Three concepts to describe and explain the goals of newly
independent nations:
Growth
Modernization
Development
Recent development thinking has
moved away from the limited objective of raising the GNP. Its new concerns-prevention
of the degradation of environments, preservation of scarce natural resources or
finding alternative to them, population control, and so forth-have wide
ramifications in the domain of culture. Any consideration of the quality of
life will be meaningless if it does not take into account deeply held cultural
values. Similarly, human resource development has vital cultural underpinnings.
The notion of basic or minimum needs-nutrition, education, health, housing,
employment, and leisure-again is originally linked to culture. In this
perspective, culture acquires still more significance. (Dube : 21)
Theory and practice in the
influential Northern offices of development organizations which oversee policy
development and exercise overall control of many programmes and budgets, argues
that the current understanding and use of knowledge within the development
sector is generally poor, and that this fact represents a major barrier to the
effectiveness of development interventions. Furthermore, current trends in information,
knowledge, and communications management practice within the sector are making
matters worse, and that strategic opportunities offered by new technologies and
new models of information exchange have not been properly understood, let alone
exploited.
It is important to be clear why
'knowledge' and perception are so central to the value, purpose, and practice
of development organizations. In order to do that, we need to reflect on the
nature of development. The largely quantitative representation of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)-targeting percentages of the global
population for access to vaccinations, primary education, and safe water
supplies, among others-and the growing preference for meeting such targets
through sets of contractual relations, reporting upwards to central
authorities, give credence to a view of development as a set of deliverable
actions at the end of which 'development' has taken place, as a giant service
industry .(Powell: 518)
The eight Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs)-which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of
HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of
2015-from a blueprint agreed to by all the world's countries and all the
world's leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented
efforts to meet the needs of the world's poorest.
- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- Achieve universal primary education
- Promote gender equality and empower women
- Reduce child mortality
- Improve maternal health
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
- Ensure environmental sustainability
- Develop a global partnership for development
Defining Development:
Though most would agree that
development means improving the living conditions of society, there has been
much debate on just what constitutes improved living conditions and how they
should be achieved.
Harka Gurung, in the forward
of the book Nepal's Failed Development authored by Dr. Devendra Raj Pandey,
states-"The author commences the book by referring to Paulo Freire on
the notion of 'tyranny of words'. This encourages me to begin with debunking
some dubious words prevalent in development lexicon. The first is the
misconception that considers growth and development as being synonymous. Growth
basically pertains to quantitative increment which may be independent of the
process that induce change. Development, on the other hand, refers to
transformation brought through structural changes in the operating forces. In Nepal's case,
it has been mere growth in select indicators without any substantive alteration
in the traditional set-up. In other words, what has gone through is only
briddhi (growth) as accumulation but not vikas (development) with impact. That
not all growth needs to be positive is evident from the country's increasing
population and accentuating poverty."
Dr Pandey in Nepal's Failed
Development states-" Development is a continuing (never-ending) process of
change (towards a continuous improvement in human condition), we have been told
almost from the time we ever heard this word in an academic or a professional
context. And, indeed, that is what it must be in practice too. Can a continuous
process be anything other than sustained and sustainable even as we should be
careful not to confuse sustainability with continuity?"
Uma Narula says in Development
Communication Theory and Practice-"Development includes the
improvement of quality of life with programmes of nutritional status, maternal
and child health and primary health care and the transformation of individuals
as well as the social system. The present understanding of development is a
unified socio-economic process."
She further says-"
Development is a whole, it is an integral, value loaded, cultural process; it
encompasses the natural environment, social relations, education, production,
consumption and well-being."
Uma Narula's
words-" Development is necessarily conceived as 'dynamic' in the service
of the 'progress'. The progressive change is described as alternation in
awareness, motivation and participation of the individuals. From a social point
of view the development refers to the change in the social structure or in the
functions performed by different groups and units within it. It is a process of
innovation where one learns from the experiences of others and assimilates what
is considered useful through a process of selection. Development is 'growth'
oriented all time."
