The Human Dimensions of the Global Development Process in the Early Part of the Twenty-first Century: Critical Trends and New Challenges

Abstract

Development may be measured in economic aggregates and the achievements of the different countries can be reflected in GDP statistics, but the human dimensions are of central importance, both as objectives and as input factors. This truism has been often forgotten in the international debates about the global changes and challenges. It is particularly important in the twenty-first century to include human dimensions in the analysis of changes which are influencing the global development process in this new era. In fact, all aspects of development, progress or decline are related to human actions and influence the life of human beings. Some of these changes have, however, more direct influence on it, while others may be more indirect. The process itself is embedded in a global social, political,cultural and economic environment with interdependencies and feedback between these processes.

To allow the market mechanism to be the sole director of the fate of human beings and their environment, indeed, even of the amount and use of purchasing power, would result in the demolition of society … Robbed on the protective covering of cultural institutions, human beings would perish from the effects of social exposure; they would die as the victims of acute social dislocation through vice, perversion, crime and starvation. Nature would be reduced to its elements, neighbourhoods and landscapes defiled, rivers polluted, military safety jeopardized, the power to produce food and raw materials destroyed. (Polanyi 1957; quoted in Leys 2001: 4)