Basic needs: Some unsettled questions

Though the large basic needs literature has clarified some issues related to anti-poverty strategies, it has also raised others. This paper identifies some of these unsettled questions: (1) who is to determine basic needs? (2) do basic needs refer to the conditions for a full, long and healthy life or to a specific bundle of goods and services that are deemed to provide opportunity for these conditions? (3) what is the purpose of participation? what form should it take? how does a right to participate (if it exists) relate to the political/administrative structures necessary for efficient implementation of basic needs approach? (4) what is the relationship between the redistribution approach to development and the basic needs approach? does the basic needs approach require fundamental systemic change, or is it a palliative? (5) what is the relation between meeting basic needs as an end in itself and as an instrument for developing human resources? (6) in what manner should international support for basic needs approaches be mobilized? (7) what is the relation between poverty eradication and reducing income inequalities?     

Basic human needs: The plateau curve

The satisfaction of basic human needs in developing countries follows a nonlinear curve relative to per capita income, asymptotically approaching a limiting level. Within this general relationship, some countries are more ‘efficient’ than others in improving basic needs at lower per capita income levels. Infant mortality rates in 116 countries, from 1950 to 1980, are analyzed to identify factors affecting a country's efficiency in reaching infant mortality targets relative to its Gross Domestic Product per capita. The determinants of efficiency include export structure, internal distribution, late development and access to education. Implications for development policy are discussed.     

Basic needs: The case of Sri Lanka

This article has two related objectives: to judge Sri Lanka's success in meeting its ‘basic needs’ and growth objectives, and to use Sri Lanka's experience to cast light on general hypotheses regarding basic needs. The analysis suggests that Sri Lanka's social expenditures had a substantial cost in growth and unemployment. However, largely because of these social programmes, it has the best social indicators, compared to its income, of any country for which data are available. Its growth has, surprisingly, been above average for low-income countries. Implications for basic-needs programmes include the need to ‘target’ social programmes, the high priority of primary education and the potential high impact, but also high costs, of assuring minimum caloric intakes.     

Basic needs and human rights

This paper discusses the relationship between basic needs and human rights and addresses such questions as: is the satisfaction of basic needs a human right? or, are human rights themselves basic needs? are there basic needs other than material needs which embrace human rights? do the respect for rights and the satisfaction of needs go together or car there be conflict? The paper attempts to distinguish between a variety of ‘rights’ — positive, negative; social, economic, political, civil — and to clarify the best means by which to achieve maximum fulfilment of these ‘rights’.     

Basic needs policies and population growth

Multiple regression analysis is applied to a newly-published body of cross-country data: (a) to re-examine the effects on fertility of infant mortality, education, and the degree of equality of the income distribution; (b) to test for the existence of a lag between the decline in fertility; (c) to investigate whether interaction effects occur. It is found that basic needs oriented policies may indeed bring about an eventual decline in fertility rates as well as mortality rates — but that the full long-run effect of such policies on population growth is likely to depend crucially on the length and time-shape of the lag between the fertility and mortality reductions.     

Defence and development: Some thematic issues

Armed forces are, in many developing countries, configured for very restricted and traditional roles. Often their considerable organisational capabilities and human resource expertise are not fully harnessed to the broader developmental objectives of the country concerned. The capabilities of armed forces and their considerable resources can, potentially, be utilised in a much wider arena than simply in the role of territorial defence. Numerous pros and cons can be attached to this expanded deployment of the armed forces and such deployment is critically dependent on the peculiarities of the country, as reflected in its political culture and its history. It is argued in this article that the collateral utility of the South African National Defence Force is far wider than that which present government policy permits. The effective utilisation of this capability, however, will depend on a high level of political will within government to do so, the revision of existing government policy in this regard, and the effective coordination of these expanded defence efforts within a broader human security policy.     

