ABSTRACT
Previous chapters have shown how the human capabilities of people are deeply affected by economic diversification within their country and the networks they are embedded in. One key achievement of the basic needs and the human development approach has been to convince policy-makers that focus of development policies should not be on economic growth as an ultimate goal of development, but should rather focus on empowering people, making them agents instead of patients of development. But neither should politics focus on human capabilities and neglect economic development and competitiveness. Paul Streeten, one of the most influential proponents of both basic needs and the human development approach, wrote:
[W]e should never lose sight of the ultimate purpose of the exercise, to treat men and women as ends, to improve the human condition, to enlarge people’s choices. …[A] unity of interests would exist if there where rigid links between economic production (as measured by income per head) and human development (reflected by human indicators such as life expectancy or literacy, or achievements such as self-respect, not easily measured). But these two sets of indicators are not very closely related.
(Streeten 1994, cited in Ray 1998, p. 7)