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Why Growth Isn’t the Same as Development?
Introduction
From oil booms in Angola, gas discoveries in Mozambique, to a decade of fast expansion in Ethiopia, stories of rapid growth have dominated headlines in Africa. On paper, these economies looked like success stories. But for millions of people, the benefits of growth remain out of reach. Poverty persists, inequality widens, and the natural environment is under strain. Growth has happened but development has not always followed.
This disconnect forces us to ask a deeper question: what does development really mean?
This article explores why development must be redefined in terms of wellbeing, inclusion, and sustainability, and why such an approach requires doing “development work” differently.
Growth Without Development?
Within the African continent, there are a number of examples on the disconnect between GDP growth and widespread transformation of lives.
In Angola, oil wealth drove impressive GDP growth in the 2000s, yet around half the population lives in multi-dimensional poverty. In Mozambique massive natural gas projects boosted GDP projections but displaced communities, disrupted fisheries, and deepened social tensions in some parts of the country. Nigeria has the enviable tag of “Africa’s largest economy” and has enjoyed periodic oil booms, but over 60% of Nigerians are poor.
Equatorial Guinea has the one of the highest per capita GDP in Africa yet over 70% of the population live in poverty and lack access to clean water, healthcare, and quality education. The country also exhibits an extreme gap between the rich and the poor. More recently, Ethiopia has experienced high GDP growth over the better part of a decade but gains remain fragile due to conflict and climate shocks.
The GDP Obesession
GDP was developed in the mid-20th century to fill information gaps exposed by the Great Depression and to guide post-war reconstruction. Built on internationally agreed accounting standards, it offers a consistent and comparable way to measure economic activity across time and countries. This reliability and universality have made it the go-to summary indicator, which over time, became a proxy for economic success and failure.
However, GDP has several important limitations.
While it measures the market value of goods and services produced within an economy, it says nothing about whether people’s lives are actually improving, whether gains are fairly shared, or whether they can be sustained without eroding the foundations of life. GDP does not factor in unpaid care work, the strength of communities, the health of ecosystems, and the quality of governance.
As such, GDP can rise even as inequality worsens, forests vanish, and millions remain without access to clean water, healthcare, or decent jobs.
The mismatch between growth and lived reality has led to an urgent question:
What is Development?
Development is far more than the sum of goods and services produced in a country. It is a dynamic process of positive change across economic, social, political, cultural, and environmental spheres.
While there is no single, all-encompassing definition, there are some distinct features:
Development is geared towards the satisfaction of needs
Development is about meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs – Bruntland Commission
Development is not the growth of things, (which are merely means) but the satisfaction of needs beginning with the basic needs of the poor and the “humanisation” of humans through the satisfaction of needs for expression, creativity, conviviality, and for deciding their own destiny. – Dag Hammarskjöld Report (What Now?)
Development empowers people
Development is about expanding people’s capabilities to live the lives they value – Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum
Development is about human progress and betterment, based on freedom, dignity, and the pursuit of individual happiness within the overall community or society’s prosperity and welfare – Lual Deng
Development is a multi-dimensional and evolutionary process that spans social, environmental and economic spheres
Development is a whole; it is an integral, value-loaded, cultural process; it encompasses the natural environment, social relations, education, production, consumption and well-being – Dag Hammarskjöld Report (What Now?)
Development is not a fixed state of harmony but rather, a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, direction of investments, the orientation of technological development and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs – Bruntland Commission
Development is a many-sided process. At the level of the individual, it implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility, and material well-being, all of which are tied in with the state of the society as a whole – Walter Rodney
Development is endogenous and context-specific
The plurality of roads to development answers to the specificity of cultural or natural situations; no universal formula exists. Development springs from the heart of each society, which relies first on its own strength and resources and defines in sovereignty the vision of its future, cooperating with societies sharing its problems and aspirations – Dag Hammarskjöld Report (What Now?)
