Meaning of Development: M. Rabie, A Theory of Sustainable Sociocultural and Economic Development © Mohamed Rabie 2016 [PDF]

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CHAPTER 2



Meaning of Development



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evelopment is basically an economic concept that has positive connotations; it involves the application of certain economic and technical measures to utilize available resources to instigate economic growth and improve people’s quality of life. In the 1950s and 1960s, development was largely referred to as economic growth, which meant a quantitative rather than qualitative change in economic performance. Consequently, development theories were designed to activate and accelerate the process of economic growth and move developing nations along the path charted by the industrial ones of the West, from relying primarily on agricultural activity to relying primarily on industrial production and trade. It is worth mentioning, however, that since my days as a graduate student, I have argued that the “economic development” concept was misconceived from the beginning. No plan or amount of money can develop an economy if it leaves out culture, which governs the attitudes and the ways of thinking of the people who would be managing the proposed development strategies and programs. In the 1970s, a new concept associated with development emerged, claiming that the rates of economic growth of the world economy could not be sustained at the then prevailing levels because arable land, water, and most other natural resources were being depleted at fast rates that could not be sustained for long. In 1987, the Brundtland Report was published and made “sustainable development” a key concept in development studies as well as in the work of the World Bank and other organizations engaged in development. The report warned against the depletion of natural resources and called for economic growth strategies that could be sustained without harming the environment or compromising the welfare of future generations. Subsequently, it was acknowledged that development is both a quantitative increase in economic production and a qualitative improvement in life conditions, while protecting the environment.



M. Rabie, A Theory of Sustainable Sociocultural and Economic Development © Mohamed Rabie 2016



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A Theory of Sustainable Sociocultural and Economic Development



As a result, development emerged as a complex concept that remains hard to define in universally acceptable terms. However, one cannot write a book on development without providing a workable definition that explains the essence of the development process and its basic objectives: Development is a comprehensive societal process to move the underdeveloped nations from their state of economic backwardness and slow sociocultural change to a dynamic state characterized by sustained economic growth and sociocultural and political transformation that improves the quality of life of all members of society.



As such, people become the major agents of development and the main beneficiaries of change produced by it. Joseph Stiglitz argues that development is about transforming the lives of people, not just their economies, and, therefore, development involves every aspect of society; it engages the efforts of everyone: markets, governments, NGOs, cooperatives, and not-for-profit institutions.1 This simply means that no development strategy can achieve its objectives unless it views development as a comprehensive societal process that covers all aspects of life and involves all major social, cultural, economic, and political actors in society. It is through such a process that traditional agricultural societies should seek to build modern economies that depend less on farming the land and more on manufacturing and services. In other words, economic development is a societal process to move people and their economic and social structures—and cultural, political, and educational institutions—from the agricultural age into the industrial age, while ensuring that the sacrifices and benefits of development are shared fairly by all members of society. Thus, development can only be achieved when society acquires the capacity to utilize its human and natural resources efficiently to improve the quality of life for all citizens. Due to its comprehensive nature, development seeks to improve life conditions in ways that help free people and their creative energies from all constraints. It also seeks to enable people to pursue personal goals within legitimate political and legal frameworks that guarantee fairness, equality of opportunity, freedom, and social justice. Development, therefore, is both a vision to create new, much-improved conditions of life and a program to transform economic, political, and sociocultural conditions to correspond to the envisioned vision. A well-conceived strategy that defines the goals society seeks to accomplish, identifies the obstacles it faces, and acknowledges the sacrifices society has to make must be articulated before any work is done. A development strategy is a set of plans and programs to reach certain economic, political, cultural, educational, and social goals deemed desirable by