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Chapter 1
Development and Backwardness: What are they; How do we Deal with them?
The Meaning of Development
The concepts of 'development' and 'underdeveloped' are contested theoretically, politically, and philosophically and are as complex and ambiguous as they are misunderstood; nevertheless, since the late-1940s, these two simple words have been used to drive and justify the practices of development agencies around the world. They defy definition but not for the want of trying. Economists have been writing about development since the early nineteenth century, or as part of the broader academic discipline of sociology. In both instances development has been perceived as the progressive transformation of society.
If one searches long and hard enough, you can find hundreds of definitions for development, each slightly different from the next. In general, if we focus on the social and economic meanings of development, most contain certain key components. It is a means to carry out a nation's development goals, to promote economic growth, equity and national self-reliance. Or, it can mean providing human beings with the opportunity to develop their fullest potential, enable the poor, women, and peasantry.1 Depending upon one's audience or constituency, development can mean very different things.
The term 'development,' within its current context and most common usage is of comparatively recent origin, possibly dating back to a speech given by President Harry S. Truman.2 On 20 January 1949, Truman stated: 'We must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas... The old imperialism is dead - exploitation for foreign profit - has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair dealing.'3
At the time, no one was quite sure what underdeveloped meant. Nevertheless, thinkers and bureaucrats from the developed countries responded by creating the concept of foreign aid and this promoted industrialization and an increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of developing countries.4 All efforts at 'developing' areas perceived to be 'underdeveloped' tended to be palliatives that failed to tackle the root problems of backwardness and only served to make the aid-receiving nations dependent upon the aid-providing nations.5 Some developing nations responded by organizing themselves in an effort to resist the West's newest form of colonial-imperialism — economic dependence - forming such organizations as Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to resist resource expropriation. Many other countries simply settled back with willing outstretched hands.
Today, two approaches to development have emerged from the 1950s' indiscriminate aid give-away approach - the basic needs approach that is as much motivated by politics as it is by a genuine concern for the well-being of developing societies; and the capabilities approach as advocated by Amartya Sen which serves to enhance people's potential to be and to do. The basic needs approach focuses primarily on measures of income like GDP. The capabilities approach resulted in the creation of the Human Development Index (HDI) and focuses on providing or awakening human potential.
What, then, are the universal characteristics of developmental success? In reality, there aren't many! Some have to do with growth. Others represent 'well-spent' social expenditures. Success, then, is measured by what is deemed to be the focus of development programming - economic potential and power or human potential and power, which are not always the same and need to be measured differently.
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Part of the confusion surrounding the idea of development stems from the fact that it is difficult to separate immanent development from the intent to develop - one being a natural process, the other a subjective intervention. Immanent development represents the natural evolution of a system, while intentional development presupposes that the action being taken by some outside agency is purposive, the result of conscious, reasoned, decision-making and choice.6 This latter view of development makes it both a means and a goal. The desire to see change based on the formulation of a goal, defines the means of its achievement, which development agencies then envision as self-fulfilling prophecies. Unfortunately, this development paradigm has not proven itself to be very effective. Recognizing this fact has done little to change the development process as we know it, the agencies responsible for its implementation, or the principles upon which it rests.
Yet, the distinction between immanent and intentional development is the key to understanding the type of development the world envisions for itself - primarily raw, unfettered economic development. In general, the Western conception of development does not consider immanent development to be of much importance. In the eyes of development officials, immanent development is often deemed the root cause of backwardness and economic underdevelopment. It is intentional, goal-specific development that pushes a society to increase its production of goods and services and this is what has motivated the governments of both developed and developing nations to date.
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In the nineteenth century, the solution to issues of development was to invoke the concept of trusteeship. Imperialists and colonialists, believing themselves to be developmentally superior, and possessing superior technological and military might, were in a position to dictate the course of development for those deemed less developed or backward. While the strategy of trusteeship has been justifiably condemned as being Eurocentric, a vestige of European imperialism, it continues to operate. As a strategy, it has been a failure. Nonetheless, every development agency continues to see it as the means by which universal human suffering can be ameliorated or eliminated. The irony is that might continues to make right; and, in large measure, it is the donor nations who define what, when, how, and to whom developmental resources ultimately will be allocated.
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The concepts of development and progress tend to be almost seamlessly bound together until it is almost intellectually impossible to separate one from the other, or determine where one begins and the other ends. For example, Allan Thomas suggests that development is, on one hand, a historical process of social change, transforming societies over a long time; and on the other, it consists of the deliberate efforts of governments, organizations and social movements to promote progress over a much shorter period.7 Again, natural process versus purposeful involvement. Governments, as the omniscient guardians of the people, see development as a means to ameliorate flaws that occur in the unguided natural process of progress and use their 'development programmes' in an attempt to achieve some preconceived notion of the state and its people.
