I      caroline thomas • tony evans
attendant expansion of the market. Thus a community that provides for itself outside monetized cash transactions and wage labour, such as a hunter-gatherer group, is regarded as poor.
Since 1945, this meaning of poverty has been almost universalized. Poverty is seen as an economic condition dependent on cash transactions in the marketplace for its eradication. These transactions in turn are dependent on development denned as economic growth. An economic yardstick is used to measure and to judge all societies.
Poverty has been widely regarded as characterizing the Third World, and it has a gendered face. An approach has developed whereby it is seen as incumbent upon the developed countries to 'help' the Third World eradicate 'poverty', and increasingly to address female poverty (see World Bank, Gender Action Plan, www. worldbank.org/). The solution advocated to overcome global poverty is the further integration of the global economy (Thomas 2000) and of women into this process (Pearson 2000; Weber 2002). Increasingly, however, as globalization has intensified, poverty defined in such economic terms has come to characterize significant sectors of population in advanced developed countries such as the USA (see Bello 1994).
Critical, alternative views of poverty exist in other cultures where the emphasis is not simply on money, but on spiritual values, community ties, and availability of common resources. In traditional subsistence economies, a common strategy for survival is provision for oneself and one's family via community-regulated access to common water, land, and fodder. Western values that focus on individualism and consumerism are seen as destructive of nature and morally inferior. For many people in the developing world the ability to provide for oneself and one's family, including the autonomy characteristic of traditional ways of life, is highly valued. Dependence on an unpredictable market and/or an unreliable government does not, therefore, offer an attractive alternative.
Some global institutions have been important in promoting a conception of poverty that extends beyond material indicators. The work of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since the early 1990s is significant here for distinguishing between income poverty (a material condition) and human poverty (encompassing human dignity, agency, opportunity, and choices).
The issue of poverty and the challenge of poverty alleviation moved up the global political agenda at the
close of the twentieth century, as evidenced in the UN's first Millennium Development Goal, cited earlier. Although some progress was reported in the early years of the millennium, the 2008 'credit crunch' threatens to reverse what was achieved. As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon notes in the 2009 Millennium Development Goals Report, 'we face a global economic crisis whose full repercussions have yet to be felt' (www.un.org/ millenniumgoals/). Whereas in 2005 it was estimated that 1.4 million people lived on less that $1.25 a day, the report estimates that in 2009 this number will increase by as much as 90 million.
Having considered the orthodox and critical alternative views of poverty, we now turn to an examination of the important topic of development. This examination will be conducted in three main parts. The first part will start by examining the orthodox view of development and will then proceed to an assessment of its effect on post-war development in the Third World. The second part will examine the critical alternative view of development and its application to subjects such as empowerment and democracy. In the third part, consideration will be given to the ways in which the orthodox approach to development has responded to some of the criticisms made of it by the critical alternative approach.
iffllffilRIliili
• The monetary-based conception of poverty has been almost universalized among governments and international organizations since 1945.
• Poverty is interpreted as a condition suffered by people— the majority of whom are female-who do not earn enough money to satisfy their basic material requirements in the marketplace.
• Developed countries have regarded poverty as being
~   something external to them and a defining feature of the Third World. This view has provided justification for the former to help 'develop' the latter by promoting further integration into the global market.
• However, such poverty is increasingly endured by significant sectors of the population in the North, as well as the Third World, hence rendering traditional categories less useful.
• A critical alternative view of poverty places more emphasis on lack of access to community-regulated common resources, community ties, and spiritual values.
• Poverty moved up the global political agenda at the start of the twenty-first century, but the 2008/9 'credit crunch' promises to reverse some of the early success.
Development
When we consider the topic of development, it is important to realize that all conceptions of development necessarily reflect a particular set of social and political values. Indeed, we can say that 'Development can be conceived only within an ideological framework' (Roberts 1984: 7).
Since the Second World War the dominant view, favoured by the majority of governments and multilateral agencies, has seen development as synonymous with economic growth within the context of a free market international economy. Economic growth is identified as necessary for combating poverty, defined as the inability of people to meet their basic material needs through cash transactions. This is seen in the influential reports of the World Bank, where countries are categorized according to their income. Those countries that have the lower national incomes per head of population are regarded as being less developed than those with higher incomes, and they are perceived as being in need of increased integration into the global marketplace.
