fraser University, Community Economic Development Centre, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC.

Frank and Smith

The Community Development Foundation in the UK

Blakely, E.J. 1989. Planning Local Economic Development: Theory and Practice, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, California.

(Swack and Mason: 1987).

(Burkey …)

Economic Council of Canada. (1990) From the Bottom Up: The Community Economic-Development Approach. Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada.

Canadian Community Economic Development Network. 2003. Strengthening Canada’s Communities: Towards a New Community Agenda. Victoria, BC. Available online: http://www.ccednet-rcdec.ca/en/doc/pubs/PolicyBrochureFinal.pdf.

British Columbia Working Group on CED, 1991

(Sanyika 1989)

Word Bank ….)

Working Group on CED in British Columbia, Canada in 1991

-----------------------
[1] Director, Co-Chair of the Issue Expertise/Development Task Force of the International Working Group on University Education for Community and Social Change, and Director of the MA Program in Community Economic Development at the Open University of Tanzania/Southern New Hampshire University

[2] Historic examples of this situation are cited by Janet Abu Lughod and Andre Gunder Frank. Lughod argues that, extensive across Eurasia in the 13th century, signs of a pre-modern world system existed. At the center of a vast trading network, the Mongol Empire played an essential role in keeping together Indian, Chinese, European, and Muslim regions. Frank went even further in his analysis with claims of a global-scale system that included Africa, Asia and Europe in the 4th millennium BCE. In his model, China with Asia constituted the center of activity.

[3] As illustrated by the 1943 article of Paul Rosenstein-Rodan and Kurt Mandelbaum’s 1947 tome
[4] Such theorists as Bert Hoselitz, Simon Kuznets, W. Arthur Lewis, and Hla Myint were among the first economists to analyze economic development as a separate subject.

[5] Examples of International Non-Government Organizations include Plan International, CARE International, World Vision, Oxfam, Freedom From Hunger, Medecins Sans Frontières, and ActionAid International. Their areas of expertise spawn from health, education, environment, civic education, human rights, to water and sanitation, livelihoods, microfinance, and human rights.

-----------------------
[i] Suggested typology of approaches to community development includes:

▪ Continuum; Community capacity building to advance human rights ▪ Group cooperative; developed from the tradition of mutual aid, social support and social action ▪ Locality; which identifies the local community as a physical, economic, social, and political unit and structures responses based on that unit ▪ Structural-functional; incorporate recognition that various partners (state agencies, institutions, non-government organizations, etc) are an integral part of local community development ▪ Categorical; identifies community development efforts aimed at a particular social issue(local housing, food banks, etc) ▪ Self-management; based upon a bottom-up empowerment approach, and ▪ Social learning; incorporation of professional experts (universal knowledge) and local residents (lived experience).