Understanding the Nature of Development
Development is the process of providing the conditions that offer opportunities for improving the quality of human life. It normally covers three aspects: 1. Increasing people’s living standards, 2. improving their self-esteem through better social, political, and economic systems and institutions, and 3. increasing their freedom to choose.
Individuals play a crucial role in the development of their society, whether through activism, education, entrepreneurship, or other forms of engagement. They are also important partners in helping to attain global goals and objectives through their work in government, NGOs, and for-profit organizations/corporations.
The word development is often used in the context of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which set a framework for nations to develop economically and environmentally in a way that benefits all people. However, the term has a wider meaning that goes beyond wealth and poverty, and involves many other factors, including equality and climate change.
A key part of understanding the nature of development is its multidirectionality and multidimensionality. For instance, people can go through developmental pathways in different ways at the same time and proceed along them at differing rates.
Depending on the culture and historical context, humans may develop in many different ways. Researchers use various meta-theories to understand human development, including lifespan, ecological systems, and organismic meta-theories.
Organismic meta-theories assume that people have an active and curious, self-contained nature that allows them to evolve through discontinuous qualitatively different stages (like the caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly). They construct their own next steps in development based on the affordances and opportunities available to them from their environment.