Community economic development: Some critical issues

Community development is an issue of continuing interest not only because of the need for more successful economic development within our cities, but because the survival of a significant portion of African-American poor is at stake. Community development planning seeks to improve all aspects of community life, including health, education, crime prevention, employment and training, business development, family stability, and housing. Community economic development must arise from our black churches, historically black colleges and universities, African-American officials, business leaders, teachers, and health and welfare professionals. In the real world, where group welfare functions are interdependent, only two possible long-term outcomes are both just and stable: win-win or lose-lose. Consequently, there is a need for significant Pareto improvements in all social programs. There are roles for both race-specific and race-neutral policies because long-term Pareto improvements can result both from programs such as targeted minority employment and training as well as color-blind policies that encourage legislators to forgo the coffers of the gun lobby and control the sale and use of guns. The paper will focus on the historical logic of public policy as reflected in housing policy, financing mechanisms under community development corporations, and the issue of an urban underclass. By reestablishing its commitment to the inner cities, the government can redress the onerous impact of two and a half decades of social and economic neglect and private investment re-trenchment.     

Capitalist exploitation and black labor: Some conceptual issues

Summary and Conclusion The preceding discussion sets up, on a systematic theoretical basis, the precise analytical meaning of the concept of exploitation. This concept is shown to have meaning with reference to the process of production of surplus value and its appropriation as profits, interest, rent, taxes, etc. within a system of capitalist relations based on free exchange of commodities, including labor power, and dominance of capital over property and production. Exploitation is located within the sphere of the use of labor-power in production and in the context of the capital-labor relation as a specific form of class relation peculiar to capitalism. It is shown to be consistent with market relations of free exchange.     

Speculation and the crawling peg: Some further issues

Summary This paper shows that managed float exchange rate systems may be beset by problems of dynamic instability, given a combination of high capital mobility and minimally rational expectations. This is especially the case if the authorities index the rate of real appreciation/depreciation to either the overall rate of reserve accumulation or the level of reserves. A possible route out of this dilemma is to index the rate of real appreciation to the level of the nominal trade surplus.I have benefited from discussions with Jay Levin and from the helpful comments of an anonymous referee. All remaining errors are my sole responsibility.     

Telecommunications and the local economy: Some emerging policy issues

This paper provides a brief overview of the issues which surround local economic development and telecommunications. The implications of telecommunications for urban and regional development in the present “information-based” era are outlined and the seven basic features of this development are described. Some necessary steps and conceptual approaches to developing specifically local development policies in this new area are then expounded by way of the development of a “framework for the local policy maker”. Finally, several leading attempts at developing locally controlled telecommunications infrastructures in the UK, as agents of economic and social development, are briefly analysed.     

Basic needs or comprehensive development: Should the UNDP have a development strategy?

The basic needs strategy turns out, on examination, not to be a development strategy at all. Most versions neglect the most basic of all development needs–the need for structural transformation as well as a quantum jump in modern industry and modern technology. Considerations of equity, indispensable as they are, do not require that consumption goals be placed ahead of all others. A society is entitled to set its priorities for consumption as part of an overall programme for comprehensive change and development, recognizing that a choice may have to be made between the earliest possible attainment of minimum standards of living and a more rapid and secure advance in such standards in future. International agencies should not take strong positions on such matters, and should concentrate their efforts in the areas where their experience and competence lie.     

Educating the international manager: Some issues in the African context

This article sets out what the author perceives as the goals which transnational corporations (TNCs) and, therefore, their managers, have in Africa; indicates how he sees these goals as interacting with those of Africans and African states, giving special attention to areas of present or potential conflict and to how these may be reduced; reflects briefly on possible future scenarios concerning international managers and the relations of them and their firms with Africans and African governments.     

