The Concept of Human Development
· Defined as the process of enlarging the range of people’s choices - increasing their opportunities for education, health care, income and employment, and covering the full range of human choices from sound physical environment to economic and political freedoms.
· There is a real danger that the concept of human development may become more of a fashion than practice, more of a slogan than a blue print for action.
· Some analysts have incorrectly described human development as anti-growth, arguing that it focuses on the distribution rather than generation of income, that it is a social rather than a development concern.
· Human development is concerned both with developing human capabilities and with using them productively. The former requires investment in people; the latter that people contribute to GNP growth and employment.
· Human development encompasses three aspects:
q Development of people - concerned with investment in education, health and other social services.
q Development for people- concerned with creation of economic opportunities for all.
q Development by people - concerned with participatory approaches.
· Previous concepts of developments have given exclusive attention to economic growth - on the assumption that growth will ultimately benefits everyone.
· Human development is a broad and comprehensive concept. It is concerned with the generation of economic growth as with its distribution, as concerned with basic needs as with the entire spectrum of human aspirations.
Sustainable Human Development
· Affluent life styles and practices are not the only source of environmental deterioration. Equal and sometimes even greater strains are put on the world's ecological systems by the poverty in which three quarters of the world’s people live.
· Poor people and poor countries depend on soil for food, the rivers for water and the forests for fuel. Even though they need these resources desperately, the poor have little choice- without assets or income - but to overuse and destroy, simply to survive. In doing so, they threaten their well being and that of their children.
· The current course is not inevitable. It can be reversed, and the health and well being of all people can be assured, if problems are acknowledged, and measures to address them- including some very difficult ones- are undertaken.
Poverty, Environment and Human Development
· If development is to widen the range of people’s choices, it must do so not only for the current generation but for future ones as well. It must be sustainable.
· The poor are disproportional threatened by environmental hazards and health risks posed by pollution, inadequate housing, poor sanitation, polluted water and lack of other basic services.
· Many of the already deprived people also live in the most ecologically vulnerable areas characterized by low productivity and high susceptibility to environmental degradation- including arid lands, soils with low fertility, and urban squatter settlements The environmental degradation that results when people use there marginal lands for fuel wood and for subsistence and cash production make their poverty worse. It also threatens their health and well being and that of their children.
· Also as cash- crop production displaces subsistence activity, the poor are further marginalized and pushed onto environmentally fragile lands.
Sustainable Development and Economic Growth
· Sustainable development implies a new concept of economic growth- one that provides fairness and opportunity for all the people, not just the privileged few, without further destroying the finite natural resources and without compromising the land’s carrying capacity.
· Sustainable developments must fulfill the needs of the present without limiting the potential for meeting the needs of future generations.
· Sustainable development is a process in which economic, fiscal, trade, energy, agricultural and industrial policies are all designed to bring about development that is economically, socially and ecologically sustainable. That is, current consumption can not be financed by incurring economic debts that others must repay in the future.
· Investments must be made in the health and education of today’s population so as not to create social debt for the future generations. And natural resources must be used in ways that do not create ecological debts by overexploiting the carrying and productive capacity the land.
· In general, the minimum requirements for achieving sustainable development include:
q The elimination of poverty
q More equitable distribution of resources
q Healthier, more educated and better trained people
q Decentralized, more participatory government
q More equitable, liberal trading systems within and among countries, including increased production for local consumption
· This generation, in addition of leaving a legacy of “environmental debt” to future generations through pollution and/or exhaustion of resources, is in danger of leaving a financial debt, as a result of past borrowing.
· This generation is also in danger of leaving a social debt, if today’s young people lack the standards of health, education and skill to cope with tomorrow’s world
· Today’s environmental awareness is highlighting many new areas of potential conflict- between industrial countries and developing countries, between environmental protection and economic growth, between this generation and the next.
· The concept of human development can offer a few guiding principles.
1) That “sustainable human development” should give priority to human beings. Environmental protection is vital. But (like economic growth) it is a means of promoting human development. The primary objectives of our efforts must be to protect human life and human options. This implies that the longer-term viability of the world’s natural resource systems - including their biodiversity- has to be ensured. All life depends on them.
2) The guiding principle is that for developing countries there can be choice between economic growth and environmental protection. Growth is not an option. It is an imperative. The issue is not how much economic growth, but what kind of growth. No growth can be as detrimental to the environment as rapid growth.
3) The third principle is that each country has to set its own environmental priorities, which often will be very different in industrial and developing countries.
· Environmental problems arise when the depreciation of natural resources is ignored merely because it carries no price tag.
· Developing countries need to accelerate their rates of economic growth. But they must adopt strategies that, as far as possible, respect the physical environment. This means using technologies different from those used in the past by industrial countries - less energy intensive and more environmentally sound.
· Developing countries are often concerned less with the quality of life than about life itself. And their concerns are much more immediate.
