ECO-321 Development
Economics
Instructor name: Syeda Nida Raza
Chapter 1: Introducing
Economic Development:
A Global Perspective
Book Name: Economic Development
Author Name: Michael Todaro
Three Core Values of Development
Three basic components or core values serve as a conceptual basis and practical
guideline for understanding the inner meaning of development.
These core values are:
1. Sustenance
2. Self-esteem
3. Freedom
They represent common goals sought by all individuals and societies.
They relate to fundamental human needs that find their expression in almost all
societies and cultures at all times.
Sustenance: The Ability to Meet Basic
Needs
The basic goods and services, such as food, clothing, and shelter, that are
necessary to sustain an average human being at the bare minimum level of
living.
When any of these is absent or in critically short supply, a condition of
“absolute underdevelopment”exists.
A basic function of all economic activity, therefore, is to provide as many
people as possible with the means of overcoming the helplessness and misery
arising from a lack of food, shelter, health, and protection.
Sustenance: The Ability to Meet Basic
Needs
To this extent, we may claim that economic development is a necessary condition for
the improvement in the quality of life that is development.
Without sustained and continuous economic progress at the individual as well as the
societal level, the realization of the human potential would not be possible.
One clearly has to “have enough in order to be more.”
Rising per capita incomes, the elimination of absolute poverty, greater employment
opportunities, and lessening income inequalities therefore constitute the necessary but
not the sufficient conditions for development.
Self-Esteem: To Be a Person
A second universal component of the good life is self-esteem—a sense of worth
and self-respect, of not being used as a tool by others for their own ends.
All peoples and societies seek some basic form of self-esteem, although they
may call it authenticity, identity, dignity, respect, honor, or recognition.
The nature and form of this self-esteem may vary from society to society and
from culture to culture.
Due to the significance attached to material values in developed nations,
worthiness and esteem are nowadays increasingly conferred only on countries
that possess economic wealth and technological power—those that have
“developed.”
Freedom from Servitude: To Be Able to
Choose
A situation in which a society has at its disposal a variety of alternatives from
which to satisfy its wants and individuals enjoy real choices according to their
preferences.
Freedom involves an expanded range of choices for societies and their
members together with a minimization of external constraints in the pursuit of
some social goal we call development.
The Central Role of Women
Development scholars generally view women as playing the central role in the
development.
Globally, women tend to be poorer than men.
They are also more deprived in health and education and in freedoms in all its
forms.
To make the biggest impact on development, then, a society must empower
and invest in its women.
The Three Objectives of Development
Development is both a physical reality and a state of mind in which society
has, through some combination of social, economic, and institutional
processes, secured the means for obtaining a better life.
Whatever the specific components of this better life, development in all
societies must have at least the following three objectives:
1. To increase the availability and widen the distribution of basic life-
sustaining goods such as food, shelter, health, and protection
The Three Objectives of Development
2. To raise levels of living, including, in addition to higher incomes, the
provision of more jobs, better education, and greater attention to cultural and
human values, all of which will serve not only to enhance material wellbeing
but also to generate greater individual and national self-esteem
3. To expand the range of economic and social choices available to individuals
and nations by freeing them from servitude and dependence, not only in
relation to other people and nation-states, but also to the forces of ignorance
and human misery.
Sustainable Development Goals
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals,
were adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as a universal call
to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy
peace and prosperity by 2030.
The 17 SDGs are integrated—that is, they recognize that action in one area
will affect outcomes in others, and that development must balance social,
economic and environmental sustainability.
Everyone is needed to reach these ambitious targets. The creativity, knowhow,
technology and financial resources from all of society is necessary to achieve
the SDGs in every context.
