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Development: The most important challenge facing the modern human race

Bhuwan Thapaliya - 4/26/2007

Development has seen a lot of changes in the last three decades. Vast developments are occurring in the First world while Third world nations are shrinking. This has become a strain on the development. Hence, considering this, the present development statistics of the world needs to be seen in a proper context.

Despite the vast opportunities created by the technological and the social revolutions of the twentieth century, development, as it was then is yet the most important challenge facing the modern human race. The task is daunting, but by no means hopeless.

During the past thirty years many developing countries have achieved progress at an impressive pace. Many have achieved gains in health, transport, and education. Some have seen their average incomes rise at a rapid pace that is extraordinary by historical standards. So rapid and sustained development is no hopeless dream, but an achievable reality.

Nonetheless, many countries have done poorly, much below their standard, and in some nations such as North Korean living standards have actually fallen during the past thirty years. That is why poverty remains such a formidable problem in the contemporary world.

Analysts argue that substantial economic progress has yet to touch millions of people and the sharp contrast between the success and failure is the dilemma of the World Development.

Why have country experiences been so different? What must developing countries do if the productivity and well being of their peoples are to increase rapidly during the next decade? What can international community do to spur development and alleviate poverty?

These questions are all the more pressing because mammoth percentage of the increase in the world’s labor force during the next decades will occur in the developing world according to the research reports.

The processes driving economic development are by no means fully understood but history shows, above all, that economic policies and institutions are crucial. This is encouraging, because it implies that the countries which have failed to prosper can do better. But it is also challenging because it obliges governments everywhere to take account of the factors that have promoted development and put them to work.

However, a consensus is gradually forming in favor of a market friendly approach to development. If markets can work well, and are allowed to, there can be a substantial economic gain. If markets fail, and governments intervene cautionally and judiciously in response, there is a further gain.

But if the two are brought together, the evidence suggests that the whole is greater than the sum. When markets and governments have worked in harness, the results have been spectacular, but when they have worked in opposition, the results have been disastrous.

Moreover, sustainable development requires peace much more than the market. War and its aftermath in the Middle East have cast a cloud of uncertainty over that region. Ethnic strife, civil wars, and international conflicts, as well as natural disasters, continue to destroy the fragile base of development in many parts of the world.

Far and away, the most important cause of famine in developing countries in recent years has been not inadequate countries in recent years has been not inadequate agricultural output or poverty, but military conflict.

Rapid development also requires that economic integration expand for all. The boundaries that separate national markets for goods, capital and labor have continued to be eroded. Global integration in trade, investment, factor flows, technology, and communication has been trying economics together. But it remains to be seen whether this trend will continue.

The challenge of development, in the broadest sense, is to improve the quality of life. Especially in the world’s poor countries, a better quality of life generally alls for higher incomes – but it involves much more.

The recent slowdown in many industrial countries and renewed economic uncertainty has cast a cloud over the global prospects for development. The task if formidable: for many of the world’s poorest countries, decades of rapid growth will be needed to make inroads on poverty.

But yet rapid development is greater today than at any time in history. And policymakers have a better understanding than before of the options for development. Radical change is under way in the global economy.

Economic history shows that it is possible for countries to develop rapidly and indeed that for many countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia the pace of change has accelerated. But unfortunately, despite the dramatic progress in some countries, the differences in per capita incomes are vast across countries and regions.

Meanwhile, the key to global development has been the diffusion of technological progress. New technology has allowed resource to be used more productively, causing incomes to rise and the quality of life to improve. But nonetheless, the world economy has been stirred times and again by the fatigue of civil war and ethnic conflicts.

The recent down pour of violence in the Middle East, conflict in Russian Federations , Iraq war, and thenuclear tensions swayed furthermore by the ever polarizing world views regarding Iran and North Korea has diffused the pace of the global economy.

Hence, considering this status quo, the World Bank has failed to drive the impetus of its ambitious millennium development goals. And this begs the key question: what is the difference between competent and incompetent development? The issue remains controversial as political instability diminishes the return on development and the growth of output, as many studies have suggested.

Most of the world’s economics are badly managed and when economics are badly managed, investments in people go to waste. Today, most of the nations lag behind other economics of the West as a result of highly protectionist domestic policies and years of authoritarian rule, which squandered foreign borrowings and undermined domestic entrepreneurship.

Development requires a careful balancing of the market, technology, and human resources, across a broad range of public and private policies, as empirical evidence suggests that the global economic trends of the 21st century have shaken the world of its unlimited economic unexplored boundaries.