The Human Development Report (2004:15) has mooted that “human beings are born with certain potential capabilities. The purpose of development is to create an environment in which all people can expand their capabilities, and opportunities can be enlarged for both present and future generations.” It appears that the authors of this Report drew on the work or thoughts of Todaro (2000:17) who had earlier made the following observations: that there are “three fundamental core values of development: Sustenance: the ability to meet basic needs; Self-Esteem: to be a person; Freedom from servitude: to be able to choose.”
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5.4.1. Criteria for measuring development
Development is primarily about economic development and as such, is measurable, according to Pieterse (2010:25). This view is slightly earlier advocated by Peet and Hartwick (2009:23) who explained that “development is fundamentally economic and is conventionally measured as economic growth, with the level of development seen in terms of the size of the economy.” Waugh (2002:630) is of the fervent view that “there are three criteria that can be used to measure development which are (i) Economic Wealth, (ii) Social, Cultural and Welfare Criteria and (iii) Other Criteria for Development.”
Recent literature on gender and development corroborates Waugh's observation:
….that a corner stone of new development thinking is the full integration of women into the mainstream of development and concern for progress in all aspects of their lives: health, education, employment, nutrition, legal and political rights. In traditional development thinking, investment in social development was seen as a luxury, a fruit of economic success. But it is now known that the basis of economic progress is a healthy, socially stable and slow growing population (2002:633).
5.4.2. Dimensions of development
Development Studies, and by extension, development, “is no longer a singular exercise, but has evolved to encompass sub-specialties, including: medicine, public health, biology, environmental sciences, engineering and anthropology as well as the more traditional history, political science, economics and public policy” (Maxfield 2002). Thus, measuring this multidimensional exercise represents a herculean task for policy-makers, international aid agencies and academic scholars.
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Nonetheless, Bellù (2011) believes that “even if the development of a socio- economic system can be viewed as a holistic exercise, (i.e. as an all- encompassing endeavour) but for practical purposes, in particular for policy making and development management, the focus of the agents aiming at development is almost always on selected parts of the system or on specific features.” A summary of the parts (non-exhaustive) of a socio-economic system regarded as dimensions of development is briefly explained below.
5.4.2.1. Human development
Amartya Sen’s ideas cited in Fukuda-Parr (2003:301) and his propositions were instrumental in the emergence of Human Development being championed by the UNDP as a different approach to development. The term human development here denotes both the process of widening people's choices and the level of their achieved wellbeing (HDR 1990:10). The Human Development Report (HDR) of 1991 states that the main objective of human development is to enlarge the range of peoples’ choices to make development more democratic and participatory (HDR 1991 cited in Rist 2002:8). A similar and complementary trend of thought is echoed in the HDR of 2007, which noted that “human development is about the realization of human potential. It is about what people can do and become—their capabilities— and about the freedom they have to exercise real choices in their lives” (HDR 2007).
As a development paradigm, “human development finds its theoretical underpinnings in Sen’s Capabilities Approach which holds “a person’s capability to have various functioning vectors and to enjoy the corresponding well-being achievements to be the best indicator of welfare” (Sen 1985 cited in Ranis 2004:3-4). This came about, as in the late 1980s there emerged an increased awareness that the customary economic measures of development were far too limited (Willis 2005:7), the concept of human development being much broader than the conventional theories of economic development (HDR 1995: 11-12). The concept of Human
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Development has been described by Todaro (2000:72) as “the latest and most ambitious attempt to analyze the comparative status of socio-economic development in both developing and developed nations systematically and comprehensively.”
5.4.2.2. Sustainable development
Dynamic development is sustainable when it is forward looking and responsible. Therefore it must be assessed not only by such indicators as poverty, natural resources, forest coverage, and ocean temperatures but also by the institutional environment that helps this information emerge, gives it weight, and ensures that it is acted on (World Development Report 2003). The concept of sustainable development is narrowly framed by the National Environmental Management Act (1998), of South Africa, defined as the integration of social, economic and environmental factors into planning, implementation and decision so as to ensure that development serves present and future generations (Fox & Van Rooyen 2004:102). Sustainable development as a development strategy is summarised to encapsulate or encompass the point mooted below in the words of Schuurman (2004:22), who noted that “sustainable development is a strategy that seeks to satisfy the needs of the present generation without interfering with the needs of future generations.”
5.4.2.3. Spatial development
The current practice and sociology of development, tends to focus on the social, economic and demographic aspects of the process while a critically important aspect of development that is ignored is spatial in nature. Spatial development links geography to development through the economic development of space. This is a fundamental dimension of the development process; as if one were to visit any city in the world it would become obvious that there is spatial inequality and uneven development.
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“The various theories of economic geography provide causal explanations that spatial inequality is the net result of the balance of forces of concentration and dispersion; which may be socially destabilizing if the regional divergence in economic welfare and political interests contributes to general social instability” (Kim, 2008: 1 & 3). It is against this background that there is global concern by political leaders, policy-makers and practitioners about the impact that spatial inequalities may have on achieving the desired developmental results.
5.4.2.4. Economic development
The process of economic development, pursued over a sufficiently long period of time, has the significant consequence of a marked lifting of the average standard of living. Modern economic development is more than simply an increase in income or output, whether considered per capita or in absolute terms (White 2009:5). Economists and policymakers contend that “economic development occurs when all segments of the society benefit from the fruits of economic growth through economic efficiency and equity” (Kooros & Badeaux 2007:121). Jain, Kaur, Gupta and Sandhu (2007:40) make the point that “the determinants of economic development can be divided into two parts; namely economic and non-economic determinants.” In essence, economic development does not solely mean macro-economic stability and improving fiscal balances, but incorporates the principles of real economic and social development (Chang 2010; White 2009).
5.4.2.5. Development as freedom
The eclectic, pragmatic world of development is about more than creating an economy: the multi-dimensional nature of the process makes it ostensibly about people. On that basis Sen (1999: xii) vigorously articulated that “development consists of the removal of various types of ‘un-freedoms’ that leave people with little choice and little opportunity of exercising their reasoned agency.” The removal of substantial ‘un-freedoms’, he argued is
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“constitutive of development’ and thus the expansion of freedom should be viewed both as the primary end and as the principal means of development” (Ibid: xii).
5.4.2.6. Political participation
Development should be and is primarily people centric, the focus of its attention being about transforming lives of people; within that context, Sáìgh (1978:12) expressed his opinion that “decisions involved in the design of development strategies and policies and in the allocation and use of development resources must themselves also be accompanied by wide social and political participation by the population.” This point has been further developed by Kadir (2011:4), who stated that “the fundamental premise of the right to development is predicated on the freedom to participate in political life, the right to work and equality of opportunity, peace and security.” This facet of development in the Arab Gulf States (AGS) is non- existent as the political space is characterized by a soft autocratic monarchical mode of governance.