Alleviation of Poverty Cannot Occur without Development

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Recommended: Concept, nature and scope of economic growth and development

‘In the world of development, if one mixes the poor and the non-poor [sic] in a program, the non-poor will always drive out the poor, and the less poor will drive out the more poor, unless protective measures are instituted right at the beginning. In such cases, the non-poor reap the benefits of all that is done in the name of the poor’ (Yunus, 1999:42). This quote goes to show how misunderstood the term ‘development’ is in the West, as the root causes of poverty are never fully addressed beforehand in order to assess what type of development is necessary for a country in the Third World. It is more important to look at whether the ways in which the West aids those countries deemed less developed actually works in practice as well as in theory in order to discern whether it is necessary to alleviate poverty beforehand. After all, if the aid does not work then neither development nor the reduction of poverty can take place. There is also a different idea as to what exactly constitutes as poverty; how it is measured, making certain countries less developed than others.

The term ‘development’ has had a different meaning over the years depending on what was necessary in order for a country to be considered ‘developed’ at that time. Once that country was considered developed according to those standards, a new definition repeatedly comes about until the standards of living in that country are equal to those which are said to be the most developed countries in the world. It is essential to not only reduce poverty but at the same time allow a country to develop economically; therefore the alleviation of poverty goes hand in hand with economic growth. As Nederveen Pieterse (2001) suggests, development could refer to being of equal stan...

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...Mackenzie, F. (1992), ‘Development from within? The struggle to survive’ in Taylor, D. R. F and Mackenzie, F. (eds), Development from within: Survival in rural Africa, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 1-32

Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2001), Development Theory: Deconstructions/Reconstructions, London: Sage

Streeten, P. (1977), ‘The distinctive features of a basic needs approach to development’ in International Development Review, Vol. 40, pp. 49-56

White, H. (2002), ‘The measurement of poverty’ in Desai, V. and Potter, R. B. (eds), The Companion to Development Studies, London: Arnold, pp. 32-37

World Vision UK (2009), How does World Vision do development? Available from: http://www.worldvision.org.uk/server.php?show=nav.1636 [Accessed at 23 Dec 2009]

Yunus, M. (1999), Banker to the poor: Micro-lending and the battle against world poverty, New York: Public Affairs

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