Development: an analysis of concepts, measurement and indicators.
| Autor | Soares, Jr., Jair |
HISTORIC DETERMINANTS OF DEVELOPMENT: FROM THE 17TH TO 19TH CENTURY
The concept of development is almost as old as civilization. Its extensive use in western societies from Greco-Roman civilizations to the late 19th century as a generic construct that designates the most varied aspects related to humanity's well-being, however, made the concept come closer to that of a doctrine. For this present study's purposes, a temporal cut was chosen from 17th century illuminist ideas and its metamorphoses until current times.
At the end of that century, the predominant idea of development was dependent on natural and positive phenomena, with its expansion only contained by conscience of limit (1). Following a long dispute between those called the Modern and Ancient, ending with victory by the Modern, Leibniz (1646-1716) inaugurated the concept of infinite progress.
Other modern thinkers such as Condorcet, Kant, Hegel and Marx in turn conceived and interpreted progress in a distinct manner from that resulting from the idea of conscience of limit or, in other words, are aligned with the potentially infinite concept of progress. In these authors' works, it is also possible to note a certain proximity with Augustinian thinking, of conceiving history as a totality, a firm march of civilization, a continual, albeit inconstant and non-linear process, in the direction of a common well-being. In Rist's words: "a constant evolution, based on the belief of human perfectibility and motivated by the incessant search for well-being" (Rist, 2001, p. 70).
In the mid 18th century, radically opposing the Rousseaunian vision of the good savage (2), Buffon (1707-1788) defended the idea that there is a general prototype for each species in nature and that this is perfected because of the climate and habits of the society in which it is inserted. In his work Natural History, the author defends the idea that civilization will arrive at the European and affirms: "Because of their superiority, civilized people are responsible for the coming world" (Buffon as cited in Duchet, 1984, p. 54). In this way, Buffon almost gives the force of law to what he perceives as a historic reality.
Also in the 18th century, the Marquis of Condorcet (1743-1794), launched the bases of thinking that would predominate in the second half of the 20th century, in defending the idea that Europeans would end up respecting the independence of their ex-colonies and, then, should contribute to them through civilizing their people (3) (Rist, 2001, p. 68). Another paradigm of development, however, had already reached its peak in the 19th century, under the form of Social Evolutionism. The term development, in this new paradigm, prevailed on concepts such as modernization or liberation. Such predominance seems to result from the need for a broader concept to represent the multiple dimensions necessary for humanity's well-being.
An apparent alignment of modernity theories can now be highlighted in the sense of perceiving social groups as a unique species and therefore presenting similar development paths. However, recurrent analogy with the natural development processes does not explain and is not even able to adequately deal with the cultural multiplicity present in societies, particularly in the 20th and 21st centuries, as will be discussed later on in this paper.
20TH CENTURY DEVELOPMENT: THE PERSPECTIVE OF INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES
The growing diffusion of development concepts and policies permits the last decades to be nominated here as the era of development. The origin of this era, in which we supposedly still live, can be located at the end of the first half of the 20th century, possibly in North American President Harry S Truman's international policy, when he decided to highlight the importance of extending the technical help offered to some Latin American and other less-favoured nations:
I believe that we should make available to peace loving peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in order to help them realize their aspirations for a better life. And, in cooperation with other nations, we should foster capital investment in areas needing development (Truman, 1949).
The Marquis of Condocert's aforementioned ideas can therefore be compared with a new international situation. 1960 is considered to be the year of decolonization, a process, which until then had been legitimized purely as a generous agreement aiming to offer opportunity to societies that were considered the slowest to advance on the path of civilization.
Several countries became independent from that moment and the supposed decolonization process crossed the world. This even changed the relationship of forces in the United Nations plenary session and apparently placed the problems of world inequality and the need for development in what was then called the Third World at a higher level.
The development question took on new shapes and slants a little later in December, 1964 with the creation of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD]. This organization was created with the objective of attempting to bridge the gap, which was not covered by the organizations that appeared following the Second World War.
Another international milestone in development question took place in 1968, with the creation of the Rome Club. This brought together professionals from various areas and different countries to form a free association of scientists, technocrats and politicians, whose objective was to reflect on and seek solutions to various world problems. This new forum published a report entitled Growth Limits in 1972, in which it recognizes the finitude of natural resources and the seriousness of the problems that were already devastating the environment and jeopardizing human survival on Earth. Some of the development phenomenon's new dimensions acquired space and legitimacy in this way.
Also in that year, at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development [UNCED], held in Stockholm, the growing international movement on the topic highlighted the problem of the possible lack of a continual energy supply on the planet.
In the following decade, the central countries' actions extended domination of financial questions on the international development agenda through promoting neo-liberal ideas and practices of exalting the market and reducing the State. As a consequence, the Third World stopped gaining space on the world political agenda and now its development controversies did not find the same echo in priorities from the more economically developed countries.
In general, the Bretton Woods institutions, Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development [OCED] and World Trade Organization gained relevance in relation to UNCTAD. This organization was intended to be the main negotiation forum for a new international economic order in the 1970s (Almeida, 1994).
The World Commission for Environment and Development published a report entitled Our Common Future in 1987, also known as the Bruntland Report, which was an instrument used to spread the recently created concept of sustainable development.
In the 1990s, the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (Eco-92), held in Rio de Janeiro, brought the topic back to the international political agenda. It now dealt with advance as a much broader concept of development, adding environmental preservation and rational use of natural resources as imperative in resolving social and economic growth problems. Despite conflicts of interest at this conference, a long-term action programme was prepared, which had ample potential for international impact: Agenda 21. This agenda launched some of the bases to be practised and, in global terms, the new concept of sustainable development.
Eco-92 results unfolded in terms of measurement tools from August 1994, with the Conference and Workshop on Indicators of Sustainability [CWIS] taking place. According to Hart (1994), although some methodology conception initiatives already existed to apply measurement tools, the CWIS enabled some advances, among which the following are highlighted: a) recognition of different sustainability definitions; b) need for an appropriate methodology for effective sustainability indicator use and c) observation of governmental and private interests on the theme.
Also in that decade, institutions such as the World Resources Institute and World Bank promoted the spread of a green economy (green national accounting). This suggested methodological alterations that incorporated variables related to the use of natural resources (forests, rivers, lakes, etc) in the National Accounts System and, consequently, GDP calculation. To measure the 'green economy' in 1995, the World Bank carried out an evaluation of 192 countries and concluded that the physical capital, also measured by conventional GDP, on average corresponded to only 16% of the total wealth produced by these nations. However, human capital reached 64% and, natural capital, on average, represented 20% of the total. According to Marzall and Almeida (1998), from this perspective, some European countries' GDP began to reflect a decrease in natural resources and the costs of pollution generated.
Between the end of the decade and start of the new millennium, globalization became the most important phenomenon in debates and reflections on international problems of a political, economic, social, cultural and environmental order. Among other factors, the extraordinary expansion of information content in the daily lives of many societies came into force as a hegemonic and determining standard for the so called Society of Information and Knowledge (Castells, 2000). This favoured proliferation of the western idea of development, assuming a new complexity and inciting challenges for researchers in the field.
With the objective of clarifying some contemporary questions on the concept of...
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