CHAPTER 1 INTRO: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ON GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Traditional Economic Measures

FEATURES :
●​ Traditionally development was generally seen as an economic phenomenon.
●​ Development meant achieving sustained rates of growth in per capita income.
●​ Traditional approach used to measure overall economic well-being of a population.
●​ Rapid industrialization and availability of goods and services to the average citizen
for consumption and investment were its prime concerns.
●​ It implies the planned change of the structure of production and employment so that
agriculture’ share of both declines and that of the manufacturing and service
industries increases.

LIMITATION:
●​ The experience of the 1950s to early 1970s signaled that something was wrong with
this narrow approach of development
●​ For example many developing countries reached their economic growth targets but
the levels of living of the masses remained unchanged.
●​ Under this approach, poverty, discrimination, unemployment and income distribution
which were major challenges before developing countries, could not be addressed.

The New Economic View of Development

FEATURES:
●​ During the 1970s, economic development redefined in terms of the reduction or
elimination of poverty, inequality, and unemployment within the context of a growing
economy.
●​ “Redistribution from growth” was its common slogan.
●​ Development must therefore be understood as a multidimensional process-
●​ involving major changes in social structures, popular attitudes, and national
institutions, as well as the acceleration of economic growth, the reduction of
inequality, and the eradication of poverty.
●​ Development represents the whole range of change by which an entire social
system tuned to the diverse basic needs and aspirations of individuals and social
groups within that system, moves away from a condition of life widely.

Amartya Sen’s “Capability” Approach

●​ Amartya Sen, the 1998 Nobel laureate in economics, argues that the “capability to
function” is what really matters for status as a poor or non poor person.
●​ Sen argues that poverty cannot be properly measured by income or even by utility as
conventionally understood;
●​ What matters fundamentally is not the things a person has—or the feelings these
provide—but what a person is, or can be, and does, or can do.
●​ What matters for well-being is not just the characteristics of commodities consumed,
as in the utility approach, but what use the consumer can and does make of
commodities.
 ●​ In the Capability Approach, 'poverty' is understood as deprivation in the capability to
live a good life and 'development' is understood as expansion of capability.
●​ The Capability Approach focuses directly on the quality of life that individuals are
actually able to achieve.
●​ This quality of life is analyzed in terms of the concepts of 'functionings' and
'capability'.
●​ Functioning – what people do or can do with the commodities of given
characteristics that they come to possess or control.
●​ Sen goes on to note that functioning depends also on
1.​ “social conventions in force in the society in which the person lives
2.​ the position of the person in the family and in the society,
3.​ the presence or absence of festivities such as marriages, seasonal festivals
and other occasions such as funerals,
4.​ the physical distance.
●​ In other words Functioning is a set of beings and doings.
-​ Examples of beings: being educated, illiterate, being happy, being depressed,
being active in politics , being part of a social work, being part of a criminal
work, being well behaved, being well nourished, being undernourished .
-​ Examples of doings: travelling, caring for a child, voting in a election, taking
part in a debate, taking drugs, killing animals, eating animals, donating money
to charity
●​ Capabilities are a person's real freedoms or opportunities to achieve functionings.
Thus, while travelling is a functioning, the real opportunity to travel is the
corresponding capability.
●​ Amartya Sen has argued that measuring the achieved combination of functionings of
an individual is not always enough to assess well-being.
●​ Well-being should include an individual’s “freedom to achieve.” This freedom is
represented by an individual’s capability.
●​ Freedom of choice, or control of one’s own life, is itself a central aspect of most
understandings of well-being. A functioning is a valued “being or doing”.
●​ The need for capability in the assessment of an individual’s well-being is based on
the importance of choice and opportunity.
●​ An individual’s well-being can be improved by having more choices.
-​ For example, someone who can choose between multiple careers is better off
than someone who is limited to one career only, even if both individuals prefer
the same career.

Republic Act No. 10354 (Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of
2012 or the RH Law)

This law ensures universal access to methods of contraception, fertility control, maternal
care, and sexual education.

