Basic-needs approach to development :some issues regarding concepts and methodology /by D. P. Ghai... {et al]

In June 1976 the World Employment Conference proclaimed as a fundamental principle that "Strategies and national development plane should include explicitly as a priority objective the promotion of employment and the satisfaction of the basic needs of each country's population". Basic needs were defined as including, first, certain minimum requirements of a family for private consumption: adequate food, shelter and clothing, as well as certain household equipment and furniture; and, second, essential services provided for and by the community at large, such as safe drinking water, sanitation, public transport and health, educational and cultural facilities. "A basic needs-oriented strategy", the Conference emphasised, "implies the partici bation of the people in making the decisions which affect then through organisations of their own choice".

The idea of basic needs is by no means completely new. It has evolved out of the growing concern over the recent decades about the increasing poverty and inequality in the Third World. The International Strategy for the Second Development Decade and many subsequent deliberations on the problem at the international forums expressed concern about the problem. The World Employment Conference represents the culmination of such concern through an attempt to dramatise the problem by inscribing the term "basic needs" on the banner of the UN system.

Although the slogan itself has caught on, due largely to the concern about the poor and the poor nations, the clarification of issues and the formulation of an action programme has only just begun. The ILO is devoting signifi cant resources to work on these subjects.

This volume is one of the earlier products of our efforts. It is a collection of essays written by the members of the Rural Employment Policies Branch of the Employment and Development Department. The authors were involved in the methodological work on basic needs that was started after the World Employment Conference, 1976. They were members of a working party that was set up in the autumn of 1976 for this purpose.

The work on the conceptual and methodological problems of quantifying basic needs is by no means complete. The papers in this volume represent some preliminary steps in the direction of clarifying issues. The views expressed do not yet represent the agreed position of the Department or the ILO. Indeed, the readers would discover that the suthors of the present studies themselves are not unanimous in their views concerning all the problems.