COMPREHENSIVE REPORTS IN SOCIAL CHANGE

“ECONOMIC GROWTH”
I. DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS
ECONOMY
- a system especially of interaction and exchange
- the wealth and resources of a country or region, especially in terms of the production and consumption
of goods and services.
- large set of inter-related production and consumption activities that aid in determining how scarce
resources are allocated. This is also known as an economic system.
GROWTH
- The process of increasing in size.
- The process of increasing in amount, value, or importance.
- Increase in economic activity or value.
ECONOMIC GROWTH
- Economic growth is an increase in the capacity of an economy to produce goods and services,
compared from one period of time to another.
- Represents the expansion of a country’s potential GDP or national output.
- Usually associated with the increase in the absolute value of real output.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
- The advancement of a nation or society according to several economic factors. Economic development
generally includes such trends as technological innovation, improvements in the standard of life
expectancy, and increases in the amount of invested assets per capita
- More encompassing in the sense that it considers the long-term perspective of a sustained increase in
real output.
- For a development to take place, economic growth must be a long-term process. It takes years or even
decades for economic development to run its main course. As a result, the nature of the economy is
transformed, society itself is transformed.
- Development in this sense is viewed not only as an increase in overall production, but also as more
efficient labor, more productive land and capital assets and more innovative and efficient
entrepreneurship. It also considers stability in the growth process and less ups and downs.
- In the more developed countries, the issue is one of maintaining development and avoiding stagnation
GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT (GNP)
- A broad measure of a nation’s total economic activity. It is an estimated value of the total worth of
production and services by citizens of a country, on its land or foreign land, calculated over the course
of one year.
- An estimated value of the total worth of production and services by citizens of a country, on its land or
foreign land, calculated over the course of one year.
- This includes income earned by citizens and companies abroad, but does not include income earned by
foreigners within the country
GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP)
- An estimated value of the total worth of a country’s production and services, within its boundary by its
nationals and foreigners calculated over the course of one year.
- It represents the monetary value of all goods and services produced within a nation’s geographic
boarders by its nationals and foreigners, calculated over the course of one year.
- The total value of products and services produced within the territorial boundary of a country
What is the difference between GNP and GDP?
The difference between GNP and GDP is that GNP includes the value of products made by a country’s citizen
and companies abroad while GDP only accounts for products made within the country’s boarder. However,
GNP excludes the value of products made by foreign companies within the reporting country.
Examples:
1. The output of a Toyota plant in the United States is not included in the GNP although it is counted in the GDP.
Why? The revenue from the sales of Toyota cars and trucks goes to Japan even though the products are
made and sold in the United States. It is included in the GDP because it adds health to the US Economy. That
is because this creates jobs for US residents, who use their wages to buy local goods and services.
2. Shoes made in a Nike plan in Korea will be counted in the US GNP but not GDP Why? That’s because the
profits from those shoes will not boost Nike’s earnings and stock prices contributing to higher national income.
It doesn’t boost economic growth in the United States because those manufacturing jobs were outsourced.
It is the Korean workers who will boost their country’s economy and GDP by buying local goods and services.
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3. If there was a drought in the United States, GNP would be higher than GDP. Why? That’s because the foreign
holdings of US residents should be unaffected by the drought. But the US investments of foreign workers would
be affected.
- These examples show why GNP is no as commonly used as GDP as a measure of a country’s economy.
It gives a slightly inaccurate picture of how domestic resources are used.
- Also, money made by residents overseas that are sent back to their country can be an important
factor in boosting economic growth and would be counted in GNP, not GDP.
II. FACTORS AFFECTING ECONOMIC GROWTH
1. Human Resources - Labor inputs of consist of quantities of workers and of the skills of the workforce. The
quality of labor inputs – the skills, knowledge and discipline of the labor force – is the single most important
element in economic growth. A country might buy fast computers, modern telecommunication devices,
sophisticated electricity-generating equipment and hypersonic fighting aircraft. However, these capital
goods can only be effectively used by a skilled and trained worker. Improvements in literacy, health, and
discipline and most recently, the ability to use computers, add greatly to the productivity of labor.
2. Natural Resources - Important such as arable land, oil, gas, forests, water and mineral resources. Since
production is a process of applying human knowledge and capital to natural resources, in order to
produce useful output, it is clear that a nation’s productivity is greatly influenced by both the quality and
quantity of its natural resources. Though natural resources only offer raw material for economic activity,
in partnership with labor force, capital equipment and other factors of production, natural resources still
form an important instrument for economic development.
3. Capital Formation - Using more capital means increasing more the production of goods and services
Ex. Equipment and factories
4. Technological Change and Innovation - never-ending stream of inventions and technological advances
led to a vast improvement in the production possibilities of some nations.
III. COSTS OF ECONOMIC GROWTH
1. Inflation
2. Boom and Bust Economic Cycle
3. Environmental Costs
4. Inequality
IV. BENEFITS OF ECONOMIC GROWTH
1. Higher average incomes
2. Lower Unemployment
3. Lower Government Borrowing
4. Improved Public Services

“INCREASED WELFARE AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT”

Human Development
- this is expanding the richness of human life, rather than simply the richness of the economy in which human
beings live. The process of enlarging people’s freedom and opportunities and improving their well-being.
- the social and economic dimensions of a country are based on the health of people, their level of
educational attainment and their standard of living.
- In 1990, the UNDP introduced HDI as a policy tool for company development achievements between
countries and between groups, states or regions within countries overtime. The HDI ranks all countries on a
scale of 0 (lowest human development) to 1 (the highest human development). Such rankings is based on
three basic dimensions of human development, these are; a long and healthy life, access to knowledge
and a decent standard of living.
- It is an approach that is focused on:
1. PEOPLE
2. OPPORTUNITIES
3. CHOICES
INTELLECTUAL AND HISTORICAL UNDERPINNINGS
This was developed by the economist Mahbub Ul Haq who became the minister in finance at the World Bank in
1970. He argued that the existing measure of human progress failed to account for the purpose of development
and that is to improve the people’s lives. He believed that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) failed to measure
wellbeing.
SIX PILLARS OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
1. Equity – refers to making equal access to opportunities available to everybody.
2. Sustainability – continuity in the availability of opportunities.
3. Productivity – refers to human labour productivity.

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4. Empowerment – refers to the power to make decisions and to make choices.
5. Cooperation – stipulates participation and belonging to communities and groups as a means of mutual
enrichment and source of social meaning.
6. Security – offers people development opportunities freely and safely with confidence that they will not
disappear suddenly in the future.
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX (HDI)
- is a statistical tool used to measure a country’s overall achievement in its social and economic dimensions.
- this index provides an assessment of a nations achievement and helps ranking of different countries.
- The HDI is essentially a summary measurement of basic achievement levels in fundamental dimensions of
human development.
Dimensions of Human Development and its Indicators:
• State of Health or Long and Healthy Life - is reflected in the life expectancy indicator. This dimension is
measured by the life expectancy as calculated at time of birth in each country.
- Indicator: *Life Expectancy - it measures the number of years an infant is expected to live when born
in a given year. Life expectancy is the average to which a person is expected to live or it is a statistical
measure of the average time someone is expected to live.
• Knowledge and Education - is the knowledge or understanding of one’s natural, social and cultural
environment greatly increases the achievements that people can attain.
- Indicators: a. Adult literacy rate - shows the proportion of the population who have basic reading and
writing skills
b. Enrollment ratios -shows the proportion of the population who are receiving formal
education at primary, secondary and tertiary levels.
• Livelihood or Income or Decent Standard of Living - it provides for basic expenditures and can be used
for further improvement in human capabilities. It also reflects the extent to which people are productive
contributors to societal development.
- Indicators: * Gross National Income - is used to estimate income levels. It measures the value of goods
and services produced by a group of people within a year.
“PARTICIPATORY DEVELOPMENT”
Participatory Development is a process through which stakeholders can influence and share control over
development initiatives, and over the decisions and resources that affect themselves. (Asian Development Bank
(1996)). Most manifestation of PD seek “to give poor a part in initiatives designed for their benefit” in the hopes
that development projects will be more sustainable and successful if local populations are engaged in the
development process. There is some question about the proper definition of Participatory Development as it
varies depending on the perspective applied. Two perspectives that can define PD are the "Social Movement
Perspective" and the "Institutional Perspective":
Perspectives of Participatory Development
1. Social Development Perspective - Defines participation as the mobilization of people to eliminate unjust
hierarchies of knowledge, power, and economic distribution. This perspective identifies the goal of
participation as an empowering process for people to handle challenges and influence the direction of
their own lives.
2. Institutional Perspective - Defines participation as the reach and inclusion of inputs of relevant groups in the
design and implementation of a development projects. The institutional perspective uses inputs and opinions
of relevant group, or stakeholders in a community as a tool to achieve a pre-established goal defined by
someone eternal to the community involved. The development project, initiated by an activist external to
the community involved, is a process by which problem issues in a community can be divided into stages,
and this division facilitates assessment of when and to what degree a participatory approach is relevant.
Typology of Participatory Development
1. Passive participation - Is the least participatory of all the approaches. Primary stakeholders of a project
participate by being informed about what is going to happen or has already happened. People’s feedback
is minimal or non-existent, and their participation is assessed through methods like head counting and
contribution to the discussion. (Sometimes it is referred to participation by information). It is a unilateral
announcement by an administration or project management without listening to people’s responses.
2. Participation by consultation - Is an extractive process, whereby stakeholders provide answers to the
questions pose by outside researchers or expert. The external professionals define both problems and
solutions and may modify these in light of people’s responses. Such a consultative process does not concede
any share in decision making and professionals are under no obligation to take on board people’s views.
3. Participation in information giving - People participate by answering questions posed by extractive
researchers using questionnaire surveys or similar approaches. People do not have the opportunity to
influence proceedings, as the findings of the research are neither shared nor checked for accuracy.
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 4. Participation in material incentives - People participate by providing resources, for example, labor in return
for food, cash or other material incentives. Much on-farm research falls in this category, as farmer provide
the fields but are not involved in the experimentation or the process of learning. It is very common to see this
called participation, yet people have no stake in prolonging activities when the incentives end.
5. Functional participation - People participate by forming groups to meet predetermined objectives related
to the project, which can involve the development or promotion of externally initiated organizations.
6. Interactive participation - People participate in joint analysis, which leads to action plans and the formation
of new local institutions or the strengthening of existing ones. It tends to involve interdisciplinary
methodologies that seek multiple perspectives and make use of systematic and structured learning
processes. These groups take control over local decisions, and so people have stake in maintaining structures
or practices.
7. Self-mobilization - People participate by taking initiatives independent of eternal institutions to change
systems. They develop contacts with eternal institutions for resources and technical advice they need, but
retain control over how resources are used. Such self-initiated mobilization an collective action may or may
not challenge existing inequitable distributions of wealth and power.
Who are the Stakeholders?
They are the people, groups or institutions that maybe affected by, can significantly influence or are
important to the achievement of the stated purpose of a project.
The following are the stakeholder groups:
1. Civil Society Organizations - The networks, national and international NGO’s grassroots organization, trade
unions, policy development and research institutes, media, community based organizations.
2. Government - These are the civil servants in ministries, cabinets, etc.
3. General Public - Those who are directly or indirectly affected by the project. (Women’s groups, individuals and
families, indigenous groups, religious groups)
4. Representative Assemblies - Those elected government bodies. (example: parliament, national and local
assemblies, district and municipal assemblies, elected community leaders)
5. Private Sector - Umbrella groups representing groups within the private sector, professional associations,
chambers of commerce.
6. Donor and International Financial Institutions - This are the resource providers and development partners.
Participatory Approaches and Methods
1. Information Sharing - This involve disseminating information about an intended program or asking
stakeholders to give information about an intended program.
2. Consultation - It refers to people being asked for their opinion about something while development
professionals listen to their views.
3. Collaboration/ Joint Decision Making - The development professional or organization identifies the problem
or issues to be discussed, and calls a group together to collaborate on that topic.
4. Shared Control - Citizen become empowered by accepting increasing responsibility for developing and
implementing action plans that are accountable to group members and for either creating or strengthening
local institutions.
“THE STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL THEORY”
What is Structural-Functional Theory? - It is a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system
whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE - Any relatively stable pattern of social behavior.
SOCIAL FUNCTIONS - Consequences for the operations of society as a whole.
Definitions of Concepts
 SOCIAL COHESION - describes the bonds that bring people together in a society.
 SOCIAL INEQUALITY - Refers to any scenario in which individuals in a society do not have equal social
status. One possible function of inequality is to motivate people, as people are motivated to carry out
work through rewards system. Rewards may include INCOME, STATUS, PRESTIGE or POWER.
 INTERDEPENDENCE - is a central theme of structural-functionalism. It refers to the parts of society sharing
a common set of principles.
 EQUILIBRIUM - in a social context, is the internal and external balance in society.
History and Proponents of Structural- Functionalism Theory
 AUGUSTE COMTE - Who pointed out the need for social integration during a time of rapid change.
 EMILE DURKHEIM - He originally wanted to explain social institutions as a shared way for individuals in
society to meet their own biological needs. He wanted to understood the value of cultural and social
traits by explaining them in regards to their contributions to the operation of the overall system of society
and life.

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  HERBERT SPENCER - He compared society to the human body- the skeleton, muscles, and various internal
organs function interdependently to help the entire organism survive, social structures work together to
preserve society.
Talcott Parsons
 Harvard University sociologist, was a key figure in the development of functionalist theory.
 He saw any society as a vast network of connected parts, each of which helps to maintain the system as
a whole.
 He held the functional theory of stratification, the idea that hierarchical class systems and orders were
necessary for society to function.
 He viewed society as being in a natural state of equilibrium.
Thus, change in one part of the society will eventually occur in another. Therefore, adjustments must be
made in other parts. If not, society’s equilibrium will be threatened and strains will occur.
 He viewed society as a system and argued that any social system has four basic functional prerequisites:
adaptation, goal attainment, integration and pattern maintenance.
These can be seen as problems that society must solve if it is to survive. The function of any part of the social
system is understood as its contribution to meeting the functional prerequisites.
Adaptation refers to the relationship between the system and its environment.In order to survive, social systems
must have some degree of control over their environment. Food and shelter must be provided to meet the
physical needs of members. The economy is the institution primarily concerned with this function.
Goal attainment refers to the need for all societies to set goals towards which social activity is directed.
Procedures for establishing goals and deciding on priorities between goals are institutionalized in the form of
political systems. Governments not only set goals but also allocate resources to achieve them. Even in a so-called
free enterprise system, the economy is regulated and directed by laws passed by governments.
Integration refers primarily to the ‘adjustment of conflict’. It is concerned with the coordination and mutual
adjustment of the parts of the social system. Legal norms define and standardize relations between individuals
and between institutions, and so reduce the potential for conflict. When conflict does arise, it is settled by the
judicial system and does not therefore lead to the disintegration of the social system. There is a maintenance of
the basic pattern of values, and it is institutionalized in the society. Institutions that perform this function include
the family, the educational system and religion. In Parsons View “values of society are rooted in religion”.
Latency the encultured patterns of behavior required by the social system must be maintained. Peoples’
motivation must be established and renewed, and the tensions they experience as they negotiate the social
order must be managed. There is a maintenance of the basic pattern of values, and it is institutionalized in the
society. Institutions that perform this function include the family, the educational system and religion. In Parsons
View “values of society are rooted in religion”.
Talcott Parsons maintained four processes of social change that are inevitable, these includes:
1. Differentiation – refers to the increasing complexity of social organization. Societies are seen as moving from
the simple to the complex via a process of social change. It involves the increasing specialization of different
subsystems and institutions within the society.
2. Adaptive Upgrading – in which social institutions become more specialized in their purposes. Advances the
notion that as a society’s specialized subsystems become progressively differentiated, this then allows more
flexible mobilization for more varied purposes. For example: Physician, it is now divided into Pediatrician,
Surgeon, Neurologists and etc.
3. Inclusion - it is the inclusion of groups that were previously excluded because of their gender, race, ethnicity,
and social class background.
4. Value Generalization - the development of new values that tolerate and legitimate a greater range of
activities.

Summary: Process of differentiation occurs in that different functions are fulfilled by subsystems within the
social system. Second, with differentiation goes the notion of adaptive upgrading, this means that each
differentiated subsystem has more adaptive capacity compared to the non-differentiated system out of
which it emerged. Third, modern societies tend to rely upon a new system of integration. Process
differentiation implies a more urgent need for special skills. This can only be accommodated by moving from
a status based on ‘ascription’ to a status based on ‘achievement’. This implies the inclusion of previously
excluded groups. Fourth, a differentiated society needs to deploy a value system that incorporates and
regulates the different subsystems. This is made possible through value generalization the values are pitched
at a higher level in order to direct activities and functions in various subsystem

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Robert Merton - He was a functionalist and he fundamentally agreed with Parson’s theory. He pointed out that
social processes often have many functions, which are the manifest function, latent function, and dysfunction.

 Manifest Functions of institutions are open, stated, conscious functions. Example: Education also serves as an
agent of social control. Schools teach us certain values such as, obedience, discipline, perseverance, respect
and punctuality. Schools also teach us conformity and it encourages us to be good and to be a law abiding
citizen.
 Latent Functions are unconscious or unintended functions that may reflect hidden purposes of an institution.
These are the unforeseen consequences of institutions. Example: Education can be a root of courtship,
bullying, discrimination, and etc.
 Dysfunction refers to an element or process of a society that may actually disrupt the social system or reduce
its stability. We view many dysfunctional behavior patterns, such as homicide, as undesirable. Yet, we should
not automatically interpret them in this way. The evaluation of a dysfunction depends on one’s own values.
Example: The officials view in prisons in the United States is that inmate gangs should be eradicated because
they are dysfunctional to smooth operations. Yet some guards have actually come to view prison gangs as
a functional part of their jobs. The danger posed by gangs creates a threat to security, requiring increased
surveillance and more overtime work for guards, as well as requests for special staffing to address gang
problems.