An alternative view of development has, however, emerged from a few governments, UN agencies, grassroots movements, NGOs, and some academics. Their
Chapter 28 Poverty, development, and hunger
concerns have centred broadly on entitlement and distribution, often expressed in the language of human rights (see Ch. 30). Poverty is identified as the inability to provide for ones own and one's family's material needs by subsistence or cash transactions, and by the absence of an environment conducive to human well-being broadly conceived in spiritual and community terms. These voices of opposition are growing significantly louder, as ideas polarize following the apparent universal triumph of economic liberalism. The language of opposition is changing to incorporate matters of democracy such as political empowerment, participation, meaningful self-determination for the majority, protection of the commons, and an emphasis on pro-poor growth. The fundamental differences between the orthodox and the alternative views of development are summarized in Box 28.2, and supplemented by Case Study 1, illustrating alternative ideas for development that take account of social and cultural values. In the following two sections we shall examine how the orthodox view of development has been applied at a global level and assess what measure of success it has achieved.
The orthodox view
• Poverty: a situation suffered by people who do not have the money to buy food and satisfy other basic material needs.
• Solution: transformation of traditional subsistence economies defined as 'backward' into industrial, commodified economies defined as 'modern'. Production for profit. Individuals sell their labour for money, rather than producing to meet their family's needs.
• Core ideas and assumptions: the possibility of unlimited economic growth in a free market system. Economies eventurally become self-sustaining ('take-off' point). Wealth is said to trickle down to those at the bottom. All layers of society benefit through a 'trickle-down' mechanism when the superior'Western' model is adopted.
• Measurement: economic growth; Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita: industrialization, including agriculture.
• Process: top-down; reliance on external 'expert knowledge', usually Western. Large capital investments in large projects; advanced technology; expansion of the private sphere.
The alternative view
• Poverty: a situation suffered by people who are not able to meet their material and non-material needs through their own effort.
• Solution: creation of human well-being through sustainable societies in social, cultural, political, and economic terms.
• Core ideas and assumptions: sufficiency. The inherent value of nature, cultural diversity, and the community-controlled commons (water, land, air, forest). Human activity in balance with nature. Self-reliance and local control through democratic inclusion, participation, and giving a voice to marginalized groups, such as women, indigenous groups.
• Measurement: fulfilment of basic material and non-material human needs of everyone; condition of the natural environment. Political empowerment of marginalized.
• Process: bottom-up; participatory; reliance on appropriate (often local) knowledge and technology; small investments in small-scale projects; protection of the commons.
caroline thomas • tony evans
Chapter 28 Poverty, development, and hunger
Case Study 1 Taking jobs to Bangladesh's poor
The case of Hathay Bunano Proshikhan Society (HBPS) offers a good example of an alternative development model. For most Bangladeshi women living in rural districts, the opportunity to give their families a bit of extra money in the struggle against rural poverty means moving to large cities, like Dhaka or Chit-tagong, leaving their children and families for many months. The move from country to city strains traditional social relations and places women in an urban environment that is unfamiliar and threatening. Bangladesh's textile industry is its biggest export earner ($12.35 billion between June 2008 and 2009) and offers the best opportunity for rural women to find work. The industry is estimated to employ over 2.5 million workers in 4,200 factories. However, the poor working conditions and long hours often lead to ill health, social dislocation, and a life of misery.
Economic liberalism and the post-1945 international economic order: sixty-five years of orthodox development
During the Second World War there was a strong belief among the Allied Powers that the protectionist trade policies of the 1930s had contributed significantly to the outbreak of the war. Plans were drawn up by the USA and the UK for the creation of a stable post-war international order with the United Nations (UN), its affiliates the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group, plus the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), providing the institutional bases. The latter three provided the foundations of a liberal international economic order based on the pursuit of free trade, but allowing an appropriate role for state intervention in the market in support of national security and national and global stability (Rapley 1996). This has been called embedded liberalism. The decision-making procedures of these international economic institutions favoured a small group of developed Western states. Their relation ship with the UN, which in the General Assembly has
In 2004 the founders of H BPS asked themselves this questions how do you create sustainable employment free of debt without changes in the lifestyle of rural women, and while generating returns comparable with the enterprises modelled on mainstream economic limes? The answer was to create flexible employment opportunities for women in rural Bangladesh through a social business model producing knitted and crocheted children's clothes and toys.