Development: First perspective
The first is modernization, based
on neo-classical economic theory, and promoting and supporting capitalist
economic development. This perspective assumes that the Western model of
economic growth is applicable elsewhere, and that the introduction of modern
technologies is important in development. Evidence of modernization can be
readily observed in local-level projects that aim to persuade people to adopt
technologies, and also in the macro-level policies of government and aid
organizations that pressure Third World
countries to sacrifice education and human services for economic growth.
Development: Second
perspective
Critical perspectives constitute
a second way of thinking about development. These perspectives challenge the
economic and cultural expansionism and imperialism of modernization, and they
argue for political and economic restructuring to produce a more even
distribution of rewards in society. These perspectives do a good job of
exposing and critiquing the flaws of modernization, yet they have been less
successful so far in proposing concrete alternatives, and they seldom form the
primary basis of funded development projects.
Development is usually understood
to mean the process by which societal conditions are improved. However, there
is much disagreement on what constitutes improvement. For instance, a modernization
perspective, assumes that a western model of economic growth is universally
desirable. Critical perspectives challenge the economic and cultural
expansionism and imperialism of modernization, arguing for new economic
arrangements to create more even distribution of rewards in society.
Professor K.E. Eapen has
projected that three major factors must be considered in any discussion of
development: economic growth, self-reliance, and social justice.
Paradigms of Development:
There have been several paradigms
of development, each of which had a little different view of what development
is.
First Development Decade: 1960s
(In the 1950s and 1960s the development theorists and practitioners stressed
and visualized that development can be achieved by modernization via
industrialization and urbanization.)
Media-for-Modernization
paradigm (1960 &1970s)
Western development aid and all
facets of the process, including communication, have been challenged since the
1970s. (Many large and expensive projects promoting social change have failed
to help their intended recipients, or have resulted in even worsened conditions
for them. Development's primary focus on economic growth has ignored other
crucial, yet non-material aspects of human need.)
The 1970s were giving rise to
consideration of greater grassroots participation, more equality in
distribution of the benefits of development, more inputs by recipient nations
and local communities and enhancing the quality of life in developing
countries.
Prior to the 1980s, development
communication referred to a dominant paradigm in theory and research. It was
top-down, non-directive, and relied on mass media technology to persude.Out of
this grew the diffusion of innovations model, based on the idea that new ideas in
the system would 'trickle down' to the masses, where they would eventually be
adopted. Under this theory, information access was for the privileged, the
masses had little input, and the knowledge gap widened. Then, in 1986, Rogers abandoned his
top-down orientation in diffusion theory and introduced his convergence model,
which asserted that communication is always a mutual process of
information-sharing between two or more persons in order to reach a mutual
understanding.
The international development theorists
and practitioners in the second and the third development decades argued and
practiced that development implies commitment to social goals as well as to
multifaceted interrelated sets of economic, social, political and cultural
variables.
In the 1960s development means a
process of modernization modeled on industrial societies. The measure was
economic growth. The programmes and projects in the economic and social
structures were undertaken in developing countries. The paramount paradigm was
knowledge transfer from developed countries to developing countries. The myth
of the power of the mass media to transfer knowledge alone was turned to media
and communication research. The idea was that technology will replace teacher.
The passing of traditional society was inevitable. The major issue was
diffusion of innovations.
But as the time passed, the
indicators were that more complex socio-economic forces were at work for
development rather than industrialization only. The gap was widening between
the rich and the poor, the centrally planned interventions did not benefit the
intended beneficiaries. The social growth along with economic growth were the
development focii.Since definition of development has been changing due to
variety of factors both in the developed and developing countries, the newer
paradigms were emerging during these four decades with different focii.
The western model for development
predominated in the 1950s and 1960s.Rogers called this the 'dominant paradigm'
of development.The emphasize of this model was that modernization/development
could be achieved by increased productivity, economic growth and
industrialization, that is, heavy industries and capital intensive
technologies, urbanization, centralized planning and endogenous factors of
development. Development was measured by gross national product (GNP), total or
per capita.
In the late 1960s and 1970s,
several world events combined with the intellectual critiques began to crack
the credibility of the dominant paradigm. Then alternative to the dominant
paradigm emerged.
