Notes: Poverty and Development – Part 1

As a development worker and tourist in developing countries, I noticed one common and disturbing theme: POVERTY. For me, poverty is THE development issue. It has been a perennial problem that majority of the world’s population faces. Billions of dollars have been spent on thousands of various poverty interventions. Countless seminars, fora, conferences and conventions have been held to discuss poverty and come up with workable solutions. Technological innovations have focused on increasing food production.

Despite all these efforts, poverty still remains as a huge problem in itself, as well as both a major cause and consequence of other issues that underdeveloped and developing nations struggle with. This apparent lack of impact of development initiatives on world poverty has prompted many development stakeholders to ask why, including me. It makes me wonder if development programs helping poor countries as intended or are they fostering dependency on international aid, corruption within the government and consequently, furthering poverty and underdevelopment. So, what have we not done right?

ACROSS THE YEARS
Development paradigms, approaches and interventions have evolved throughout the years. These are intricately intertwined with political-economic discourses. The first paradigm equated development with economic progress. It proposed that poverty can only be addressed through economic-oriented interventions.

With this, the socialist-communist perspective argued that only by revolutionizing the political-economy of the country can true development prosper -- by eliminating inequality, poverty will be addressed. From the other end of the political-economic spectrum, the capitalists believed that strengthening the economy is the only way to development and address poverty.

The cold war brought on not only the arms race, but also a development race. As capitalist nations tried to prevent the spread of socialism-communism to the rest of the world, development funding and interventions naturally poured in from them into the underdeveloped and developing countries. They believed that effects of economic progress will trickle down to poor countries and communities.

However, as time passed and very little change was perceived in the poverty situation of the beneficiary-nations, development planners and managers realized that economic progress, while an important prerequisite to development, is not the only aspect that needs to be addressed.

Acknowledging the cyclic nature of poverty, development initiatives moved to encompass education and health among others. This resulted to a more comprehensive measure of development. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP), considered as a reliable measure was then replaced by the Human Development Index (HDI). In line with the new encompassing approach, the HDI includes indicators on education and health, along with economic indicators like income and employment.

While equality, human rights and people’s participation are considered integral to democracy, these were yet to be realized in a capitalist-led development. Thus, as the socialist-communist nations pursued their brand of development with the same ideals of equality and empowerment, and gaining new allies along the way, development planners and managers from the rich capitalist nations had to reconsider their approaches. Equality, human rights and empowerment moved from the political sphere into the development arena.

A whole new development paradigm took shape by the last quarter of the 20th century. From the top-to-bottom approach typical of capitalism, interventions moved on to the bottom-to-top participatory approach. The focus changed from economic-centered empowerment to general political empowerment. The scope covers not only economic progress but a more holistic development that includes environmental sustainability as well. And finally, the method changed from being curative problem-oriented to preventive awareness-raising and capacity-building.

This is still the development paradigm that shapes the current development approaches and interventions. Yet, as I have noted earlier, poverty still remains, if not increasingly becoming the biggest development problem in the world. This brings us back to the question of “why.”

Please wait for Part 2 of this 4-part post...