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Human Scale Development development A journal of international development cooperation published by the Dag Hammarskjöld dialogue Foundation, Uppsala 1989:1 Human Scale Development Editorial 1 Human Scale Development: An Option for the Future Manfred Max-Neef, Antonio Elizalde, Martin Hopenhayn with the cooperation of Felipe Herrera, Hugo Zemelman, Jorge Jataba, Luis Weinstein Part One: Re-reading the Latin American Crisis 7 Latin America: Crisis and Perplexity Part Two: Development and Human Needs 17 Reflections on a New Perspective—Argumentation—Foundations for a Possible System- atization—A Note on Methodology—Options that Determine Development Styles Part Three: Development and Self-reliance 47 Towards a Self-reliant Development—On the Invisible World—On Micro-organizations —On Resources—The Unresolved Problem of Micro-macro Articulation-Recapitulation —Annex Bernt Carlsson: A Very Private Public Servant Robin V. Sears 82 The Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) as Described by Ex-participants William Minter 89 Publications Received 133 Editors: Development Dialogue is published with the sup- Sven Hamrell port of the Swedish International Development Olle Nordberg Authority (SIDA). Advisory Editorial Committee: The opinions expressed in the journal are those of Just Faaland the authors and do not necessarily reflect the Chr. Michelsen Institute views of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation or Fantoft, Norway SIDA. Joseph Ki-Zerbo Photo credits: Kerstin Kvist, page 6; Anders Ny- B.P. 5074 ström, page 83. Dakar, Senegal Marc Nerfin 4, place du Marché 1260 Nyon, Switzerland Göran Ohlin The symbol on the back cover, which is the United Nations symbol of CEPAUR, the Development New York, USA Alternatives Centre founded in 1981 by Manfred Max-Neef, is taken from a Viking rune stone (6 Juan Somavia UR 937) located in Uppsala's University Park in Callao 3461, El Golfe Sweden. Designed one thousand years ago—or Santiago, Chile perhaps earlier—it transmits such a serene and simple beauty in its representation of a perfectly Editorial Office: harmonious, balanced and indissoluble trinity, The Dag Hammarskjöld Centre that it appeared as an ideal symbolic synthesis of Övre Slottsgatan 2 CEPAUR's philosophy; that is, the striving for S-752 20 Uppsala, Sweden similar conditions that should, hopefully, prevail Telex: 76234 DHCENT S some day between the essential components of Fax: +46-18-122072 our world's survival trinity: Nature. Humanity and Technology. Printers: Motala Grafiska AB Motala, Sweden ISSN 0345-2328 Subscribers are kindly requested to inform the Dag Hammarskjöld Centre of any changes of address or subscription cancellations. Editorial Another Development and the Crisis in Latin America and Africa The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation has since the publication of the 1975 Dag Hammarskjöld Report, What Now: Another Development, concen- trated heavily on the sectoral aspects of the alternative development strategies advocated in this seminal document. As readers of Development Dialogue are well aware, a long series of seminars has been organized under the Foundation's auspices or in cooperation with like-minded organizations to test the applicability of the ideas of Another Development— need-oriented, self-reliant, endogenous, ecologically sound and based on structural transformations—in areas such as rural development, health, education, science and technology (especially plant genetic resources and biotechnology), international monetary policy, information and com- munication, and participation. An interesting and unusual example of this is the Latin American project on Human Scale Development, whose objective was to lay a foundation for future action programmes by analysing the concepts of human needs, scale, and efficiency and by focusing on unemployment and local development financing, i e concepts and problems that had not been penetrated in depth in What Now. This project was undertaken in 1985 and 1986; it was organized by the Development Alternatives Centre (CEPAUR) in Chile and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, and was directed by Manfred Max-Neef. Ever since the results of the project were published in a Spanish edition of Development Dialogue in 1986, under the title Desarrollo a Escala Huma- na: una opción para el futuro, the project report has attracted wide atten- tion in Latin America. And it is probably not an exaggeration to say that it belongs to the most photocopied documents of its kind, having found its way to the most unexpected and remote places. According to records kept at CEPAUR, close to fifty seminars, symposia and workshops have been held on the basis of the report in different parts of the continent, many of them spontaneously organized by interested bodies without assistance from