Development Theory Old and New Themes

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Development Theory: Old and New Themes 1. Discourses on Development, Underdevelopment and Dependency 2. Africa’s Development Experience: From Dependency to “Resource-Rich” Status 3. Lessons from the BRIC Countries: Population Size, Economies of Scale, South-South Trade and Command Capitalism. Introduction Development refers to moving from one situation to another, which is better than the previous one. It is the process of improving in the quality of life. Therefore, development denotes change for the betterment. UN (1962) states Development, "is growth plus change. Change in turn is social cultural, economic, qualitative." The concept of development, according to Willy Brandtt "contains not only the material prosperity but also the idea of something more in the way of human dignity, security, justice and equality." Hence, development cannot be measured in terms of increase in materialistic things only; there must be self respect, secured life and equal opportunities to all citizens. As such, a country cannot be considered as developed if its economy is growing. Economic growth denotes an increase in output per capita. Even if it is growing, there may be rapid growth of population side by side increasing unemployment, inequalities and poverty. Thus, there should be both economic growth and its equal distribution significantly. Development is multidisciplinary having multi dimensional issues. There include improvement in economic, political, cultural and social conditions of the country, only then it is considered as developed. Economic development indicates an economy’s real national income increases over a long period of time which includes growth of output or real income per head of population. Economic development can be achieved by creating employment opportunity to the unemployed and better employment

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