In this situation, uncertainty exists because governments fail to clearly differentiate between what is intended to be developed and what development means, resulting in the simultaneous process of destruction, renewal, and creation but not sequential revitalization. The intended purpose of development - improving people's lives seldom builds on what is good in people's lives but rather results in a wholesale transformation of their lives, based on an ideal or image of success in the development agents' minds. This 'visualized' outcome is seldom achieved or achievable without the deconstruction of a sizeable portion of the subject's notion of society, culture, or economy; thus resulting in the loss of much of what was once deemed to be good without a commensurate improvement in the lives of the people.
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When discussing development, underdevelopment, or backwardness, one is quickly caught in a tautology with no clear means of achieving either a definitive or satisfactory conclusion or exit. One is caught in a perpetual, infinite loop, drawing upon the terminology of computer programmers, where there is no terminating condition or one that can be met. And much like a computer caught in an infinite loop, the process of development, as we know it, has become unresponsive to its needs, challenges, and intent.
While we criticize development agencies and programmes for their lack of success, they have been extraordinarily successful in terms of:
- Fostering their own administrative growth, expansion, and proliferation.
- Funding endless and often unproductive and repetitive research.
- The creation of a small, international craft industry dedicated to the design of measurements of poverty and deprivation, often in response to the need to define targets at international conferences and to measure progress against them.8
- Squandering monumental amounts of money in the name of progress.
- Avoiding all efforts to make them accountable to their benefactors or the recipients of their services - simple cost-benefit-effect analysis.
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While the terms 'backward' or 'backwardness' are commonly used, they are not typically used by indigenous populations to describe themselves. When used by outsiders - politicians or agents of change - they are used judgementally, whether intended or not. A person may see him - or herself as being poor, with few opportunities, and few inalienable rights, but they do not perceive themselves as backward. Backwardness is only a term used by those who find themselves in a superior position - economically, socially, politically, or technologically. From this perspective, the term backward is, in fact, always pejorative and condescending, and carries with it an implied unilateral need 'to do something', or provides the justification to become involved.
The Roots of Development
The first paragraphs of Gilbert Rist's Introduction to The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith are, possibly, some of the most poignant statements ever written regarding the concept of development:
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 also to turn away from the truth, to deceive. How could one possibly resist the idea that there is a way of eliminating the poverty by which one is so troubled? How dare one think, at the same time, that the cure might worsen the ill which one wishes to combat. . . .
How could it have been thought necessary and urgent to do everything to speed up the process of 'development', ostensibly favouring the prosperity of countries in both North and South?
After all, for centuries no one — or virtually no one — took it into their head to relieve the misery of others,... especially when they lived in different continents. What is the origin of this collective task which, though constantly criticized for its lack of success, appears to be justified beyond all dispute?... How are we to explain this whole phenomenon, which mobilizes not only the hopes of millions but also sizeable financial resources, while appearing to recede like the horizon just as you think you are approaching it?9
Development is truly a double-edged sword. It promises great things but seldom rewards either the benefactor or the recipient in equal measure. Large quantities of talent, time and money are invested by the benefactor, with little or no lasting consequential benefit for the recipient; and the perceived misery of the recipient goes largely unresolved.
It has been suggested that misery is created mainly by wars or dictatorial regimes, by insane economic policies, by financial speculation, by the absence of agrarian reform, and ineffectual fiscal policies. Aid and development programmes attend to the misery that frequently results from ineffective or unjust policies. However, if those providing the aid and development programmes do not get their priorities right, any action will be, in all likelihood, in vain. This is the pattern we have seen repeated year after year in country after country, whenever and wherever foreign or domestic development programmes have been initiated. At the heart of every development programme is the rabid belief that the target population will benefit from the beneficence of the foreign aid advisors or domestic change agents.
In large measure the history of development, as Rist has pointed out, is fundamentally of Western origin and has evolved into a global obsession.10 The dominance of Western thought now stands as the standard by which all development is measured, fusing liberal democracy and industrial capitalism into an inseparable amalgam and appears to have become the only generally accepted basis for modern society.11 On the one hand, this is ethnocentric; on the other, egocentric. Consequently, and by extension, the idea of development, practically and philosophically, is inherently a flawed concept.
Rist contends that the concept or 'development' is part of the core beliefs of Western civilization, as potent as Christianity or as powerful as Islam in the Middle East. He argues, with some success, that the ideas of growth and progress are among some of the most deeply seated beliefs in Western society; and it is these beliefs that distinguish Western civilization from that of the rest of the world and contribute to the West's felt sense of superiority.12 It is the West's belief in growth and progress that has infected the thinking of the rest of the world. As a consequence, the idea of development is, now, as much a motive force as it is a process. The believers contend that with sufficient time...