Although working conditions are simple, often in premises rented from a villager without electricity or water, the working day provides a place where work is done in a social setting alongside friends and neighbours. Women often bring very young children to the workplace to be cared for during the day Newly recruited workers are given training in core skills as well as basic mathematics and life skills. In this way women workers can contribute to the family economy without breaking family and village ties.
The founders of HBPS began with an investment of $500 and 12 trainees in December 2004. Today, it employs over 3,500 women at 32 sites in rural locations producing about 30,000 items a month that are exported to developed countries and fashionable shops in the USA, Europe and Australia. All profits are put back into the company and the women can earn 25 per cent more than the Bangladeshi minimum legal rate. Bringing work to the village also means that earnings are spent within the village economy rather than in distant cities, bringing benefits to the wider village community.
(www.hathaybunano.com)
more democratic procedures, has not always been an easy one.
In the immediate post-war years, attention focused on reconstructing Western Europe through the Marshall plan. As the cold war emerged, and both East and West sought to gain allies in the less developed and recently decolonized states, both sides offered economic support for development. The USA believed that the path of liberal economic growth would result in development, and that development would result in hostility to socialist ideals. The USSR, by contrast, attempted to sell its economic system as the most rapid means for the newly independent states to achieve industrialization and development. The process of industrialization underpinned conceptions of development in both East and West, but whereas in the capitalist sphere the market was seen as the engine of growth, in the socialist sphere central planning by the state was the preferred method.
In the early post-war and post-colonial decades, all states—whether in the West, East, or Third World-favoured an important role for the state in development.
j^any Third World countries pursued a strategy of imp°rt substitution industrialization in order to try to break out of their dependent position in the world economy as peripheral producers of primary commodities for the core developed countries.
This approach, which recognized the important role of the state in development, suffered a major setback in the early 1980s. The developing countries had borrowed heavily in the 1970s in response to the rise in oil prices. The rich countries' strategy for dealing with the second oil price hike in 1979 resulted in massive rises in interest rates and steep falls in commodity prices in the early 1980s. The developing countries were unable to repay spiralling debts. Mexico threatened to default in 1982. The Group of Seven (G7) leading developed Western countries decided to deal with the debt problem on a country-by-country basis, with the goal of avoiding the collapse of the international banking system by ensuring continued repayment of debt. In this regard, the IMF and the World Bank pursued a vigorous policy of structural adjustment lending throughout the developing world. In applying this policy, the Fund and the Bank worked together in an unprecedented fashion to encourage developing countries to pursue market-oriented strategies based on rolling back the power of the state and opening Third World economies to foreign investment. Exports were promoted so that these countries would earn the foreign exchange necessary to keep up with their debt repayments.
With the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Eastern bloc after 1989, this neo-liberal economic and political philosophy came to dominate development thinking across the globe. The championing of unadulterated liberal economic values played an important role in accelerating the globalization process. This represented an important ideological shift. The embedded liberalism' of the early post-war decades gave way to the unadulterated neoclassical economic policies that favoured a minimalist state and an enhanced role for the market: the so-called Washington Consensus. The belief was that global welfare would be maximized by the liberalization of trade, finance, and investment, and by the restructuring of national economies to provide an enabling environment for capital. Such policies would also ensure the repayment of debt. The former Eastern bloc countries were now seen as in transition from centrally planned to market economies. Throughout the Third World the state was rolled back and the market given the role of major engine of growth and associated development, an approach that informed the strategies
of the IMF, the World Bank, and, through the Uruguay Round of trade discussions carried out under the auspices of GATT, the World Trade Organization (WTO).
