Dialogue in Pursuit of Development - Are you looking for one of ...

(Rodenstein-Rodan, Harrod-Domar and the highly influential Rostow) and
the simplistic supposition that the process of development everywhere followed
a similar pattern regardless of local conditions and enabling circumstances.
The gap-filling approach was underlined by the assumption that
poor countries would be provided with temporary support in terms of capital,
skills and structures that would quickly enable them to provide for themselves.
From being an unquestionable end, development is now at centre stage
under harsh scrutiny. So is development aid, which is criticized for eroding
ownership and commitment and thus not only distorting the incentive structures
in developing countries, but also undermining the functional capabilities
of national actors, creating dependence and subordination instead of
independence and sustainability. Aid relationships are found to be asymmetric,
discontinuous, and distorted, which is exemplified and compounded
by the language of development contaminated with metaphors of hierarchy
and inequality: aid, assistance, developed/developing, donors/recipients, etc.
(Ribeiro, 2002).
The shift of control and power from the intended beneficiaries of aid to
the providers has been generated by the fact that the financing of development
programs comes from the supplier and not the receiver (Morgan, 2001).
Moreover, disparities in power and infringement of non-development agendas
have led to the wrong structure in aid relations, deforming and turning
them upside down. As a result, international agents are often much more
responsive and accountable to their domestic stakeholders than they are to
the countries they are trying to assist. Implementing agencies, for their part,
often answer to those who pay them. And, recipient governments in turn
can find themselves more accountable to the international funding community
than they are to their own electorate (Morgan, 2001). Thus, over the
years, development institutions have emerged as bureaucracies of different
size and complexity that operate on the basis of power and, according to
critical voices, can create development objects rather than partners (Ribeiro,
2002).
Recent years have witnessed a shift of emphasis in the development discourse.
From crude cold war rationale of ‘no questions asked’ we are moving
towards a focus on effectiveness and results. And central to the debate is
the issue of how linear development is and how much room should be
given to the actors of a particular society to exercise their choices. The perspective
of development as expansion of human capabilities highlights the
interdependence of freedoms and their constructive role in development.
Human capabilities are influenced not only by economic opportunities, but
also by political freedoms, social facilities, and the enabling conditions of
good health, basic education and the encouragement and cultivation of initiatives
(Sen, 2002). All of these freedoms and opportunities are complementary
to one another, and reinforce each other. For example, political and
41