ABSTRACT
This chapter revolves around the proposal for an alternative development paradigm by economist Manfred Max-Neef, sociologist Antonio Elizalde and philosopher Martin Hopenhayn, detailed in Human Scale Development (HSD): Conception, Applications and Further Reflections published in 1991 by Apex Press. The HSD proposal is contextualised and described in Spanish (1986) and English (1989) in two different issues of Development Dialogue, the academic journal of the Dag Hammerskjold Foundation. The chapter discusses the HSD approach to human needs, satisfiers and sustainable development (SD) with regards to its contemporaries Theory of Human Need (THN) and the Capabilities approach, with the goal to explore its singularities further. It discusses the main characteristics of the proposal articulated around the goal of achieving self-reliance, through participatory inquiry on human needs satisfaction and taking into account organic articulations between governance levels, socio-economic and biological systems and people, technologies and the natural environment. The central role of human needs actualisation has deserved major attention in the chapter.