Structural functionalists felt inequality was a necessary part of any working society since inequality is what they
believed kept society ticking along. Because if everyone felt equal, there would be no desire for a person to
achieve more. Without this desire for individual improvement, society as a whole would stagnate. Therefore, in
the mind of the structural functionalist, inequality functions to keep individuals striving upward. This, in turn, keeps
the structure of society not just intact but moving forward.
“MODERNIZATION THEORY” (Walt Whitman Rostow)
Definition of Modernization Theory
 A model of economic and social development that explains global inequality in terms of technological and
cultural differences between nations. It identifies tradition as the greatest barrier to economic development.
It refers to a complex set of changes that takes place as a traditional society becomes an industrial one.
Modernization theory claims that in the past the entire world was poor and that technological change,
especially the industrial revolution enhanced productivity and raised living standards in many nations. Form
this point of view, the solution to global poverty is to promote technological development and market
economies around the world.
Rostow’s Stages of Modernization
1. Traditional Stage - The economic system is stationery and dominated by agriculture which is the most
important industry during this stage with traditional cultivating forms. It is dominated by subsistence activity
and output is consumed by producers because it is not traded. Trade is barter where goods are exchanged
directly, for other goods. People socialized to honor the past because people in this societies cannot easily
imagine that life could or should be any different, they therefore build their lives around families and local
communities, following well-worn paths that allow little individual freedom or change for their lives revolved
around their family and neighborhood but although limiting range of choice, offered a strong sense of
identity, belonging and purpose. In this traditional societies model their lives on those of their ancestors, so
that “living a good life” amounts to “doing what our people have always done. In this stage, life is spiritually
rich but lacking in material goods.
2. Pre-Conditions for Take Off - During this stage the rates of investments are getting higher and they initiate a
dynamic development. There is an emergence of transport infrastructures to support trade such as irrigations
canals and ports. Entrepreneurs emerge as incomes, savings and investment grow. External trade also occurs
concentrating on primary products. A strong central government encourages private enterprises.
3. Take-off stage - This occurs when poor countries begin to jettison their traditional values and institutions and
start to save and invest money for the future. And as society shakes off the grip of tradition, people start to
use their talents and imagination, sparking economic growth. Market emerges as people produce goods not
just their own use but to trade with others for profit. In this stage, there is an increase in industrialization, further
growth in savings and investments and there is a decline in the number of employees in agriculture and there
is an increase in entrepreneurship.
4. The drive to maturation stage - Refers to the period when a country has effectively applied the range of
modern technology to the bulk of its resources. As this stage begins, “growth” is a widely accepted idea that
fuels a society’s pursuit of higher living standard. And a diversified economy drives a population eager to
enjoy the benefits of industrial technology. At the same time, however, people begin to realize (and
sometimes regret) that industrialization is eroding the traditional family and the local community. According
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 to Rostow, with the help of money and advice from high income countries, the airplane of economic growth
would taxi down the runway, pick up speed, and become airborne. The countries would then approach
technological maturity. In the aeronautical metaphor, the plane would slowly climb to cruising altitude,
improving its technology, reinvesting its recently acquired wealth in new industries, and adopting the
institutions and values of the high-income countries. Thus, at this stage of development, absolute poverty is
greatly reduced.
5. High mass consumption - Finally, the country would reach the phase of high mass consumption. Now, people
are able to enjoy the fruits of their labor by achieving a high standard of living. The airplane (country) cruises
along on automatic pilot, having entered the ranks of high income countries. This stage is concerned with
the high output levels, mass consumption of consumer durables and increase in employment in the service
sectors. Economic steadily raises living standards as mass production stimulates mass consumption. Simply
put, people soon learn to “need” the expanding array of goods that their society produces.
ROLE OF RICH NATIONS
 Controlling Population Increase - Because population growth is greatest in the poorest societies, rising
population can overtake economic advances. Rich nations can help limit population growth by exporting
birth control technology and promoting its use. Once economic development is under way, birth rates
should decline, as they have in industrialized nations, because children are no longer an economic asset.
 Increasing Food Production - Rich nations can export high-tech farming methods to poor nations to increase
agricultural yards. Such techniques, collectively referred to as Green Revolution, include new hybrid seeds,
modern irrigation methods, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides for insect control.
 Introducing Industrial Technology - Rich nations can encourage economic growth in poor societies by
introducing machinery and information technology, which raise productivity. Industrialization also shifts the
labor force from farming to skilled industrial and service jobs.
 Providing Foreign Aid - Investment capital from rich nations can boost the prospects of poor societies trying
to reach Rostow’s take- off stage. Foreign aid can raise farm output by helping poor countries buy more
fertilizer and build irrigation projects. In the same way, financial and technical assistance can help build
power plants and factories to improve industrial output.
“DEPENDENCY THEORY”
Dependency - Taken from the word dependence defined as a situation which the economy of a certain country
is conditioned by the development and expansion of another economy to which the former is subjected. (Dos
Santos and Wiber, 1973)
Dependency Theory - Dependency theory, a theory of economic development that emerged in the 1960s.
Dependency theory addresses the problems of poverty and economic underdevelopment throughout the
world. Dependency theorists argue that dependence upon foreign capital, technology, and expertise impedes
economic development in developing countries
 is used to explain the failure of non-industrialized countries to develop economically in spite of investments
from industrial countries.
 is a body of social science theories predicated on the notion that resources flow from a “periphery” of
poor and underdeveloped states to a “core” of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the
former. It is a central contention of dependency theory that poor states are impoverished and rich ones
enriched by the way poor states are integrated into the "world system".
 Is a model of economic and social development that explains global inequality in terms of the historical
exploitation of poor nations by rich ones.
 this theory believes that POVERTY in underdeveloped society has been the result of a colonial socio-
economic structure.
Andre Gunder-Frank (Father of Dependency Theory)
 The pioneer of the Dependency Theory.
 A leading dependency theorist.
 German-American economist living in Latin America.
 Believed that the underdevelopment of the Third World countries could be explained as the outcome of
exploitation by the developed capitalistic nation.
 He argues that lack of development is because Western nations have deliberately under-developed
them.
 As a noted supporter of this theory, he argues that the colonial process that helped develop rich nations
also underdeveloped poor societies.
Kinds of Nation:
1. Core of the Core Nations (CC) - They are the wealthies andmost powerful nations like USA.
2. Periphery of the Core Nations (PC) - These countries are developed but have less power on the world stage
like CANADA.
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3. Core of the Periphery Nations (CP)- These are developing countries that still have a lot of wealth but not so
much International Power Like CHINA
4. Periphery of the Periphery Nations (PP) - These are the World’s poorest countries with extremely low GDP per
capitals like ZIMBABWE. According to dependency theory the International system is one where all countries
serve the economic interests of the Core of the Core Countries.
Three Zone of World System
1. The Core - Core countries are the most advanced industrial countries and control most of the wealth in the
world economy. (Appelbaum and Chambliss, 1977). More similarity in class experience across national
borders, and often more divisions between the rich and poor within them.
CORE- dominant position in world system, strongest/powerful nations It produce “advanced” goods using
high technology and mechanization like North America, western Europe, Australia, Japan.
2. The Periphery - The Periphery consists of low-income, largely agricultural countries. Core countries manipulate
it for the economic advantage of the core.
3. The Semi-Periphery - The semi-periphery refers to countries that occupy an intermediate position in the world
economy. The extract profit from the periphery and are simultaneously exploited by the core.
Factors that affect Dependency Theory
International Division of Labor - The core countries tend to dominate in terms of industry and technology
Class Distinctions - The society is divided into rich class and the working class.
Global Capitalism - There exist a global system of capitalism in which core nations exploit peripheral nations.
Resulting to....
• UNDERDEVELOPMENT
• Narrow, Export-Oriented Economics - Unlike the diversified economies of rich nations, production in poor
countries centers on a few crops for export. Multi-national corporation purchase raw materials cheaply
in poor societies and transport them to core societies to process them for profitable sale
• Lack of Industrial Capacities - Without an industrialized based for their economies, poor scoieties face a
double bind. They count on selling inexpensive raw materials to rich nations and then they buy whatever
expensive manufactured goods they can afford
• Foreign Debt - Collectively, the poor nations of the world owe rich countries more than $1 trillion, including
hundreds of billions of dollars to the United Stated.
“DIALECTICAL AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM” Proponents: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM
Dialectical - discourse between people holding different point of view about a subject but wishing to establish
the truth through reasonable argument.
 Philosophy: a method of examining and discussing opposing ideas in order to find the truth
 Hegelian: process of change in which a concept or its realization passes over into and is preserved and
fulfilled by its opposite
 Marxism: development through the stages of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in accordance with the laws of
dialectical materialism
Materialism - a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual
values; the doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications
Dialectical Materialism - its approach to the phenomena of nature, its method of studying and apprehending
them, is dialectical, while its interpretation of the phenomena of nature, its conception of these phenomena, its
theory, is materialistic
Basic Concepts of Hegel’s and Feuerbach's Philosophy
Hegel’s Philosophy
1. Dialectical Method - dialectics teaches that no individual thing, whether in the external world or in thought,
remains static, but that it constantly changes, that every single thing, every single institution must have a
beginning and therefore necessarily an end, a rising and a declining phase of development.
2. Idealistic - the motion of thought - by which he means universal thought, universal concepts, ideas, as he
calls them - is autonomous, independent.
3. Recognized a temporal development in history, but not in nature - nature moves eternally in the same
grooves.
4. Relation to religion - all the basic concepts of religion contain a purely philosophic meaning
Feurbach’s Philosophy
1. The substance of religion lies in one or another form of belief in a super-sensual, fantastic, spiritual Being as
the creator and mover of the world. Philosophy teaches the same thing in a different form
2. Real knowledge is possible only as knowledge of the material, of the sentient

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 Principal Features of Marxist Philosophical Materialism
1. Materialist - that the world is by its very nature material, that the multifold phenomena of the world constitute
different forms of matter in motion, that interconnection and interdependence of phenomena as
established by the dialectical method, are a law of the development of moving matter, and that the world
develops in accordance with the laws of movement of matter and stands in no need of a "universal spirit."
2. Objective Reality - matter, nature, being, is an objective reality existing outside and independent of our
consciousness; that matter is primary, since it is the source of sensations, ideas, consciousness, and that
consciousness is secondary, derivative, since it is a reflection of matter, a reflection of being; that thought is
a product of matter which in its development has reached a high degree of perfection, namely, of the
brain, and the brain is the organ of thought; and that therefore one cannot separate thought from matter
without committing a grave error.
3. The World and Its Laws Are Knowable - the world and its laws are fully knowable, that our knowledge of the
laws of nature, tested by experiment and practice, is authentic knowledge having the validity of objective
truth, and that there are no things in the world which are unknowable, but only things which are as yet not
known, but which will be disclosed and made known by the efforts of science and practice.
HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
 Also known as “the materialist conception of history”
 Extension and application of the principles of dialectical materialism to the study and phenomena of
social life and its history
 “History then becomes understandable not as a series of accidents or mistakes or mythical occurrences,
but as the development of social and material forces that are connected, in motion, and changing
internally and externally, resulting in a struggle that changes their form”
What Is the Chief Determinant Force?
This force, historical materialism holds, is the method of procuring the means of life necessary for human
existence, the mode of production of material values – food, clothing, footwear, houses, fuel, instruments of
production, etc. – which are indispensable for the life and development of society. In order to live, people must
have food, clothing, footwear, shelter, fuel, etc.; in order to have these material values, people must produce
them; and in order to produce them, people must have the instruments of production with which food, clothing,
footwear, shelter, fuel, etc., are produced, they must be able to produce these instruments and to use them.
The instruments of production wherewith material values are produced, the people who operate the
instruments of production and carry on the production of material values thanks to a certain production
experience and labor skill – all these elements jointly constitute the productive forces of society. But the
productive forces are only one aspect of production, only one aspect of the mode of production, an aspect
that expresses the relation of men to the objects and forces of nature which they make use of for the production
of material values. Another aspect of production, another aspect of the mode of production, is the relation of
men to each other in the process of production, men's relations of production. Men carry on a struggle against
nature and utilize nature for the production of material values not in isolation from each other, not as separate
individuals, but in common, in groups, in societies. Production, therefore, is at all times and under all conditions
social production. In the production of material values men enter into mutual relations of one kind or another
within production, into relations of production of one kind or another. These may be relations of co-operation
and mutual help between people who are free from exploitation; they may be relations of domination and
subordination; and, lastly, they may be transitional from one form of relations of production to another. But
whatever the character of the relations of production may be, always and in every system they constitute just
as essential an element of production as the productive forces of society.
"In production," Marx says, "men not only act on nature but also on one another.
They produce only by co-operating in a certain way and mutually exchanging
their activities. In order to produce, they enter into definite connections and
relations with one another and only within these social connections and relations
does their action on nature, does production, take place." (Marx and Engels, Vol.
V, p. 429.)
Consequently, production, the mode of production, embraces both the productive forces of society and men's
relations of production, and is thus the embodiment of their unity in the process of production of material values.

Productive
Forces
MODES OF
PRODUCTION
Relations of
Production

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MODES OF PRODUCTION
 The means of life necessary for human existence which are indispensable for the life and development of
society
 An aspect that expresses the relation of men to the objects and forces of nature which they make use of for
the production of material values
 According to Marx & Engels, it is the key to understanding social institutions. Social Institutions refers to the
the major spheres of social life, or societal subsystems, organized to meet human needs. Economic
production can be organized in several different ways, or modes. Each mode production is associated with
a distinct pattern of thought and action on the part of individuals who are influenced by the positions they
hold in the mode of production. All social relations and all ideas found in a society are simply reflections or
effects of the organization of production
PRODUCTIVE FORCES
 “forces of production”
 It includes the natural resources, the physical equipment, the people, the division of labor and the scientific
and engineering technology
RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION
 It consists of the social definitions of the relations between economic groups, the social norms governing the
economy and the patterns of behavior among the groups.
MODEL OF SOCIETY
 Marx argued that the economy dominates all others and defines the true nature of society
 The foundation of all social life is the economic structure
 Economic production is the major causal factor in social life
 The diagram shown on the other page illustrates Marx’s materialist view that the system of economic
production shapes the entire society. Economic production involves both technology (industry, the case of
capitalism) and social relationships (for capitalism, the relationship between the capitalists, who own the
factories and businesses, and the workers). On this infrastructure, or foundation, rests society’s superstructure,
which includes its major social institutions as well as core cultural values and ideas. Marx maintained that
every part of a society supports the economic system.

STAGES OF HUMAN HISTORY

According to Marx, history can be divided into five distinct historical
stages. Each stage is characterized by a separate mode of production.
Each mode of production, in turn, can be characterized by a distinct
type of ownership of the means of production.
1. PRIMITIVE PRODUCTION
 All property, including all means of production, is communally owned.
 BASIS OR RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION: “Means of production are socially owned”
 The basis of the relations of production under the primitive communal system is that the means of
production are socially owned. This in the main corresponds to the character of the productive forces of
that period. Stone tools, and, later, the bow and arrow, precluded the possibility of men individually
combating the forces of nature and beasts of prey. In order to gather the fruits of the forest, to catch fish,
to build some sort of habitation, men were obliged to work in common if they did not want to die of
starvation, or fall victim to beasts of prey or to neighboring societies. Labor in common led to the common
ownership of the means of production, as well as of the fruits of production. Here the conception of
private ownership of the means of production did not yet exist, except for the personal ownership of
certain implements of production which were at the same time means of defense against beasts of prey.
Here there was no exploitation, no classes.
 Hunting and Gathering Societies
 PRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY: “Primitive Weapons”
 POPULATION SIZE: “25-40 People”
 SETTLEMENT PATTERN: “Nomadic”
 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION: “Family-Centered; specialization limited to age and sex; little social inequality”
 EXAMPLES: “Pygmies of Central Africa”
2. SLAVERY
 Characterized by slavery as the common form of both servitude and production
 Private property gradually develops, especially in relation to “immovable” objects and lands
 BASIS OR RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION: “The slave-owner owns the means of production, he also owns the
worker in production --- the slave, whom he can sell, purchase, or kill as though he were an animal”

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  Men now have metal tools at their command and there now appear pasturage tillage, handicrafts and
a division of labor between these branches of production
 Exchange of products between individuals and between societies, accumulation of wealth in the hands
of a few, the actual accumulation of the means of production in the hands of a minority and the possibility
of subjugation of the majority by a minority and the conversion of the majority into slaves
 No common ownership of the means of production or its fruits; replaced by private ownership
 The slave-owner appears as the prime and property owner
3. FEUDALISM
 “feudal or estate-property”
 Slavery is replaced by serfdom
 SERF - a person (as the English villein of the 12th or 13th century) belonging to any of various grades
of the lower class especially in different feudal systems, bound to the soil and more or less subject to the
will of the owner of the soil, and separable from the lord's land by manumission only; the primary producing
class, have certain traditional rights but no formal ownership of property
 FEUD - an estate in land held of a lord or superior by a tenant or vassal on condition he render certain
services to the lord or superior
 BASIS OF RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION: “The Feudal Lord owns the means of production and does not fully
own the worker in production – the serf, whom the lord can no longer kill, but whom he can buy and sell”
 There exists individual ownership by the peasant and the handicraftsman of his implements of production
and his private enterprise based on his personal labor
 Characteristic features of feudalism’s productive forces
 Further improvements in the smelting and working of iron
 Further development of agriculture, horticulture, viniculture and dairying
 Appearance of manufactories alongside of the handicraft workshops
 Laborer shall display some kind of initiative in production and an inclination for work
 PRINCIPAL FEATURE: a class struggle between the exploiter and the exploited
4. CAPITALISM
 Private ownership of property reaches its peak
 Capitalism - an economic system characterized by private or corporation ownership of capital goods,
by investments that are determined by private decision rather than by state control, and by prices,
production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly in a free market
 BASIS OF RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION: “Capitalists (bourgeoisie) owns the means of production, but not
the workers (proletariats) whom the capitalists can neither kill nor sell because they are personally free
but who are deprived and in order not to die in hunger, they are obliged to sell their labor power”
 Workshops, manufactories and farms with machinery
 PROBLEM: Overproduction of goods
 Capitalism is pregnant with revolution whose mission it is to replace the existing capitalist ownership of the
means of production by socialist ownership. This means that the main feature of the capitalist system is a
most acute class struggle between the exploiters and the exploited.
 CONDITIONS:
1. Workers must be aware of their oppression and see capitalism as its true cause
2. They must organize and act to address their problems
 Alienation is a barrier to social change. It refers to experience of isolation and misery resulting from
powerlessness.
1. Alienation from the act of working – ideally, people work to meet their needs and to develop their
personal potential. Capitalism, however, denies workers a say in what they make or how they make
it. Further, much of the work is a repetition of routine tasks. The fact that today we replace workers
with machines whenever possible would not have surprise Marx. As far as he was concerned,
capitalism had turned human beings into machines long ago.
2. Alienation from the products of work – the product of work belongs not to workers but to capitalists,
who sell it for profit. Thus, Marx, reasoned, the more of themselves workers invest in their work, the
more they lose.
3. Alienation from other workers – through work, Marx claimed, people build bonds of community.
Industrial capitalism, however, makes work competitive rather than cooperative, setting each
person apart from everyone else and offering little chance for companionship.
4. Alienation from human potential – industrial capitalism alienates workers from their human potential.
Marx argued that a worker “dies not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself, has a feeling of misery
rather than well-being, does not freely develop his physical exhausted and mentally debased. The
worker, therefore, feels himself to be at home only during his leisure time, whereas at work he feels

