Alternative Development

Alternative Development
Alternative development has been concerned with
alternative practices of development - participatory and
people-centred- and with redefining the goals of
development.
NGOs now play key roles on the ground and in
development co-operation.
This success reflects not simply the strength of NGOs and
grassroots politics but also the 1980s' roll-back of the
state, the advance of market forces and the breakdown of
regulation. All the same, the goals of `development' have
been generally redefined.
Development is no longer simply viewed as GDP growth,
and human development is seen as a more appropriate
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goal and measure of development.
 Alternative Development
There are different ways of conceiving what alternative
development is about and its role.
It can be viewed as a roving critique of mainstream
development, shifting in position as the latter shifts;
as a loosely interconnected series of alternative
proposals and methodologies;
or as an alternative development paradigm, implying a
probable theoretical break with mainstream
development.
It can be viewed as concerned with local development,
with alternative practices on the ground, or as an
overall institutional challenge, and part of a global
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alternative.
 Alternative Development
Structuralist approaches, such as dependency theory
and the global Keynesian reformism of the new
international economic order, emphasize
macroeconomic change, whereas alternative
development emphasizes agency, in the sense of
people's capacity to effect social change.
In addition, dependency critiques of mainstream
development do not usually question development per
se but only dependent development (or
underdevelopment).
In the 1970s, dissatisfaction with mainstream
development crystallized into an alternative, people-
centred approach. 4
 Alternative Development
According to the 1975 report of the Dag Hammarskjold
Foundation, `What Now? Another Development',
development should be: `geared to the satisfaction of
needs', `endogenous and self-reliant' and `in harmony with
the environment'.
This approach has been carried further both under the
heading of basic needs and of alternative development.
Over the years, it has been reinforced by and associated
with virtually any form of criticism of mainstream
developmentalism,
such as anti-capitalism, green thinking, feminism, eco-
feminism, democratization, new social movements,
Buddhist economics, cultural critiques, and
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poststructuralist analysis of development discourse.
 Alternative Development
`Alternative' generally refers to three spheres- agents, methods
and objectives or values of development.
According to Nerfin (1977), alternative development is the
terrain of citizen, or `Third System' politics, the importance of
which is apparent in view of the failed development efforts of
government (the prince or first system) and economic power
(the merchant or second system).
Often this seems to be the key point: alternative development is
development from below.
In this context `below' refers both to `community and NGOs.
In some respects alternative development revisits Community
Development of the 1950s and 1960s.

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 Alternative Development
Alternative development is frequently identified with
development-by- NGOs; but given the wide variety of NGOs,
the equation `alternative development is what NGOs do' would
obviously be inadequate.
NGO ideology is organization-led and too limited to account for
alternative development, which involves distinctive elements
with respect to development methodology (participatory,
endogenous, self-reliant) and objectives (geared to basic
needs).
Development must be undertaken from within and geared to
basic needs.
The alternative referred to is alternative in relation to state and
market, but not necessarily in relation to the general discourse
of developmentalism.
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 Alternative Development-Features
Alternative development tends unite all dissident social forces
critical of development.
The tendency to equate development with modernization and
alternative development with de-modernization, premised on
the `incompatibility between modernization and human
development.
The tendency to view and represent alternative development as
an alternative external to the mainstream carried by different
social actors in the interstices of the mainstream and in
countries supposedly outside the thrust of western
developmentalism;
All forms of criticism of mainstream development are arraigned
together as if they form a cohesive alternative, but all good
things put together do not necessarily make a great thing.
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 Alternative Development-Mainstream
Mainstream development here refers to everyday development
talk in developing countries, international institutions and
development cooperation.
It now seems a long time since development was defined as
growth and simply measured by means of per capita GNP.
Gradually, starting with basic needs and other heterodox
approaches in the 1970s, development has been redefined as
enlargement of people's choices and human capacitation (Sen,
1985) and as if people, basic needs, health, literacy, education,
housing matter.
The Human Development Index (HDI) has become an
influential standard.
People-centred development is becoming a mainstream
position.
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 Alternative Development-weaknesses
Mainstream development' is simplified as a single,
homogeneous thrust toward modernization and its
diversity, complexity and adaptability are underestimated.
While the theoretical claim is for a dialectical relationship
between mainstream and alternatives, the actual argument
takes the form of a simple dualistic opposition and the
dialectics, the ways in which mainstream and alternatives
shape and influence one another, slip out of view.
In order to maximize the opposition between mainstream
and alternative, the appeal of the mainstream to various
constituencies is under-estimated.

