Over time there have been a variety of approaches to international development work. Most would agree the ultimate end of this work is the people and their capacities to live the lives they desire. This is the underlying reason of all international development work because one could argue that poverty is the failure of development.
Development work includes multiple levels in which work can occur: macro (government), meso (local area), micro (small community level). They do not exist in isolation rather, the levels are interwoven. Historically development work has had an economic basis. However, for sustainability it is now accepted that there are multiple components within development work and that to work within one means to effect another. These components as listed within the Millenium Development Goals are: economic, social, political, gender, cultural, religious and environmental.
Keeping this concept in mind, read and absorb the following theories. Most of these theories have existed since about WWII. The theories are listed on a superficial scale to give you a place to start your education into the complexities of development work on an international scale.
- Modernization Theory: developed countries would bring education and technology to spur economic growth in developing countries; development is internally focused.
- Dependency Theory: the development occurs mostly in developed countries which gain wealth through the cheap labour and resources of developing countries and the only way for the developing countries to move forward (economically) is to break ties with the developing world.
- World Systems theory: a response to the difficiencies of the Dependency theory … in this system, there is a third group that exists in between the developed and developing world that forms a version of a middle class or middle man whereby the ones above still profit from the ones below. It is a system based on capitalism.
- State theory: is about the intertwining of the economy with local politics and that development only occurs based on the clout or influence of the state. A difficiency of this theory is the view that state is basically another version of an elite that lives off those with less influence. This fact lead to the next theory.
- Uneven and Combined Development theory: implies that each country has its own cultural, political and economically specific structures effecting the rates at which and through which development occurs. Also this development does not occur in isolation of other countries- just in its own way-
- Human Development theory: states that for a country to develop their people must be seen as the wealth that they are. Therefore to develop the wealth of any given country, the people need to have access to equity, production, sustainability and empowerment to give them the greatest choices to lead the lives they wish to the best of their abilities.
The above as I mentioned is just a taster designed to give you something to start your journey to becoming an informed and engaged person that cares about the state of the world and all the people that live within it. Don’t let the above nor its scale discourage your efforts to get involved in changing the world. Keep in mind people can only influence systems in which they have skills. In the second paragraph it is mentioned that work needs to occur on all levels including the micro level where most of UEnd’s project partners work. Our partners are chosen because they are aware that work cannot be undertaken in isolation but needs to impact systems around the matter at hand to ensure sustainability otherwise it is a short term and not overly practical use of your philanthropic efforts.
Stay tuned for more next week.