Key Provisions:
 1.​ Promotes informed choice and voluntary access to family planning services.
2.​ Protects women's reproductive rights and autonomy over their bodies.
3.​ Mandates education about reproductive health in schools.

Development and Happiness

●​ Happiness is part of human well-being, and greater happiness may in itself expand
an individual’s capability to function.
●​ In recent years, economists have explored the empirical relationship between
satisfaction/happiness and income. One of the findings is that the average level of
happiness or satisfaction increases with a country’s average income.
●​ Richard Layard identifies 07 factors that surveys show affect average national
happiness
1.​ family relationships
2.​ financial situation
3.​ work
4.​ community and friends
5.​ health
6.​ personal freedom
7.​ personal values

Three Core Values of Development

To define what we mean when we talk about development as the sustained up gradation of
an entire society and social system toward a “better” or “more humane” life at least three
basic components or core values serve as a conceptual basis and practical guideline for
understanding the inner meaning of development. These core values—sustenance,
self-esteem, and freedom—represent common goals sought by all individuals and societies.

●​ Sustenance : The Ability to Meet Basic Needs

-​ All people have certain basic needs without which life would be impossible.
These life-sustaining basic human needs include food, shelter, health, and
protection. When any of these is absent or in critically short supply, a
condition of “absolute under development”exists.
●​ Self-Esteem: To Be a Person
-​ A second universal component of the good life is self-esteem—a sense of
worth and self-respect, of not being used as a tool by others for their own
ends.
●​ Freedom from Servitude: To Be Able to Choose
-​ Freedom here is to be understood in the sense of emancipation from social
servitude to nature, other people, misery, oppressive institutions, and
dogmatic beliefs, especially that poverty is predestination.
■​ Freedom involves an expanded range of choices for societies and
their members .
■​ Amartya Sen writes of “development as freedom,
 ■​ The concept of human freedom also encompasses various
components of political freedom, including personal security, the rule
of law, freedom of expression, political participation, and equality of
opportunity

Bill of Rights (1987 Philippine Constitution)

This section guarantees the fundamental rights and liberties of individuals, protecting
them from government abuse and ensuring equal treatment under the law.

Key Provisions:

1.​ Ensures the right to life, liberty, and property, and protection against arbitrary
deprivation.
2.​ Guarantees freedom of speech, expression, religion, and peaceful assembly.
3.​ Prohibits unlawful searches, arrests, and detention without due process.
4.​ Protects individuals against discrimination and ensures equal protection
under the law.

●​ The Central Role of Women: development scholars generally view women as

playing the central role in the development drama. Globally, women tend to be poorer
than men.
●​ Children need better health and education, and studies from around the developing
world confirm that mothers tend to spend a significantly higher fraction of income
under their control for the benefit of their children than fathers do.
●​ To make the biggest impact on development, then, a society must empower and
invest in its women

Philippine women-related laws:

●​ RA 6949: Declaring March 8 as National Women's Day
●​ RA 7877: Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995
●​ RA 8353: Anti-Rape Law of 1997
●​ RA 8505: Rape Victim Assistance and Protection Act
●​ RA 6949: Anti-Trafficking in Person Act of 2003
●​ RA 6949:Anti-Violence against Women & Their Children Act of 2004
●​ 1981: The Philippines ratified the United Nations Convention in the elimination of of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
●​ RA 6725: Prohibits discrimination with respect to terms and conditions of
employment solely on the basis of sex
●​ 1993: Guidelines for Developing & Implementing Gender-Responsive Projects &
Programs National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women/National Economic
and Development Authority (NCRFW/NEDA)
●​ 1995: Executive Order No. 273: Approving & Adopting the Philippine Plan for
Gender-Responsive Development (PPGRD 1995-2025)
 ●​ 2004: Harmonized Gender and Development Guidelines
●​ 2007: Harmonized Gender and Development Guidelines, NEDA, 2nd Edition
●​ Republic Act 11210 or the Expanded Maternity Leave Law extends the previous
60-day (78 days for caesarian section delivery for women workers in the private
sector) paid maternity leave to 105 days.

