POLS209 WK1 /2- The Words of Power and the power of words

What are the cons of using economic indicators such as GDP for development?

• doesn’t account for societal wellbeing

• subscribes to capitalistic ideology, hard to escape

• doesn’t account for wealth distribution/inequalities

• development also includes education, knowledge, freedoms (non-market subsistence activities) that aren’t accounted for e.g. black market etc

what is Amartya Sen’s capability approach?

focus on evaluating wellbeing

the goal of development policies should be improving people’s access to freedoms to make choices they value

this is used for the HDI (human development index)

what is a critique of HDI

it doesn’t consider the weight of each category or the quality of access to those categories (tick a box type shi)

limited by data availability

says nothing about the best ways to achieve human development

what are the hidden assumptions of development?

it is based on the ideal conditions of social existence (but perfection doesn’t exist)

it assumes development is positive

social evolutionism (implies natural linearity which is apolitical and ahistorical)

economistic (not a pure science and based on social science assumptions)

universalism (assumes everyone wants western standards and ignores different conceptions of a good life)

what is Rist’s main idea on the definition of development

for a definition to be operational, eliminate all presumptions

the point of development should be why.

ODA

official development assistance

what does ODA consist of

loans, grants, technical assistance by government to developing countries

what are the two forms of ODA

bilateral aid

multilateral aid

bilateral aid

one country to another

multilateral aid

pooled ODA into international governmental organizations (IGOs)

• EU, world bank, WHO, Unicef, UN

where does ODA come from?

taxpayers

What qualifies ODA?

1. have promotion of economic development and welfare as their main objective

2. extended to developing countries

3. from official sources (gov)

4. concessional financial terms

what does it mean by concessional financial terms?

2. better terms than private loans/banks with interest

3. grants you don’t have to pay back

4. long period to pay back

what are the two kinds of ODA

loans and grants

loans…

have interest, must be repaid

grants…

are gifted, no interest, may have conditionality (e.g. adjustments a country must do in exchange of a grant)

what is a nontraditional donor

china - does not report aid to DAC OECD countries

DAC

development assistance committee

what is the UN target of gross national income of aid per country

0.7% - produced in 1971

what are examples of economic indicators

Gross domestic product

gross national product

GNP per capita

economic growth

Purchasing Power Parity

gross domestic product

the total value of goods and services produced by a country in a year

gross national product

measure the total economic output of a country including earnings from foreign investments

GNP per capita

a country’s GNP divided by its population

economic growth

measures the annual increase in GDP, GNP, GDP per capita, or GNP per capita

Purchasing Power Parity

accounts for differences in buying power from one country to the next

(we can buy more with US1 in guatemala than in japan)

what did joseph stiglitz say about gdp

GDP is not a good measure of economic performance, its not a good measure of wellbeing

distribution of income

tells up about inequalities in a given country

what share of wealth is earned by the rich etc.

Human Development Index (HDI)

measure the access the population has to wealth, jobs, education, nutrition, health, leisure and safety, as well as political and cultural freedom.

what percent of bilateral aid was in the forms of loans?

19% in 2021

what is the mandate of the OECD DAC

founded in 1961

to promote development cooperation and other policies so as to contribute to sustainable development, including pro-poor economic growth, poverty reduction, improvement of living standards in developing countries, and to a future in which no country will depend on aid.

who are the main bilateral donors in the OECD countries

America, Japan, UK, France, Germany

what is the purpose of american aid

“foster democracy, freedom, stimulate the economy, bring poor countries out of poverty, commercial considerations, support a compassionate society”