Introduction: from the mainstream to a sustainable development policy
In the past two decades the paradigm of sustainable development has also brought the basis and shaping of development policy to a new level, and thus moulded it to an increasing extent. In general, development policy can be understood as all measures implemented by developing and industrialized countries in order to improve the living conditions of the population in developing countries. This demarcation is so open that it can be the basis for both traditional as well as sustainable development policy. Compared to traditional spheres of economic policy, such as growth policy, foreign trade policy or finance policy for example, development policy as an independent sphere of policy is still a relatively young discipline. However, the basis of underdevelopment and development is not only a question of the economy or a measurement of income, employment or inequality. The essence of development is therefore defined more broadly by Todaro and Smith:
Development must therefore be conceived of as a multidimensional process involving major changes in social structures, popular attitudes, and national institutions, as well as the accelerations of economic growth, the reduction of inequality, and the eradication of poverty. Development, in its essence, must represent the whole gamut of change by which an entire social system, tuned to the diverse basic needs and evolving aspirations of individuals and social groups within the system, moves away from a condition of life regarded as materially and spiritually better.
(Todaro & Smith 2011, p. 16)
The paradigm of sustainable development is a normative agreement of the world community, which fundamentally has met with broad acceptance. However, articles on the theoretical basis of sustainable development and the formulation of sustainability strategies have up until now often been permeated with varying lines of argumentation. They are therefore not always unequivocal or consistent. This also applies to the development policy of many states, non-governmental organizations and international organizations. Here there is often still a lack of clear and consistent concepts or strategies for sustainable development. It is therefore necessary to proceed from the basis of international agreements and resolutions.
The Brundtland Report, and in particular the United Nations (UN) Conference of 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, were pivotal milestones for the basis and introduction of a sustainable development policy. Agenda 21, presented at the Rio Conference, is the programme for implementing the paradigm of sustainable development for the 21st century. In this programme the objectives, measures and instruments for a sustainable development policy for developing and industrialized countries are likewise very distinct. This introduced a process announced as the Rio Process. In addition to the two follow-up conferences in Johannisburg (2002) and once again in Rio de Janeiro (2012), there were a number of additional conferences since 1992 at which specific topics relating to sustainable development were considered.
The starting point for many articles in the context of sustainable development is the definition of the Brundtland Report. In the Brundtland Commission Report Our Common Future sustainable development is defined as follows: “Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987, p. 46). An additional constitutive feature of sustainable development, attracting a broad international consensus, is the creation of a balance between the three dimensions of the ecological, economic and social elements (three-dimensionality), although this can never be achieved to a full extent.
Therefore, in the past two and a half decades the paradigm of sustainable development has also brought the basis and shaping of development policy to a new level, and thus moulded it to an increasing extent. Against this background, this chapter investigates the question of how the paradigm of sustainable development formerly made its way into development policy and how it is anchored there. This becomes particularly clear from an initial consideration of the various traditional approaches to development policy, which are presented in section 2 of this chapter.
A development policy geared towards the paradigm of sustainable development only really unfolds fully if it is actually directed towards the intended effects from a long-term perspective. Therefore, in this context the determination of development objectives and indicators, on the basis of which development progress can be measured, is of crucial importance. In this context, the Millennium Develeopment Goals (MDGs) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are of major significance. However, the discussions and agreements on the effectiveness of development policy also form important framework conditions for the shaping of a sustainable development policy. For this reason sections 3 and 4 concentrate on the negotiation processes in this connection and their major results, before a summary in section 5 of the most important milestones towards a sustainable development policy.
Development decades and their theoretical bases
The development policy framework has been strongly influenced by the substantive orientation of the development decades of the UN. By laying down global and sectoral growth objectives they established guidelines for a development policy process (Nuscheler 1995, p. 43). The various theoretical approaches to development and the recommended actions on the one hand, and the development decades announced by the UN on the other hand, have not always been congruent. Nevertheless, certain theoretical basic positions are discernible during most decades, and these are highlighted briefly below (cf. in this connection in detail Todaro & Smith 2011, pp. 110–131 and Ihne & Wilhelm 2006, pp. 10–18).
The UN announced the first development decade (1961–1970) in 1961, and it was marked by development clawback, with the objective of promoting economic growth in the developing countries in order to initiate a modernization process analogous to that in the industrialized countries. Many experts assumed that the growth generated by capital transfer would lead to a “trickle-down effect”, which would particularly benefit the poor population.
The prevailing economic development theory in the 1950s and 1960s was the growth and modernization theory. Representatives of the modernization theory, such as Rosenstein-Rodan (1943), saw the cause of the underdevelopment quite essentially in the lack of capital of the national economies concerned. Important determinants of the modernization theory were the role of the state and the need for capital input, which was intended to lead to a Big Push towards industrialization in the developing countries. In terms of realpolitik, one outcome of the objective of a modernization process for the first UN development decade was the set objective of an aggregate minimum growth of 5 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) per year (United Nations General Assembly 1961, p. 17).
