Basic Needs and Employment-oriented Strategies Reconsidered

During the last fifteen years or so, I have been closely involved in the elaboration of three concepts, namely: recurrent education, the informal sector and basic needs. It is interesting to observe that all these concepts have gone (or are going) through a sequence of analogous phases. Initially, the reaction is one of scepticism or worse. This phase is followed by a series of perversions of the original concept. Indeed, as more people are beginning to take an active interest, they inevitably begin to interpret the concept according to their own imagination and prejudices. Many versions of the same concept start circulating and the concept itself becomes vague, hollow and very often entirely meaningless. Finally, in a third phase one or a combination of these mystifications or perversions takes the upper hand and those who originally launched the concept look at this grown-up child in utter amazement and more often than not hardly recognise the characteristics and traits of the early child.