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 homeless”. In short, industrial capitalism turns an activity that should express the best qualities in
human beings into a dull and dehumanizing experience.
 Despite Marx’ prediction, capitalism is still thriving. Why have industrial workers not overthrown
capitalism? Ralf Dahrendorf (1959) suggested four reasons:
1. Fragmentation of the capitalist class
2. A higher standard of living
3. More worker organizations
4. Greater legal protections
5. Communism
 Characterized by communal ownership of the means of production
Communism - a theory advocating elimination of private ownership of property or capital; a system
or condition real or imagined in which goods are owned commonly rather than privately and are
available as needed to each one in a unified group sometimes limited, sometimes inclusive, and
often composed of members living and working together
 The economy is based on industrial production rather than hunting and gathering
 Class divisions are destroyed; no longer exploiters and exploited
 The goods produced are distributed according to labor performed on the principle: “He who does
not work, neither shall he eat”
 Marked by comradely cooperation
 No periodical crises of over-production
“NEOLIBERALISM”
"Neo-liberalism" is a set of economic policies that have become widespread during the last 25 years or so.
Although the word is rarely heard in the United States, you can clearly see the effects of neo-liberalism here as
the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer. Free global trade can stimulate economic growth and large
businesses can profit more without government intervention. Universal development can therefore be achieved
through the promotion of ‘trade not aid’. Neoliberalism, as a global approach to development, dominated
global development literature and practice from the 1970s. It emerged mainly to enhance growth, create free
markets, replace the Keynesianism that proved to be weak, and eliminate the intervention of the state in the
economy that resulted in poor economic performance in many countries (Harrison, 2005).
"LIBERALISM" - "Liberalism" can refer to political, economic, or even religious ideas. In the U.S. political liberalism
has been a strategy to prevent social conflict. It is presented to poor and working people as progressive
compared to conservative or Rightwing.
“NEO” - "Neo" means we are talking about a new kind of liberalism. So what was the old kind? The liberal school
of economics became famous in Europe when Adam Smith, a Scottish economist, published a book in 1776
called THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.
Elements of Neoliberalism
 Economic Globalization - The increasing of national economies into expanding international markets. The
increasing interdependence of world economies as a result of the growing scale of cross-border trade of
commodities and services, flow of international capital and wide and rapid spread of technologies.
 The Rule of Market - Liberating "free" enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the
government (the state) no matter how much social damage this causes. Reduce wages by de-unionizing
workers and eliminating workers' rights that had been won over many years of struggle. No more price
controls. All in all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services. Greater openness to
international trade and investment, as in NAFTA. To convince us this is good for us, they say "an unregulated
market is the best way to increase economic growth, which will ultimately benefit everyone." It's like Reagan's
"supply-side" and "trickle-down" economics -- but somehow the wealth didn't trickle down very much.
Greater openness to international trade and investment.
 Deregulation - Reduce government regulation of everything that could diminish profits, including protecting
the environment and safety on the job. It gives free reign to market forces in the organization of economic
activities placing the highest value on profit, sacrificing consumer and labor rights, as well as social and
political rights. Deregulation lifts price control systems and thereby most intensely hurts the poor, especially
women. Around the world, neo-liberalism has been imposed by powerful financial institutions like the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. In the United
States neo-liberalism is destroying welfare programs; attacking the rights of labor (including all immigrant
workers); and cut backing social programs. Corporate social responsibility
 Privatization - Sell state-owned enterprises, goods and services to private investors. This includes banks, key
industries, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water. According to neoliberal
thought, it is not the job of the state to act as an entrepreneur. The public sector should be limited in favour
of the private sector. Privatization of nationalized companies is encouraged as well as that of national
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 monopolies and holdings in telecommunications, transport, energy, and water industries. The state has to
fulfil the tasks defined by the neoliberal economists. Its function is to ensure and secure the conditions
necessary for the free market. Under the neoliberal concept, the welfare state becomes a national
competitive state whose function is, through its policy, to ensure that it remains competitive in the world
market. The state therefore furthers neoliberal private business interests
 Cutting Public Expenditure for Social Services - REDUCING THE SAFETY-NET FOR THE POOR, and even
maintenance of roads, bridges, water supply -- again in the name of reducing government's role. Of course,
they don't oppose government subsidies and tax benefits for business like education and health care. Safety-
net – something that helps someone who is in a difficult situation
 Eliminating the Concept of the “Public Good” or “Community” and replacing it with Individual Responsibility
- Pressuring the poorest people in a society to find solutions to their lack of health care, education and social
security all by themselves -- then blaming them, if they fail, as "lazy." In the United States neo-liberalism is
destroying welfare programs; attacking the rights of labor (including all immigrant workers); and cut backing
social programs. All areas of life are subject to the logic of the market, the logic of economic optimization
and the individual maximization of utilization. Even the individual is seen in the light of the logic of the market-
transformed into human capital A person becomes a firm, to a constantly self-optimizing. The relationship to
him and herself and others or seen only in terms of money
“STRENGTH AND EMPOWERMENT PERSPECTIVE”
STRENGTH PERSPECTIVE
Strength - the quality that allows someone to deal with problems in a determined and effective way (Merriam-
Webster Dictionary). In the Social Work context, strength is referred as the client’s willingness to accept help, the
client’s positive attitude, their ability to overcome hardships in the past, and the support systems available to
them.
Perspective - all that can be seen from a certain points. It is also a way at thinking about something
STRENGTH PERSPECTIVE - is an alternative to more common pathology-oriented approach in helping the clients.
Instead of focusing on client’s problems and deficits, this perspective centers on the clients’ abilities, talents, and
resources.
Purpose: To ensure that the social worker is attentive to client strengths during assessment and intervention
 According to Saleebey, the strength perspective asks the worker to be “guided first and foremost by a
profound awareness of and respect for client’s positive attribute and abilities, talents and resources and
aspirations” and if these strengths are recognized and used in the change process, they elevate the client’s
motivation and the potential for positive change.
 Saleebey defines client’s strengths through three interlinked aspects, called “CPR”
C = competence, capacities and courage;
P = possibility, and positive expectations
R = resilience, reserves, and resources.
Historical Development of Strength Perspective
 Early 1980s – the purposeful amplification of the strength perspective as an approach to social work practice
began at the University of Kansas’ School of Social Welfare
 In 1989 – Weick, Rapp, Sullivan, and Kishardt coined the term “strength perspective” to address the system
in which practitioners recognize the authority and assets a client possesses in the client’s frame of reference
to their life story.
 Strengths-based approach was a stance taken to oppose a mental health system that overly focused on
diagnosis, deficits, labelling, and problems, initially implemented in case management, moving into other
areas of social work and the helping professions (Saleebey, 1996: see Manthey, Knowles, Asher, Wahab,
2011).
Seven Principle of Strength Perspective
1. People are recognised as having many strengths and have the capacity to continue to learn, grow and
change - Saleebey suggests that individuals and groups “have vast, often untapped and frequently
unappreciated reservoirs of physical, emotional, cognitive, interpersonal, social, and spiritual energies,
resources and competencies” . People who come to the social workers for assistance with some problem,
are more than that problem (Early & GlenMaye, 2000), they also have strengths and abilities which have
allowed them to survive, if not thrive, in the face of the challenges that they meet. As Saleebey (1992b)
describes it:
 People are often doing amazingly well, the best they can at the time, given the difficulties they face
and the known resources available to them.
 People have survived to this point – certainly, not without pain – but with ideas, will, hopes, skills, and
other people, all of which we need to understand and appreciate in order to help.

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  Change can only happen when you collaborate with clients’ aspirations, perceptions, and strengths
and when you firmly believe in them.
2. The focus of intervention is on the strengths and aspirations of the people we work with - The strengths
perspective argues that people are motivated to use their capacity to change when the focus is on their
strengths (Clark, 1997; Saleebey, 1992b; Saleebey, 1992c; Weick et al., 1989). A focus on strengths does not
mean that people’s concerns and problems are ignored but they are not the main focus of the intervention.
3. Communities and social environments are seen as being full of resources - Strengths-based approach sees
the social environment as being “a lush topography of resources and possibilities” with “individuals and
institutions who have something to give, something that others may desperately need: knowledge and
actual resource, or simply time and place”. Every environment is full of individuals, families, informal groups,
associations, and institutions willing to help others. A strength-based approach encourages service providers
to seek out the full range of support available in a local community rather than relying on welfare and
specialist support organisations. Taylor discusses the concept of entrapping and enabling social niches:
Entrapping social niches Enabling social niches
They are highly stigmatising; thus people caught in People are not stigmatised, nor treated as
them are commonly treated as outcasts outcasts.
People tend to turn to their own kind for People turn to their own kind for association,
association, thus restricting their social world. support, and self-validation. However, the
niche also provides access to others who bring
a different perspective so that their social
world is less restrictive
People are totally defined by their social category. People are not totally defined by their social
The possibility that they may have aspirations and category; they are accepted as having valid
attributes apart from their category is not ordinarily aspirations and attributes apart from their
considered. category
There are few expectations of personal progress. There are strong expectations of change or
personal progress.
There are few incentives to work towards long-term There are incentives to work towards long-term
goals. goals.
There is little reality feedback; thus there are few There is good reality feedback.
natural processes for people to recognise and
correct their own unrealistic perceptions and
interpretations.
There is little chance to learn the skills and People are provided with the opportunity to
expectations that would facilitate escape. learn the skills and expectations which aid
movement to other niches.
Economic resources are scarce. Economic resources are adequate, and
competence and quality are rewarded
*A strengths perspective encourages people to discover enabling niches for themselves and recognises the
importance of “the creation of a culture that is supportive of the proactive steps taken by individuals”.
4. Service providers collaborate with the people they work with - Strengths-based approaches focus on
“collaboration and partnership between social workers and clients. People are usually experts on their own
situation and Saleebey argues that, for service providers, the role of expert or professional may not provide
the “best vantage point from which to appreciate client strengths”.
5. Interventions are based on self determination - When people are seen as being experts on their own situation
then they should be the ones to “determine the form, direction, and substance” of the intervention. Weick
argue that it is impossible for even the best trained professional to judge how another person should best
live his or her life. The principle of knowing what is best places the power of decision where it should be –
with the person whose life is being lived.
6. There is a commitment to empowerment - Although empowerment is almost a cliché in family and
community work, it remains an important concept. Empowerment is consistent with a collaborative
approach and client self-determination. Staples defines empowerment as “the ongoing capacity of
individuals or group to act on their behalf to achieve a greater measure of control over their lives and
destinies. According to Saleebey, in the strength perspective, consciousness raising, which also contributes
to empowerment, means that consumers: “Begin to develop a less contaminated and constricted view of
their situation and identity, and they take on a firmer appreciation of how their lives have been shackled by
institutions, agencies, and ideologies. In other words, consumers are assisted in coming to a more authentic
sense of who they are, what they can do, and what they want to do”.

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7. Problems are seen as the result of interactions between individuals, organisations or structures rather than
deficits within individuals, organisations or structures - From a strengths perspective, problems are frequently
the result of interactions between people, organisations or structures. By focusing on how the interactions
contribute to the situation, as well as concentrating on people’s strengths, it is possible to avoid blaming the
victim.
EMPOWERMENT PERSPECTIVE
Empowerment
 to give power or authority to; to give ability to; to enable; to permit (Webster)
 increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into
desired actions and outcomes (World Bank)
 the intent to, and the process of, assisting individuals, groups, families, and communities to discover and
expend the resources and tools within and around them (Saleebey)
 a process through which clients obtain resources – personal, organizational, and community – that enable
them to gain greater control over their environment and to attain their aspirations ( Yeheskel Hasenfeld)
Perspective
 a particular evaluation of a situation or facts, especially from one person's point of view
 the appearance of objects to an observer allowing for the effect of their distance from the observer
Empowerment Perspective
 Deals with empowering people, across the life span as individuals, families, groups and communities to
develop potential and assets to change environments and make them more just. (Judith A. B. Lee, R. E.
Hudson)
Goal of Empowerment Perspective
 The goal is to build knowledge and skills for problem-solving and to create self-efficacy to act on one’s
own behalf and on behalf of others. (Parsons et al.)
In summary, empowerment can be describe as having four (4) goals:
1. That the client sees himself as the agent of change.
2. That the client is able to use the knowledge and skills of others in furthering their own interest.
3. That the client is able to work in partnership with professionals.
4. That the client is open to developing the problem solving skills to address their situation.
Empowerment Movement in the Philippines
Today, many social workers employed in government, semi-government, and private agencies and
organizations are doing what is now called as “empowerment-oriented practice”. Many recent events have
worked to encourage and inspire social workers to pursue this line of works:
 Consciousness-raising efforts in the years preceding the declaration of Martial Law on September 21, 1972
 People Power I in February 1986 which led to the overthrow of the President Ferdinand Marcos;
 The rise of the numerous non-government organizations(NGO’s) and Peoples Organization (PO’s) in the
1980’s.
 The women’s movements in the 1980’s and 1990’s when the country was awakened to the plight of the
Filipino women and many rural and urban women’s organization were organized to fight for women’s
rights and;
 People Power II in January 2001 which led to the ouster of Pres. Joseph Estrada.
Empowerment-oriented Social Work Practices
Therefore, is not social service delivery but practice in which both client(s) and worker are involved in
mutual assessment and partnership in which they together define and solve problems on behalf of the client
group and society in general. (T.L. Mendoza)
Empowerment-oriented Social Work Practices with:
1. Individual Empowerment - is the capacity for building up confidence, insight and understanding, and
developing personal skills. The aim is to enable individual to become strong enough so that they can participate
in, share in the control of, and influence their own life.
2. Group Empowerment - Empowerment can be taken to involve building trust, cooperation and communication
between members and a prerequisite for this, is that there are appropriate structures, protocols and procedures
in place, with effective sanctions against those who default or abuse the system.
3. Community Empowerment - is the product of putting the values of community development into action. It is
the process of renegotiating of powers in order to gain more control.
Components for Empowerment -Based Intervention
Parsons, et al., identified the following as the components necessary for social work practice intervention
to contribute to the empowerment of clients:
1. Power-shared relationships - The nature of social welfare service delivery systems create power differences
between the workers and clients even when social workers operate from an egalitarian value system. Because

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of this, “social worker have to recognize the power they have in relation to clients and use that power carefully
and critically to create empowerment-based practice.” In power-shared relationship, it is assumed that worker
and client have equal and legitimate expertise, that is, knowledge and skills that can be utilized for the tasks
required for problem-solving. Instead of the worker being viewed as an expert who runs the show, she and the
client engage in goal-setting, planning and doing as a collaborative effort. The client, therefore, is recognized
as having the capacity for active engagement in the change process. Cox and Parsons emphasize that status
concerns should not interfere with the equal exchange of ideas and mutual efforts to achieve the goals of the
social work process, that action must not be determined by authoritarian worker-client relationship, and that
power in the egalitarian relationship between the worker and client is the collective power to achieve goals
rather than power over each other.
2. Competency –Based Assessment - The worker and client jointly make competency-based assessment to
counter the client’s internalized powerlessness. This kind of assessment assumes potential competency on the
part of clients, i.e., clients generally know what they need and, with heightened self-awareness and support, will
choose a good alternative for action on their own behalf. This component includes building support networks
and systems to capitalize on the present strength for coping as among the intervention strategies that can be
used.
3. Collectivity for mutual aid - Parsons, et al., state that collectivity involves emerging the energy of the individuals
into a whole, which provides an opportunity for support, consciousness-raising, mutual aid, developing skills, and
action on behalf of the whole. An important aspect of empowerment-oriented practice is that the client comes
to recognize that his problem or situation is not unique but is also the experience of others. This is the “political
dimension” of personal problems which is the focus of empowerment-oriented practice. The opportunity to share
his “story” and have this validated by others results in a sense of collectivity and group consciousness, which tends
to reduce self-blame and increase the tendency to look for causes other than personal failure. Face-to-face
group interaction is considered as perhaps the most desirable medium of achieving collective validation, but
one-to-one work, networking strategies such as telephoning and newsletters, as well as the use of media and
literature can also achieve this. The worker’s role in this component includes linking, facilitating, supporting, and
promoting activities that provide the client with opportunities for collective problem-solving.
4. Education for critical thinking and knowledge and skills for finding sources and taking actions - The concept
called critical consciousness or critical thinking is a contribution of Paulo Friere who underscored the importance
of dialogue, interaction, and education with others in similar situations. The empowerment process enables clients
to think critically about the internal and external aspects of their problem. They are able to explore how their
values, beliefs, and attitudes have been acquired and how they affect the problem; how their problem is rooted
in the wider social environment. Furthermore, the empowerment process helps clients to acquire the skills they
need to access information, mobilize resources, and take action in order to attain their goals.
“SPIRITUALITY AND FAITH SENSITIVE PERSPECTIVE (FAITH-BASED MOVEMENT)”
Spiritual/ Spirituality - A state of consciousness which opens up to discovery, awareness, or insight to a higher
order
Faith - A belief in a supreme-being and a belief based on recognizing rather than on scientific evidence. It is by
faith we understand that the whole world was made by God’s command so what we see was made by
something that can’t be seen.
Religion - A social institution involving beliefs and practices based on recognizing the sacred.
Movement - A collective effort by a large group of people trying to achieve something.
Faith-based movement in the Philippines
1. Christian Family Movement
 Established in 1956 in the Philippines
 It is the first and oldest family life organization in the Philippines
 Two General Categories of CFM Programs:
1. Formation Programs – made up primarily of the CFM unit meetings following the evangelization
guidebooks or its equivalent
2. Ministry Programs - Social action projects that usually result from the action agreed upon by the unit
in response to the specific life situation discussed by the unit. Family life Apostles Programs (FLA)
which are directed towards various audiences. Formation must always go hand in hand with ministry
or vice versa. Ministry w/o formation could burn out as one is no longer connected with the main
source of love, which is the Lord.
CFM FLAGSHIP PROJECTS
1. CFM-CYD (Child and Youth Development) - As early as their twenties, the youth experience CFM
program through a meaningful weekend.
2. Spirituality of Stewardship (SOS) - It is the first of the series of books on the way of life, the Spirituality
Stewardship.
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 3. Families of Overseas Filipinos (FOF) - Seek to help the families of migrant Filipinos handle the mix of
Psycho-social, parenting, wealth management, marital infidelity and other problems faced by solo
parents.
4. Solo Parents and Single Professionals Development - A development program for this large segment
of trained professionals willing to develop their time, talent and treasure in the service of the church.
BASIC ECCLESIAL COMMUNITIES
• Is the generic term that refers to the communities of faith that has emerged in the grass roots.
• Various names: Basic Christian Community (BCC), Kristohanang Kasilinganan, Kristohanang Katilingban
(KRISKA). Batayang Pamayanang Kristiyano (BPK), Munting Sambayanang Kristiyano (MSK)
BASIC – refers to the grassroots to both the size and social location of the BEC’s
ECCLESIAL – emphasizes the ecclesiality of the BEC’s
COMMUNITY – the use of community
VISION OF BASIC ECCLESIAL COMMUNITIES - Concerned about the plight of the poor and the needy, those who
are sick, hungry, and who are in prison. The members live the evangelical poverty, they make an option for the
poor, they empower them in their midst to actively participate in the mission of Christ.
CHARACTERISTICS OF BEC’S
 Small communities whose members are united to one another and their pastors.
 They share the word of God and are guided by regular catechesis.
 They gather around the Eucharist and have a vibrant celebration of life and liturgy.
 They share their material concerns & get involved in action for justice and peace and social
transformation
 They emerge among the poor.
SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL WORK
 Studies and experiences indicate that the dimension of spirituality plays a role in the health and welfare
field. A paper, “The Role of Spirituality in Health Care Outcomes”, showed that spirituality has a direct
influence in increasing perceived social support and decreasing death anxiety.
 “Rediscovery of meaning in life” and “prayer” were the primary methods of coping in a survey of HIV
positive women. Responses to an open-ended questionnaire on definition of spirituality includes
“believing in a higher being” and “on touch with self and others, peace, unity, serenity”
 A clinical social worker in a family guidance center in New jersey documented her work entitled “creating
sacred space w clients”. In her daily social work practice, this social work integrated the spiritual
approach by creating an environment or “container of safety and compassion”. It is actualizing the
principle of meeting the client where he is. It is being totally present with the client or clients, where one’s
attention is focused on the client with an attitude of respect.
INTEGRATED THERAPY: A TRANSFORMATIONAL APPROACH - In-depth education to human nature and the human
system, which allows for a spiritual dimension, wholeness and integration irrespective of religious affiliation. It is
based on the view that consciousness evolves through an integrative development process in which healing and
spiritual growth are intimately intertwined.
PSYCHOSYNTHESIS - A holistic growth-oriented approach as an alternative to a more balanced view of the
human condition. Roberto Assagioli, an Italian psychiatrist and contemporary and former disciple of Freud
developed Psychosynthesis.
CARL JUNG - He was committed to the importance of spiritual dimension. His focus was on the relationship
between the individual and a higher self, and towards allowing spiritual work to happen through one’s own
psychological development.
CHAPLAINS - A current Philippine medical journal featured the experience of hospital chaplains as “healers of
the spirit”. The chaplains came up with an observation that every illness takes a glimpse of death. And that
“sickness forces man to experience powerlessness, limitations and mortality”. It can also make a man self-
absorbed and angry. The sick person faces more than just the somatic pain but also fear, anger and uncertainty.
As patients tread the path of human pain and suffering, the road to spiritual healing is carried out by chaplains.
COUNSELLING PRACTICES - Spiritual dimension is incorporated by some counsellors especially among the dying,
people with severe depression & suicidal tendencies, in prisons, rehabilitation centers.
THE PROFESSIONAL CULTURE OF SOCIAL WORK
 Social work profession begins with the fundamental belief that the nature and dynamics of Man and Society
is not only orderly but also receptive to change (Bonifacio 1973). Social Work has evolved historically as a
profession with a mission of building relationships of support and care. It is a caring profession among helping
professions. It is need and problem oriented, development and service-oriented.
 It takes holistic view of man as a physical, mental, emotional, social, economic and spiritual being.
 It began from a Judeo-Christian base, a religious theology, shifted to a quasi-scientific school of thought
(“scientific charity”), to psycho-dynamics and knowledge of human behavior. Shifts in practice went from

