Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Millennium Development Goals agreed upon at the Millennium Summit in
2000 with a target date of 2015 reflects the shift to a pro-poor development
agenda and include:
(1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
(2) Achieve universal primary education.
(3) Promote gender equality and empower women.
(4) Reduce child mortality.
(5) Improve maternal health.
(6) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
(7) Ensure environmental sustainability.
(8) Global partnership for development (UN, 2013c).
It is not the intention here to develop a new definition of development or
new ways to measure it but, rather, to recognise the expanding scope of the
term (see Chapter 7 for a further discussion of development indicators). As
Hettne (1995) suggests, there can be no final definition of development, only
suggestions of what development should imply in particular contexts. Thus,
development involves structural transformation that implies political, cul-
tural, social and economic changes (Hettne, 1995). The following section
addresses the seven main development paradigms and ways of thinking
about development since World War II.
Development Paradigms
The strength of 'development' discourse comes of its power to seduce, in
every sense of the term: to charm, to please, to fascinate, to set dreaming,
but to abuse, to turn away from the truth, to deceive. (Rist, 1997: 1)
The analysis of social change with respect to development encompasses
a wide range of perspectives resulting in a variety of social theories and
contested notions of change (Preston, 1996). Hettne (2009) makes a key
argument that schools of development thinking need to be contextualised
historically rather than understood as a cumulative evolution of ideas lead-
ing to a universal development theory. As with the definition of develop-
ment, development theory has broadened from simplistic economic growth
models towards more holistic theories of historical social change (Hettne,
1995). Development theory can be divided into development ideology (the
ends) and development strategy (the means). Development strategy is the
means of implementing the development process guided by a specific ideol-
ogy (Hettne, 1995). Goldsworthy (1988) argues that much of development
thinking remains politically uninformed and more attention is needed to
clarify the ideological underpinnings of development theory, as displayed in
Search WWH ::
Custom Search