CEPAUR. Thus, Human Scale Development has become an important topic of the development discussion in South and Central America. But there are also more concrete examples of the impact of the report on policymakers at the national and local levels. Governmental bodies in Colombia, Venezuela and Argentina have taken a keen interest in the ideas advanced. In Argentina, for instance, the National Mental Health Pro- gramme is being adapted to accord with the ideas set out in the report, and in the Argentine province of Mendoza, communities, schools and hospitals 2 Editorial are applying the principles and methodology of Human Scale Development in their work. More significant, however, is the extent to which social movements and grassroots organizations have been inspired by the report, and this despite its in part highly theoretical character—it has, in fact, been popularized by grassroots organizations through posters and even through comic book style publications aimed at non-academic readers. Further evidence of this interest are the hundreds and hundreds of letters received by CEPAUR and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, requesting not only additional copies of the report and copies of the project papers but also assistance in the organization of seminars and workshops, and practical and financial assist- ance in the implementation of Human Scale Development programmes. One can speculate about the reasons for this unexpectedly positive re- sponse, but one of them is probably that Human Scale Development, with its strong emphasis on the role of human creativity in development, has provided a conceptual framework which seems to show a way out of the sterile confrontation between traditional developmentalism and neo-lib- eral monetarism. Based on the principle that 'the purpose of the economy is to serve the people, and not the people to serve the economy' and on a sophisticated but unavoidably controversial in-depth analysis of the na- ture of human needs, it is a challenging new contribution to develop- ment philosophy. The English translation of the project report, which is published in this issue of Development Dialogue, should therefore merit the attention of the international development community as should the action programmes now being worked out by different grassroots organizations and by CEPAUR. Many of them, including CEPAUR, also deserve being finan- cially assisted. It is therefore sad to note that so far almost no such support has been forthcoming; development agencies still seem to prefer to lose their money in conventional failures rather than having to justify its use in unconventional successes. It is. however, not only in Latin America that the ideas of Another De- velopment or Human Scale Development are gaining ground. A similar trend can be noted in Africa and especially in Southern Africa, where the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation has been co-sponsoring three major sem- inars on national and sectoral development alternatives over the last three years. In reviewing the experiences and publications arising from these seminars, one can safely say that they all testify to the relevance and vitality Another Development and the Crisis in Latin America and Africa 3 of the ideas of Another Development in a region which is constantly being threatened by its militarily powerful neighbour in the South, the Republic of South Africa. For more than three decades now, the ruthless racial policies of South Africa have met strong opposition in the United Nations, and in forming this international policy, the Nordic countries have played a significant role—as Olof Palme showed in his last public speech, 'South Africa and the Nordic Countries' (Development Dialogue 1987:1). In pursuing this international policy and in implementing it at the bilateral level, the Nordic governments have over the years maintained a firm and consistent policy of support for the African liberation movements and, especially in the case of Sweden, in support of SWAPO of Namibia. It is therefore much to be regretted that SWAPO, which for such a long time has been considered the legitimate representative of a majority of the people of Namibia, has been virtually left out of the independence process in the name of 'the doctrine of impartiality' and subjected to what sometimes appears as a well-organized international campaign against the movement. One could have hoped that this situation might have been improved had the United Nations Commissioner for Namibia, the Swedish diplomat Bernt Carlsson, been allowed to pursue his policies and not fallen victim to the sabotage against the PAN AM plane over Scotland in December. As things now are, we can only pay tribute to his untiring efforts to inform the world community about the situation in Namibia by publishing in this issue
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