Capability Approach

Two approaches for Development

1. Traditional approach
2. The New Welfare Approach
 Traditional approach
• This approach defines development only in economic terms.
• Economic development, according to traditional approach,
implies a sustained annual increase in GNP at the rate of 5% to
7% per year or more.
• An alternative economic indicator of development : per capita
income.
• The traditional approach believes that the growth in GNP
would trickle down to the masses by increasing economic
opportunities.
• Increase in the rate of growth of income will solve the
problems of poverty, income distribution and unemployment.
• So problems of poverty, unemployment and income
distribution were secondary to this approach.
 The New Welfare Approach

• It was observed that attaining the growth targets failed to

change the quality of life of a larger section of the population.
• A rise in the rate of growth of income is not sufficient for
economic development to take place.
• Hence, during 1970s economists redefined the concept of
economic development in terms of reduction of poverty,
unemployment and inequalities of income within the context
of a growing economy.
 Sen’s ‘Capabilities’ approach

Sen’s Capability approach has emerged as a leading alternative to

standard economic framework for thinking about poverty, inequality
and human development.
Prof. Amartya Sen & revised and extended by Martha
Nussbaum (philosopher)
 Capability Approach

‘development as freedom’ (1999)

 Capability Approach
Individual as unit of analysis (rather than a society)
entails strong normative framework
offers a new definition of wellbeing

Constituents : entitlements, functionings, capabilities, conversion

factors, freedom
 Entitlements

• Entitlements : the set of alternative commodity bundles that a

person command in a society using the totality of rights and
obligations he faces.

• Entitlements depend on
1) Mostly on individual’s labour productivity and price of
commodities
2) Other factors such as power relations, spatial distribution of
resources in the society, government policy

Entitlements generate the capability to do certain things.

 ‘Capabilities’ approach

• Economic growth or income can decide the distribution of

entitlements however may not capture ‘capability’
• Well-being of an individual does not depend on the
commodities he possesses but on what he can achieve with
them
• Focus is on what people are effectively able to do i.e. their
capabilities
• Economic growth or income, therefore is not the end in itself,
but are instruments
 Capabilities and Functioning

• Capabilities (freedom) are the abilities to achieve the desired

functioning
• Capability is what opportunities you have regarding the life
you lead, Capability is the various combinations of functioning
that a person can achieve.

• Functionings refer to the state and abilities achieved with the

use of the commodities at command.
• Functionings - ‘being’ and ‘doing’
• eg. such as being well-nourished, being educated, and
travelling freely
 Well-being & Capability

• The functioning of a person are the set of things that she is and
does in life,
• whereas capability of that person is the alternative
combination of functioning that the person can achieve and
from she can choose one vector of functioning.

• Functioning is about achievement while capability is the

ability to achieve.
Conversion Factors : Relation between commodities &
functioning

• Achieving functionings with the given entitlements depends on

the conversion factors
• Entitlement e.g. bicycle for girl students
• Conversion factors
• Personal characteristics: age, disability, height, motor skills
• Social context: social norms, stereotypes about girls’ health
• Environmental situations: poor road quality, service shops for
repairing, nature of traffic and traffic rules (i.e. institutions)

Evaluate wellbeing of individuals with and without disability having

similar entitlements – such as bike
Any measure of development or inequality should consider these
‘conversion factors’.

Thus focus is on outcomes (wellbeing) than on means

(entitlements)
 Difference in Functioning & Capability

• Example : hungry person in Ethiopia vs. a person going on

hunger strike in developing country to protest against govt.’s
certain regulation.
• Both are hungry and lack the functioning of being
well-nourished
• Person going on hunger strike has capability to achieve
functioning of being well-nourished, which the former lacks.
• The distinction between achieved functionings and capabilities
is between realized and the effectively possible, in other
words, between achievements and freedom.
Case Studies
Capability Approach
 Case studies

1. List of functioning achieved/failed to achieved

2. Available entitlements
3. If we are were in the same situations, our desired
functionings?
4. Do they have capabilities (freedom) to achieve these
functioning?
5. List the conversation factors?
6. Which the principles of development / Constitutional values
are not realized for the targeted populations?
7. Your policy recommendations that will generate the
concerned capabilities
8. Nature of the policy (economic, legal, social, cultural,
institutional reforms….)
 Sen on Poverty

• Poverty cannot be measured alone by income: what matters is

not the things a person has but what a person is, or can be, and
does
• The categorization of ‘poor’ and ‘non-poor’ depends on their
‘capability to function’.

• Well-being and development should be discussed in terms of

people’s capabilities to function, that is, on their effective
opportunities to undertake actions and activities that they want
to engage in.
• What is ultimately important is that people have the freedoms
(capabilities) to lead the kind of lives they have reason to value

• The capability approach involves “concentration on freedom to

achieve in general and the capabilities to function in particular” (Sen
1995).

• This approach asks whether people are well nourished, and whether
the conditions for this capability, such as food supply, best quality of
food, clean surroundings, potable water supply are met.
• It is important to note that in real life two persons with identical
capability sets are likely to end up with different types of
functionings because they have made different choices from their
effective options.

• They have different ideas of good life, that is, different desires and
wishes on what kind of life they want to lead.

• Functionings are, in a sense, more directly related to the living

conditions, since they are different aspects of living conditions.
Capabilities, in contrast, are notions of freedom, in the positive
sense: what real opportunities you have regarding the life you may
lead” ( Sen 1987: 36)
• Means to Achieve (Entitlements with conversion factors) →
Freedom to Achieve ( Capability Set = Vector of potential
functioning)→ Achievement (Functioning)
• The ‘capability’ approach is normative framework for
assessing alternative policies.
• core values of development : sustenance, self-esteem and
freedom
• Entitlements are related to sustenance and self-esteem while
capabilities offers freedom
• Acc. to Sen, development has to be more concerned with
enhancing the lives we lead and the freedom we enjoy.

• In social evaluations and policy design, the focus should be on

what people are able to do, and be on quality of life, and
removing obstacles in their lives so that they have more
freedom to live the kind of life which they reason to value.