Development Theories and MDGs

INTRODUCTION

This short essay is written as part of a term assignment for the course titled Development and Governance
towards a Master degree in Development Studies offered by the Independent University Bangladesh. The
assignment requires us to explain theories of development in the context of developing countries and their
trajectory from the dependency theories to current day Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is
accomplished over one week in July 2010.

The work is done through a literature review on the said topics. However, it benefited enormously from the
earlier two assignments on Human Development Index and Development Discourse, done in the last semester
Most of the reviewed items were recommended or referred to during the lecture sessions and subsequent hand-
outs and class notes, made available by the concerned faculties in both semesters. Particularly United Nations
documents were reviewed primarily. Additionally review of a few books in collection and related web searches
were made using a set of key words and phrases. The scopes for the work have been comparatively narrower.

The information gathered from various resources, mainly some comprehensive accounts, are tried to put into a
chronological order and similar resources from a number of sources were tallied for creating a generalized
picture.

EMERGENCE OF DEVELOPMENT AS A DISCOURSE AND THE CONTEXT

The prominent appearance of the word ‘development’ is traced back to a post WWII speech of the US President
Truman, and is considered to be used in relation to ‘underdeveloped’ and so was argued against its real purpose
and true essence for people, by a number of authors (Rist 20071; Edelman, Haugerud 20052).

Many literatures in fact document the status of the world and its renewed priorities at that very moment of the
end of the second world wide war, and present the very context of the devastated Europe that needed
reconstruction, rehabilitation and certain level of state building amid a new world order envisioned surrounding
the League of United Nations with its five veto-powered nation-states, as well as the emergence of somewhat
completely inexperienced or new nation states in Asia and Africa that needed new leaders for running them
coming out of long legacy of colonial tyranny and plundering, along with the distinct two groups of aligned
nations with the United States of America and the Union of Socialist Soviet Russia respectively. However, even
at that very turning point of the re-emergence of development thoughts, many parts in the world in the
continents of Asia, Africa or America continued to remain under colonial plundering by developed nations,
mostly the veto-powered nations. Juxtaposition of the USA and the USSR power balance along with still
continuing colonial practices gave rise to struggle amongst themselves for the sphere of influence over the
nations devastated and liberated, across the world. With exceptions to the European nations that were
devastated, other nations devastated and liberated collectively formed the third world or the developing nations.
Development as a major discourse emerged in the global scenario around that period, and several (sub)
discourses one after another over the period of time have constructed the overarching frameworks of
assumptions and actions beyond language and texts, in terms of theories and stated strategies, of development
initiatives, through trials and errors.

Using the simple definition of ‘development’ by Chambers (2005) as ‘good change: from illbeing to wellbeing’
in the context of experience of bad or good quality of life respectively3, we can say development implies
something good, denoting an expected change in particular status or situation. However mere implication of

1
Gilbert Rist, ‘Development as a Buzzword’ in Development in Practice, 17:4-5 (Aug2007), Routledge
Publishing, pg 485;
2
Marc Edelman and Angelique Haugerud, ‘Introduction: The Anthropology of Development and Globalization’
in Edelman, Haugerud eds., The Anthropology of Development and Globalization: From Classical Political
Economy to Contemporary Neoliberalism, Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2005, pg 6
3
Robert Chambers (2005). Participation, Pluralism and Perceptions of Poverty, A paper presented at the
International Conference ‘the Many Dimensions of Poverty’, at Brasilia, Aug 2005, pg 13 (the phrase
‘development as good change’ however also refers to an earlier writing by Chambers in 1997.)
something good is not enough for the word to be equal with its meaning ‘good change’- rather it is much more
encompassing, as narrated by Croll and Parkin (1992)4: ‘development is as much a fact of everyday life for most
peoples of the world as the other kinds of overarching frameworks of assumptions and action’. Such simple but
wide ranging concepts, the term ‘development’ appears to have in itself withholding, commanded popularity of
‘development’ as a coinage for extensive use with both the post WWII groups of aligned nations as well as with
politicians, academicians, economists, social thinkers, civil society organizations, and community groups across
the world. It became something beyond our everyday use one word that anyone can trace in our day to day
conversations and communications on very many occasions, linked to very many things, for example children’s
development, patient’s development, situational developments, and so on.