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 Alternative Development-weaknesses
Alternative development has been fashionable because it
came upon a crisis in development thinking, because it
matched general doubts about the role of the state, both
among neoliberals and from the point of view of human
rights.
The `alternative' discourse was a way of being progressive
without being overly radical and without endorsing a clear
ideology;
it could be embraced by progressives and conservatives
who both had axes to grind with the role of states.
It was a low-risk way of being progressive and its structural
unclarity ensured broad endorsement.

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 Alternative Development-weaknesses
The accompanying message of deregulation and
government roll-back beautifully dovetailed with the
prevailing neoliberal outlook.
NGOs, after decades of marginality, have become
major channels of development co-operation.
Governments go non-governmental by setting up
Government Organized NGOs.
In countries such as Mozambique and Bangladesh the
resources of NGOs, domestic and international,
exceed those at the disposal of government.
.
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 Alternative Development-weaknesses
Women's concerns, once an outsider criticism, have
been institutionalized by making women and gender
preferential parts of the development package.
Capacity-building, which used to be missing in
conventional development support, is now built in as a
major objective.
Global conferences-in Rio, Vienna, Cairo,
Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul have been fora for the
alignment of official and unofficial discourses.
In other words, forms of alternative development have
become institutionalized as part of mainstream
development
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 Alternative Development-weaknesses
The big break in development now no longer runs between
mainstream and alternative development, but within
mainstream development.
Broadly speaking, the divide now runs between
mainstream and alternative development grouped under a
general umbrella of social development, on the one hand,
and the number crunching approach to development, the
positivism of growth, on the other.
A heading `alternative development' no longer makes
much sense.
It made sense in the 1970s and 1980s when there was a
clear break between mainstream development and
`another development'.
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 Alternative Development-weaknesses
`Alternative' as a heading made sense when the
relationship between mainstream and alternative was
more or less static, not fluid as it is now.
Now mainstream development has opened up and several
features of alternative development- the commitment to
participation, sustainability, equity-are being widely shared
(and unevenly practised), not merely in the world of NGOs
but from UN agencies all the way to the World Bank.

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 Alternative Development Paradigm
Alternative Development is getting ground as a result of several
trends:
(1) the enormous growth of NGOs in numbers and influence
generates a growing demand for strategy and therefore theory;
(2) the importance of environmental concerns and sustainability
has weakened the economic growth paradigm and given a
boost to alternative and ecological economics;
(3) the glaring failures of several development decades
contribute to unsettling the mainstream paradigm of growth;
(4) the growing challenges to the Bretton Woods institutions
lead to the question whether these criticisms are merely
procedural and institutional (for more participation and
democratization) or whether they involve fundamentally
different principles.
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 Alternative Development Paradigm
These diverse trends generate various lines of tension.
One line of friction runs between the general alternative
development preoccupation with local and endogenous
development and,
on the other hand, the growing demand for global
alternatives.
Globalization under the sign of the unfettered market is
denounced because it clashes with endogenous
development,
while the mushrooming of NGOs itself is a manifestation of
the growing momentum of global civil society - in other
words, represents another arm of globalization.
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 Alternative Development Paradigm
In view of its holistic aspirations, it would be desirable for
disparate alternative development knowledge pools to be
grouped together; yet in view of the different functions that
alternative development fulfils animating local development,
guiding international NGO strategy, informing global
alternatives - this will not necessarily happen.
Alternative development serves dispersed discourse
communities.
International NGOs tend to look both ways, at local grassroots
development and at global alternatives.
These different functions overlap and intersperse and it is
challenging to harmonize and requires more refection on
local/global and micro/mega interconnections.

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 Alternative Development Paradigm
Alternative development tends to be practice oriented rather
than theoretically inclined.
The world of alternative development is not a `library world'.
Part of its logic is that, as development is people-centred,
genuine development knowledge is also people's knowledge
and what counts is local rather than abstract expert knowledge.
With the local orientation comes a certain regional dispersion in
the literature, which looks like a scattered archipelago of
primary local knowledge, with little overarching refection.
Besides, alternative development travels under many aliases
appropriate development, participatory development, people-
centred development, human scale development, people's self-
development, autonomous development, holistic development;