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 religious to institutional, community to clinical and back to community through social planning and social
action.
 Social work Is value laden profession in the field of social welfare. In essence, it has a transformative nature
based on the belief of man’s potentials and capabilities, equal opportunities, individual and societal
responsibility for the common good and provision of social resources.
WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?
 No matter whether one thinks of oneself as religious or not, every person is secretly or openly search for
something larger and more significant than the merely material dimension of life. Each person searches for
the meaning of who he is and why. At the core of every human being is a spiritual seeker. There is a longing
for belonging, a need to be accepted and valued. Man also desires to continue to have a part of himself to
live on forever, a sense of immortality.
 Spirituality is a state of consciousness which opens up to rediscovery, awareness, or insight to a higher order.
It is sensitivity to a broader horizon, a search for a deeper meaning in life.
 Means dignity and self-respect, human rights, obtainable when one is at peace with one’s self, fellowmen
and the universe.
WHY SPIRITUALITY?
- a look at homelessness, disease, substance and sexual abuse and abject to poverty spell a culture of
powerlessness and deterioration in a sick society.
- the Third Millennium provides man with 3 potential scenarios:
(1) Philosophical and ideological crisis
 Along with the advancement of science is man’s search for meaning and purpose.
 Ncmara thought man must absolutely resist the temptation of making technology the pattern of human
life, perhaps more than anything else Man must protect and emphasize the supreme human activity:
Contemplation.
 According to Ncmara, to grant contemplation a greater role is not only a way of counteracting the
trend towards excessive technology. It is necessary in itself as highest and deepest actualization of
personality, as well as the indispensable forms of activity. Activity without contemplation is blind.
(2) Growing separation of the world into prosperous industrialized sector
 A middle class of small nations, a third world of largely poverty stricken, debt-ridden, oppressed and
exploding populations. The CC, PC, CP, PP
(3) Growing ecological crises with social dimensions of environmental issues
 i.e. World hunger, human health, politics, and social justice
- The challenge to peace and social justice lies in a renewed vision of truth and justice and a mission of sustained
development through a psycho spiritual approach.
- Karl Menninger in his book whatever became of sin expounded on Toyn-bee’s ‘morality gap’, and the supreme
importance of distinguishing right from wrong. He believed that man’s common discomforts and misfortunes is
missing out on one word: sin
- Paul Tillich expressed that sin does not mean an immoral act, but an all pervading problem of a state separation,
“separation” may be one’s fellowmen, from one’s self, or from his own God.
- What is need is a social morality that transcends one’s own self-centeredness, not as a virtue but as a survival
necessity. And so Menninger wrote “Out of it all may come a bonum ex nocenentbus, -- a good product from
an evil source.” Meaning Beginning with sin and a morality gap, we end up with the idea of a responsibility which
each of us has to take, to open our eyes and look at the unpleasant and then go to work… ourselves and our
world.
- One speaks of will. Isn’t will the essential element in God’s creation of man and the basis of choice? Can the
human will be the basis or the decision for reciprocity of relationship and respect for one another? Swindol (1994)
answered that what need is a biblical morality that calls for Christian life characterized by both a vertical
perspective and a horizontal active one. One must know who he is in Christ and how to relate to his fellow human
being. The vertical horizontal perspective is a framework of faith and dependence on a relationship, the vertical
representing the connection with the absolute with empowering, supportive and directive influence on the
horizontal representing the ‘others’ connection. This calls for a built-in control system owned by the person by
choice as he participates in bringing about an interaction between his inner self and his environment.
- In essence why spirituality? What man needs is a revival of active Christian spirituality, “that all men love one
another, just as Jesus Christ loves man”. It is the human relatedness as people unite in caring. It is the collective
unconscious particularly when man is faced with common issue such as world hunger, social injustice and
ecological imbalance. It is making the difference in the world as a result of the responsibility one takes in it and
his participation with it. The response to threats of survival lies in rootedness and human connectedness, based
on the value of human family, not compartments o ‘mine and time’.

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 THE ROLE OF SPIRITUALITY IN SOCIAL WORK
- Generally, regardless of creed and values, raising the spiritual dimension entails the process of developing ones
consciousness to a discovery, awareness or insight to a higher order.
- A review of the underlying assumptions and base value commitment of social work. “It is good and desirable
or man to fulfil his potential, realize himself and to balance this with equal effort to help others do the same.” Its
distinctive focus on social relationships, roles, its functions and activities towards the enhancement, take the view
of man as a rational social being who by nature, and by virtue of his reason and choice can overcome his internal
and external environmental forces. But this belief in the absolute human potential does not actively include man’s
potential to transcend the natural order of things.
- The question now is where does the spiritual dimension of the holistic concept of man can come in? Whatever
happened to the Judeo- Christian base of the profession's morality? What influence has this had on
methodological and treatment approaches? Answer. Assessment may focus on one’s religious beliefs and
practices as well as the meanings they have on the individual’s life situations. This will lead to the understanding
of the family’s level of spirituality and how these relationships or dynamics revolve around the members’ religious
beliefs and practices.
Psychospiritual Approach -- A model of dynamic relation between biblical truth and psychological insights.
Process of confronting, reorienting the person towards the meaning to be fulfilled by the person in his future.
- It also refers to the process where the creative imagination is at play in the unfolding universe. The path is
directed by dreams, creative expression, meditation, symbols and signals from the client’s environment. The
tools that are used can be psychological or spiritual, whatever seems to work best at that moment in time.
- It is rooted and grounded in the Christian Theology of healing through the resolution of the “old nature”, a
renewal of the mind and new self.
- It is healing through an “empowered” value system, a renewed vision and a new lifestyle against individual
and social discomfort and disease. What one deals with in problem-solving is a value system of a situation
and a behavior.
- The approach to the situation is perspective building, thought and feeling change. The approach to
behavior is setting priorities, decision making, and choice. The process is programming, conditioning through
realistic options and assumption of responsibility for change.
- Spirituality in Social Work is like an umbrella with spokes represented by responsibility, accountability and
commitment. The handle is the belief that one has dignity and worth as a child of God and who helps others
to become worthy.
- One needs a perspective of a victor, who thinks of what is better or best, and one who is motivated to want
to bring change to self and/or his environment, than a victim who has no choice.
ETHNO CULTURAL/ ETHNIC SENSITIVE PERSPECTIVE
a. Culture - The beliefs, costumes, arts, etc. of a particular society, group, place, or time. A group of people
who live together that tends to adapt a similar set of norms by which they live. A way of thinking, behaving
or working that exists in a place or organization. Culture is captured in many, in the way members of the
group greet and interact with one another, in legends and children's stories, in the way food is prepared
and used, in the way people pray, etc. So culture is changeable through when they move to different
community where they may have to adopt another set of culture.
b. Ethnicity - A particular ethnic affiliation or group. A category of people who identified each other based on
common language, ancestral, social, cultural, or national experiences
Race vs Ethnicity
 Race- is based on biological characteristics such as skin or eye color, hair, size or shapes. They point out that
difference in skin color, type of hair and facial features
 Ethnicity- is based on cultural characteristics such as common ancestry, cultural heritage, and common
nations of origins.
 Ethnic groups- Negrito Groups: Agta, Ati, Ayta
II. Purpose of Ethnic Sensitive Perspective
 “To ensure that the social worker is attentive to ethnic, cultural and religious variations among clients and
that the problem and effects of discrimination are addressed in practice.”
 The essence of this perspective is the awareness of the entho-cultural diversity.
III. Application
 This perspective is needed whenever the practice involves a client who has a back ground different
from the worker, and especially when there is a reason to believe that social oppression and
discrimination may be related to the client’s problem or concern. Ex. A Muslim client, you have different
beliefs and backgrounds. And to them marrying a number of women is allowed as long as he (the man)
can provide. We social workers need to be aware and knowledgeable with existence of this belief. We

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 cannot judge the client. We need to set aside our personal biases and use this perspective to be able
to help properly the client.
IV. Description
- The Ethnic-sensitive conceptual lens draws attention to the fact that many of the clients served by the
social agencies are members of an ethnic group and therefore, social work practice and service delivery
system must be attuned to this reality.
- the practice perspective also called Ethnic-sensitive perspective is describe by Green and Leigh(1989)
as;
 To give aid or assistance to patients or clients in ways that is acceptable and useful to them because
they are congruent with the cultural background and expectations.
- a clients culture, ethnicity and religious belief can have a significant impact on help-seeking
behavior and on whether a particular approach will be perceived as needed, relevant and useful.
 Ethnic competence also refers to the service provider’s ability to learn about the cultural context of
a presenting problem and to integrate that knowledge into a professional assessment, diagnosis and
intervention.
o Norton suggest that Social Workers remember that every person is part of :
1. Sustaining System - Includes the powerful influences as those of our economic, political, legal,
and educational systems
2. Nurturing System - Person’s most intimate relationships, family, support systems, neighborhood
 If a client’s ethnic group is one that has been subject to discrimination, the social worker must be alert to
client fear and distrust
 Closely related to the sensitivity is the need to be sensitive to and adapt practice to the clients religious
beliefs and spirituality. In fact, one’s ethnicity, culture and religion are interwoven. The social worker must
be aware that the lives and decisions of a large portion of the clients they serve are influenced by
particular religious and moral beliefs.
 Practice that neglects the clients religion may miss opportunities to be helpful to the client. Here is a ex
statement from Loewenberg: “Avoiding one segment of a person’s life, such as religion, will handicap the
interaction, even if it is a professional relationship between the social worker and the client. One may
wonder whether a social worker can really have a meaningful or helpful relationship with clients who
have strong religious commitment when such a social worker avoids the religious aspects of their lives.”
IDENTIFICATION OF ETHNICITY
1. ETHNO-LINGUISTIC – emphasizing shared language or dialect. Ex: Visayans, Ilonggo, Pampanggeno
2. ETHNO-NATIONAL – emphasizing a shared policy or sense of national identity
3. ETHNO-RACIAL – emphasizing shared physical appearance based on genetic origins
Example: Asians
4. ETHNO-REGIONAL – emphasizing a distinct local sense of belonging stemming from relative geographic
isolation
5. ETHNO-RELIGIOUS – emphasizing shared affiliation with a particular religion, denomination or sect.
ETHNO GENESES
• Ethnos from Greek “group of people or nation”
• Geneses from Greek “beginning, coming into being”
• This can originate through a process of self-identification as well as come about as the result of outside
identification.
“FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES”
What is FEMINISM?
 An ideology that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is a belief or way of thinking
which seeks equality for both men and women in social, economic and cultural fields. The feminists aim to
bring about change in society in order to provide equal opportunities to all and hence prevent discrimination
based on gender.
 A social theory or political movement arguing that legal and social restrictions on females must be removed
in order to bring about equality of both sexes in all aspects of public and private life which is also concerned
with exploring the inequalities that exist between men and women in society from a female perspective and
illustrate how many males dominate social relationship and restrict the opportunities of women.
 Feminists theorists challenge the representations of women as “Other” and as “lack” or as part of “nature”.
They try to explain that man and woman are different to some extent due to biological difference, but they
also point out that they are presented different as they are constructed differently in society. Like for example
man is considered responsible for earning the money whereas woman is assigned the duty to look after the
family and the household.

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 Hence, the main goal of feminism is to oppose woman to be treated as a sex object and to provide her
equality with man. She must be treated as a human being and not an object for male gratification. To
change the mind set of women as well as men that the world is a place to live for both men and women.
 Alexander Dumas - the 19th century French dramatist who was the first to use the term ‘feminism’ for the
movement for women’s political rights”
Three Waves of Feminism
1. The First Wave of Feminism - At that time, the legal reality for women was grim: women surrendered all
property rights to their husband, women could not vote, and women couldn’t hold public office. Began with
Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. 3oo women and men gathered in Seneca Falls, New York to rally for
women’s rights( “Women Rights Convention” ).
 Activist Elizabeth Cody Stanton - drafted the Seneca Falls Declaration which outlined the movement
which is also called Women’s Suffrage Movement. Its main focus is women gaining the right to vote or
“Women’s Suffrage” but also tackles about the abolition of slavery. Then, women gained the right to vote
in U. S. way back year 1920. However, 1st wave feminism was not inclusive, meaning it was focused mainly
on the rights for middle or upper class white man. Yet, there were still African- American women’s rights
activists like Sojourner Truth. She had said that “At a time when most Americans thought of slaves as men
and women as white. Truth embodied a fact that still bears repeating: Among blacks are women; among
women, there are blacks. “
2. Second Wave Feminism - Prominent from 1960’s – 1990’s. So after the women fought for equal rights to vote
and participate in politics, it deal with remaining social and cultural inequalities for women faced in everyday
affair like sexual violence, reproductive rights, sexual discrimination, barriers to career advancement: person’s
gender, age, race, and sexual preference. Also known as the “Civic Rights Movement” which focused on
issues like sexuality and reproductive rights. Consequently, it turned its attention to a broader range of
inequalities including those in workplace, family and reproductive rights. Movement was very successful that
UN organized the 1st global conference on women back in 1975 at Mexico. It’s a conference sought to
address nation’s role on fighting gender inequalities and support women’s rights.
3. Third wave OF FEMINISM (1970) - Influenced by Ester Boserup, book on “Women’s role in Economic
Development”. It states and gave empirical results of how increasingly specialized division of labor associated
with development undermines or neglects the value of women’s work and status especially in developing
world. It had an influence on making women more visible in development approach as a specific category
when addressing women in development. As it explains why women were being deprived an equal share
among men in social benefits and economic gains. It began in the late 1970’s and is still continuing today. It
believe that every women should define her femininity for herself, and that women shouldn’t have to give up
stereotypically “feminine traits in order to be trusted as equal.
 1973 - US Congress implemented a bill which required the USAID to include women in development
programs.
Feminist Perspective: WID, WAD, GAD
1. Women in Development (WID Approach) - By year 1970, it had become very clear that women were being
left out of development. They were not benefiting significantly from it and in some instances their existing
status and position in society was actually being made worse by development. As a result, solution was seen
as integrating women into such programmes since WID saw women as a group being treated as lacking
opportunity to participate in development
- Main task: To improve women’s access to resource and their participation in development.
- The WID approach argued for the integration of women into development programmes and planning
as the best way to improve women’s position in society. There was, for instance, a major emphasis on
income-generating projects for women as a means of integration. Main Feature : Welfare oriented
projects dealing with small income-generating projects and activities mostly aimed at women’s
reproductive role, where nutrition education and family planning.
- WID approach limitations: increased the visibility of women in development issues.
- The UN declared 1975 to 1985 the Decade for Women.
o WID was successful in helping secure a prominent place for women’s issues at the United Nations
(UN) and other international development agencies.
o One of the major achievements of the decade was the establishment of women in development
structures or machineries.
 In Zambia, for instance, it was during this time that the Women’s League of the then ruling political party
United National Independence Party (UNIP) was formed as the national machinery to address women’s
development issues. The Women’s League developed a programme of action and a campaign to
promote the integration of women in the development process at every level.

