8. Development: Ideal and Basics

The nexus between political-economy, development and discourses, bottom-up people’s needs and power of institutions such as the World Bank and IMF all comes into play here in the geopolitical analyses. Based on historical experiences and Utopian ideals, concepts regarding development are codified in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The quest of assuring human needs entails elimination of hunger and poverty, and guaranteeing good health services and well-being, along with quality education and gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable clean energy, decent work and economic growth, with industry, innovation and infrastructure, and reducing inequalities, as well as creation of sustainable cities and communities. Along with this is the issue of responsible consumption and production, with action taken on climate change, policies and use of water and land environments. Central to this is peace, justice and strong institutions, with durable partnerships to implement sustainability. Basically, it can be argued that any action that does not alleviate poverty in some way cannot be called development but defining poverty has to be addressed in specific contexts. Conflicts remain the biggest threat to development and hence a human rights approach is imperative. Key development ideas must be linked to wider conceptual frameworks of globalisation and glocalization, and democratisation processes. Economic institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, WTO and economic governance all form part of the development interconnection.