Introduction

The capability approach has become widely influential around the world. It was originally developed by Nobel laureate, and Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University, Amartya Sen, and then further elaborated by Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, Martha Nussbaum. It has become an important new paradigm in development theory and practice. Its central question is: what are people able to do and to be? Applied to development theory, the capability approach has radically altered the way in which people view how resources can and should be utilized to assist people to change the circumstances of their lives, so that they become capable of choosing how to live and function well.