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  But overtime, it was felt women’s integration into development was not taking place due to the lack of
an established structure within government to plan, coordinate and monitor the implementation of policy
to integrate women. So, a WID Unit was established in 1986 at the National Commission for Development
Planning, the central planning and coordinating body of government. The WID unit was later elevated
to a full department. Its focus was the integration of women in development and to ensure that ministries
and other implementing bodies worked towards the improvement of the socio-economic conditions of
women as the way to ensure their total integration in development.
 Although the WID approach made demands for women’s inclusion in development, it did not call for
changes in the overall social structure or economic system in which women were to be included. As such,
WID concentrated narrowly on the inequalities between men and women and ignored the social,
cultural, legal and economic factors that give rise to those inequalities in society. WID tended to focus
on women almost exclusively and assumed that women were outside the mainstream of development.
 Due to results of criticisms, WAD approach was established wherein the focus on the interaction between
women and development rather than of WID which was focused purely on strategies to integrate women
into development.
2. Women and Development (WAD) - Emerged in the second half of 1970s as a response to the constraints of
modernism. The WAD approach grew out of a concern with the explanatory limitations of modernization
theory and of the ideas that the exclusion of women from earlier development strategies had been an
inadvertent oversight. In essence, the WAD approach begins from the position that women always had been
part of development processes and that they did not suddenly appear in the early 1970s as the result of the
insights and intervention strategies. According to Achola Okello Pala, the notion of integrating women into
development was linked to the maintenance of economic dependency. The WAD focuses on gender
relations within social classes and pays little attention to gender subordination, putting greater emphasis on
unequal class structures and oppressive international structures. The WAD focuses in the relationship between
women and development processes rather than purely on strategies for the integration of women into
development.
The Approach - Sees the development of women through the socio-economic upliftment of the more
marginalized classes and their greater involvement in the productive sphere. Women had always been an
integral part of development in societies and their work, at home and elsewhere, had always helped sustain
societies and that this integration of women merely helped sustain international structures of inequality.
The Focus - Relationship between the patriarchy and capitalism. Patriarchy is a systemic societal structures
that institutionalize male physical, social and economic power over women. Some feminists use the concept
of patriarchy to explain the systematic subordination of women by both overarching and localized structures.
These structures work to the benefit of men by constraining women’s life choices and chances. WAD focuses
on income-generating for women. The WAD perspective implicitly assumes that women’s position will
improve if and when international structures becomes more equitable.
The Problem - The inequality between the men and women in sharing power and decision-making. Gender
equality denotes women having the same opportunities in life as men, including the ability to participate in
the public sphere. Then gender inequality is the other way around. WAD saw both women and men as not
benefiting from the global economic structures because of disadvantages due to class and the way wealth
is distributed. WAD saw global inequalities as the main problem facing poor countries and the citizens of those
countries.
The Goal - Women’s Empowerment is a ‘bottom-up’ process of transforming gender power relations, through
individuals or groups developing awareness of women’s subordination and building their capacity to
challenge it.
The Strategy - Increased women’s productivity and income
3. Gender and Development (GAD) - The GAD emerged on 1980s as an alternative to the earliest WID focus.
GAD emerged from a frustration with the lack of progress of WID policy, in changing women’s lives and in
influencing the broader development agenda. GAD challenged the WID focus on women in isolation, seeing
women’s ‘real’ problem as the imbalance of power between women and men. It finds its theoretical roots in
socialist feminism and has bridged the gap left by the modernization theorists, linking the relations of
production to the relations of reproduction and taking into account all aspects of women’s lives (Jaquette
1982). Socialist feminists have identified the social construction of production and reproduction as the basis
of women’s oppression and have focused attention on the social relations of gender, questioning the validity
of roles which have been ascribed to both women and men in different societies. The GAD approach starts
from holistic perspective. Holistic in a way that it looks at the totality of social organization, economic and
political life in order to understand the shaping of particular aspects of society (Young, 1987:2). The GAD
approach welcomes the potential contributions of men who share a concern of issues of equity and social
justice (Sen and Grown, 1987). Gender equity denotes the equivalence in life outcomes for women and men,

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 recognizing their different needs and interests, and requiring a redistribution of power and resources. GAD
does not focus singularly on productive and reproductive aspects of women’s and men’s lives to the
exclusion of the other. GAD also puts greater emphasis on the participation of the state in promoting women’s
emancipation, seeing it as the duty of the state to provide some of the social services which women in many
countries have provided on a private and individual basis. The GAD approach sees women as agents of
change rather than as passive recipients'. It stresses the need for women to organize themselves for more
effective political voice. A GAD perspective leads not only to the design of intervention and affirmative
action strategies which will ensure that women are better integrated into ongoing development efforts. It
leads, inevitably to a fundamental re-examination of social structures and institutions and ultimately to the
loss of power of entrenched elites, which inevitably will effect some women as well as men.
The Approach - Seeks to empower women and transform unequal relations between women and men.
The Focus - Relations between men and women
The Problem - Unequal relations of power that prevent equitable development and women’s full participation.
The Goal - Equitable, Sustainable development. Women and men sharing decision-making and power
The Strategy - Identify and address short-term needs determined by women and men to improve their condition.
 Practical Gender Needs- PGNs tend to focus on ensuring that women and their families have
adequate living conditions, such as health care and food provision, access to safe water and
sanitation, but also seek to ensure access to income-earning opportunities.
- Identify and address men and women’s long-term interests.
 Interest in a way of women’s interests, a political or practical nature, related to their experience
as a gendered person
 Long term interest -Power may be understood as ‘power within,’ or self-confidence, ‘power
with’, or the capacity to organize with others towards a common purpose, and the ‘power to’
effect change and take decisions, rather than ‘power over’ others.
Basic Feminist Ideas
1. The importance of change or working to increase equality - Feminism is critical of the status quo and advocates
towards social equality for men and women. Insisting we should push for change toward gender equality and
not just talk about it.
2. Expansion of human choice - Feminists propose a reintegration of humanity by which each person develops
all human traits. Feminists maintain that cultural conceptions of gender divide the full range of human qualities
into two opposing and limited spheres:
a. The female world of emotions and cooperation.
b. The male world of rationality and competition.
- Feminists believe that both men and women should have their human interests and talents, even if those
interests and talents conflicts with the status quo.
3. Elimination of Gender Stratification - Feminists opposes laws and cultural norms that limit the education, income
and job opportunities of women.
4. An end to sexual violence - Feminist argue that patriarchy distorts the relationship between the men and
women thus encouraging violence. Today’s women’s movement seeks to eliminate sexual violence. Gender
Violence Any act or threat by men or male-dominated institutions, that inflicts physical, sexual, or psychological
harm on a woman or girl because of their gender. Violence in the form of rape, domestic abuse, sexual
harassment and pornography.
5. Sexual Anatomy - Feminist feel that women should have control over their sexuality and reproduction. Feminists
support the free availability of birth control information. Most feminists also support a women’s right to choose
whether to bear a child or terminate pregnancy, rather than allowing men to control their production.
“PEOPLE POWER-CENTERED DEVELOPMENT”
A. EDSA People Power Revolution
 Ushered during the administration of President Corazon Aquino.
 This was a period of transition and adjustments
 It was plagued with physical, natural and man-made disasters such as:
 The earthquake in 1990
 The Mt. Pinatubo eruption
 The Ormoc tragedy
 Other changes:
 There was a need to realign the use of funds in the delivery of social welfare services particularly for
disaster management and operations, emergency relief assistance and rehabilitation programs in
the severely affected areas.
 Social workers were put under severe test and found themselves challenged with the emotional
and the socio-economic stress of the victims.
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  Training on counselling and stress debriefing were conducted to enable the professionals and
volunteers to cope with the crisis and the demands of the people needing help.
B. Devolution and Localization of Social Welfare Programs
 R.A. 7160
- Local Government Code; mandates the devolution of social welfare programs including direct
services, social workers and welfare funds to the Local Government Units (LGUs)
- Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) had to adjust a new role from “rowing” to
“steering” (e.g. from implementation to policy formulation and provision of technical assistance)
- Includes Programs such as:
o Disaster Management (Ready to Eat Food and Core Shelter Projects)
o Bureau of Women’s Welfare
o Crisis Intervention Unit (Bantay Bata)
C. Social Reform Agenda
 President Fidel Ramos launched “Philippines 2000”, with a vision of “improving the life of every Filipino
through people empowerment”.
 Planned Strategies:
 Development of human resources by increasing investments in human capital through education
and training; improved basic services in health and nutrition; increasing access to productive
resources and technology transfer or diffusion
 Sustainable Development
 Poverty alleviation and employment generation by implementing manpower training programs that
provide employable skills; formulating a national employment plan; expanding labor policies that
encompass workers in the informal sectors; vigorous implementation of the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and the Urban Land Reform Program (ULRP); pursuin more equity-
oriented fiscal policies; and providing adequate social safety needs.
 Was adopted to actualize the vision of NIChood (becoming a Newly- Industrialized Country by the Year
2000)
 The Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) covering the period 1993-1998 include a
people empowerment component, a complementary thrust that seeks to ensure equitable distribution
of the benefits of growth and elicit people’s participation in governance.
 People empowerment is focused on the basic sectors, namely: the farmers and landless rural workers,
fisher folks, indigenous people and cultural communities, urban poor, workers in the informal sectors,
women, children, youth, disadvantaged students, persons with disabilities, older persons and the victims
of disasters and calamities. These sectors constitute the poor and marginalized—the lower socio-
economic stratum of Philippine society.
 9 Flagship programs of the SRA:
1. Agricultural Development
2. Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Conservation
3. Respect, Protection and Management of Ancestral Domains
4. Workers’ Welfare and Protection
5. Socialized Housing
6. Institution Building and Effective Participation in Governance
7. Management and Development
8. Credit and Livelihood
9. Comprehensive Delivery of Social Services (CIDSS)
D. Social Welfare—An Integration of Human Services - Significant events influenced the evolution of the social
welfare system from the intimate mutual aid among the primitive tribes to the expanded meta-institution that
it has become today. It integrates the contribution of different helping professions and human services of
both GOs and NGOs to meet common human needs.
“VULNERABLE LIFE SITUATION PERSPECTIVE”
What is Vulnerability - On a general level, vulnerability refers to the possibility of being physically or
psychologically harmed by certain kinds of risk. Within the context of different disciplines, the meaning of
vulnerability changes in accordance to the primary focus. For example, in economics the focus is on a decline
in income and consumption, while disaster management concentrates more on human and property losses
(Vasta 2004). In the same way, the kind of risks considered are different, for instance environmental, economic
and/or social risks. The level of analysis can also differ, ranging from the vulnerability of geographical areas,
social and ecological systems, to the vulnerability of groups and individuals. Thus, the notion of vulnerability
produces considerable conceptual and terminological diversity. Against this background, it is not surprising that
there is not a commonly agreed upon definition of vulnerability as a scientific term. However, most definitions
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 share some general aspects: “In its broadest sense, the notion of vulnerability refers to the situation of individuals,
households or communities who are exposed to potential harm from one or more risks. It also refers to the inability
of these people or groups to anticipate, withstand, and recover from the damage resulting from an adverse
shock” (Morrone et al. 2011: 6).
 Vulnerability describes the possibility of a certain harm and a kind of inability to deal with it.
 Vulnerability also refers to exposure to contingencies and stress, and difficulty in coping with them.
 It has two side, one is the external and the other is the external side.
A. external side of risks, shocks, and stress to which an individual or household is subject
B. internal side which is defenselessness, meaning a lack of means to cope without damaging loss
Who are considered as vulnerable?
There is never going to be a single definition of “vulnerable people‟ – everyone is vulnerable to harm at some
point in their lives and in certain circumstances, for example when travelling in a car; crossing a road; going in to
hospital. However, some people are more vulnerable than others and in more circumstances – people who need
help to live their daily lives because of a physical or mental disability, or old age, for example; or children.
Sometimes the level of vulnerability will depend on external factors that affect everyone, but place some people
at more risk of harm than others – for example particular ethnic groups when there are racial or religious tensions
in society, or frail elderly people in extreme weather conditions.
 Those who are already vulnerable under the statutory duties of health, social care, housing, emergencies,
etc. – e.g. an elderly person in need of social care to live at home; preventative action with households
most at risk of fire.
 Those who are at immediate risk of moving into one of those statutory categories – e.g. a person
experiencing domestic abuse who might become homeless or the victim of a crime.
 Those who are at risk of wider types of vulnerability where preventative activity might stop them becoming
vulnerable in the statutory sense – e.g. older people currently in good health, but socially isolated; people
on low incomes who might be at risk of not being able to pay their household bills.
What are the sources of vulnerability?
A. Poverty and Race - Discussion of vulnerability inevitably involves poverty and race and related issues of stigma
and discrimination. Low income and education from early life and often over the life course. Studies of
parenting find that low family income and maternal hardship hamper children’s cognitive and social
competence. Moreover, parents in poor living environments have difficulty nurturing and protecting their
children, increasing the likelihood that children will gravitate into activities and peer associations leading to
school dropout, premature sexual experience, use of drugs, and other deviant behavior. Low income and
educational attainment have many consequences, affecting knowledge, employment possibilities, housing,
nutrition, access to medical care, and much more. Studies of parenting find that low family income and
maternal hardship hamper children’s cognitive and social competence. Moreover, parents in poor living
environments have difficulty nurturing and protecting their children, increasing the likelihood that children will
gravitate into activities and peer associations leading to school dropout, premature sexual experience, use
of drugs, and other deviant behavior. Social vulnerabilities associated with low SES are commonly linked as
well to racial and ethnic residential separation in communities with poor schools, deficient community
institutions, and inferior health-enhancing environments. The poorest residential areas are commonly
characterized by noise, heavy traffic, pollution, crime and victimization, high density of liquor outlets, and
easy access to illegal drugs. Studies repeatedly find that such neighborhoods have a high prevalence of
major disorders and deviant behavior, including infant mortality, substance abuse, school dropout,
unemployment, HIV and other STDs, tuberculosis, suicide, mental illness, and crime. Poor and minority children
growing up in these environments are vulnerable. Vulnerability is exacerbated by stigma, prejudice, and
discrimination, which in turn lead to segregation by race and class and high concentrations of devalued
people, such as those with serious and persistent mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders and those
with a history of arrest and incarceration. These stigmatized populations are commonly excluded as well from
public programs designed to aid the “deserving” poor.
B. Social Networks and Lack of Social Support - Many people in impoverished communities, and in much less
deprived communities as well, are often vulnerable because of their precarious ties to social networks and
lack of needed social supports. Such networks provide both emotional and practical help in dealing with
stressors and often make the difference between successful and inadequate coping. Social isolation is
commonly found among the oldest old, whose social networks have become depleted by death and
incapacitating illness, and among others such as people from households disrupted because of divorce,
separation, or death, or people with severe and persistent mental illnesses and other disabilities. They are
especially vulnerable during community disruptions and disasters, lacking the resources to protect
themselves.

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C. Personal Limitations - Ultimately, vulnerability is expressed at the individual level, however important the social
and neighborhood context. Physical and cognitive impairments and serious, persistent illnesses exacerbate
vulnerabilities, and many of these problems, such as very low birthweight, congenital defects, childhood
abuse and deprivation, conduct disorder, and learning difficulties, begin early in life and make later problems
more likely. Early recognition and intervention often prevent serious harm. Moderating the effects of many of
these early personal vulnerabilities depends on good access to high-quality medical care and specialized
rehabilitation services that are usually less accessible to the poor and uninsured.
D. Physical location - A major part of the population is vulnerable because of location, such as in low-density
and impoverished rural areas; urban ghettos; or other places associated with underdeveloped or
deteriorating infrastructure; lack of employment opportunities; inadequate medical, social, and educational
services; poor transportation and communication facilities; high crime and victimization; and exposure to
environmentally adverse conditions. An example here is our country the Philippines. Geographically
speaking, we are in the typhoon belt as well as inside the Pacific Ring of Fire. This means therefore that our
country is physically vulnerable to natural disasters or calamities that serve as source of vulnerability.
What are the Risk Factors of Vulnerability?
1. Personal characteristics - age (e.g. elderly; child), disability / ill-health, ethnicity
2. Personal circumstances - where you live (e.g. locality, tenure), who you live with; relationships, employment
status, finances, social background, education / skills
3. Social / environmental circumstances - weather, economy, other people's attitudes / behaviours
With the given risk factors, what are the services given to them?
A. Preventative Service - Flood prevention, fire risk, social isolation
B. Wider Services - Domestic abuse advice, benefits advice
C. Statutory Service - Health and social care, housing, emergencies safeguarding, fire prevention, and
protection It’s helpful to distinguish between the different types of risk factor for being vulnerable in one
sense or another and the different types of services that may be available to different types of vulnerable
people. The diagram below illustrates this. The risk factors can be divided into personal characteristics and
circumstances, and social / environmental circumstances. How “vulnerable‟ an individual is will depend on
how their characteristics and circumstances interact at a given time.
Programs for Vulnerable People
A. Medical care
B. Child Support
C. Community Organization
D. Disaster Risk Reduction Management
E. Inclusivity of Persons’ with Disability and Senior Citizens
F. Activities or movements to capacitate citizens in the society to minimize vulnerability
G. Provision of provision for children’s needs at different ages (e.g. good quality day care, pre-school, school,
children’s play at different ages).
H. Good standards of occupational health and safety, and control of air pollution
I. Good standards of nutrition
J. Good quality homes and neighborhoods which reduce exposure to biological pathogens, chemicals, and
physical hazards, and reduce vulnerability to “natural” disasters.
“MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS”
Millennium Development Goals are eight goals with measurable targets and clear deadlines for improving the
lives of the world's poorest people. To meet these goals and eradicate poverty, leaders of 189 countries signed
the historic millennium declaration at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000. At that time, eight goals that
range from providing universal primary education to avoiding child and maternal mortality were set with a target
achievement date of 2015. The MDGs were revolutionary in providing a common language to reach global
agreement. The 8 goals were realistic and easy to communicate, with a clear measurement/monitoring
mechanism.
1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
Target:
 To halve the proportion of people whose daily income is less than S1.25
 To achieve full and productive employment, as well as decent work for all, including young people and
women.
 To halve the proportion of individuals suffering from hunger in the period between 1990 and 2015.
Progress in hunger reduction has been significant despite the challenging global environment over the last
decade. Major challenges have included rising unemployment, higher food and energy prices, volatile
commodity prices, economic recessions, frequent extreme weather events and natural disasters, and political
instability and civil strife. These obstacles have slowed down progress in reducing extreme poverty and hunger in
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some of the most vulnerable nations of the world. Even though the MDG targets have been met, it will be
extremely difficult to eliminate the remaining extreme poverty and hunger.
2. Achieve Universal Primary Education
Target:
 ensure that children universally-including both boys and girls- will be able to complete a full course of
primary education by 2015
According to projections, the literacy rate among youth 15-24 years old is expected to reach 93% for men and
90% for women in 2015. However, this still leaves an estimated 103 million youth who cannot read and write in
2015-22 million fewer compared to 2010. Even as the global community seeks to extend the scope to universal
secondary education, it is important that there be renewed attention to achieving universal primary education
in the post 2015-era.
3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
Target:
 To eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005, and in all levels of education
by 2015
Significant progress has been made towards girls and women equally in education, employment and political
representation since 1990, though there are still many gaps in areas not targeted in the MDGs. For the universal
realization of gender equality, it may be necessary to address certain areas like:
 Violence against girls and women
 Men’s and women’s unequal opportunities in the labor market
 Gender-based discrimination in law and practice
 The unequal division of unpaid care and domestic work
 Women’s limited control over property and assets
 Women’s unequal representation in public and private decision making
Gender perspectives should be fully integrated into post-2015 agenda goals
4. Reduce Child Mortality
Target:
 To reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds in the period between 1990 and 2015.
Reducing the mortality of children-under-five requires sound strategies, adequate resources, and political will.
The MDGs have led to amazing, unprecedented gains in reducing child deaths, through improved service
delivery, effective and affordable treatments, and political commitment. The achievement of MDG 4 by most
developing countries shows that it can be done. And with 11 children dying every minute around the world
before celebrating their fifth birthday, more needs to be done to improve child survival rates.
5. Improve Maternal Health
Target:
 To reduce the maternal mortality ratio by 75 percent.
 To achieve universal access to reproductive health.
One of the most fundamental ways to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality is ensuring that every birth occurs
with the help of skilled health personnel – midwife, nurse, or doctor. Progress in increasing the proportion of births
delivered with skilled attendance has been modest over the MDG time frame, which is an indication of the lack
of universal access to care.
Significant progress has been made in reducing maternal deaths and increasing global access to reproductive
health, though the targets were not achieved. Improvements can be made by addressing the large inequities in
maternal health, and strengthening individual country capacity to tackle the problems.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and other diseases.
Target:
 To halt by 2015 and have started to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
 To achieve global access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for those who need it by 2010.
 To have ceased and started reversal of the incidence of malaria and other major disease by 2015.
In 2013, there were an estimated 35 million people living with HIV in the world. This number is increasing as more
people gain access to antiretroviral therapy (ART). And while ART has averted 7.6 million deaths worldwide,
including 4.8 million in sub-Saharan Africa, this is only 36 percent of the 31.5 million people living with HIV in
developing regions. And while 98 malaria-endemic nations have reversed malaria incidence nationally in 2015
compared to 2000, malaria continues to pose a huge public health challenge with an estimated 214 million cases
and 472,000 deaths worldwide in 2015. 97 countries and territories across the globe, or 3.3 billion people, are still
at risk of malaria infection, so more still needs to be done. For patients diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2012, 86
percent were successfully treated globally, hitting the target of 85 percent set in 1991.
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Target:

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  To integrate the principles of sustainable development into every nation’s policies and programmes, and
also reverse the depletion of environmental resources
 To reduce biodiversity loss and achieve a substantial reduction in the rate of loss by 2010
 To halve the proportion of the universal population without sustainable access to clean and safe drinking
water and basic sanitation by 2015.1
 To achieve substantial improvement in the lives of a minimum of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.
Many regions have increased their terrestrial protected areas significantly since 1990, especially in Latin America
where it rose from 8.8 to 23.4 percent between 1990 and 2014, and Western Asia where it more than quadrupled
from 3.7 to 14.4 percent in the same period. Between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of the world population using
improved drinking water source and using improved sanitation facility has increased significantly, surpassing the
MDG target in 2010. The lives of slum dwellers have also improved considerably since 2000 to 2015, with more
than 320 million people gaining access to improved water, durable housing, improved sanitation, or less crowded
housing conditions. This means that the MDG7 target was surpassed. Although MDG7 targets have been largely
achieved, environmental sustainability is still a core pillar of the post-2015 agenda, as healthy, diverse, and well-
managed ecosystems can play a critical role in improving livelihoods and mitigating future environmental
challenges.
8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development
Target:
 To further develop an open, predictable, rule-based, non-discriminatory trading and economic system
 To address the special needs of the least developed countries
 To address the special needs of small island developing States and landlocked developing countries
 To deal exhaustively with the debt1 problems of developing nations
 To provide access to affordable essential drugs in the developing world – in collaboration with
pharmaceutical companies
 To avail benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications, in collaboration with
the private sector
The post-2015 development agenda is currently being prepared for launch. But it is important that its scope and
drive be matched by sufficient funding and renewed efforts to mobilize innovation, science, and technology for
sustainable development. The role of ODA is still important for nations with limited capacity to raise public
resources internally. So, much attention should be directed towards raising the capability of ODA to draw in other
financial flows by blending it with non-concessional public finance and by leveraging private finance and
investments. These market-like tools may play a vital role in funding the post-2015 development agenda. The
trade landscape is also transforming, which will demand more innovative ways to enhance market access and
deal with non-tariff barriers, especially as trade in services expands. It will also be critical to strengthening the
assimilation of developing nations into the multilateral trade system, as measured by their trade diversification
and share in value-added. Finally, it is important that the widening digital divide is addressed, especially with
respect to internet use and quality of access. For instance, only one-third of the population in developing nations
uses the internet compared to 82 percent in the developed countries. It is only then that the transformative
capability of ICTs and the data revolution can be harnessed to provide sustainable development for all.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

- The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a universal call to
action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. SDG’s are
a new, universal set of goals, targets and indicators that UN member states will be expected to use to frame
their agendas and political policies over the next 15 years. The SDGs are unique in that they cover issues that
affect us all. They reaffirm our international commitment to end poverty, permanently, everywhere. They are
ambitious in making sure no one is left behind. More importantly, they involve us all to build a more sustainable,
safer, more prosperous planet for all humanity.
History
- The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were born at the United Nations Conference on
Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. The objective was to produce a set of universal
goals that meet the urgent environmental, political and economic challenges facing our world. The
SDG’s was an outcome of the Rio+20 summit in 2012, which mandated the creation of an open working group
to come up with a draft agenda. On January 1, 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by world leaders at an historic UN Summit officially came
into force. It was implemented in some 170 countries and territories. The SDGs replace the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), which started a global effort in 2000 to tackle the indignity of poverty.
The MDGs established measurable, universally-agreed objectives for tackling extreme poverty and
hunger, preventing deadly diseases, and expanding primary education to all children, among other

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 development priorities. The SDGs are a bold commitment to finish what we started, and tackle some
of the more pressing challenges facing the world today. All 17 Goals interconnect, meaning s uccess
in one affects success for others. Dealing with the threat of climate change impacts how we manage
our fragile natural resources, achieving gender equality or better health helps eradicate poverty, and
fostering peace and inclusive societies will reduce inequalities and help economies prosper. However,
in achieving the SDGs requires the partnership of governments, private sector, civil society and citizens
alike to make sure we leave a better planet for future generations.
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere - By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and
the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and
control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology
and financial services, including microfinance. Eradicating poverty in all its forms remains one of the greatest
challenges facing humanity. While the number of people living in extreme poverty dropped by more than
half between 1990 and 2015, from 1.9 billion to 836 million, too many are still struggling for the most basic
human needs. The SDGs are a bold commitment to finish what was started, and end poverty in all forms and
dimensions by 2030. This involves targeting the most vulnerable, increasing access to basic resources and
services, and supporting communities affected by conflict and climate-related disasters.
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture - Making sure
all people, especially children have access to sufficient and nutritious food all year round. This involves
promoting sustainable agricultural practices, supporting small scale farmers and allowing equal access to
land, technology and markets. It also requires international cooperation to ensure investment in infrastructure
and technology to improve agricultural productivity. Rapid economic growth and increased agricultural
productivity over the past two decades have seen the number of undernourished people drop by almost
half. Many developing countries that used to suffer from famine and hunger can now meet the nutritional
needs of the most vulnerable. Central and East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean have all made huge
progress in eradicating extreme hunger. –UNDP-
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages - By 2030, reduce the global maternal mortality
ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births. By 2030, end preventable deaths of newborns and children under
5 years of age, with all countries aiming to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 per 1,000 live
births and under-5 mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1,000 live births. By 2030, end the epidemics of AIDS,
tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other
communicable diseases. The aim is to achieve universal health coverage, and provide access to safe and
affordable medicines and vaccines for all. This can be done through prevention and treatment, education,
immunization campaigns, and sexual and reproductive health care.
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all - This
goal ensures that all girls and boys must complete free primary and secondary schooling by 2030. It also aims
to provide equal access to affordable vocational training, to eliminate gender and wealth disparities, and
achieve universal access to a quality higher education. Thus, achieving inclusive and quality education for
all reaffirms the belief that education is one of the most powerful and proven vehicles for sustainable
development.
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls - Recognize and value unpaid care and
domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the
promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate. Ensure
women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-
making in political, economic and public life. Ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls is not
only a basic human right, but it also crucial to accelerating sustainable development. It has been proven
time and again, that empowering women and girls has a multiplier effect, and helps drive up economic
growth and development across board. The SDGs aim to build on these achievements to ensure that there
is an end to discrimination against women and girls everywhere. There are still huge inequalities in the labor
market in some regions, with women systematically denied equal access to jobs. Sexual violence and
exploitation, the unequal division of unpaid care and domestic work, and discrimination in public office, all
remain huge barriers. However, there are remarkable progress now. More girls are now in school compared
to 15 years ago, and women now make up to 41 percent of paid workers outside of agriculture, compared
to 35 percent in 1990. Thus, affording women equal rights to economic resources such as land and property
are vital targets of this goal. So is ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health. Today, there
are more women in public office than ever before, and encouraging women leaders will help strengthen
policies and legislation for greater gender equality.
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all - By 2030, improve water
quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and

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 materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe
reuse globally. By 2030, expand international cooperation and capacity-building support to developing
countries in water- and sanitation-related activities and programs, including water harvesting, desalination,
water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse technologies. Ensuring universal access to safe
and affordable drinking water for all by 2030, requires investment in adequate infrastructure, provide
sanitation facilities, and encourage hygiene at every level. Protecting and restoring water-related
ecosystems such as forests, mountains, wetlands, and rivers is essential to mitigate water scarcity. More
international cooperation is also needed to encourage water efficiency and support treatment technologies
in developing countries.
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all - This means investing in clean
energy sources such as solar, wind and thermal. Adopting cost-effective standards for a wider range of
technologies could also reduce the global electricity consumption by buildings and industry by 14 percent.
This means avoiding roughly 1,300 mid-size power plants. Expanding infrastructure and upgrading technology
to provide clean energy in all developing countries is a crucial goal that can both encourage growth and
help the environment. Efforts to encourage clean energy has resulted in more than 20 percent of global
power being generated by renewable sources as of 2011. Still 1 in 7 people lack access to electricity, and as
the demand continues to rise there needs to be a substantial increase in the production of renewable energy
across the world.
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent
work for all - By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men,
including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value. Achieve
higher levels of economic productivity through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation,
including through a focus on high-value added and labor-intensive sectors. The SDGs promote sustained
economic growth, higher levels of productivity and technological innovation. Encouraging entrepreneurship
and job creation are key to this, and are effective measures to eradicate forced labor, slavery and human
trafficking. Thus, this goal achieve to full and productive employment, and decent work for all women and
men.
9. Build resilient and infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation - By
2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use
efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes,
with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities. Facilitate sustainable and
resilient infrastructure development in developing countries through enhanced financial, technological and
technical support to African countries, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and
small-island developing States.
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries - By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and
political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other
status. Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory
laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard. These
widening disparities require the adoption of sound policies to empower the bottom percentile of income
earners, and promote economic inclusion of all regardless of sex, race, or ethnicity. Income inequality is a
global problem that requires global solutions. This involves improving the regulation and monitoring of
financial markets and institutions, encouraging development assistance and foreign direct investment to
regions where the need is greatest.
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable - By 2030, provide access to
safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by
expanding public transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women,
children, persons with disabilities and older persons. Making cities safe and sustainable means ensuring access
to safe and affordable housing, and upgrading slum settlements. It also involves investment in public
transport, creating green public spaces, and improving urban planning and management in a way that is
both participatory and inclusive. Extreme poverty is often concentrated in urban spaces, and national and
city governments struggle to accommodate the rising population in these areas, and more than half of the
world’s population now live in urban areas, thus sustainable development cannot be achieved without
significantly transforming the way we build and manage our urban spaces.
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns - The efficient management of our shared natural
resources, and the way we dispose of toxic waste and pollutants. Encourage industries, businesses and
consumers to recycle and reduce waste is equally important to move towards more sustainable patterns of
consumption by 2030. Achieving economic growth and sustainable development requires that we urgently
reduce our ecological footprint by changing the way we produce and consume goods and resources.

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13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts - Improve education, awareness-raising and
human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early
warning. There is no country in the world that is not experiencing first-hand the drastic effects of climate
change. Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, and are now more than 50 percent higher than their
1990 level. Further, global warming is causing long-lasting changes to our climate system, which threatens
irreversible consequences if we do not take action now. –UNDP-
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development - By 2025,
prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities,
including marine debris and nutrient pollution. Enhancing conservation and the sustainable use of ocean-
based resources through international law will also help mitigate some of the challenges facing our
oceans. The world’s oceans, their temperature, chemistry, currents and life drive global systems that make
the Earth habitable for humankind. Thus, how we manage this vital resource is essential for humanity as a
whole, and to counter balance the effects of climate change.
15. Protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat
desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss - Ensure the conservation,
restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular
forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements. Human life
depends on the earth as much as the ocean for our sustenance and livelihoods. Plant life provides 80 percent
of our human diet, and we rely on agriculture as an important economic resource and means of
development. Therefore, we should conserve and restore the use of terrestrial ecosystems such as forests,
wetlands, and mountains. Halting deforestation is vital to mitigating the impact of climate change. Therefore,
urgent action must be taken to reduce the loss of natural habitats and biodiversity which are part of our
common heritage.
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and
build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels - The SDGs aim to significantly reduce all
forms of violence, and work with governments and communities to find lasting solutions to conflict and
insecurity. Strengthening the rule of law and promoting human rights at the national and international levels
and ensure equal access to justice for all. Without peace, stability, human rights and effective governance,
based on the rule of law, we cannot hope for sustainable development. We are living in a world that is
increasingly divided. Some regions enjoy sustained levels of peace, security, and prosperity, while others fall
into seemingly endless cycles of conflict and violence. This is by no means inevitable and must be addressed.
Therefore, strengthening the rule of law and promoting human rights is key to this process, as is reducing the
flow of illicit arms and strengthening the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global
governance.
17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development -
Strengthen domestic resource mobilization, including through international support to developing countries,
to improve domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection. Adopt and implement investment
promotion regimes for least developed countries. The world today is more interconnected than ever before
and SDGs can only be realized with a strong commitment to global partnership and cooperation. Thus
improving access to technology and knowledge is an important way to share ideas and foster innovation.
Promoting international trade, and helping developing countries increase their exports is all part of achieving
a universal rules-based and equitable trading system that is fair and open, and benefits all.
“The SDGs are unique in that they cover issues that affect us all. They reaffirm our international commitment to
end poverty, permanently, everywhere. They are ambitious in making sure no one is left behind. More
importantly, they involve us all to build a more sustainable, safer, more prosperous planet for all humanity”
“BASIC NEEDS APPROACH”
WHAT IS BASIC? - In the perspective of human development, the term basic in Basic Needs Approach serves to
qualify further the notion of a need as a necessary condition, as something that has to be satisfied at least to
some extent in order for the need—subject to function as a human being.
WHAT IS NEED? - A need should be distinguished from a want, a wish, a desire, a demand. The latter are
subjectively felt and articulated, they may express needs, but they also may not, and there may be needs that
are not thus expressed. Thus, there is no assumption that people are conscious of all of their needs. It makes
perfect sense to talk about the need for freedom of a person born into slavery, knowledgeable of nothing else,
as it make sense to talk about the need for creativity of a person born into the routine jobs of modern society,
knowing nothing else. Correspondingly, it is well known that we may want, wish desire, and demand something
that is not really needed in the sense of being necessary. Necessary for what? For the person to be a human
person, and this is, of course, where the difficulties start. Thus, one aspect of need is tied to the concept of
necessity, which means that we have an image of what is necessary to be human, or at least of what it is to be
non-human.
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WHAT IS BASIC NEED? - There is no single universally accepted definition of 'basic needs', or of what a
development effort aimed at meeting basic needs would comprise. Nor is there a uniform vocabulary to describe
the various elements. There is, instead, a wide spectrum of meanings ranging from, at one extreme, a minimal list
of those things which are required by human beings for bare survival, e.g. food, shelter, and clothing to, at the
other extreme, an emphasis that human needs are not only physical but also psychological, not absolute but
relative to what is enjoyed by other people in society, not finite but expanding as the satisfaction of one need
gives rise to another. At this inclusive extreme basic needs include not only commodities but also public services
such as clean water and transportation, employment, education, participation in decision-making, leisure,
human rights, democracy, an egalitarian society, self-reliance, and more besides. There is also considerable
diversity of opinion as to what constitute the 'ends' which are desired as valuable in themselves and what are the
'means' which are inescapable if those ends are to be achieved. The vocabulary also is diverse, but 'basic needs',
'material needs', 'core needs', 'minimum needs' are expressions that tend to be used for needs at the more
minimal end of the range; while 'non-material' needs, basic 'human' needs, 'fundamental' needs tend to be used
for the more inclusive end. A similar progression from more minimal to more inclusive is given by the series life-
sustaining, life-supporting, life enhancing, and life-enriching needs. Thus, this refers to the fundamental
requirements that serve as the foundations for survival.
WHAT IS BASIC NEEDS APPROACH? - The basic needs approach or also known as Human need-centered
Development, is a concern to provide people with their basic needs. And the focus of the aforementioned
development is to raise the sustainable level of living of the masses of poor people as rapidly as is feasible and
to provide all human beings with the opportunity to develop their potential. It is not a new economic or social
theory akin to Keynesian or Marxist methods of analysis. Indeed, it may equally well be adopted by proponents
of either of these schools or by those of even more divergent political persuasion. The basic needs approach has
little to do with methods of analysis. It is, rather, a bandwagon directed at a series of priorities for action. Its
momentum springs from dissatisfaction with the achievements of development efforts so far; but it has no single
coherent set of theory behind it. In contrast to other approaches, those who advocate a basic needs approach
are likely to give more emphasis to the poor and destitute than to other economic groups, to requirements
determined by society as a whole than the Institute is limited by guarantee. To the preferences of the individual
consumer, to immediate consumption than to investment for the distant future, to the detailed composition of
consumption, in terms of specific quantities and specific goods and services, than to overall income. However,
except in respect of the last of these items, these are tendencies in behavior rather than components of an
overarching and distinct ideology. The main points of distinction between a basic needs and previous growth-
oriented approaches lie in its concern with the more immediate rather than the more distant future and with the
distribution of the benefits of growth among the poorest. Nevertheless, it is not against growth. Indeed, rapid and
substantial growth will be required if basic needs are to be met within the target period, commonly set at twenty
years. The approach's main distinction from the 'redistribution with growth' school of thought lies in its greater
concern with the details of supply and demand and with restructuring the production processes in favor of the
poorest, a restructuring aimed both at providing them with income-earning opportunities and with the goods
and services they need. Some advocates of a basic needs approach stress self-reliance and participation by
target groups in making the decisions which affect them.
THE HISTORY OF BASIC NEEDS APPROACH

By the middle of the 1970s, when the International Labour Office (ILO) was in the midst of preparing for the World
Employment Conference – with the assistance from other UN Organizations and the World Bank – the idea of a
basic needs development strategy was born. In 1976, a World Employment Conference was held under the
auspices of the ILO. It was attended by delegations from 121 member states, and each delegation included
representatives of government, employers, and workers. The basic working paper for the conference was
Employment, Growth and Basic Need. The idea of basic needs originated in the psychology literature of the
1940s and more specifically in an article by Albert Maslow (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Abraham Maslow) in
the Psychological Review of March 1942, in which he distinguished a hierarchy of five needs starting with
physiological and ending with self-actualization needs. Later in India, during the 1950s, the concept of “minimum
needs” was developed by Pitambar Pant of the Indian Planning Commission. But, basic needs had not become
a mainstream approach in development, even if the attractiveness of the concept was clear. But in the 1970s,
“suddenly” the translation of the concept into actual applications took place in three different places, practically
simultaneously: in the Latin American Bariloche project; in the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation publication - What
Now?; and in the International Labour Office (ILO) - World Employment Program. It became clear that

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employment creation was not an end in itself but serves to fulfill the basic needs of individual human beings –
more or less equivalent to Maslow’s first of five rungs. Many people were already on the second, third, fourth and
even fifth rungs, but an important proportion were not even in sight of the ladder. And so the idea arose of
designing a development strategy that had as its main objective meeting basic needs, including those of the
poorest 20 percent of the population.
TWO CONCEPTS OF BASIC NEED
A. Common Basic Needs (Charlotte Towle)
 Survival Needs- refers to biological and material need necessary to sustain life
 Daily living needs- related to man’s functioning as social and intelligence being
 Psychological Needs
 Esteem Needs- refers to biological and material need for achievements, strengths, acceptance,
reputation, status and prestige.
 Self-actualization Needs- realizing personal potentials, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and
peak experiences
 Cognitive Needs- need for knowledge, meaning, etc.
 Aesthetic Needs- need for appreciation and search for beauty, balanced, etc.
 Spiritual Needs- need to worship higher being
B. Human Needs (Hepworth and Larsen)
 Physical Needs- are the requirements for human survival or preoccupied with the body and its need
 Emotional Needs- are the feelings that all people have to mental stability
 Positive Self Concept and Personal Fulfillment- includes identity, self-esteem and confidence.
MASLOWS HEIRARCHY OF NEEDS
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs concept assumes that lower level needs must be satisfied or at least relatively
satisfied before higher level needs become motivators. Conative need is that people have a striving or
motivational character. Lower level needs have prepotency over higher level needs; they must be satisfied or
mostly satisfied before higher level needs be satisfied.
Physiological Needs. Most basic needs of any person. Including food, water, oxygen, maintenance of body
temperature and so on and most proponent of all. Perpetually hungry people are motivated to eat, not to make
friends or gain self-esteem. They do not see beyond food, and as long as this need remains unsatisfied, their
primary motivation is to obtain something to eat.
Two important respects:
1. First, they are the only needs that can be completely satisfied or even overly satisfied. People can get
enough to eat so that food completely loses its motivational power.
2. A second characteristic peculiar to physiological needs is their recurring nature. After people had eaten,
they will eventually become hungry again. They constantly need to replenish their food and water supply; and
one breath of air must be followed by another.
Safety Needs. Including physical security, stability, dependency, protection, and freedom from threatening
forces such as war, terrorism, illness, fear, anxiety, danger, chaos, and natural disasters.
Love and Belongingness Needs. The desire for friendship; the wish for mate and children; the need to belong to
a family, a club, a neighborhood, or a nation. Also include some aspects of sex and human contact as well
as the need to both give and receive love.
Esteem Needs. Self-respect, confidence, competence and the knowledge that others hold them in high esteem.
Self-Actualization Needs. Self-fulfillment, the realization of all one’s potential, and a desire to become creative in
the full sense of the word.