By the end of the 1990s the G7 (later the G8) and associated international financial institutions were championing a slightly modified version of the neo-liberal economic orthodoxy, labelled the post-Washington Consensus, which stressed pro-poor growth and poverty reduction based on continued domestic policy reform and growth through trade liberalization. Henceforth, locally owned national poverty reduction strategy (PRS) papers would be the focus for funding (Cammack 2002). These papers quickly became the litmus test for funding from an increasingly integrated line-up of global financial institutions and donors.
The development achievement of the post-war international economic order: orthodox and alternative evaluations
There have been some gains for developing countries during the post-war period, as measured by the orthodox criteria for economic growth, GDP per capita, and industrialization. However, these gains have not been uniformly spread across all developing countries (Figures 28.2 and 28.3). While some Asian countries have recorded positive gains, China and India for example, African countries have fared less well (UNDP 2003). The financial crisis in the early 1980s showed marked reversals in Mexico, the East Asian states, Brazil, and Russia. While it is too early to assess the full effects of the more recent global 'credit crunch', the 2009 Millennium Development Goals Report indicates further declines (see Figure 28.4).
The orthodox liberal assessment of the past sixty years of development suggests that states that have integrated most deeply into the global economy through trade liberalization have grown the fastest, and it praises these 'new globalizers'. It acknowledges that neo-liberal economic policy has resulted in greater inequalities within and between states, but regards inequality positively as a spur to competition and the entrepreneurial spirit.
It was clear at least from the late 1970s that 'trickle-down' (the idea that overall economic growth as measured by increases in the GDP would automatically bring benefits for the poorer classes) had not worked. Despite impressive rates of growth m GDP per capita enjoyed by developing countries, this success was not reflected in their societies at large, and while a minority became
caroline thomas ■ tony evans
f
20,000
1970    1972     1975     1977     1980    1985    1990    1995    2000    2004    2005 2007
Year Economy
■ Developing economies        ■ Economies in transition        Developed economies
Figure 28.2 GDP for developing, transitional, and developed countries Source: UNCTAD, Handbook of Statistics 2008
8000
6000
4000
2000
1970       1975        1980        1 985 1990        1995        2000 2005 2007
Year Economy
I Developing economies: Africa ■ China excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan
I Developing economies: South America Developing economies: Southern Asia
I Developing economies: Eastern Asia India including Sikkim
Figure 28.3 Per capita GDP for selected states and economies Source: UNCTAD, Handbook of Statistics 2008
Fragile states
Sub-Saharan Africa
South Asia
Middle East and North Africa Latin America and Caribbean Europe and Central Asia East Asia and Pacific
25 50 75 100
% of countries No data H Seriously off track I Off track ■ On track ■ Achieved
Figure 28.4 Poverty reduction: progress on the Millennium Development Goals
Source: World Bank, Global Monitoring Report 2009
substantially wealthier, the mass of the population saw no significant change. The even greater polarization in wealth evident in recent decades is not regarded as a problem, so long as the social and political discontent that inequality engenders is not so extensive as potentially to de-rail implementation of the liberalization project itself. According to the orthodox view, discontent will be alleviated by the development of national PRSs, which it is claimed put countries and their peoples in the driving seat of development policy, thus empowering the local community and ensuring a better distribution of benefits. Figure 28.4 shows that the much-vaunted Millennium Development Goals have so far failed to impact on the lives of those living in the poor countries.
Advocates of a critical alternative approach emphasize the pattern of distribution of gains within global society and within individual states, rather than growth. They believe that the economic liberalism that underpins the process of globalization has resulted, and continues to result, in increasing economic differentiation between and within countries, and that this is problematic. Moreover, they note that this trend has been evident over the very period when key global actors have been committed to promoting development worldwide, and indeed when there were fairly continuous world economic growth rates and positive rates of GDP growth per capita, at least until 1990 (Brown and Kane 1995).
