First things first. Meeting basic human needs in the developing countries. Paul Streeten with Shahid Javed Burki, Mahbub ul Haq, Norman Hicks and Frances Stewart. World Bank—Oxford University Press, July 1982, 206 pp
| Author | Joseph Mullen |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230040417 |
| Published date | 01 October 1984 |
| Date | 01 October 1984 |
390
Book
Reviews
FIRST THINGS FIRST. MEETING BASIC HUMAN
NEEDS
IN
THE DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES
Paul
Streeten with Shahid Javed Burki, Mahbub ul Haq,
Norman
Hicks and Frances Stewart
World Bank-Oxford University Press, July
1982,
206
pp.
Over the past decade public attention has focused on problems of poverty in the Third World
and on its manifestation in terms of inadequate provision of income-earning opportunities,
malnutrition, poor sanitation, illiteracy, disease, deficient housing, polluted water and an
unhealthy living environment. The international crisis affecting the
oil
producing and
oil
consuming countries alike and the regular doses of
IMF
conditionally being administered to
ailing economies, which advocate public expenditure cuts and the lifting of subsidies, hit
disproportionately the living standards of the urban and rural poor, the unemployed, the
landiess and subsistence cultivators. It
is
therefore both heartening and significant that in a
harsh climate of economic retraction,
a
book advocating the meeting of basic human needs as
a development strategy bears the imprimatur of the World Bank and is penned collaboratively
by some of its leading development thinkers.
The book questions the conventional primacy of growth and per capita income as
development indicators and it attempts to disaggregate general statistical information to
examine the impact of development policies upon the poorer sections of society. Evidence
suggests that although, on average, respectable annual growth rates of around
3
per cent have
been maintained by developing countries as a whole, the numbers of those beneath the
nutritional poverty line have increased
to
750
million
or
one third of the total population
of
developing countries. The logic of an alternative approach is very persuasive: instead of
advocating growth
or
its derivative approaches to solve poverty problems indirectly, why not
directly address the basic human needs of the rural poor in an integrated fashion? The ‘target’
approach restores man to his rightful place as the ultimate objective of development policy
and action. Basic human needs of health, education, shelter, nutrition, sanitation and clean
water are examined in terms of policy priority, administrative servicing, delivery systems and
target population. Any welfare suggestions in this approach are quickly scotched: the aim is
not to administer hand-outs but to rationally strengthen the productive capacity of the rural
poor. The means
of
activating this capacity, particularly through income-earning
opportunities, could perhaps have been developed further. The problem of the necessary
gestation period between strengthening the human resource potential and its full use in the
production process indicates some of the constraints facing the approach. The book
emphasizes, however, that for the basic needs strategy to be effective, it requires
to
be
supported by
a
whole mosaic of appropriate social and economic policies
of
a macro and
micro nature, such as investment, foreign exchange, choice of technology, supply
management, project selection, population growth, land tenure and international assistance.
As is evident,
a
pervasive penetration of public policy is implied in the basic human needs
approach to development. It logically follows that the issue of ideological affinities and
compatibilities ought to be raised. According to Streeten
et
af.,
basic human need policies
may be pursued in a centrally planned, mixed or market economy.
Although
socialist planned
economies such as China
or
Cuba have displayed creditable performances in the provision of
health and education, cheap food and housing, this may have been at the expense of growth
(with the possible exception of China). On the other hand, the successful market economies
of
South East Asia, Taiwan and South Korea, have already a relatively equitable land and
income base, and pursue generous public expenditure policies towards health and education
while the greatly increased personal incomes provide the access to basic needs goods. In the
mixed economies, of which Sri Lanka is an outstanding example, large public expenditure on
health, primary education and food subsidies have contributed to the remarkable
achievements of
a
life expectancy of
69
years and
75
per cent literacy. The large expenditure
on these sectors may have been offset somewhat by low defence spending but these levels were
attained simultaneously with an above-average growth rate. One may tentatively conclude
that
a
basic needs approach may be feasible in any sympathetic ideological environment
where the required structural adjustments and trade-offs are introduced. Paradoxically
perhaps, the experience of Tanzania receives little more than passing references in the book.
A
series of objections to meeting basic needs is aired and responded to in the book. Two
points however are resolved somewhat inconclusively. The first point is the relationship
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