Political Freedom and Human Development
· The purpose of human development is to increase people's range of choices. So, freedom is more than an idealistic goal - it is a vital component of human development.
· People who are politically free can take part in planning and decision-making. And they can ensure that society is organized through consensus and consultation rather than dictated by autocratic elite.
“Freedom is something not just to be given or taken - it has to be lived.”
Political Freedom and Economic Growth
· Political freedom is an essential element of human development. But does it contribute to economic growth? This is a long-running debate.
· Some scholars have agreed that freedom is a necessary condition to liberate the creative energies of the people and to pursue a path of rapid economic development.
· Some other scholars have argued that economic development would be more rapid if freedoms were curtailed: a strong state can maintain the stability and predictability needed to smooth the path for modernization.
· The link between freedom and development is seldom in dispute. What is often disputed is the causality - the direction of the arrow, whether more freedom leads to more development or more development leads to more freedom.
The Widening Gap in Opportunities
· Income and asset are often very unevenly distributed and the poor have little access to credit and to market opportunities.
· Governments must have means of redistribution that they can apply: progressive income tax, economic planning mechanisms and social safety nets that can prevent people from falling into destitution.
· Since the kinds of institutions and mechanisms that can redistribute income are absent, it is hardly surprising that the gap in opportunities has widened in the past decade.
Income Disparities
· The income gap between the rich and the poor countries is startlingly wide. The income disparity between rich and poor countries might be better measured using real purchasing power rather nominal GNP. The disparities are reflected in real consumption levels.
· Economic output normally increases as capital investment increases and as more workers join the labor force. But increases in productivity also play an important part. In industrial counties, productivity is thought to have accounted for 50 % of the growth in economic output. In developing countries, where productivity increases have been much smaller responsible for no more than 9% of output growth.
· Productivity increases have been attributed to several factors: technical innovation, or healthier and more skilled and educated entrepreneurial spirit. All these are usually the reward s in investing in education and health, building up the country’s “human capital”.
· Markets in goods and services are inefficient and inequitable, and developing countries and their workers bear a disproportionate share of the costs.
First sales on the international goods and services markets have been restricted.
Second, because most developing countries do not have sufficient finance to time their sales properly, they frequently have been compelled to sell their products on weak markets at distress prices.
Third, because of insufficient diversification in developing country production, they have suffered from excessive supplies of some export goods, particularly primary commodities, and shortages of others, leading to long-term deterioration in their terms of trade.
Primary Commodity Markets
· Developing countries rely heavily on export of primary commodities. Many have been trying to escape this dependency by striving to industrialize. Reliance on exporting primary commodities has left these countries very exposed with the prices fallen steeply in last decade.
· The long-term decline in real prices of primary products is partly caused by:
a) Low rate of growth in demand, lower than growth in capacity to produce. Slow demand growth and frequent declines have been typical for periods of industrial recession.
b) Substitution and technology has developed cheaper replacements for some raw materials.
c) Raw material costs tend now to represent smaller proportion of the final selling price due to industrial processes have become generally more efficient.
d) Over production and new products have continued to enter several markets, and others have also increased productivity
e) The short-term fluctuations in response to business cycles in the industrial countries. Manufacturers will raise or lower their requirements for raw materials such as metals. And consumers with more or less money will be more or less able to satisfy their appetites for other commodities. Price of certain commodities can also be sensitive to weather.
f) Speculation which produce some of the most rapid fluctuations. Speculation is sometimes defended as a means of stabilizing the markets- of rapidly matching supply and demand. In practice, speculators can often accentuate even the slightest trend since they can all follow the same signals and made the decision about buying or selling. But it is the periods of depressed prices that are particularly long, with devastating effects on rural economies and welfare.
g) Unequal accesses to finance. Developing countries need foreign exchange urgently and cannot afford to finance high levels of stocks. They are often forced into “distress sales” even though they see the market is falling and such sales will depress the market still further. Even the stronger developing countries may then be drawn into this bout of selling if they are nervous about losing their market share.
· The long-term solution for developing countries, is diversification. This is easier said than done. It demands investments in physical capital to develop new industries- and in human capital to educate and train a workforce that must acquire skills in new areas. But the developing countries meager receipts from exports and poor access to finance deprive them the means to diversify.
Markets in Manufactured Goods
· The more dynamic economies in the developing countries have been able to switch export outputs to manufactured goods. As a result they have increased their share of world’s exports of manufactures.
Problems Facing Developing Countries
q In real terms, compared with industrial countries, the prices received by developing countries have been falling because they were obliged to step exports when external demand was falling. They were under considerable pressure to do so from creditors demanding repayment of debts, and from financial institutions requiring increases in export as a condition of financial support.
q Rising level of protectionism- Industrial countries have been raising the barriers to import from developing countries. And they discriminate more against developing countries. The effective rate of protection against exports from developing countries is considerably higher than the rate of protection against industrial countries.
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق