Development education: from conception to practice

How we conceive development shapes the type of development to which we give birth. Over the last 60 years the way development scholars have thought about development and its goals has evolved, though slowly.

In the 1950s, when many of the newly independent states were seeking to develop their economies,development was synonymous with economic growth. What mattered was the increase of GrossNational Product.

But soon it was evident that countries with large and growing populations, like India and China, could not be content with the growth of their GNP alone.

The more people there were to share the growing pie, the smaller each person’s piece would be, and extreme poverty would persist. Hence the rising concern with population control, so that per capita GNP could increase.

But it soon became clear that simply reducing the number of people who had to share the benefits of growth did not ensure that each person would actually receive an equal share in growth.

Rising inequality, especially in Latin America, led development thinkers to focus on how the benefits of growth could reach the masses. Thus, redistribution with growth became a goal to be desired.