However, the ambiguity of the term development can be understood in Cornwell (2007)’s defining it: “The
language of development defines worlds-in-the-making, animating and justifying intervention in currently
existing worlds with fulsome promises of the possible.”5 Cornwall refers to Gilbert Rist about his view of
dilemma involving development in relation to the subsequent essential changes: “the very taken-for-granted
quality of ‘development’ – and the same might be said of many of the words that are used in development
discourse – leaves much of what is actually done in its name unquestioned.”6

DEVELOPMENT THEORIES IN DIFFERENT ANALYSIS

Development theories, particularly in practice, for the devastated and liberated states in the above context has
roots ‘in relationships, perceptions, and attitudes, as well as policies and practices, devised for an imperial era’
(Uma Kothari 2006), and particularly in the context of the Britain and its post colonial independent parts, the
new period of development aid becomes neo-colonial to certain extent with continuities and divergences in the
practice and understanding of development with the former colonial experiences of the UK development
officials, and with involvement of other actors more complicated and diversified.7

However, at any point in time or for any given period for any nation states, Thorbecke identifies three sets of
inter-related and inter-dependent building blocks including development theories and models as the primary one
to influence or get influenced by the other two blocks namely the prevailing development objectives and the
data systems. They all three determine and influence the emerging development policies and strategies.

According to Thorbecke (2006)8, development theories progressed through with its analytical framework in
1950s being complete aggregative and relying on one sector models to becoming dualistic in 1960s between an
urban, modern industrial sector and a rural, traditional agricultural sector; to be followed by ‘one of arguably
controversial over reliance in the effectiveness of markets as an engine of development and as a corollary the
minimization of the role of governments’ firstly, and then ‘the other one of intervening in areas such as
education and health to yield the spillover effects of investment in human capital on overall development.’
which heavily benefited or flourished through by the increased capacity to collect and process huge data
including those of households by the 1980s, contributing to the rigorous investigation into domains of the
distributional issues. Therefore, the theories and their practical demonstrations were also influenced by
concurrent other advancements in technological and other academic fields, particularly in data management and
statistical analysis.

Thorbecke considers development over the study period of almost six decades a progression:

development broadened from being tantamount to GNP growth, as both an objective and a
performance criterion, to growth and employment, to the satisfaction of basic needs and,
ultimately, to the enhancement of human welfare and the reduction of multi-dimensional
poverty to be achieved through a pattern of pro-poor growth. Thus, development evolved
4
Croll, E. and Parkin, D. (1992) Anthropology, the Environment and Development in Croll, E. and Parkin, D.
(eds.) Bush Base: Forest Farm and Culture, Environment and Development, London, Routledge
5
Andrea Cornwall (August 2007), ‘Buzzwords and Fuzzwords: Deconstructing Development Discourse’,
Development in Practice, 17: 4, pg 471-484, Routledge
6
ibid, 471
7
Uma Kothari (2006), From Colonialism to Development: Reflections of Former Colonial Officers, in
Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Vol 44.1, pg 118-136, March 2006, Routledge
8
Eric Thorbecke (2006), The Evolution of the Development Doctrine 1950-2005, UNU-WIDER
 from an essentially scalar concept to a multi-dimensional one entailing the simultaneous
achievement of multiple objectives.

Here GNP growth is seen to be subsequently replaced by employment, basic needs and human welfare and
reduction of poverty, towards becoming one of more multi-dimensional pro-people growth.