DEFINITION AND FEATURES OF THE BASIC NEEDS APPROACH

The basic needs approach is one of the major approaches to the measurement of absolute poverty in
developing countries. It attempts to define the absolute minimum resources necessary for long-term physical
well-being, usually in terms of consumption goods. The poverty line is then defined as the amount
of income required to satisfy those needs. The 'basic needs' approach was introduced by the International Labor
Organization's World Employment Conference in 1976.[1][2] "Perhaps the high point of the WEP was the World
Employment Conference of 1976, which proposed the satisfaction of basic human needs as the overriding
objective of national and international development policy. The basic needs approach to development was
endorsed by governments and workers’ and employers’ organizations from all over the world. It influenced the
programs and policies of major multilateral and bilateral development agencies, and was the precursor to the
human development approach. A traditional list of immediate "basic needs"
is food (including water), shelter and clothing. Many modern lists emphasize the minimum level of consumption
of 'basic needs' of not just food, water, clothing and shelter, but also sanitation, education, and healthcare.
Different agencies use different lists. The basic needs approach has been described as consumption-oriented,

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giving the impression "that poverty elimination is all too easy. Amartya Sen focused on 'capabilities' rather than
consumption. In the development discourse, the basic needs model focuses on the measurement of what is
believed to be an eradicable level of poverty. Programs following the basic needs approach do not invest
in economically productive activities that will help a society carry its own weight in the future, rather it focuses on
allowing the society to consume just enough to rise above the poverty line and meet its basic needs. These
programs focus more on subsistence than fairness. Nevertheless, in terms of "measurement", the basic needs or
absolute approach is important. The basic needs approach to development begins with the objective of
providing opportunities for the full physical, mental and social development of the human personality, and then
derives the ways for achieving this goal (Streeten, 1977: 9). It emphasizes on the end of providing particular
resources to particular groups that had been identified as deficient in these resources. For instance, educational
facilities may be extended to those who cannot afford to go for education on their own income. Similar may be
the case for other basic needs as well. Therefore, it concentrates on the nature of what is to be provided rather
than on income. Although, it embraces certain components of previous strategies, its emphasis has shifted
towards provision of social services. These services may be in the form of nutrition, health and education not only
as a means towards helping the poor but also as an effort towards improving the quality of social and
environmental conditions of human existence. It certainly appears to be having a more positive framework and
objectives than those stated by growth inducing and unemployment reducing theses. The processes that keep
some segments of the population as poor are the result of an unequal distribution of income, unequal access to
centrally provided services and the consequent concentration of the fruits of economic growth in a fewer hands.
So the countries, which underwent an initial distribution of assets as a result of internal revolution or of external
forces, have shown better performance in meeting basic needs than those who have only depended upon the
market forces. The state is dominated by the relative power of the various socio-economic classes. Its policy
measures also affect the relative power of these classes through the economic system by influencing economic
processes to their own benefit. Therefore, the level of basic needs satisfaction for each of the socio-economic
class may not be the same (Hopkins and Van Der Hoeven, 1986: 22). The political and economic systems are as
important as the state in realizing the basic needs objectives. Because, the country studies of the World Bank
convince the analysts that reallocation of resources towards alleviation of poverty and meeting basic needs
involves considerable structural changes in the political and economic balance of power within the societies
(Burki and Haq, 1981: 169). These structural changes have been carried out in a wide variety of political and
economic systems, from market-oriented economies of South Korea and Taiwan to mixed economy of Sri Lanka,
to centrally planned economies of China and Cuba, and to decentralized socialist economy of Yugoslavia. So
there is no unique system that can be followed. But the important fact is that the operation of basic needs
strategies through these divergent country set-ups are based on some common criteria. They are equitable
distribution of physical assets, particularly land, and decentralized administration and decision making with
sufficient central support. Conceptually, the BNA is now considered as the most comprehensive and integrated
approach to development.

According to Dharam Ghai (Ghai, 1980: 368), a government program may be defined as a basic needs
activity if it incorporates some or all of the following features:

a. it raises incomes of the 'poverty groups' to specified levels over a given period through creation of
employment, redistribution of assets, and measures to enhance productivity;

b. it directly contributes to the achievement of the targets established in respect of core basic needs like
nutrition, health, education, housing, and safe drinking water supply;

c. it increases production of other basic goods and services purchased by low-income groups from, their
disposable incomes; and

d. it promotes decentralization of power, people's participation in political decision making, and self-
reliance.
TWO MAJOR THEMES CAN BE IDENTIFIED IN THE CONCERN TO ENSURE THAT THE DEFINED BASIC NEEDS OF THE TARGET
GROUPS ARE MET BEFORE A TARGET DATE.
First theme: is concerned with providing the groups with enough resources (income) and the other with how they
expend them. Within the first theme, there are two alternative strategies:
1. One “trickle down” is to achieve such a high rate of overall economic growth that even the poorest target
groups benefit sufficiently from it without the necessity for explicitly redistributive policies.
2. The other strategy is a deliberate change (redistribution) in the proportional distribution of income and
wealth between rich and poor. Such redistribution may be done by transfer taxes and income benefits, by
changing the future pattern of investment in order to promote the productivity or consumption of the target
group, or by redistributing existing productive assets (e.g. by land reform).

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BASIC NEEDS APPROACH INDICATORS TO MEASURE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
1. Health Standard
2. Education Levels
3. Food Availability
4. Water Supply
5. Shelter and Residence
“RIGHTS BASED APPROACH”
A rights-based approach to development is a framework that integrates the norms, principles, standards and
goals of the international human rights system into the plans and processes of development. It is characterized
by methods and activities that link the human rights system and its inherent notion of power and struggle with
development. RBA is able to recognize poverty as injustice and include marginalization, discrimination, and
exploitation as central causes of poverty. In RBA poverty is never simply the fault of the individual, nor can its
solution be purely personal. However, RBA also refuses simply to place the burden of poverty and injustice on
abstract notions such as society or globalization. Human rights claims always have a corresponding duty-bearer.
A central dynamic of RBA is thus about identifying root causes of poverty, empowering rights-holders to claim
their rights and enabling duty-bearers to meet their obligations. In this way RBA calls attention to a number of
central features of poverty and development:
• The re-emergence of the state and governance as a central element in development, through a focus on
the interrelation between the state and its citizens in terms of duties and rights. RBA draws attention to the
basic obligation of the state to take care of its most vulnerable citizens, including those not able to claim their
rights for themselves.
• The acknowledgement that severe poverty is a human rights violation, and that poverty in itself is a root cause
of a number of human rights violations. Looking at poverty through a lens of justice calls attention to the fact
that poverty is something that often is imposed on people as an active act of discrimination and
marginalization. It also calls attention to what is not done. Sometimes the cruelest violations are through acts
of omission.
• The growing recognition that poverty is about more than economic needs and that growth-centered
development has to address more complex and fundamental causes of poverty and inequality such as
discrimination, exploitation and abuse. This also ensures that poverty is not merely seen as a fact of individual
circumstances or capacities, but rather perceived within the structures of power and inequity embedded in
the local, the national and the global context. These realizations have had two major consequences:
 An increasing demand to shift away from a simple needs-based approach in development thinking; and;
 An increasing acknowledgement of the complexity of poverty.
Like all development, RBA implies an effort to improve the situation of people, focusing on their needs, problems
and potentials. In this sense, RBA relates to the same issues as most development initiatives such as food, water,
shelter, healthcare, education, security, freedom to pursue life goals etc.
However, it is central to the premise of RBA that human beings have inalienable rights and a deprivation of needs
can often be addressed as a denial of rights. In other words, clean drinking water is not only something you need,
it is also something you have a right to have as a human being. Thus, while the fundamental human needs are
the basis of human rights there are some notable differences between needs and rights:
• Human rights go beyond the notion of physical needs and include a more holistic perspective of human
beings in terms of their civil, political, social, economic, and cultural roles.
• Rights always trigger obligations and responsibilities, whereas needs do not. Rights cannot be addressed
without raising the question of who has obligations in relation to these rights. This automatically raises
questions about the actions and accountability of duty-bearers.
• People are often expected to be grateful when their needs are met; this is not the case when people’s
rights are met. This reminds us not to campaign for ‘the needy’, but rather to support marginalized people
as equal human beings in their efforts to claim their rights and address the poverty, suffering and injustice
in their lives.
THE THREE (3) MAJOR APPROACHES
1. The Charity Model - The Charity Model is the most instinctive and emotional. When we see a poor or a needy
person, we react by wanting donate some money or wanting to do something to help. This is sometimes
called the Generosity Model. For thousands of years, this was the prevailing model for dealing with social
problems. It is based on the assumption that the philanthropists (donors) knew the needs of the poor and
would satisfy those needs through generosity. Typically, the Charity Model involved the donation of money,
food, clothing, shelter and medical care to alleviate the immediate suffering. After their immediate needs
were catered for, the poor and needy continued to be poor and needy and they became increasingly
dependent on donations. In many cases, because the poor did not participate in identifying their real needs,

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 they were not fully committed to changing their lives in the way that the donors expected or demanded. The
Charity Model does little or nothing to make systemic changes to fix the causes of the problems.
2. The Needs Based Approach - Around the middle of the 20th century, the development sector started to shift
into a new model; the Needs-Based Approach. This approach was to base interventions on the needs as
expressed by the poor themselves. This approach came with a very important change. The donors did not
arbitrarily decide what the poor needed. Rather, the poor participated in the process of identifying their real
needs and deciding on the means to alleviate those needs. For decades, the Needs-Based Approach to
development prevailed. It was a huge improvement over the Charity Model as it helped establish a respectful
dialogue between the donors and the needy. Although the Needs-Based Approach included the poor in the
process, it stopped short of addressing policies and regulations that could make systemic change. The
prevailing view was (and in many cases still is) that NGOs should not engage in local or national politics.
Donor agencies did not want to be accused of interfering in governance matters so many of the problems
continued to re-surface decade after decade. The shortcomings of Needs-Based Approach include:
 It kept the image of poor people as (begging) beneficiaries and donors as benevolent.
 It implied no obligations on political circles and other influential stakeholders.
 Benevolent people met the needs of the poor only when resources were available.
 Interventions were mostly at micro levels with minimal effort at the macro, national or international
 level.
 It caused frustration as it encouraged people to participate at community development level, but
 discouraged them from participating in higher, policy-making circles.
3. Rights-Based Approach - For half a century, developing nations were arguing at the United Nations sessions
for the need to recognize the right to development as a human right. With a growing globalization process
and several political changes around the world, and with increasing pressure from developing nations, the
United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Right to Development. “The right to
development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are
entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in
which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.” This declaration gave a strong boost
to the Rights-Based Approach to development and marked a new era in social development.
PRINCIPLES OF THE RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH
Some of the principles that come with the new Human Rights framework for development are:
1. Universality - ‘Human rights are inalienable, in that they cannot be taken away from someone or voluntarily
given up.’ The universality principle is what distinguishes human rights from other acquired rights such as
citizenship rights and contractual rights.
2. Non-Discrimination and Equality - ‘Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this
Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other
opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.’ Human rights apply to everyone
everywhere and under any circumstance.
3. Indivisibility - ‘Rights are indivisible and should be taken in a holistic way.’ No one right is more important
than another. For instance, we cannot negotiate with one group to get some rights and let go of other
rights. Using RBA for development, we might set priorities to fulfil rights, but it does not mean that we let go
of other rights.
4. Interdependence and Interrelatedness - ‘All human rights are closely interrelated and interdependent and
affect one another.’ The right to education affects the right to work and the right to good health, and vice
versa. This principle helps us to link the root causes of problems to the symptoms of the problem.
5. Participation -‘Participation is an essential right.’ This is stated in the first article of the UN Declaration on the
Right to Development. It means that everyone is entitled to freely fully contribute to, participate in and
enjoy political, economic, social and cultural development of their communities. The right to participate
needs to be protected and guaranteed by the state and other entities.
6. The Rule of Law - Rights must be protected by both strong legislations as well as an independent judicial
system to ensure that the law is fair and is applied to all people.
7. Accountability - This principle is another key one for human rights. The whole idea about rights is that they
must be delivered. In other words, there is an obligation to give these rights to their right holders. All people
have rights and are called right holders. The people or entities who are obliged to deliver and ensure these
rights are called duty bearers. We can think of anyone as a right holder as well as a duty bearer. However
most of the time duty bearers are the governments and other bodies of state (hereafter referred to as the
State). The Rights Based Approach also recognizes that other non-state parties could be duty bearers.
Accountability is achieved by having the State as the principal duty bearer do the following:
 Accept responsibility for the impact it has on people’s lives
 Co-operate by providing information, undertaking transparent processes and hearing people’s views

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  Respond adequately to those views
This last principle, accountability, is a central piece in the rights-based approach as a framework for social
justice advocacy. The accountability principle has contributed the biggest part in helping development
workers to establish their involvement in politics as a legitimate activity, engaging with citizen groups in
the political process.
PRINCIPAL DUTY BEARER: THE STATE
By ratifying the different United Nations human rights treaties, States automatically assume the principal roles of
guaranteeing these rights, or, according to the RBA language, they become the ‘principal duty bearers’. States
must take all necessary steps to guarantee their citizens’ rights.
Obligations of States to International Human Rights Law:
 The obligation to respect requires the State to abstain from carrying out, sponsoring or tolerating any
practice, policy or legal measure violating the integrity of individuals or impinging on their freedom to
access resources to satisfy their needs. It also requires that legislative and administrative codes take
account of guaranteed rights.
 The obligation to protect obliges the State to prevent the violation of rights by other individuals or non-
state actors. Where violations do occur the State must guarantee access to legal remedies.
 The obligation to fulfil involves issues of advocacy, public expenditure, governmental regulation of the
economy, the provision of basic services and related infrastructure and redistributive measures. The duty
of fulfilment includes those measures necessary for guaranteeing opportunities to access entitlements.
OTHER DUTY BEARERS: NON-GOVERNMENT DUTY BEARERS
Although States play the role of the principal duty bearer, there are other non-state entities that have obligations
to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of people.
 Primary duty-bearers – e.g. parents for children, teachers for students, police for crime suspects,
doctors/nurses for patients, employers for employees etc.
 Secondary duty-bearers – e.g. institutions and organisations with immediate jurisdiction over the primary
duty-bearers e.g. school governors, community organisations, hospital administrations etc.
 Tertiary duty-bearers – e.g. institutions and organisations at a higher level / more remote jurisdiction such
as NGOs, aid agencies, private sector organisations etc.
 External duty-bearers – e.g. countries, institutions and organisations with no direct involvement e.g. WTO,
UN, INGOs, Security Council, African Union etc.
ADVOCACY
Advocacy works on two levels:
1. With the right holders to help them claim their right in legitimate ways while working on protecting the
rights of others. Working with the disadvantaged and marginalized right holders is crucially important as
part of helping them regain confidence in their ability to equally and fully participate in the decision
making process.
2. With the duty bearers (State, or non-State) to do the following:
 Be mindful of, and driven by, the rights of people in their efforts to respect, protect and fulfil these
rights.
 Do their best to not only fulfil these rights, but also, make themselves accountable and responsive
to the people in this regard.
“A Rights-Based Approach to development puts the protection and realization of human rights at the centre. It
uses established and accepted human rights standards as a common framework for assessing and guiding
sustainable development initiatives. From this perspective, the ultimate goal of development is to guarantee all
human rights to everyone. Progressively respecting, promoting and fulfilling human rights obligations are seen
as the way to achieve development. A rights-based approach to development is both a vision and a set of
tools. Human rights can be the means, the ends, the mechanism of evaluation and the central focus of
sustainable human development.”
IMPLICATIONS OF RBA ON DEVELOPMENT AND ADVOCACY WORK
RBA might be the fashion these days for development work. It has already been receiving criticism on
how applicable it is to real life development problems. Nevertheless, RBA has already left a big impact on the
field of development and advocacy.
Poverty and Development in a Rights-Based Approach
A Rights-Based Approach holds that a person for whom a number of human rights remain unfulfilled, such
as the right to food, health, education, information, participation; is a poor person. Poverty is thus more than lack
of resources – it is the manifestation of exclusion and powerlessness. In this context the realization of human rights
and the process of development are not separate. On the contrary, development becomes a sub-set of the
process of fulfilling human rights.

