Maggie Black on “small Is Beautiful”
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The original idea of development was invented for third world countries to catch up with the industrialized or developed countries. However, according to Maggie Black, “the numbers of poor people in whose name development is justified are greater than they were when it was first invented”. Despite its change in focus from macro to what Black calls “small is beautiful”, many organizations have not practically grasped this concept and only Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that initiated this change are moving in this micro-economics direction. Though Black admits that NGOs do make mistakes and some may even be corrupt, they are still “in touch with the myriad realities of peoples lives in a way undreamt of among the pioneers of macro-policy”.
Black argues that macro approaches to development more often do not support the poor. For instance, in the past decades, more than a100 million people have been geographically displaced due to the building of dams which were intended to improve water sanitation and irrigation issues for the poor, including the displaced 100 million plus people. These people were forcefully moved out of their natural habitat – theyre own known way of survival (agriculture, hunting) destroyed, and forced to work as laborers in an uncertain and new industrial market.
Black proves that real development, where the living standards of the poor are changed for the better, requires small-scale processes, which focus on the necessary changes that empower the individual. She argues that informal and traditional economies cannot be replaced by modern or western style economies, instead they need to be integrated in the global picture, with respect to “poor” peoples traditional and personal views and methods of eradicating poverty and raising their living standards.