DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

COLLEGE OF AFRICAN WILDLIFE

MANAGEMENT, MWEKA

BACHELOR DEGREE IN WILDLIFE TOURISM

&
BACHELOR DEGREE IN WILDLIFE
MANAGEMENT
What is Development?

• Development is a term that often has different

meaning for different people and hence different
theoretical perspectives.

• Goran Hyden (1994) correctly points out that

development is the product of human efforts.

• As a result, it has both its architects and auditors.

• The former are typically persons with a vision,

wedded more or less explicitly to a given ideology.

• Depending on both context and timing, ideas may

or may not go are in shaping the development of a

given society.
• The principal auditors of development are
academics.

• Their task is to assess, within a given theoretical

perspective, how successful the architects are in
shaping the process of social change according to
their own modules.
• There are those who tend to confuse development
with economic development.

• Economic growth is thus the key indicator of

development. This is the view that is held by many
economists and western liberal scholars.
• Their analysis is founded on the works of classical
economists including Adam Smith and David
Ricardo.

• This perspective of development thus consider rise

in the per capita income, Gross Domestic Product
{GDP}, increase in the level of investment, markets,
etc as indicators of development.
• A developed economy is considered to be one that
carries on production with a large amount of capital
investment, a large amount of machinery and using
advanced techniques.
• The available human and other resources are
employed to the maximum; consequently, the
production efficiency is very high leading to high
per capita incomes.
• This is development! In an underdeveloped
economy, production is carried on with relatively
small amount of capital and usually with primitive
and old techniques.
• The application of scientific and technological
improvements to production is limited.
• As a result, the real incomes per head of population
and standards of living are usually low.
• Here there is little/slow development!
• There are others who consider development as a
process of class struggle.
• “The history of all hitherto existing society is the
history of class struggles.
• Others see development in terms of politics:
democracy and freedom of the individual to
participate in politics is viewed as a fundamental
cornerstone of development - thus political
development is given overall emphasis.
• There are also those who emphasize the social
aspect of development and hence view the process
of development as a process of human progress.
• From the above one can note that there are
different perspectives on development that is the
term development has different meanings.
• It is however evident that Development is a multi-
dimensional concept.
• Even if you concentrate on some aspect of it, for
instance, on economic development, there are a
number of other dimensions, which must be taken
into account in order to get a comprehensive
understanding of the concept of development.
• One has to deal with development in a wider
sense, including the economic, social, cultural and
political aspects with the economy.