How do we

determine which

countries are more

developed and

which less?

Are you sure that you know what “devel-opment” really means with respect todifferent countries? And can you deter-mine which countries are more devel-oped and which are less?

It is somewhat easier to say which coun-tries are richer and which are poorer. Butindicators of wealth, which reflect thequantity of resources available to a soci-ety, provide no information about theallocation of those resources—forinstance, about more or less equitabledistribution of income among socialgroups, about the shares of resourcesused to provide free health and educationservices, and about the effects of produc-tion and consumption on people’s envi-ronment. Thus it is no wonder thatcountries with similar average incomescan differ substantially when it comes topeople’s quality of life: access to educa-tion and health care, employment oppor-tunities, availability of clean air and safedrinking water, the threat of crime, andso on. With that in mind, how do wedetermine which countries are moredeveloped and which are less developed?

Goals and Means of Development

Different countries have different priori-ties in their development policies. But tocompare their development levels, youwould first have to make up your mindabout what development really means toyou, what it is supposed to achieve.Indicators measuring this achievementcould then be used to judge countries’relative progress in development.

Is the goal merely to increase nationalwealth, or is it something more subtle?Improving the well-being of the majorityof the population? Ensuring people’s free-dom? Increasing their economic security?1

Recent United Nations documentsemphasize “human development,” mea-sured by life expectancy, adult literacy,access to all three levels of education, aswell as people’s average income, which isa necessary condition of their freedom ofchoice. In a broader sense the notion ofhuman development incorporates allaspects of individuals’ well-being, fromtheir health status to their economic and

What Is Development?

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1

1If you think that the “simple” answer to this question is something like “maximizing people’s happiness,” think of the different factors that usually make people feel happy or unhappy. Note that a number of special surveys indifferent countries appear to show that the average level of happiness in a country does not grow along with theincrease in average income, at least after a certain rather modest income level is achieved. At the same time, in eachcountry richer people usually reported slightly higher levels of happiness than poorer people, and people in coun-tries with more equal distribution of wealth appeared to be generally happier.

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political freedom. According to theHuman Development Report 1996, pub-lished by the United Nations Develop-ment Program, “human development isthe end—economic growth a means.”

It is true that economic growth, byincreasing a nation’s total wealth, alsoenhances its potential for reducingpoverty and solving other socialproblems. But history offers a number ofexamples where economic growth wasnot followed by similar progress inhuman development. Instead growth wasachieved at the cost of greater inequality,higher unemployment, weakeneddemocracy, loss of cultural identity, oroverconsumption of natural resourcesneeded by future generations. As thelinks between economic growth andsocial and environmental issues are betterunderstood, experts including econo-mists tend to agree that this kind ofgrowth is inevitably unsustainable—thatis, it cannot continue along the samelines for long. First, if environmental andsocial/human losses resulting from eco-nomic growth turn out to be higher thaneconomic benefits (additional incomesearned by the majority of the popula-tion), the overall result for people’s well-being becomes negative. Thus sucheconomic growth becomes difficult tosustain politically. Second, economicgrowth itself inevitably depends on itsnatural and social/human conditions. Tobe sustainable, it must rely on a certainamount of natural resources and services

provided by nature, such as pollutionabsorption and resource regeneration.Moreover, economic growth must beconstantly nourished by the fruits ofhuman development, such as higherqualified workers capable of technologi-cal and managerial innovations alongwith opportunities for their efficient use:more and better jobs, better conditionsfor new businesses to grow, and greaterdemocracy at all levels of decisionmaking(see Fig. 1.1).

Conversely, slow human developmentcan put an end to fast economic growth.According to the Human DevelopmentReport 1996, “during 1960–1992 not asingle country succeeded in moving fromlopsided development with slow humandevelopment and rapid growth to a vir-tuous circle in which human develop-ment and growth can become mutuallyreinforcing.” Since slower human devel-opment has invariably been followed byslower economic growth, this growthpattern was labeled a “dead end.”

Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is a termwidely used by politicians all over theworld, even though the notion is stillrather new and lacks a uniform interpre-tation. Important as it is, the concept ofsustainable development is still beingdeveloped and the definition of the termis constantly being revised, extended,

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and refined. Using this book, you cantry to formulate your own definition asyou learn more about the relationshipsamong its main components—the eco-nomic, social, and environmental factorsof sustainable development—and as youdecide on their relative significancebased on your own system of values.

According to the classical definitiongiven by the United Nations WorldCommission on Environment andDevelopment in 1987, development issustainable if it “meets the needs of thepresent without compromising the abil-ity of future generations to meet theirown needs.” It is usually understood thatthis “intergenerational” equity would beimpossible to achieve in the absence ofpresent-day social equity , if the eco-nomic activities of some groups of peo-

ple continue to jeopardize the well-beingof people belonging to other groups orliving in other parts of the world.Imagine, for example, that emissions ofgreenhouse gases, generated mainly byhighly industrialized countries, lead toglobal warming and flooding of certainlow-lying islands—resulting in the dis-placement and impoverishment of entireisland nations (see Chapter 14). Or con-sider the situation when higher profits ofpharmaceutical companies are earned atthe cost of millions of poor people beingunable to afford medications needed fortreating their life-threatening diseases.

“Sustainable” development could proba-bly be otherwise called “equitable andbalanced,” meaning that, in order fordevelopment to continue indefinitely, itshould balance the interests of different

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Why is equity

important for

sustainable

development?

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groups of people, within the same gener-ation and among generations, and do sosimultaneously in three major interre-lated areas–economic, social, and envi-ronmental. So sustainable development isabout equity, defined as equality ofopportunities for well-being, as well asabout comprehensiveness of objectives.Figure 1.2 shows just a few of the manyobjectives, which, if ignored, threaten toslow down or reverse development inother areas. You are invited to add moreobjectives and explain how, in your opin-ion, they are connected to others. In thefollowing chapters you will find manyexamples of such interconnections.

Obviously, balancing so many diverseobjectives of development is an enormouschallenge for any country. For instance,how would you compare the positive

value of greater national security with thenegative value of slower economic growth(loss of jobs and income) and some, pos-sibly irreversible, environmental damage?There is no strictly scientific method ofperforming such valuations and compar-isons. However, governments have tomake these kinds of decisions on a regularbasis. If such decisions are to reflect theinterests of the majority, they must betaken in the most democratic and partici-patory way possible. But even in this case,there is a high risk that long-term inter-ests of our children and grandchildrenend up unaccounted for, because futuregenerations cannot vote for themselves.Thus, to ensure that future generationsinherit the necessary conditions to pro-vide for their own welfare, our present-day values must be educated enough toreflect their interests as well.

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The challenge is further complicated bythe fact that in today’s interdependentworld many aspects of sustainable devel-opment are in fact international or evenglobal. On the one hand, many deci-sions taken at the national or even locallevel actually have international conse-quences–economic, social, environmen-tal. When these consequences arenegative, the situation is sometimesreferred to as “exporting unsustainabil-ity.” On the other hand, national poli-cies are often inadequate to effectivelydeal with many challenges of sustainabil-ity. Thus international cooperation onthe wide range of so-called transbound-ary and global problems of sustainabledevelopment becomes indispensable.

Arguably, the most critical problem ofsustainable development—in eachcountry as well as globally—is eradicat-ing extreme poverty. That is becausepoverty is not only an evil in itself. It

also stands in the way of achieving mostother goals of development, from cleanenvironment to personal freedom.Another, closely related, global problemis establishing and preserving peace inall regions and all countries. War, aswell as poverty, is inherently destructiveof all economic as well as social andenvironmental goals of development(see Fig. 1.2).

In the final analysis sustainable develop-ment is about long-term conditions forhumanity’s multidimensional well-being.For example, the famous RioDeclaration, adopted by the UnitedNations Conference on Environmentand Development in 1992 (also calledthe Earth Summit, held in Rio deJaneiro, Brazil), puts it this way:“Human beings are at the center of con-cern for sustainable development. Theyare entitled to a healthy and productivelife in harmony with nature.”

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What are the

necessary

conditions for

sustainable

development?

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