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This article provides information about the recent development observed among developing countries:
From the perspective of 10,000 years of history, human progress over the past 200 years has been extraordinary and the achievements of the past five decades are nothing short of miraculous. In two centuries social productivity has increased to the extent that the global community is now able to sustain a population 12 times as large as in 1800.
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From a rural- based, agrarian society in which less than three per cent of the people lived in towns and cities, the human community has evolved into an urban-centred, industrial society in which the urban population now exceeds 40 per cent of the total. This change has brought with it and aggravated a host of problems overcrowding, pollution, crime, etc. but it has also brought political freedom, economic security, education and modern conveniences to billions of people.
These accomplishments still leave more than one billion people in poverty. But there is growing evidence to suggest that today’s least developed countries could match and perhaps even exceed the achievements of the most advanced industrial nations within a much shorter time than it took for the original achievements. Beginning in 1780, it took the United Kingdom 58 years to double output per capita.
The United States did it in 47 years, beginning in 1839. Japan accomplished the feat in only 24 years, beginning in the 1880s. But after the Second World War, Indonesia did it in 17 years, South Korea in 11, and China in 10. From 1960 to 1990 real per capita standards of living based on purchasing power parity multiplied twelve-fold in South Korea, seven-fold in Japan, more than six-fold in Egypt and Portugal, and well above five-fold in Indonesia and Thailand.
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While the possibilities for increasing the velocity and expanding the scope of development to all countries are encouraging, it is by no means clear how quickly or to what extent they will be realised. Nor is there a consensus regarding the policies, strategies and actions most conducive for that realisation. Countries and regions are distinguished by vast differences in performance that are not easily explained or eliminated.
Among developing countries, between 1965 and 1990 per capita GDP rose by 5.5 per cent annually in high performing East Asian countries compared to less than 2 per cent in South Asia and about 0.25 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Similarly, if one looks at the experience in Eastern Europe since 1990, one will see that the transition strategies implemented by 25 East European countries were unable to prevent widespread economic decline and social distress. Production in all 25 countries fell significantly, from a minimum of 18 per cent in Poland to 45 per cent in Russia, 60 per cent in Ukraine and 75 per cent in Armenia.
Even in East Germany, where the German government and industry have pumped in more than $1.1 trillion since reunification, the expected results have not been achieved. Unemployment in East Germany has grown from very low levels to more than 25 per cent, while productivity remains at one-fifth, the level prevalent in the western part of the country. So there are many questions regarding strategy and wide disparities in performance all over the world.
The experience of the past two centuries has given rise to at least five major categories of development theory. Applying these theories to explain the development of 23 countries during the period 1850-1914, Morris and Adelman found that each major theory adequately explains the experience of a range of countries and periods, but none of the theories applies universally to the 19th century experience of all the countries.
These findings suggest the need for a more comprehensive approach. Realisation of this need had prompted the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, to call for thoughtful reflection on development “as the most important intellectual challenge of the coming years”.