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  An increasing number of communities and development groups started to establish the link between
what they need to achieve in their development programs and what takes place in political arena. The
taboo of “we have nothing to do with politics” has already been broken.
 Disadvantaged and marginalized communities started to look at their problems as unfulfilled rights. The
language of needs has changed to be rights.
CHALLENGES FACED IN APPLYING THE RIGHTS BASED APPROACH
Right Based Approach is not the magic solution to everything. It actually comes with some serious
challenges that advocacy workers need to consider before adopting this approach. Following are some of the
major challenges:
 One of the RBA principles, indivisibility, actually presents one of the biggest challenges to applying RBA.
Indivisibility means that rights should be taken as a whole. We cannot defend some rights and put aside some
others. In real life, attaining all rights at the same time is virtually impossible. With so many rights violated,
advocacy and social justice workers need to prioritize their efforts in terms of which rights to start with in a
given country.
 Some groups, especially those who have been marginalized and disempowered for a long time might feel
that calling for their rights are too confrontational to start with. Indeed, using the rights framework might sound
more confrontational than the needs-based approach. Groups applying this approach for the first time need
to pay more attention to the language that they use to reduce the sense of confrontation as much as
possible.
 RBA falls short of expressing some important soft needs. Rights are usually expressed in rigid legal terminology
and the need to be loved and genuinely respected is difficult to capture.
“ECOLOGICAL MOVEMENT”
Ecological – relating to or concerned with the living organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings
Movements- a group of people working together to advance their shared political, social, or artistic ideas ex.
Labor movements
Ecological movement is a social and political movement mainly concerning with the conservation of
environment as well as improving the state of environment. It is from local to global movement.
Timeline of history of environmentalism:
7th century
 630s — Caliph Abu Bakr commanded his army: "Bring no harm to the trees, nor burn them with fire,
especially those which are fruitful. Slay not any of the enemy's flock, save for your food."
13th century
 1272 — King Edward I of England banned the burning of sea-coal by proclamation in London, after its
smoke had become a problem.
14th century
 1366 — The city of Paris forces butchers to dispose of animal wastes outside the city (Ponting)
 1388 — The English Parliament passes an act forbidding the throwing of filth and garbage into ditches,
rivers and waters. The city of Cambridge also passes the first urban sanitary laws in England
15th century
 1420 to 1427 — Madeira islands : destruction of the laurisilva forest, or the woods which once clothed the
whole island when the Portuguese settlers decided to clear the land for farming by setting most of the
island on fire.[7] It is said that the fire burned for seven years.
17th century
 1609 — Hugo Grotius publishes Mare Liberum (The Free Sea) with arguments for the new principle that the
sea was international territory and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade. The ensuing debate
had the British empire and France claim sovereignty over territorial waters to the distance within which
cannon range could effectively protect it, the three mile (5 km) limit.
 1690 — Colonial Governor William Penn requires Pennsylvania settlers to preserve 1-acre (4,000 m2) of
trees for every five acres cleared.
18th century
 1711 — Jonathan Swift notes the contents of London's gutters: "sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts
and blood, drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud..."
 1720 — In India, hundreds of Bishnois Hindus of Khejadali go to their deaths trying to protect trees from
the Maharaja of Jodhpur, who needed wood to fuel the lime kilns for cement to build his palace. This
event has been considered as the origins of the 20th century Chipko movement.
 1739 — Benjamin Franklin and neighbors petition Pennsylvania Assembly to stop waste dumping and
remove tanneries from Philadelphia's commercial district. Foul smell, lower property values, disease and
interference with fire fighting are cited. The industries complain that their rights are being violated, but

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 Franklin argues for "public rights." Franklin and the environmentalists win a symbolic battle but the dumping
goes on.
 1762 to 1769 — Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste
disposal and water pollution.
 1798 – Thomas Robert Malthus publishes An Essay on the Principle of Population, an evolutionary social
theory of population dynamics as it had acted steadily throughout all previous history.
19th century
 1820 — World human population reached 1 billion.[9]
 1828 — Carl Sprengel formulates the Law of the Minimum stating that economic growth is limited not by
the total of resources available, but by the scarcest resource.
 1845 — First use of the term "carrying capacity" in a report by the US Secretary of State to the Senate.
 1859 — Publication of second edition of William Elliott's Carolina Sports by Land and Water (first published
in 1846), an early example of the hunter-as-conservationist, a phenomenon which became increasingly
important for conservationism.
 1864 — George Perkins Marsh publishes Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human
Action (revised 1874 as The Earth as Modified by Human Action), the first systematic analysis of humanity's
destructive impact on the natural environment and a work which becomes (in Lewis Mumford's words)
"the fountain-head of the conservation movement."
 1866 - The term ecology is coined in German as Oekologie by Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834–
1919) in his Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. Haeckel was an anatomist, zoologist, and field
naturalist appointed professor of zoology at the Zoological Institute, Jena, in 1865. Haeckel was
philosophically an enthusiastic Darwinian. Ecology is from the Greek oikos, meaning house or dwelling
and logos, meaning discourse or the study of other scenic areas such as Niagara Falls and
the Adirondacks.
 1873 - International Meteorological Organization is formed.
 1874 - Charles Hallock establishes Forest and Stream magazine sparking a US national debate about
ethics and hunting.
- German graduate student Othmar Zeidler first synthesises DDT, later to be used as an insecticide.
 1876 - British River Pollution Control Act makes it illegal to dump sewage into a stream.
 1879 - U.S. Geological Survey formed. John Wesley Powell, explorer of the Colorado River a decade
earlier, will become its head in March 1881.
 1883 - Francis Galton coins the still controversial concept of eugenics in his book Inquiries into Human
Faculty and Its Development.
 1895 -Svante Arrhenius presented to the Stockholm Physical Society the paper “On the Influence of
Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground.” It is the first scientific work concerning the
influence of a rise in carbon dioxide on the atmospheric warming.
 1895 - Sewage cleanup in London means the return of some fish species (grilse, whitebait, flounder, eel,
smelt) to the River Thames.
20th century
 1905 - The term smog is coined by Henry Antoine Des Voeux in a London meeting to express concern
over air pollution.
 1906 - Antiquities Act, passed by US Congress which authorized the president to set aside national
monument sites.
- San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires destroy much of the city.
 1908 - Muir Woods National Monument was established on January 9 and now governed by the National
Park Service.
- The National Conservation Commission, appointed in June by President Roosevelt.
 1909 — US President Theodore Roosevelt convenes the North American Conservation Conference, held
in Washington, D.C. and attended by representatives of Canada, Newfoundland, Mexico, and the
United States.
1910s
 1919 — The National Parks Conservation Association is founded.
1920s
 1927 — Great Mississippi Flood.
 1928 — Thomas Midgley, Jr. develops chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) as a non-toxic refrigerant. The first
warnings of damage to stratospheric ozone were published by Molina and Rowland 1974. They shared
the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work. Since 1987 world production is reduced under
the Montreal Protocol and banned in most countries.

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  1929 — the Swann Chemical Company develops polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) for transformer coolant
use. Research in the 1960s revealed PCBs to be potent carcinogens. Banned from production in the US
1976, probably 1 million tonnes of PCBs were manufactured in total globally.
1930s
 1930 — World human population reached 2 billion.
 1933 — Legislation on Animal rights adopted, Germany.
— Publication of Game Management by Aldo Leopold.
 1934 — Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act.
 1935 — Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act.
 1939 -The insecticidal properties of DDT discovered by Paul Hermann Müller, who was awarded the
1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his efforts. The first ban on its use came in 1970.
1940s
 1947 - Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)
 1948 - World Conservation Union or International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
(IUCN) is an international organization dedicated to natural resource conservation. Founded in 1948, its
headquarters is located in Gland, Switzerland.
 1949- First known dioxin exposure incident, in a Nitro, West Virginia herbicide production plant. Extensively
used by the British during the Malayan Emergency and the US during the Vietnam War 1961 – 1971
as Agent Orange. Production ban in the US on some component from 1970.
1950s
 1951- World Meteorological Organization (WMO) established by the United Nations. Drinking water
fluoridation becomes an official policy of the U.S. Public Health Service to reduce tooth decay, soon
followed by other countries.
 1954 -The first nuclear power plant to generate electricity for a power grid started operations
at Obninsk, Soviet union on 27 June. The first substantial accident happened on 10 October 1957
in Windscale, England.
 1958- Mauna Loa Observatory initiates monitoring of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) levels. The time
series eventually became the main reference on global atmospheric change.
1960s
 1960 - World human population reached 3 billion.
- Mobilisation in France to preserve the Vanoise National Park in the Alpes (Val d'Isère, Tignes, etc.) from
an important touristic project. The park itself was created three years later, in 1963, and was the first French natural
park.
- Wallace Stegner writes the Wilderness Letter, credited with helping lead to Wilderness Act.[16]
- Federal Water Pollution Control Act
 1961 - World Wildlife Fund (WWF) registered as a charitable trust in Morges, Switzerland, an international
organization for the conservation, research and restoration of the natural environment.
 1962 - Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring.
- Murray Bookchin publishes Our Synthetic Environment
- The first White House Conservation Conference takes place.
 1963 - The Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is signed by the U.S., the U.K. and the U.S.S.R.
- Clean Air Act
 1964 -Norman Borlaug takes position as the director of the International Wheat Improvement Program
in Texcoco, Mexico. The program leads to the Green Revolution.
- Wilderness Act.
- United States Postal Service releases John Muir stamp.
 1965 - In the Storm King case, a judge rules that aesthetic impacts could be considered in deciding
whether Consolidated Edison could demolish a mountain, a landmark case in environmental law.
 1966 - National Wildlife Refuge System Act.
 1967 - Environmental Defense Fund founded.
- Amendments to the Clean Air Act.
- Apollo 1 fire
 1968- UNESCO hosts the Paris Biosphere Conference, which would ultimately result in
 1969- National Environmental Policy Act including the first requirements on Environmental impact
assessment.
1970s
 1970 - Earth Day April 22., millions of people gather in the United States for the first Earth day organized
by Gaylord Nelson, former senator of Wisconsin, and Denis Hayes, Harvard graduate student.

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  1971- The international environmental organisation Greenpeace founded in Vancouver, Canada.
Greenpeace has later developed national and regional offices in 41 countries worldwide.
- International Institute for Environment and Development established in London, UK. One offshoot is the World
Resources Institute with its biannual report World Resourcessince 1984.
 1972 — The Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm, Sweden 5 to 16 June, the first of
a series of world environmental conferences.
 1973 — OPEC announces oil embargo against United States.
- World Conservation Union (IUCN) meeting drafts the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
- Endangered Species Preservation Act.
- E. F. Schumacher publishes Small Is Beautiful.
- Cousteau Society founded.
 1974 — Chlorofluorocarbons are first hypothesized to cause ozone thinning.
- National Reserves Management Act.
- World human population reached 4 billion.[9]
- State Natural Heritage Program Network launched in the US.
 1975 — Energy Policy and Conservation Act.
 1976 — Dioxin accidental release in Seveso, Italy on 10 July, killing animals and traumatizing the
population.
- Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
- Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act
 1977 — Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act.
- Soil and Water Resources Conservation Act.
- Abalone Alliance founded.
- Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founded.
- New York City blackout of 1977
- Ekofisk oil field spill.
- U.S. admits to neutron bomb testing.
 1978 — Brominated flame-retardants replaces PCBs as the major chemical flame retardant. Swedish
scientists noticed these substances to be accumulating in human breast milk 1998. First ban on use in the
EU 2004.
 1979 — The Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution is established to reduce air pollutant
emissions and acid rain.
- Three Mile Island, worst nuclear power accident in US history.
1980s
 1980 – Superfund (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act or CERCLA)
- Earth First! founded
Low Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980
 1981 - Lois Gibbs founds the Citizens' Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste
 1982 - Coastal Barrier Resources Act.
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is signed on December the 10th at Montego
Bay. Part XII of which significantly developed port-state control of pollution from ships.
 1984 - Bhopal disaster in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh (Methyl isocyanate leakage).
Green Committees of Correspondence founded.
World watch Institute publishes its first State of the World report.
 1985 - Rainforest Action Network founded.
Chemical leak in Institute, West Virginia
FDA approved bovine somatotropin
 1986 - Chernobyl, world's worst nuclear power accident occurs at a plant in Ukraine.
Northern Rivers Rerouting Project abandoned by the USSR government.
 1987 - World human population reached 5 billion.[9]
The Report of the Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future on sustainable development, is published.
Conservation International founded.
 1988 - Ocean Dumping Ban Act.
- Student Environmental Action Coalition founded.
- Lawsuit brought by Environmental Defense Fund results in McDonald's agreeing to
use biodegradable containers.
- Alternative Motor Fuels Act
 1989 - Exxon Valdez creates largest oil spill in US history.

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1990s
 1990 - National Environmental Education Act.
- European Environment Agency was established by EEC Regulation 1210/1990 and became operational in
1994. It is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark.
- The IPCC first assessment report was completed, and served as the basis of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
- Clean Air Act – major amendment
- Redwood Summer
- Dolphin safe label introduced.
 1991 — The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty was signed 4 October. The
agreement provides for the protection of the Antarctic environment through five specific annexes on
marine pollution, fauna, and flora, environmental impact assessments, waste management, and
protected areas. It prohibits all activities relating to mineral resources except scientific.
- World's worst oil spill occurs in Kuwait during war with Iraq.
- Kuwaiti oil fires
Global Environment Facility (GEF) was established by donor governments.
 1992 — The Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to June 14, was unprecedented for a United
Nations conference, in terms of both its size and the scope of its concerns.
- United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change opened for signature on 9 May ahead of the
Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
 1993 - The Great Flood of 1993 was one of the most destructive floods in United States history involving
the Missouri and Mississippi river valleys.
 1994 - United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
-The first genetically modified food crop released to the market. It remains a strongly controversial
environmental issue.
 1995 — Scotland's Environmental Protection Agency is established.
 1996 — Western Shield, a wildlife conservation project is started in Western Australia, and through
successful work has taken several species off of the state, national, and international (IUCN) Endangered
Species Lists..
 1997 — July, U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which stated that
the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and
timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations.
- The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December. It is actually an amendment to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC). Countries that ratify this protocol commit to
reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases.
 1999 — World human population reached 6 billion.[9]
21st century
 2001 — U.S. rejects the Kyoto Protocol.
— The IPCC release the IPCC Third Assessment Report.
 2002 — Earth Summit, held in Johannesburg a United Nations conference.
 2003 — The world's largest reservoir, the Three Gorges Dam begins filling 1 June.
— European Heat Wave resulting in the premature deaths of at least 35,000 people.
 2004 — 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami affects coutries surrounding the Indian Ocean, killing
nearly a quarter of a million people.
— FBI initiates Operation Backfire – an anti-terrorist law enforcement operation against "Eco-Radicals."
 2005 — Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma cause widespread destruction and environmental harm to
coastal communities in the US Gulf Coast region.
— The Kyoto Protocol came into force on February 16 following ratification by Russia on November 18, 2004.
 2006 — Former U.S. vice president Al Gore releases An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary that
describes global warming. The next year, Gore is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (jointly with
the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change) for this and related efforts.
— The BBC's "Climate Chaos" season includes Are We Changing Planet Earth?, a two-part investigation into
global warming by David Attenborough.
— The Stern Review is published. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, says that it shows that scientific evidence
of global warming was "overwhelming" and its consequences "disastrous".
— World human population reached 6.5 billion[20]
 2007 — The IPCC release the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
— Power Shift 2007 – the first National Youth Climate Conference, held in College Park, MD and Washington,
D.C. November 2–5, 2007. Power Shift 2007: The Energy Action Coalition saw over 5,000 youth converge in

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Washington, D.C. to build their movement, lobby congress, and make a statement about the way youth feel
about Global Warming.
Sample of an ecological movement:
 Asian Conservation Foundation, Inc - Committed to conserving biological diversity and developing
sustainable communities by providing technical and funding support for conservation and community
development projects and initiatives. The first site to be identified and the recipient of ACF funds is in El Nido,
Palawan.
 Center for Environmental Concerns–Philippines (CEC-Phils) - The Center for Environmental Concerns–
Philippines (CEC-Phils) was founded in 1989 through the initiatives of organizations representing fisherfolk,
farmers, indigenous peoples, women, urban poor, and professional sectors.
 Eco Actions PH – Aksyon Kalikasan - Protect and conserve Mts. Palay-Palay and Mataas na Gulod National
Park, the source of clean air and clean water for Cavite communities. GOALS (5 years – 2014 to 2018)
1. Establish an effective research, information, communication and education (RICE) program for the
achievement of the Philippine Sustainable Development Goals across 19 communities and 19 schools in
Cavite province.
2. Establish a viable green social enterprises (ecopreneurship) program in 19 communities and 19 schools
across Cavite province.
3. Establish a capacity & capability building program on green governance to 19 communities and 19
schools across Cavite province.
 Foundation for the Philippine Environment - The Foundation for the Philippine Environment was established in
1992 to help mitigate the destruction of Philippine’s natural resources. FPE was created through a process of
nationwide consultations with 334 Philippine NGOs and people’s organizations (POs) and 24 academic
institutions. The Philippine NGOs and POs took the lead in conceptualizing and organizing FPE and its
subsequent program directions.
 Greenpeace Philippines - Greenpeace has been present in Southeast Asia since 2000. Through its campaigns,
Greenpeace aims to protect the region from further ecological ruin and to serve as a beacon of awareness
and action in the interest of environmental protection and sustainable development.In the Philippines
Greenpeace has directly helped bring about positive environmental by playing an instrumental role in the
passage of landmark laws such as:
 The Republic Act No. 8749, otherwise known as the Philippine Clean Air Act of 1999 - which includes an
unprecedented national ban against waste incineration.
 Philippine Ecological Waste Management Act - which mandates the implementation of front-end
strategies, namely waste reduction, separation and recycling to solve the country’s waste crisis.
 The Renewable Energy Law - which is intended to accelerate the development and utilization of
renewable energy sources in the country. Greenpeace has also helped pave the way for the
declaration of genetically-modified organism (GMO)-Free zones in Mindoro, Negros and the iconic
Philippine Rice Terraces in Ifugao Province, a UNESCO Living Cultural Heritage site. Greenpeace
contributed significantly to the development and launching of the the Green Renewable Independent
Power Producer, Inc. (GRIPP) eJeepney project in 2007. The eJeepney is part of an innovative project
meant to reduce the use of fossil fuels to help mitigate climate change and address urban problems
such as air pollution and waste management.
 Haribon Foundation - Founded in 1972, Haribon (haring bon) is the name of the Philippine eagle. The Haribon
Foundation is dedicated to conserving habitat, saving species, encouraging sustainability, and empowering
people.
 Green Revolution Movement -1960's agriculture in the Province of Negros Occidental. Green Revolution
Movement (GRM) and series of technology transfer initiatives by the Philippine government. It became
successful in meeting the food requirements of its growing population. Refers to a set of research and the
development of technology transfer initiatives occurring between the 1930s and the late 1960s that increased
agricultural production worldwide particularly in the developing world beginning most markedly in the late
1960s. The initiative resulted in the adoption of new technologies.

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