What Matters

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Reinert
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Education Services ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Security Services ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
Development Perspective ◽  
Critical Link

This introductory chapter introduces the basic goods approach and its relationship to the standard growth perspective and the capabilities/human development perspective. It defines basic goods and services as those that meet central and objective human needs and argues in favor of sustained attempts that achieve their universal provision. It identifies a set of basic goods that includes nutritious food, clean water, sanitation, health services, education services, housing, electricity, and human security services. The chapter argues that what really matters about growth is the possibility that it will lead to an increase in the broad-based provision of basic goods and services. The hoped-for expansion of human capabilities and development is predicated on this expanded provision of basic goods, and the expanded provision of basic goods and services also can promote growth. In these ways, basic goods and services are a critical link between growth and human development.

No Small Hope

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Reinert
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Minimal Set ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Global Policy ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Security Services ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
The Many ◽  
Development Perspective ◽  
Critical Link

This book argues in favor of an approach to global policy priorities that emphasizes the attempt to put a minimal set of basic goods and services into the hands of everyone. This universal provision of basic goods and services includes nutritious food, clean water, sanitation, health services, education services, housing, electricity, and human security services. The book argues that this policy focus is appropriate both for practical and ethical reasons, but that success in this provision will not be easy and therefore is no small hope. Basic goods and services meet central and objective human needs. The basic goods approach tries to form a bridge between the standard growth perspective on development and the capabilities/human development perspective. What really matters about growth is the possibility that growth will lead to an increase in the broad-based provision of basic goods and services, an outcome that is not always guaranteed. The hoped-for expansion of human capabilities and development is predicated on this expanded provision of basic goods, and the expanded provision of basic goods and services also can promote growth. In these ways, basic goods and services are critical link between growth and human development. The book explores each of the identified basic goods and services, the basic rights to them, and the many challenges to be overcome in their expanded provision.

Basic Goods

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Reinert
Keyword(s):  
Clean Water ◽  
Education Services ◽  
Global Policy ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Security Services ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
Human Need ◽  
Subsistence Rights

This chapter describes the basic goods approach to global policy priorities. It reviews the treatment of human need in political philosophy, economics, and social policy and defines basic goods as those goods and services that meet objective human needs. The chapter identifies a set of basic goods that includes nutritious food, clean water, sanitation, health services, education services, housing, electricity, and human security services. It gives a sense of the magnitudes of deprivations for each of these basic goods. The chapter goes on to link the basic goods approach to minimalist ethics and subsistence rights, to assess the role of basic goods provision in growth processes, and to assess general approaches to basic goods provision.

Public Financing of Human Development in India: A Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-81
Author(s):  
Sacchidananda Mukherjee ◽  
Shivani Badola
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Public Investment ◽  
Public Financing ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Economic Opportunities ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Public Transfers ◽  
Distribution Of Resources

Role of public financing of human development (HD) is inevitable, especially for developing countries like India where access to resources and economic opportunities are not equitably distributed among people. Governments aim to achieve equity in distribution of resources through allocative and redistributive policies whereas macroeconomic stabilisation policies aim to achieve higher economic growth and stability in the price level. Expenditure policies of the governments envisage in delivering larger public goods and services to enable people to take part in economic activities by investing in human capital and infrastructure developments. Progressivity of the tax system helps in achieving equity by redistribution of resources among people. Being merit goods, expenditures on education, health, and poverty eradication make it a case for public investment which empowers people to improve human capital. The benefit of universal economic participation is expected to contribute in larger mobilisation of public resources over time. Lack of economic opportunities and earning a respectable income may increase dependence on public transfers which may reduce fiscal space of the governments to finance programmes to promote overall economic growth. The objective of this article is to review existing studies on public financing of HD in India and highlight emerging challenges.

scholarly journals The Impact of Employment Quality and Housing Quality on Human Development in the European Union

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 969
Author(s):  
Marina Checa-Olivas ◽  
Bladimir de la Hoz-Rosales ◽  
Rafael Cano-Guervos
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Housing Quality ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Time Work ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Employment Quality ◽  
The Impact

