Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
sovereignty. People's participatory involvement in controlling resources,
thereby gives rise to individual, familial and communal empowerment.
As noted in Chapter 1.1, Goulet (1971) also recognized three 'social
freedoms' as crucial quality of life components of a people-centred
development which follows ethical tenets: (i) life sustenance and the
provision of basic needs, (ii) self-esteem acquired through self-respect
and independence, or autonomy, and (iii) freedom for people to deter-
mine their own future.
Another Development
The above interdisciplinary approaches built upon a 1975 Report of the
Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation entitled,
What Now? Another Development
(later reaffirmed by Paul Ekins in 1992), in which
four basic humanistic
principles of 'alternative development' were conceptualized as:
•
Need-oriented - responding to both material and non-material
human needs
•
Endogenous - derived from locally-determined priorities
•
Self-reliant - maximizing community strengths and resources
•
Ecologically sound - promoting sustainable and equitable resource
uses.
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Another Development
was to be geared to the satisfaction of people's
needs, beginning with the basic needs of the poor - the world's majority.
At the same time the approach should ensure the humanization of men
and women, by the satisfaction of their needs for expression and free-
dom of speech, creativity, conviviality and by encouraging self-reliance,
endogenous authority and participatory action. Another Development
also advocated overcoming discrimination of any kind - whether social,
sexual, ethnic or economic. In terms of policy implementation, the Dag
Hammarskjöld Foundation's Reports to the United Nations offered an
effective institutional 'voice' to challenge the establishment and ques-
tioned the top-down strategies that were not working to further the
well-being of the majority (also see Chapter 2.4).
Real-life Economics
Ekins (1992) argued that, given the structural rigidity and persistence of
the stark global problems presented by war, insecurity and militarism,