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, exponents of a critical alternative—in contrast to their orthodox colleagues—question the value of national PRSs,
Chapter 28 Poverty, development, and hunger
arguing that while a new focus on issues such as health and education is important, the more fundamental issue of discussion of possible links between Washington Consensus policies and poverty creation is ignored. As Glyn Roberts notes, 'GNP growth statistics might mean a good deal to an economist or to a maharajah, but they do not tell us a thing about the quality of life in a Third World fishing village (Roberts 1984: 6).
A critical alternative view of development
Since the early 1970s, there have been numerous efforts to stimulate debate about development and to highlight its contested nature. Critical alternative ideas have been put forward that we can synthesize into an alternative approach. These have originated with various NGOs, grass-roots development organizations, individuals, UN organizations, and private foundations. Disparate social movements not directly related to the development agenda have contributed to the flourishing of the alternative viewpoints: for example, the women's movement, the peace movement, movements for democracy, and green movements (Thomas 2000). Noteworthy was the publication in 1975 by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation of What Now: Another Development. This alternative conception of development (see Ekins 1992: 99) argued that the process of development should be (1) need-oriented (material and non-material), (2) endogenous (coming from within a society), (3) self-reliant (in terms of human, natural, and cultural resources), (4) ecologically sound, and (5) based on structural transformations (of economy, society, gender, power relations).
Since then, various NGOs, such as the World Development Movement, have campaigned for a form of development that takes aspects of this alternative approach on board. Grass-roots movements have often grown up around specific issues, such as dams (Narmada in India) or access to common resources (the rubber tappers of the Brazilian Amazon). Such campaigns received a great impetus in the 1980s with the growth of the green movement worldwide. The two-year preparatory process before the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio, in June 1992, gave indigenous groups, women, children, and other previously voiceless groups a chance to express their views. This momentum has continued, and it has become the norm to hold alternative NGO forums, parallel to all major UN conferences.
cäroline Thomas ■ tony evans
Chapter 28 Poverty, development, and hunger
469
Resistance, empowerment, and development
Democracy is at the heart of the alternative conception of development. Grass-roots movements are playing an important role in challenging entrenched structures of power in formal democratic societies. In the face of increasing globalization, with the further erosion of local community control over daily life and the further extension of the power of the market and transnational corporations, people express their resistance through the language of human rights (Evans 2005: Stammers 2009). They are making a case for local control and local empowerment as the heart of development. They are protecting what they identify as the immediate source of their survival—water, forest, and land. They are rejecting the dominant agenda of private and public (government-controlled) spheres and setting an alternative one. Examples include the Chiapas' uprising in Mexico, and Indian peasant protests against foreign-owned seed factories. Protests at the annual meetings of the WTO, and also the IMF and World Bank, have become routine since the late 1990s, and are indicative of an increasingly widespread discontent with the process of globalization and with the distribution of its benefits. Such protests symbolize the struggle for substantive democracy that communities across the world are working for. In this context, development is about facilitating a community's participation and lead role in deciding what sort of development is appropriate. It is not about assuming the desirability of the Western model and its associated values. This alternative conception of development therefore values diversity above universality, and is based on a different conception of rights (Evans forthcoming).
The Alternative Declaration produced by the NGO Forum at the Copenhagen Summit enshrined principles of community participation, empowerment, equity, self-reliance, and sustainability. The role of women and youth was singled out. The Declaration rejects the economic liberalism accepted by governments of North and South, seeing it as a path to aggravation rather than alleviation of the global social crisis. It called for the immediate cancellation of all debt, improved terms of trade, transparency and accountability of the IMF and World Bank, and the regulation of multinationals. An alternative view of democracy was central to its conception of development. Similar ideas emanated from the parallel NGO forums, which accompanied all the UN global conferences in the 1990s.
For some commentators, national PRSs offer the opportunity—albeit as yet unrealized—for greater community participation in development policy-making in the South. If all parties operate in the spirit intended, the PRS process could enhance representation and voice for states and peoples in the South, and it offers the best hope available for expanding national ownership of economic policy.
Now that we have looked at the critical alternative view of development, we shall look at the way in which the orthodox view has attempted to respond to the criticisms of the alternative view.