Basic needs,agropolitan development,and planning from below

Current treatment of ‘basic needs’ programmes as mere adjuncts to main-stream growth strategies leads to but another version of the well-known strategy of redistribution with growth. The result is emphasis on short-run improvements in consumption levels of target groups below the ‘poverty line’ while primary allocations and effort are devoted to growth in GNP. Distinct from this main-line approach, a normative theory is proposed in which production and distribution would be encompassed within the context of face-to-face political decision-making in appropriately sized ‘agropolitan’ districts. Decision on economic activities would thus be subordinated to a territorial will in an act of reciprocal entitlement between individual and community.     

Basic needs: An assessment of education and nutritional status in two villages of Venda

A basic needs survey was conducted among people living on two agricultural smallholder schemes in Venda. The paper describes the research methodology and assesses the availability of education and the nutritional status of respondents on these two schemes.

Neither the availability of formal schooling nor extension work is satisfactory. The situation regarding primary education has improved over the last few years and almost every child in the survey area goes to school. This seems to be an indication of changing attitudes among parents, increased money available for schooling, as well as greater financial commitments from the Government. However, informal training through extension is carried out only on an irregular basis.

An assessment of the frequency of consumption of various foodstuffs suggests an emphasis on carbohydrates at the expense of proteins, minerals and vitamins. Villagers interviewed indicated that food is in short supply and that allocation of additional land could assist in overcoming these shortages.     

Some neglected issues in factor proportions and ownership: An Indonesian case study

Conclusion The purpose of this article has been to examine a number of issues frequently overlooked in the large literature on factor proportions and ownership in LDC manufacturing, with reference to a rich data set from Indonesia. Substantial differences in factor proportions among ownership groups confirm the conclusions of most other studies. This paper departs from a significant portion of the general literature in four respects: it introduces a systematic decomposition technique for distinguishing between differences within industries and those arising from compositional differences; it has emphasised the importance of finely disaggregated industrial classifications, without which interfirm comparisons may generate quite misleading results; it has highlighted the need to develop more elaborate ownership definitions than the simple foreign-domestic dichotomy commonly employed; and it has cast doubt on the validity of the frequent assertion that differences in factor proportions are attributable principally to variations in relative factor prices among ownership groups. Our conclusions are inevitably restricted by the focus on just one country. However, they have some general applicability given the quality of the Indonesian data base, and the nature of its industrial policy environment - especially high manufacturing protection and a relatively liberal foreign investment code - which is replicated in other developing countries.     

区域经济政策研究中的若干基本理论问题

本文着眼于构建区域经济政策分析体系,针对目前国内学术界在基本理论认识上存在的分歧,依次分析了:不同经济体制下区域政策产生的动因;不同经济体制下区域政策覆盖范围和主要功能的差异;不同经济体制下区域政策多元目标的异同;不同经济体制下区域政策存在形式的差异。最后,本文对几个重要分析概念的理解和使用问题做了讨论。     

关于中国经济若干基本问题的思考

从上世纪80年代开始,中国逐渐引进借鉴宏观经济学.在相当长的时间里,我们争论的是基本概念和原理.至于应用于中国经济分析,困难就更多了,最大的问题是,研究的对象本身并不是一个市场经济体系.     

Diffusion of rural innovations: Some analytical issues and the case of wood-burning stoves

The literature on the diffusion of rural innovations in Third World countries reveals a spectrum of approaches to the diffusion process. It is argued here that the effectiveness of a particular approach in the diffusion of particular innovations would depend on the technical, the economic and the social characteristics of the innovations. A typology of innovations in terms of these characteristics has been drawn up. This provides the analytical framework within which the instance of wood-burning stoves is concerned. A priori, the characteristics of this innovation are seen to be such as to necessitate the close involvement of the users in the design process itself; they point to the likely inappropriateness of the usual ‘top-down’ approach to diffusion. Available evidence relating to actual experience with promoting wood-burning stoves is seen to bear this out.     

滨海新区经济可持续发展的几个问题

一、背景、现实与滨海新区的选择 第一,滨海新区开发与深圳、浦东开发时的宏观经济政治背景的不同,注定了中央扶持政策以及政策效应相对有限.