Whereas a summary narration of some trio approaches involving respectively state, market and polity is
presented by Peter W. Preston (1999)9 as the history of development ideas within a schema of contesting
discourses. Firstly, nation state mechanism and dependency theory form the very basis of the Post World War II
and partly post colonial regimes that are argued to maintain the status quo and the order of the (new or old)
elites through the UN systems, and in different territorial boundaries tried to unite peoples and set them in
general for material gains expressed in terms of growth in an prevailing situation of poverty or lacking or
underdevelopment. Secondly, liberal democratic growth and welfare package eventually has rendered into
economic liberalism with a central role for the market place to satisfy the sovereign customers, alongside a
transfer of productive capital to finance capital within the Atlantic sphere, where such liberal-market
interventions are argued to generate unemployment, reduction in social welfare, declining domestic
productions, large public and private debt burden in 1980s and subsequent financial market crisis in 1990s.
Thirdly, an alternative thinking and practice, that was pursued mainly by non-mainstream development
agencies, for example NGOs and civil societies whose institutional bases are considered to lie in political
structures of local communities, was considered to be essentially a sub-species of the broader concern of the
classical European tradition of social theorizing for the emancipatory interpretative-critical analysis of the
dynamics of the complex change.

Another comprehensive look was made by Marc Edelman and Angelique Haugerud (2005) in the context of
Anthropology. Edelman and Haugerud present one approach to development locating the concept in the
transition from feudalism to (industrial) capitalism when spectacular advances in the productive forces to result
in attainable progress are envisioned, which at the same time acknowledges both intellectual and economic
history as well as the long standing process of exploitation.10 The authors also consider the approach narrating
the post WWII emergence of the third world, were development is part of a new imperial project for the
colonial and the post colonial ‘Third World’, crediting this point to Cowen and Shenton (1996:7, 366). Edelman
and Haugerud identify key events and developments and the related theories as follows:

1. The 1944 establishment of the Bretton Woods financial institutions (IMF and World Bank) and its
adoption of Keynes’ once proven (during the 1930s depression in the USA) policy of public spending
as an engine of growth and source of employment, and accordingly national governments’ sole
responsibility in improving the materials circumstances of the citizens in an aspiration to catch up the
industrialized nations, with the assistance of the supranational finance and governance institutions like
WB, IMF, and the UN.
2. Poverty alleviation through joint work with the new international agencies and financial
institutions (credited to Cooper and Packard, 1991:1), and development as the economic predicament
of the third world.
3. In the 1970s, the breakdown of the Bretton Woods controls on capital movements and a
consequent weakening of state’s capacities through placing market rather than state in driving seat for
resolving economic and other problems took place. World Bank shifted its focus from economic
growth per se to poverty and equity.
4. The 1980s debt crisis amid diverging economic growth with certain third world and Asian
countries through the major internal support of state subsidies and radical agrarian reforms.
5. During 1980s and 1990s, the World Bank and IMF’s structural adjustment support to the nations
living in poverty situations for reducing state expenditures on social services and state roles in
economy.

9
Peter W Preston (1999) Development Theory: Learning the Lessons and Moving On, European Journal of
Development Research, Vol 11, No 1, Jun 1999, pg 1-29
10
Marc Edelman and Angelique Haugerud, ‘Introduction: The Anthropology of Development and
Globalization’ in Edelman, Haugerud eds., The Anthropology of Development and Globalization: From
Classical Political Economy to Contemporary Neoliberalism, Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2005, pg 51
6. By mid 1990s, World Bank started modifying structural adjustment policies when for many
nations it proved severely bad, and the continuing debt problem not only necessitated social investment
programmes but also fueled global campaigns and pressures in support of the Jubilee 2000 debt-
forgiveness movement. Major criticisms of the impact of structural adjustment policies on economics
and living standards of the countries in dire poverty situations was made by Sachs (1999), Stiglitz
(2002), Soros (2002).