This study aims to contribute new information on how and through which factors employment quality and housing quality can be improved from a human development approach so that people can live the life they want. Using the human capabilities approach as a theoretical reference framework, the article analyses the effect of involuntary part-time employment and overcrowded housing on the Human Development Index (HDI). The empirical analysis is based on the panel data technique, which is applied to data from the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for the 28 member countries of the European Union. The results shed new evidence on how involuntary part-time work and overcrowded housing limit or hinder people from living the lives they want, at least in the dimensions measured by the HDI.

scholarly journals EDUCATING WOMEN FOR DEVELOPMENT: THE ARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2005 AND THE PROBLEM WITH WOMEN'S CHOICES

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 122a-122a
Author(s):  
Fida J. Adely
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Women's Development ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
Human Development Report ◽  
Women And Education ◽  
Shed Light

The Arab Human Development Report 2005, the fourth in a series that has received much acclaim and stirred much controversy, takes up the issue of women's development in the Arab world. Through a careful reading and analysis of sections of the report that address education and economic participation, this paper offers a critique of the human capabilities framework that frames this report. I highlight critical tensions between the claim that providing education is an essential element of expanding choices and the assumptions embedded in discussions about women and education regarding which choices are acceptable and/or desirable. These tensions point to the persistence of values derived from the mandates of global capital, albeit in the new language of neoliberal choice, revealing that ‘human development’ does not represent a significant departure from earlier conceptualizations of development. I draw on my ethnographic research in Jordan as one example to interrogate such assumptions and to shed light on the ambiguities built into the educational project for young women today.

Strategies for Teaching Elders From a Human Development Perspective

1996 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
JESSIE H. AHRONI
Keyword(s):  
Health Status ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Diabetes Education ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Coping Resources ◽  
Healthcare Team ◽  
Bodily Function ◽  
Development And Aging ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Development Perspective

Diabetes is a disease that challenges all people to learn, change, and develop. Older people can be taught about diabetes from a human development perspective using Erikson's psychosocial theory of development. Developmental changes in appearance, bodily function, and health status confront almost all persons in later years. If an individual does not have coping resources or a history of successful coping, changes in health status during aging can constitute serious crises. It is important to look at and work with individuals from the context of their entire life cycle rather than in a fixed period of time. The diabetes healthcare team can make more effective use of the theories of human development and aging to enhance the effectiveness of diabetes education for the elderly.

Pushed to the Edge

2020 ◽  
pp. 107-134
Author(s):  
Anne Marie Baylouny
Keyword(s):  
Market Access ◽  
International Community ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
International Donors

This chapter recounts how Jordan and Lebanon changed their policies toward the Syrians, becoming more restrictive as they increased their overt scapegoating of the refugees. It analyses the restrictive policies toward Syrians that were interpreted by aid and international donors as signaling the need for more aid in order to prevent Syrians from leaving their host countries and heading to Europe. It also elaborates how the London Compacts traded massive aid, market access, and preferential loans from the international community in return for work permits to the refugees. The chapter explains how Jordan and Lebanon made fiscal changes that generated more protests and turned into systemic indictments of the regimes. It highlights new austerity policies in Lebanon and Jordan that spurred mass protests over taxes, the removal of subsidies, and the numerous continuing grievances over basic goods and services.

Alternatives to Commodification

2021 ◽  
pp. 135-158
Author(s):  
Christoph Hermann
Keyword(s):  
Use Value ◽  
Market Exchange ◽  
Separate Section ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Exchange Value ◽  
Alternative Vision ◽  
Private Profit

This chapter discusses alternatives to commodification. The opposite of commodification is de-commodification. De-commodification imposes limits on the commodity character of goods and services traded on markets, but it does not provide for an alternative. Following an understanding of commodification as subjugation of use value to market/exchange value, the chapter argues that an alternative must seek to “free” use value and reinstate it as the primary goal of production. Or put differently, an alternative to commodification must focus on the satisfaction of human needs rather than the expansion of private profit. Three elements are crucial for the promotion of (collective and ecological) use value: democratization, sustainability, and solidarity. The chapter discusses each one in a separate section. It then brings the three elements together into an alternative vision that is called use-value society.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document