Essay no.

1 Civil Engineering in developing countries CIE5560 2012/13 Pradeep Rathore - 4240987

Development
Development is such a common word that almost everyone knows what it means. But when we come to think of limiting it to a definition, the task seems difficult. To understand development, let us first take a step back in the history and look at the findings of Frey and Kunkel. According to them, the development history started with the Euro- American peoples thinking to create a world without boundaries, a world of equality. They look at the examples in colonial times where the European nations decided to develop the under-developed (As perceived by them) nations. Almost every colonial empire started working towards social and economic development towards the late 19th and early 20th century. The motives were different for different nations. Even though the ideas seemed different at that time, the ultimate goal never changed. The development aids to the developing or under-developed world was an effort to keep their influence intact over these countries even after they got independence. Hodge takes into consideration this idea and examines the way in which development emerged out of the efforts to cope with the social, economic and ecological crisis of the waning days of colonial world. He considers the technological help as an effort to manage the perceived problems and disorder generated by the colonial rule. Moon looks at all this technological advancement from a different perspective. She believes it to be an effort to provide some improvement to Indigenous societies, though sufficient basis for this assumption have not been provided. Though these policies had ulterior motives, they helped in forming a organized approach to development. Be it the social, economic, political or scientific development, the institutions began taking shape and the work was aimed at a certain goal which was earlier being done in bits and parts. Also mentioned in the paper is the fact that the historians and social scientists account of the development program is biased and is always from the point of view of European-American countries. The accounts presenting the post-modernism view of the under-developed world are very rare. The same has been the main reason behind the failure of these development policies. The policies were being made without giving due considerations to the local factors. Development was defined by the Europeans and it was never considered that the indigenous population where the development efforts were enforced might have a different view altogether. This is exactly the reason why the agricultural development plans in the Indonesia could not prosper even after trying both trickle down and bottom up approach. Every society has different set of principles no matter how good the development plans are, they must not clash with the ideology of the local public. Also peoples reluctance to accept any help from the oppressors (as viewed by them) hindered the efforts. Hence, the same policies adopted by their govt. in the post colonial times proved to be much more successful and effective. Another problem with the motives behind the development was that the Europeans considered the indigenous people as inferior and considered it their responsibility to help them. This underlying belief

made the local residents to resent these policies. Had the help been provided from on human to another, the situation might have been different. But humanitarian aspects always took a back seat. For USA, the political and the social reason were dominant, while for most of the European countries, economic and political forces dominated the decisions regarding the development aid. The developed world often provided training to the people from developing countries. The logic for this was that the trained people will use this knowledge to help their own country, but many of them decided to settle in the developed world which was easy for them as they had the necessary skill set and the developed countries needed workforce which became unavailable in the post colonial times. Another reason I believe for providing the development aids to the developing world was the availability of resources. The European countries had gotten used to using natural resources in large quantities. Post colonial rule, the developing world might take some time to get proper machinery for digging out these resources. Though if they were to be trained and helped in developing industries, and with a little idea called free trade, the resources would still be available to the developed world at cheaper rates! As mentioned in the paper, even after the establishment of agencies like EDF, the power remained in the hands of the same people who were running the colonial empires. So, the name had changed but the administration and hence motives remained basically the same. Cullather takes a different view at the development programs. He explains that development was defined by the Europeans and the definition kept on changing. Hence the advancement in the developing world was of no consequence as the developing world always followed the developed world to reach to their level. In the meantime the definition of development in the European circles changes and what meant development a few years back means nothing anymore. He even hints at this being a genius way to keep the developing countries chasing the euro-american way of life and keeping them under-developed by the same standards. To make sure that the developing world keeps following this illusion of development, many parameters have been defined as indicators of development. Strangely, these parameters keep on changing from time to time. So the idea of being a developed nation always remains in the future. All these definitions are just word play. Technology keeps on changing. Hence the future changes. We simply cannot aim for what we dont know yet. Things that might be possible now (mobile phones, satellite tv etc.) must seem to be a preposterous idea a few decades ago. Hence every effort to sum development is as vague as the final destination for the notion of development. Development simply means moving towards a better future for all. Shedding the traditions and practices that are no more relevant and moving on with the ones that make sense. The indicators to measure development hence, can be different for different societies. To sum it up, happiness is development, and happiness may mean different to different people. To each its own!