Edelman and Haugerud continue to cast lights on the concurrent development theories during the
above mentioned major changes. Imperialism and Colonialism became synonymous in the late 1990s,
when development aid for Modernization failed to produce the due results to alleviate poverty after
decades of development initiatives. Rather use of underdeveloped regions as sources of cheap and
strategic raw materials, markets for manufactured goods, outlets for excess capital and places for super
profits from super exploitation of poorly paid workers by the developed and industrialized nations
proved to be benefiting the developed nations, contributing to the worldwide accumulation that
continually reproduced development and underdevelopment. This very understanding prompted Raul
Prebisch (1950) to explain Andre Gunder Frank’s radical dependency theory (metropolis and satellite)
in terms of the periphery’s contribution to the centre’s development even through naïve exchanges and
transactions. Ideas of import substituting industry in developing nations and local markets for certain
local products, particularly in the Latin America, gained popularity.

Chambers (2004) however considers the progression of development (theories) better grow in four specific
stages, namely benevolent for welfare, participatory for partnership, rights-based for empowerment and
obligation based for responsibility, where dominant basis and modes of development approaches are
respectively- technical, social, political and ethical.’11

MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (MDGs) AS A COLLECTIVE WAY OUT

Poverty reduction objectives in general, and the MDGs in particular, now play a major role in the thinking of
the international agencies such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Development Assistance Committee (2001), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World
Bank (2000) or the bilateral aid agencies.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) comprise of eight specific (in many instances, quantitative)
objectives for the betterment of the human condition, including goals of poverty reduction and improvement in
education, gender equality, health, and environmental quality. Each goal is associated with specific targets, in
total eighteen; and each target is related to quantifiable indicators, in total forty-eight. It is believed that MDGs
would opened up scopes for widening the social protection of various natures for the people living in poverty
and most challenging poverty situations in developing nations.

The MDGs provide time-bound and quantitative global goals to guide and influence national and international
strategies for development. Since its formation, the United Nations has defined a wide variety of global goals
with specific outcome targets, including among others ending colonialism (a focus especially in the period from
the 1940s to the 1960s), accelerating economic growth through increased international assistance (a focus
during the UN Development Decade in the 1960s and the three subsequent decades) and eradicating smallpox,
malaria and other communicable diseases (a focus from the 1950s onward).12

In 1995, the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) over a period of a year reviewed past
experiences and revised long-term policies and plans. The report Shaping the 21st Century: The Contribution of
Development Co-operation, published in May 1996, based on the above work formulated seven goals. The
goals are taken from the resolutions of UN conferences and meetings, particularly the global conferences of the
Copenhagen World Summit for Social Development, the Jomtien World Conference on Education for All, the
Beijing World Conference on women, the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, The
Rio de Janeiro UN Conference on Environment. Later expert meetings led to the definition of quantified

11
Robert Chambers (2004), Ideas for development: Reflecting Forwards, IDS Working Paper 238, pg 26
12
Jolly, R., 2003, UN Global Goals.
International Development Targets (IDTs) (measured by 21 indicators) to be achieved by 201513. The MDGs
are a synthesis of the International Development Goals agreed upon at the UN social development conferences
and global summit meetings of the 1990s, and the Millennium Declaration adopted by heads of state at the
Millennium Summit in New York in September 200014. In 2001, as part of the UN Secretary General’s report A
Road Map Towards the Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, the MDGs were
approved by the UN General Assembly15.

The three main elements of the above meetings were labeled as ‘common understanding’16:

“1. All programmes of development co-operation, policies and technical assistance should further the
realisation of human rights as laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other
international human rights instruments.

2. Human rights standards contained in, and principles derived from, the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and other international human rights instruments guide all development cooperation and
programming in all sectors and in all phases of the programming process.