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 Alternative Development Paradigm
many elements relevant to alternative development are
developed, not under its own banner, but under specific
headings, such as participation, participatory action research,
grassroots movements, NGOs, empowerment,
conscientization, liberation theology, democratization,
citizenship, human rights, development ethics, ecofeminism,
cultural diversity, and so forth.
Such dispersion does not facilitate the generation of a coherent
body of theory. Many alternative development sources do not
refer in any methodical way to one another, but keep on
generating alternatives from the ground up.
There is an intuitive aversion to method, to systematization and
codification, which implies a distrust of experts and even of
theory itself. This weakens the claim to deliver a different
paradigm. 20
 Alternative Development Paradigm
Alternative development is not necessarily anti-theoretical but it
is intellectually segmented.
The work of several alternative development authors can be
contextualized in terms of their social location.
Thus, David Korten is an NGO strategist who contributes both
to local development and global alternatives;
John Friedmann is primarily concerned with local and regional
planning;
Anisur Rahman mainly addresses local and grassroots
development;
Manfred Max-Neef and Hazel Henderson are alternative
economists, the former engaged with local development and
the latter with global alternatives.
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 Alternative Development Paradigm
Training, teaching and research are other contexts in which
alternative development is being articulated, across a wide
spectrum from small local institutes to university programs.
While alternative development is often referred to as a model or
paradigm, which implies an emphatic theoretical claim, what is
delivered on this score is quite uneven.
Critics of the Bretton Woods institutions as bulwarks of
mainstream developmentalism increasingly claim to present a
paradigm shift in development.
The same elements keep coming back: `equitable, participatory
and sustainable human development' (Arruda, 1994: 139).
`The new approach to development includes the values of
equity, participation and environmental sustainability, as well as
improving physical well-being (Griesgraber and Gunter, 1996:
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xiv).
 Alternative Development Paradigm
Is this sufficient as the basis of a new paradigm? It concerns
the `how to's of development rather than the nature of
development as such.
It identifies aspirations rather than attributes of development.
As such it can easily be `added on' to mainstream development
discourse and indeed often is.
Since mainstream development nowadays embraces and
advertises the same values, the outcome is a rhetorical
consensus rather than a paradigm break.
Rahman (1993) contrasts a consumerist view of development,
which treats people as passive recipients of growth, with a
creativist view, according to which people are the creative
forces of development, the means as well as the end of
development, for development is defined as people's self-
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development.
 Alternative Development Paradigm
This refers to a set of normative orientations, rather than to a
different explanatory framework. Such elements may add up to
a distinctive alternative development profile but not to a
paradigm.
Dissatisfaction with development-as-growth is an increasingly
common position.
Yet if development is not about growth, what is it? One option is
to redefine development as social transformation (Addo et al.,
1985).
In itself, development as transformation is vague because it is
like saying that development is change - change from what to
what, what kind of change? `
Institutional transformation adds some concreteness but still
needs context. Korten (1990) defines development as
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transformation towards justice, inclusiveness and sustainability.
Alternative Development Paradigm

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 Alternative Development Paradigm
Korten (1990: 113) notes that `it is impossible to be a true
development agency without a theory that directs action to the
underlying causes of underdevelopment.
In the absence of a theory, the aspiring development agency
almost inevitably becomes instead merely an assistance
agency engaged in relieving the more visible symptoms of
underdevelopment through relief and welfare measures'.
Indeed, `an organization cannot have a meaningful
development strategy without a development theory' (ibid: 114).
Korten defines development as follows: `Development is a
process by which the members of a society increase their
personal and institutional capacities to mobilize and manage
resources to produce sustainable and justly distributed
improvements in their quality of life consistent with their own
aspirations. 26
 Alternative Development Paradigm
In different wording: `The heart of development is
institutions and politics, not money and technology,
though the latter are undeniably important' (ibid: 144).
`The most fundamental issues of development are, at
their core, issues of power (ibid: 214).
This position may be distinctive enough to establish a
break with conventional development.
For Korten it constitutes a break with the various
approaches that co-opt alternative values by `adding
them on' to the growth model.

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 Alternative Development Paradigm
`The basic needs strategies that gained prominence
during the 1970s, and are still advocated by
organizations such as UNICEF, are a variant of,
usually an add-on to, a classical growth-centered
development strategy (Korten, 1990: 44).
The same applies to the approaches that have been
concerned with giving structural adjustment a `human
face'.
If we would group the elements discussed above as
an alternative development model, in contrast to a
conventional development model centred on growth,
the result might be as in the above Table.
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