This document discusses different approaches to development issues and global inequality. It begins by outlining key questions in development and then examines global inequality since 1945. Several designations for developed and developing states are presented. Patterns of global inequality are shown relative to GDP per capita in 2010. Consequences of inequality like poverty and hunger are addressed. Definitions of relative and absolute poverty are provided. Explanations of hunger look at both absolute numbers and distribution of resources. Mainstream approaches to development like embedded liberalism, modernization theory, and neoliberalism are outlined as well as alternative approaches focusing on basic needs, sustainability, and human development.

1. Lecture 15:
Development issues

2. Development questions
• What is the problem?
• What are the consequences?
• How is the problem interpreted?
• What is the solution?

3. Global inequality
• After 1945, and particularly after decolonisation,
it became clear that there was a substantial gap
between richer and poorer (developed and
developing) states
• Despite worldwide economic growth and some
notable success stories (particularly in Asia),
most poorer states have failed to catch up
• Most of these developing states are not
developing at sufficient rates to close the gap

4. Designations of inequality
• During the Cold War and decolonisation, it
was usual to divide states into the First World
(the Western developed economies), the
Second World (the communist countries) and
the Third World (the developing countries) –
the term was first used in 1952
• This division was later simplified as the
‘North-South divide’, with developing
countries regarded as the South whatever
their location

5. Patterns of global inequality
Relationship to average GDP PPP per capita, 2010

6. Consequences of inequality

7. Poverty

8. Definitions of poverty
• There are two definitions of poverty:
• Relative poverty is calculated for individual
counties, and means having income below a
country’s median level (usually below 50%-
60% of the national median)
• Absolute poverty means having insufficient
access to basic needs (food, shelter, etc.)
• Both definitions can be imprecise and
arbitrary

9. Hunger

10. Explaining hunger
• Orthodox approaches tend to see hunger
as a consequence of absolute numbers –
hunger as a Malthusian crisis
• Alternative approaches look at the
distribution of food resources – the
numbers of people suffering hunger have
not decreased despite huge rises in food
production

11. Basic approaches to development
• The mainstream approaches:
– Embedded liberalism
– Development as modernisation
– Neoliberalism
• Alternative approaches
– Basic needs
– Sustainable development
– Human development

12. Embedded liberalism
• Embedded liberalism - the period of
economic policies conducted between
1945 and the late 1970s, attempting to
combine the benefits of liberal trade
policies and state economic intervention
• The approach fizzled out after the oil
shocks of the 1970s

13. Development as modernisation
Approach owed much to the work of
Walt Rostow
Development = economic growth
Industrialisation through investment
of capital
Ignored history
Believed in being objective
Written mainly by men in the West

14. Neoliberalism
• Dominated western economic thought for
two decades from around 1980
• This stressed the importance of the free
markets and the withdrawal of the state
from economic intervention, subsidies and
control
• Became World Bank/IMF orthodoxy,
unofficially known as the Washington
Consensus

15. The basic needs approach
• Also known as ‘human needs centred
development’ – an approach that aimed to
put people first
• Most of the idea came from work by the
International Labour Organisation, expressed
at the World Employment Conference in 1976
• The aim was to increase employment to
cover the basic needs of the poor – food,
clothing, housing, education and public
transport
• The idea was popular for a brief time

16. Sustainable development
• Promoted by the Bruntland Commission in
its 1987 report Our Common Future
• “Sustainable development is development
that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs”

17. The human development approach
• A broader approach
• This focuses not just on income but on the
wider concept of choices and how they
can be expanded
• Developed by the economist Amartya Sen
• Some of the approach has been adopted
by the UN, which uses it in its Human
Development Index and the Millennium
Development Goals