The orthodoxy incorporates criticisms
In the mainstream debate, the focus has shifted from growth to sustainable development. The concept was championed in the late 1980s by the influential Brundtland Commission (officially entitled the World Commission on Environment and Development—see Brundtland et al. 1987), and supported in the 1990s by a series of UN global conferences. Central to the concept of sustainable development is the idea that the pursuit of development by the present generation should not be at the expense of future generations. In other words, it stressed inter-generational equity as well as intra-generational equity. The importance of maintaining the environmental resource base was highlighted, and with this comes the idea that there are natural limits to growth. The Brundtland Report made clear, however, that further growth was essential; but it needed to be made environment-friendly. The Report did not address the belief, widespread among a sector of the NGO community, that the emphasis on growth had caused the environmental crisis in the first place. The World Bank accepted the concerns of the Report to some degree. When faced with an NGO spotlight on the adverse environmental implications of its projects, the Bank moved to introduce more rigorous environmental assessments of its funding activities. Similarly, concerning gender, when faced with critical NGO voices, the World Bank eventually came up with its Operational Policy 4.20 on gender (1994). The latter aimed to 'reduce gender disparities and enhance women particularly in the economic development of their countries by integrating gender considerations in its country assistance programmes' (www.worldbank.org).
With the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992, the idea
that the environment and development were inextricably interlinked was taken further. However, what came out of the official inter-state process was legitimation of market-based development policies to further sustainable development, with self-regulation for transnational corporations. Official output from Rio, such as Agenda 21, however, recognized the huge importance of the sub-state level for addressing sustainability issues, and supported the involvement of marginalized groups. But while the groups had a role in the preparatory process, they have not been given an official role in the follow-up to UNCED. At the alternative summit, where the largest selection of non-governmental views ever expressed was aired, the viability of this strategy was challenged. For example, the possibility of structural adjustment policies being made environment-friendly was seriously questioned.
The process of incorporation has continued ever since. This is seen most recently in the language of poverty reduction being incorporated into World Bank and IMF policies: 'growth with equity' and 'pro-poor growth' are the buzzwords, yet underlying macroeco-nomic policy remains unchanged. An examination of the contribution of the development orthodoxy to increasing global inequality is not on the agenda. The gendered outcomes of macroeconomic policies are largely ignored. Despite promises of new funding at the UN Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development in 2002, new transfers of finance from developed to developing countries have been slow in coming. The promises made at the G8 summit of 2006 are expressed as a percentage of the donor's GDP, which, following the global downturn of 2009, will be substantially less than expected. In addition to new finance, that Summit saw commitments to write off $40 billion of debt owed by the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). However, the commitment was not implemented with immediate effect, didn't cover all needy countries, and received a lukewarm reception in some G8 countries. The North-South agenda has changed little in the years since the Rio Summit, when sustainable development hit the headlines. Progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals in the wake of the global 'credit crunch' is acknowledged as 'sluggish' or 'negative', as 'economic growth, diminished resources, fewer trade opportunities for developing countries, and possible reductions in aid flows from donor nations threaten to reverse whatever gains have been made (Millennium Development Goals Report 2009).
An appraisal of the responses of the orthodox approach to its critics
During 2000, a series of official '+ 5' mini-conferences was held, such as Rio + 5, Copenhagen + 5, and Beijing + 5, to assess progress in specific areas since the major UN conferences five years earlier. The assessments suggested that the international community had fallen short in its efforts to operationalize conference action plans and to mainstream these concerns in global politics For example, a critical reading of Beijing suggests that the conference represented a continuation of the attempts of the 1970s and 1980s to integrate women into prevailing development practice (so-called 'WID' or 'women in development'), in other words to increase their economic opportunities within the existing economic system. This stands in contrast to an attempt fundamentally to alter the social and economic power of women relative to men, which would require a transformation in prevailing development practice via the promotion of a gender and development ('GAD') approach. The World Bank's own assessment of its mainstreaming of gender, undertaken by the Social Development Task Force in 1996, concluded that gender concerns are not incorporated systematically into projects and are regarded by many as 'add-ons'.
