International Development

Introduction

The term develop, ordinarily means a movement from a specific level or position to another point usually with a certain increment in size, quality or number. The debate about development is an area of concern for a very long time since the 1960s during the initial development decade of the United Nations which put emphases on the trickle-down method and economic growth as key approaches for poverty reduction. Due to the international urge to reduce poverty and enhance growth, the global leaders came up with several policy options and alternative strategies to promote development. 

  Some of the notable progress in the aim of development growth consists of the decision to consider gender, human rights and poverty eradication as key elements. In the past decades, gender-based theories, rights-based approaches as well as liberation theology came into existence in the pursuit of positive development. This essay entails a critical assessment of the responses of these development alternatives to the purported aspirations and desires of various groups.

Gender-Based Theories

Women in Development (WID)

The first integration of the gender concerns into the agenda of development took place in the early 1970s after it was clear that women were isolated in development. The WID approach argued that women were treated as a minor group that lacked the opportunity to engage in development (Cornwall, 2003).  This approach, therefore, aimed at incorporating women into all approaches and areas of the development process. The main areas which WID focused on include social and economic welfare, adverse working environments, freedom from food shortage, economic security, bride burning, female infanticide and violation of women rights.

Nonetheless, nothing much changed since women groups still believed that women continued to suffer injustice as a result of their gender (Brohman, 1995). The WID approach struggled to materialize their efforts of forging a collective group of women allegedly sharing the same oppression experiences. Despite the autonomous space granted to women, some things never changed indicating that women oppression does not completely get eradicated using other political avenues but ought to be tackled on their own grounds. Numerous gendered approaches brought about mainly by liberal and social feminists emerged as main theoretical critics of 3^rd World countries development and associated them with the policy directions that were results of gender-based theories. These theories focused on ensuring that gendered approaches were integrated into all development advancement plans.

Women and Development (WAD)

As the demand to eradicate gender double standards increased, the sexual difference acceptance came to rise following the emergence of the WAD approach. Unlike WID, WAD recognized that women participated in economic and development since, without their efforts of household maintenance, the society would not run effectively. Therefore, WAD focused more on interacting women with development events rather than on just women integration into development strategies.

According to Brohman, the difference of women from men began with the demands for equality and entered into another autonomy demanding phase where women think, read and write like women. Even though autonomy essentially does not mean isolation, at some perspective it implies that at least the women will perform it as they will.  Whatever the women politically decide using their autonomy implies an end to female oppression by the men.

Gender and Development (GAD)

Since women constantly became uninvolved in development processes as non-policy makers or non-planners in the entirely capitalistic development model and free-market liberalization and economy, globalization and privatization, the Gender and Development approach became the only way to ensure they were part of the development projects and plans. GAD focused on development impacts of both men and women seeking to ensure both parties participated and benefited equally (Cornwall, 2003). Third-World governments also assumed reformative and legislative measures for smooth and successful effective gender-based plans in different fields promoting wider gender equity-efficiency and impact in various development planning and policy in the future.

Rights-Based Approaches

The rights-based approach to development came about in the 1990s immediately after the World Cold War due to the lessons and experiences acquired from the prior development strategies and paradigms. The previous development approaches did not fit on the long-term sustainable plans and were therefore believed to uphold unequal international development power relations. The rights-based approach intended at overcoming the deficits from other approaches through addressing underdevelopment structures such as power inequality. According to Preis (1996), rights-based approach treated development matters as issues of right and obligation rather than charity or discretion. It aims at raising development process accountability levels through identifying duty-bearers and corresponding claim-holders. Therefore, participation, non-discrimination, transparency, and accountability are the generally agreed core principles which characterize the approach.

The right-based approaches operate on both the demand and supply sectors of development such that its basic element is to mobilize the rich to donate more resources for development effectively. Therefore, the rights-based approaches aspects of development may target duty-bearers through raising and instilling moral pressure, self-respect, and dignity necessary for social, legal and political mobilization which can reduce inequality and poverty at the national and global levels.

However, this approach has not fully become successful due to the drawbacks associated with its implementation. In certain incidents, it has promoted conflicts and inequalities between various groups in the world and sometimes leading to favoritism of specific groups at the expense of others. It brought about non-sustainable natural resources uses such that some groups took control of the natural resources over other lesser groups. As a result, it led to inappropriate governance since power shifted to the hands of certain groups in conjunction with biased court systems. The efficacy of legal processes is low in cases where civil anarchy or dictatorship prevails. 

According to the relativists, the universal human rights conception especially those stated in the UNDHR doesn’t consider other cultures in the human rights formulation. This theory argues that every culture has its definition of whatever is right and human rights vary according to various cultural perspectives. It, therefore, states that culture is something that is stable and unchanging over generations. On the other hand, the Universalist approach argues that all human beings are equal and possess specific inalienable rights regardless of their national background, race, color, culture, political or religious views, age or gender.

However, according to Pries, these approaches are too simplistic since culture changes with time depending on various generations. He views culture as flexible based on ideological innovations and social changes. The relativism approach assumes that the community is the primary social unit and not a single individual. It raises the question of whether the community can impose whatever it views right to an individual or whether it possesses the right to restrict an individual from eliminable rights. Therefore according to Pries, culture is a continuous historical development process which is destined to evolve and adapt to different periods and environments.

Liberation Theology

The liberation theology focused on the problems faced by the majority of the Latin American people such as injustice, poverty, and dependency. The main aim was to eradicate injustice and establishing a fair just society. At the beginning of the 1960s, churches felt the urge to extremely pay attention to the social mission with the laypersons committing themselves on working with the poor while charismatic priests and bishops promoted national modernization and progress calls. Different church organizations encouraged improvements and understanding of the conditions which everyone lived in. The Young Christian movements of students, workers, agriculturalists, basic education movements, the ecclesial communities and radio programs educational groups all focused on the application of the liberation theology.

The Liberation theology advocates called for poverty eradication through the elimination of the political and economic capitalistic structures which mainly contributed to poverty and injustice within Latin America (Goulet, 1971). The achievement of the liberation theology would result in more development. However, towards the late 1960s, the developmental model and populism crisis resulted to the beginning of a dynamic current of thinking sociologically unmasking the real underdevelopment causes. The Western world nations engaged in vast unequal and interdependent developmental processes organized such that the profits flowed only to one direction of developed countries while the disadvantages went back to the historically underdeveloped and backward developing countries. The Third World nations paid the price of the developed countries overabundant profits.

Conclusion

The attempts of producing development around the 1950s brought so much hope but due to the failure of proper adherence to development plans, there was slow development across poor countries causing deception, frustration, and confusion. A major cause of this condition is because the development process in its modernizing, strictly economic sense became advanced by global agencies supported by economic world control groups. The recent much discussion of development and aids to the underdeveloped countries aim to increase the overall development level of the international community. However, the hope of development might not be achieved if there is no proper monitoring of the flow of resources and effective operation of development theories.

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