3. Development cooperation contributes to the development of the capacities of ‘duty-bearers’ to meet

their obligations and/or of ‘rights-holders’ to claim their rights.”17

The MDGs have managed to focus world attention to the plight of the people living in most challenging poverty
situations and to achieve a significant reversal in development aid. MDGs have provided a framework within
which countries may plan their social and economic development and donors may provide effective aid- such an
aspiration is articulated in the mid term monitoring report on the progress of the MDGs.18

CONCLUSION

The Development theories as they were applied for strategies and polices more than often proved to be
producing wrong results for the diverse poverty situation in the world.

The return to every individual’s rights in fact contributed to the development of the universal campaign against
poverty in target areas with concerted efforts of the major actors in the world.

Development theories need to be revised and reframed with increased focus on the rights of every single
individual.

13
ODI (2003), The Millennium Development Goals and the IDC: driving and framing the Committee’s
work
14
United Nations, 2000
15
United Nations, 2000a
16
Philip Alston, A Human Rights Perspective on the Millennium Development Goals, UN (Millennium Project
Task Force on Poverty and Economic Development), pg
17
‘The Human Rights Based Approach to Development Cooperation: Towards a Common Understanding
Among the UN Agencies’, in Report of the Second Interagency Workshop on Implementing a Human Rights-
based Approach in the Context of UN Reform, (Stamford, USA, 5-7 May, 2003), available at
http://www.humanrights.se/svenska/Common%20Understanding%20FN%202003.pdf
18
François Bourguignon (eds.), Millennium Development Goals at Midpoint: Where do we stand and where do
we need to go? EU 2008
BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Andrea Cornwall (August 2007), ‘Buzzwords and Fuzzwords: Deconstructing Development Discourse’,
Development in Practice, 17: 4, Routledge
2. Croll, E. and Parkin, D. (1992) Anthropology, the Environment and Development in Croll, E. and Parkin, D.
(eds.) Bush Base: Forest Farm and Culture, Environment and Development, London, Routledge
3. Eric Thorbecke (2006), The Evolution of the Development Doctrine 1950-2005, UNU-WIDER
4. François Bourguignon (eds.), Millennium Development Goals at Midpoint: Where do we stand and where do
we need to go? EU 2008 Gilbert Rist, ‘Development as a Buzzword’ in Development in Practice, 17:4-5
(Aug2007), Routledge Publishing
5. Jolly, R., 2003, UN Global Goals.
6. Marc Edelman and Angelique Haugerud, ‘Introduction: The Anthropology of Development and
Globalization’ in Edelman, Haugerud eds., The Anthropology of Development and Globalization: From
Classical Political Economy to Contemporary Neoliberalism, Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2005
7. ODI (2003), The Millennium Development Goals and the IDC: driving and framing the Committee’s work
8. Peter W Preston (1999) Development Theory: Learning the Lessons and Moving On, European Journal of
Development Research, Vol 11, No 1, Jun 1999, pg 1-29
9. Philip Alston, A Human Rights Perspective on the Millennium Development Goals, UN (Millennium Project
Task Force on Poverty and Economic Development), pg
10. Robert Chambers (1995). Participation, Pluralism and Perceptions of Poverty, A paper presented at the
International Conference ‘the Many Dimensions of Poverty’, at Brasilia, Aug 2005 (the phrase ‘development as
good change’ however also refers to an earlier writing by Chambers in 1997.)
11. Robert Chambers (2004), Ideas for development: Reflecting Forwards, IDS Working Paper 238, pg 26
12. Uma Kothari (2006), From Colonialism to Development: Reflections of Former Colonial Officers, in
Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Vol 44.1, pg 118-136, March 2006, Routledge
13. ‘The Human Rights Based Approach to Development Cooperation: Towards a Common Understanding
Among the UN Agencies’, in Report of the Second Interagency Workshop on Implementing a Human Rights-
based Approach in the Context of UN Reform, (Stamford, USA, 5-7 May, 2003), available at
http://www.humanrights.se/svenska/Common%20Understanding%20FN%202003.pdf
14. United Nations, 2000
15. United Nations, 2000a