Voices of criticism are growing in number and range. Even among supporters of the mainstream approach, voices of disquiet are heard as the maldistribution of the benefits of economic liberalism is increasingly seen to have been a threat to local, national, regional, and even global order. Moreover, the social protest that accompanies economic globalization is regarded by some as a potential obstacle to the neo-liberal project. Thus supporters of globalization are keen to temper its most unpopular effects by modification of neo-liberal policies. Small but nevertheless important changes are taking place. For example, the World Bank has guidelines on the treatment of indigenous peoples, resettlement, the environmental impact of its projects, gender, and on disclosure of information. It is implementing social safety nets when pursuing structural adjustment policies, and it is promoting microcredit as a way to empower women. With the IMF, it developed a Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative to reduce the debt burden of the poorest states. Whether these guidelines and concerns really inform policy, and whether these new policies and facilities result in practical outcomes that impact on the fundamental causes of poverty remains unclear, however.
J     caroline thomas - tony evans
There is a tremendously long way to go in terms of gaining credence for the core values of the alternative model of development in the corridors of power, nationally and internationally. Nevertheless, the alternative view, marginal though it is, has had some noteworthy
successes in modifying orthodox development. These may not be insignificant for those whose destinies have up till now been largely determined by the attempted universal application of a selective set of local, essentially Western, values.
• Development is a contested concept. The orthodox or mainstream approach and the alternative approach reflect different values.
• Development policies over the last sixty years have been dominated by the mainstream approach-embedded liberalism and, more recently, neo-liberalism-with a focus on growth.
1 The last two decades of the twentieth century saw the
flourishing of alternative conceptions of development based on equity, participation, empowerment, sustainability, etc., with input especially from NGOs and grass-roots movements and some parts of the UN.
• The mainstream approach has been modified slightly and has incorporated the language of its critics (e.g. pro-poor growth).
• Gains made during the last two decades may be reversed as the full consequences of the global 'credit crunch' emerge.
Hunger
Although 'the production of food to meet the needs of a burgeoning population has been one of the outstanding global achievements of the post-war period' (ICPF 1994:
104, 106), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that over one billion people will remain hungry during 2010 (http://www.fao.org). The current
Global Hunger Index
| > 30.0 extremely alarming
□ 20.0-29.9 alarming ■ 10.0-19.9 serious
| 1.5-9.9 low to moderate hunger | no data
□ excluded from GHI
Figure 28.5 World hunger map, 2006
Chapter 28 Poverty, development, and hunger
World population growth, in Billions Number of Years to add each billion (year)
First Billion Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Seventh Eighth Ninth
All of Human History
(1800)
123 (1930)
33 (1960)
[ 14(1974) I 13 (1987) I 12 (1999) J 14(2013) 15(2028) I 26 (2054)
Figure 28.6 World population growth from 1800 with projections to 2050
Most populous countries, 2003
Most populous countries. 2050
Rank	Country	Population (millions)		Rank	Country	Population (millions)
1	China	1,289		1	India	1,628
2	India	1,069		2	China	1,394
3	United States	292		3	United States	422
4	Indonesia	220		4	Pakistan	349
5 . -, .	Brazil	176		5	Indonesia	316
6	Pakistan	149		6	Nigeria	307
7	Bangladesh	147		I	Bangladesh.:	255
8	Russia	146		8	Brazil	221
9	Nigeria	134		9 ;	Congo, Dem. Rep. of	■ 181
10	Japan	128		10	Ethiopia	173
Figure 28.7 Most populous countries, 2003, with projections to 2050
depth of hunger across different world regions is shown in Figure 28.5. While famines may be exceptional phenomena, hunger is ongoing. Why is this so?
Broadly speaking, there are two schools of thought with regard to hunger: the orthodox, nature-focused approach, which identifies the problem largely as one of overpopulation, and the entitlement, society-focused approach, which sees the problem more in terms of distribution. Let us consider each of these two approaches in turn.
The orthodox, nature-focused explanation of hunger
The orthodox explanation of hunger, first mapped out by Thomas Robert Malthus in his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798, focuses on the relationship between human population growth and the food supply. It asserts that population growth naturally outstrips the growth in food production, so that a decrease in the per capita availability of food is inevitable, until eventually