A further objective of the modernization theory was to promote the process of modernization through technological and organizational improvements geared towards an industrialized and progressive national economy (Akude 2011, p. 74). In this connection there arose the strategies of balanced (Nurkse 1953) and unbalanced growth (Streeten 1959; Hirschman 1969), although these are not to be considered in depth here.
Measured against this target, for many countries in the “Third World” this decade turned out to be economically successful. On average they achieved an annual GDP growth of 6 per cent. However, in the context of the trickle-down effect this macroeconomic success needs to be relativized. For example, per capita growth in South America, Asia and Africa was only between 1.5 and 2.5 per cent. This is simply an average value, which only explains the specific situation to a limited extent. It can therefore be stated that only a small portion of the population profited from the incipient economic growth, and since economic growth was strongly geared towards the industrial sector, the agricultural sector was neglected (Ihne & Wilhelm 2006, p. 10; von Hauff & Werner 1993, p. 21).
The theoretical basis of the modernization theory has also been criticized. This applies above all to the postulate according to which the western development path is the sole means of achieving success. Despite the obvious inadequacies of the theoretical underpinning and the fact that the development process during the first development decade could not be evaluated in unrestrictedly positive terms, in the second development decade (1971–1980) the UN adopted the strategy of promoting growth through a modernization process again.
In the second UN decade the demands for the realization of a new world economic order became increasingly clearer. The aim was to enable the less developed countries to participate in the world economy under fairer framework conditions. Furthermore, a reform of the Bretton Woods institutions was designed to take more account of the interests of the developing countries.1 Finally, following pressure from the Group of 77 – a coalition of developing countries formed in 1964 – several agreements were in fact signed in the mid-1970s, and can be seen as the successful result of the dependency theory approaches (Ihne & Wilhelm 2006, pp. 14–15).
This development theory approach tackled the points of criticism in the modernization theory and is based on the ideas of structuralism permeated by the works of Prebisch (1950, 1959). This rejects the neoclassical foreign trade theories, since the global economic order does not consist of a homogenous economy. By contrast, it is made up of weak peripheries and strong centres. As a result, rather than the postulates in the neoclassical foreign trade theories, international trade and the accompanying division of labour and specialization does not necessarily represent the basis for economic success for all national economies participating in trade (Prebisch 1959, p. 251; Akude 2011, p. 76).
In the view of critics of the dependency theory, the inadequacy of this explanatory approach on the other hand lies in the fact that only external dependency structures are seen as the cause of underdevelopment, whereas historical factors are ignored. Therefore, in statistical terms no “direct correlation between economic and territorial expansion” (Lachmann 2004, pp. 238–239) can be established for the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th.
At the same time, criticism of traditional development aid increased, and already by the end of the first development decade industrialized countries raised the question of the rationality of a development policy based exclusively upon growth. The Pearson Report (Pearson 1969) had highlighted what Robert McNamara, the then president of the World Bank, also stressed in his famous speech in 1973: on the one hand, there was clearly continuous economic growth in many developing countries, but on the other hand, the differences in income between rich and poor were becoming greater (McNamara 1973). McNamara therefore presented the view that a successful development policy should not only be geared towards an increase in growth, but also towards distribution. This already establishes a link to the promotion of intra- and intergenerational justice: an additional feature of sustainable development alongside three-dimensionality.
This rethinking was the starting point for the basic needs strategy, or basic needs approach, which is directed towards the availability of a minimum level of essential private goods and access to rudimentary public goods and services. In addition, the possibility of political participation should be made available to the target group of development cooperation. However, the developing countries viewed the criticism of traditional development aid, i.e. the introduction of new social and economic demands, and the resulting political discourse, with a degree of scepticism. Their fear was that this additional challenge could restrict their industrial development and would disregard the new economic order they required (Nuscheler 2005, p. 80). At the end of the decade it was acknowledged that the average growth rate of 5 per cent achieved fell below the annual global growth rate of at least 6 per cent targeted by the UN (United Nations General Assembly 1970). And in this phase, distributive success in terms of a trickle-down effect was scarcely achieved either.
Although many set objectives of the second decade were not achieved, the UN announced a target growth rate of 7 per cent for the following third development decade (1981–1990) (United Nations General Assembly 1980, p. 108). In retrospect this target turned out to be over-optimistic and the decade was recorded as “the lost decade” in the history of development policy (Ihne & Wilhelm 2006, p. 15).
As a result of the conservative governments in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany, neoliberalism also increasingly found its way into development policy during the course of the 1980s. Todaro and Smith brought t...