The Three Objectives of Development

We may conclude that development is both a physical reality and a state of mind in which
society has, through social, economic, institutional processes, secured the means for
obtaining a better life. Whatever the specific components of this better life, development in
all societies must have at least the following three objectives:

1.​ To increase the availability and widen the distribution of basic life - sustaining goods
such as food, shelter, health, and protection,
2.​ To raise levels of living, including, in addition to higher incomes, the provision of more
jobs, better education, and greater attention to cultural and human values, all of
which will serve not only to enhance material wellbeing but also to generate greater
individual and national self-esteem, (minimum wage law)
3.​ To expand the range of economic and social choices available to individuals and
nations by freeing them from servitude and dependence, not only in relation to other
people and nation-states, but also to the forces of ignorance and human misery

Conclusion - Thus it is clear that Development is the process of improving the quality of all
human lives and capabilities by raising people’s levels of living, self-esteem and freedom.

The Future of the Millennium Development Goals

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

A set of eight goals adopted by the United Nations in 2000 .The goals are assigned specific
targets to be achieved by 2015.
●​ to 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; and
●​ develop a global partnership for development.

➢​ Committing themselves to making substantial progress toward the eradication of

poverty and achieving other human development goals by 2015.
 ➢​ The MDGs are the strongest statement yet of the international commitment to ending
global poverty.
➢​ They acknowledge the multidimensional nature of development and poverty
alleviation;
➢​ An end to poverty requires more than just increasing incomes of the poor
➢​ Appropriately, the first MDG addresses the problem of extreme poverty and hunger.
The two targets for this goal are more modest:
○​ to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day and
○​ to reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
➢​ “Halving poverty” has come to serve as a touchstone for the MDGs as a whole.
➢​ In addition, key international agencies, including the United Nations, the World Bank,
the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD), and the World Trade Organization (WTO), all helped
develop the Millennium Declaration and so have a collective policy commitment to
attacking poverty directly. The MDGs assign
➢​ Specific responsibilities to rich countries, including increased aid, removal of trade
and investment barriers, and eliminating unsustainable debts of the poorest nations.

Criticism of MDGs
●​ Some observers believe that the MDG targets were not ambitious enough,
●​ Going little beyond projecting past rates of improvement 15 years into the Future,
●​ Moreover, the goals were not prioritized;
-​ for example, reducing hunger may leverage the achievement of many of the
other health and education targets.
●​ Although the interrelatedness of development objective was implicit in the MDGs’
formulation, goals are presented and treat in reports as stand-alone objectives; in
reality, the goals are not substitutes for the setting of 2015 as an end date for the
targets could
●​ Discourage rather than encourage further development assistance if it were not met.
●​ The MDGs measure poverty as the fraction of the population below the $1-a-day line,
this is arbitrary and fails to account for the intensity of poverty—that a given amount
of extra income to a family with a per capita income of, say, 70 cents a day makes a
bigger impact on poverty than to a family earning 90 cents per day (see Chapter 5).

Sustainable Development Goals

●​ With the imminent expiration of the MDGs, the UN coordinated global efforts to
launch its successor, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
●​ It is “a universal agenda” for all countries, developed as well as developing and
without exceptions, “to be driven by five big, transformative shifts.” These universal
shifts are:
1.​ Leave no one behind—to move “from reducing to ending extreme poverty, in
all its forms;” in particular, to “design goals that focus on reaching excluded
groups.”
2.​ Put sustainable development at the core, “to integrate the social, economic,
and environmental dimensions of sustainability.”
3.​ Transform economies for jobs and inclusive growth, while moving to
sustainable patterns of work and life.
4.​ Build peace and effective, open, and accountable institutions for all, which
“encourage the rule of law, property rights, freedom of speech and the media,
open political choice, access to justice, and accountable government and
public institutions.”
5.​ Forge a new global partnership so that each priority should involve
governments and also others, including people living in poverty, civil society
and indigenous and local communities, multilateral institutions, business,
academia, and philanthropy.