My Definition of Development

Development is an ongoing process that encompasses two aspects: economic growth and the improvement of quality of life of people living in a certain region (nation, city, continent etc.). Most of the rhetoric on development has emphasized economic growth as the main goal to be obtained. However, I will argue that even though economic growth is important, equality is the most eminent goal nations should strive for to reach a higher level of development.

Equality raises the quality of life of people since they will have access to services such as health care and education and provides them with the security that they will be able to sustain themselves since they have the same access to employment as others.

Since development is an ongoing process, the terminology development should not be used to divide nations (developed and developing nations); instead the distinction should be on rich and poor nations. As we learned in class, there are rich nations but there are no developed nations. Every nation is going through the process of development, either for economic issues or for quality of life. Rich Nations like the United States, still struggle to provide equal access of services to its population. For instance, many people do not have health insurance because they cannot afford it.

Comments

[Agust Olafur Agustsson]

I agree with you that development is a process but I would like to add that I think it is also a progress. Development is some kind of movement toward a better stage. This progress can be social, economical or political.

I also agree with you that equality is the key in any development. Without equality, society is not just and therefore it isn´t fully developed.

Because development is ongoing it never stops. The most developed countries in the world, for example the Scandinavia countries, where the income per capita is among the highest in the world, gender equality is nowhere more respected, voting turnouts is usually around 85-90%, strongest social safety nets in the world are found and the freedom of the citizens highly protected with equal opportunities, are constantly developing and improving their infrastructure and status. Development doesn´t have a specific end point. And like you mention United States have some important aspect of its society that needs “serious” development like health care.

[Roophy]

I agree with the author that development is about equality but I would stress that it’s about equality of opportunity and access. We will never live in a society where everyone is equal- it’s simply not feasible. But we can live in a society where we have equal access to the same opportunities. Development is about the opportunity to get to the start line; to be able to play the game like everyone else. It’s about everyone the world over having access to: heath care, education, shelter, economic safety etc. But we should not all expect nor want everyone to have a have a house with a picket fence. We should expect that they have the access to someday get that house and picket fence if they want to.

[hurjungsoo]

I agree with that economic growth and equality are the most important issues in tacking "developement". However, it may need to consider how to get the two goals. Many studies argue that the poor fail to share the benefit of economic growth because they cannot use the new investment opportunities generated by growth policies, they live in remote areas un-integrated into the larger market in which growth is taking place, and they may always have been excluded from private safety net institutions(J.Schaffner, 2008). Many empirical studies for the relationship between economic growth and poverty also argue that the experience of individual countries has been highly dispersed, with poverty sometimes falling significantly even when growth is very slow, and sometimes failing to fall even when growth is rapid. This shows how difficult it is to simultaneously get the policy goals such as economic growth, equality-reflecting the issues of poverty reduction and redistribution of income. This is the reason why many 'development' students think about new approaches such as "microfinance", "socio-economic perspetive, and so on.