There is no single answer which is applicable in all times and at all places. Each country and each generation has to deal with its own problems in its own way, exploiting to the greatest possible advantage such opportunities as are available to it. This means that the different countries of the world will use different methods, and different systems of economic, social and political organisation – Julius Nyerere
Redefining Development
Viewing development as an integrated process spanning social, environmental and economic spheres inevitably calls for a “Beyond GDP” approach. Efforts are already underway to devise metrics that would capture the complexity of development as elaborated by a UN Policy Brief on Valuing What Counts: Framework to Progress Beyond GDP
Proposals highlight that moving forward, development should be understood through three interdependent dimensions: wellbeing, inclusion, and sustainability.
These dimensions are inseparable. A school programme that raises enrolment rates but leaves rural girls behind fails on inclusion. Farming practices that boost exports while depleting soils affect sustainability. A public health campaign that distributes vaccines but silences community voices breeds distrust thus undermining wellbeing.
A Dashboard Approach
No single number can capture all this complexity. That is why a dashboard approach is needed: a set of indicators that, taken together, reflect whether societies are indeed developing.
It’s like driving a vehicle: you can’t rely only on the speedometer to know if your journey is going well. A good driver also monitors the fuel gauge, the engine temperature, and the warning lights. If you focus only on speed, you might run out of fuel, overheat the engine, or miss a corner that could cause a crash.
Similarly, policymakers need more than GDP to move a country forward. A Beyond GDP dashboard for Africa could track wellbeing through indicators such as life expectancy, child stunting, access to healthcare, literacy, and mental health; measure inclusion by monitoring income inequality, rural–urban access to clean water and housing, gender pay gaps, and political participation; and assess sustainability by examining forest cover change, renewable energy use, water stress, and soil fertility.
Publishing such a dashboard alongside GDP each year would:
For more on this, please listen to this podcast series by OHCHR and UNSSC: Economies that Work for All which features Kate Raworth (Doughnut Economy: promoting a development model that focuses on people and the planet)
Doing Development Work Differently
As development is endogenous, context specific, and seeks to empower people, redefining development must be accompanied by a different way of “doing development work.” A good starting point is unlearning some damaging “Development Myths.”
One such myth is the tendency to equate development with following the path trodden by a number of countries. First of Western neoliberal models of liberalisation, privatisation, and open markets, and more recently of Eastern state-led growth, mega-infrastructure, and special economic zones. African countries should seek inspiration from models that have worked elsewhere but not import them wholesale without considering their own contexts. True development must be forged from within, grounded on the needs, aspirations, values and resources of African countries.
Another myth is that development can be directed from the outside through aid flows, technical advice, or ready-made policy packages. While these have sometimes filled urgent gaps, they have rarely built the deep capacities that societies need to transform themselves. Progress that is dependent on external inputs alone is always fragile. Aid has a role but only where it supports rather than supplants national and local agency and is aligned with a country’s own development priorities. It can only complement, not drive development.
Viewing development as a technical exercise is a myth that also needs to be debunked. It is assumed that if you find the best models, hire the best experts and formulate the best indicators, development will naturally follow. This technocratic approach ignores the power dynamics, vested interests, and legacies of inequality that shape how societies are organized and who benefits. Lasting progress depends on how decisions are made, whose voices are heard, and whether institutions reflect the values and aspirations of the people they serve.
Doing development differently means valuing local agency and respecting the ability of people to steer their own development, with external support playing a supportive rather than a directive role.
Conclusion
Growth has a role to play, but only as a means to something greater. When channelled into universal healthcare, quality education, renewable energy, or ecosystem restoration, it can be a powerful enabler of human progress. But when treated as the ultimate goal, growth may distort priorities and overlook vital aspects of human and societal flourishing.
In addition to moving beyond GDP, redefining development also requires new ways of working. It entails shifting power closer to the ground, recognising the legitimacy of local actors, and allowing societies to define their own pathways rather than following imported blueprints. By combining a broader vision of progress (rooted in wellbeing, inclusion, and sustainability) with practices that put agency and localisation at the centre, we can ensure that growth serves people and the planet, rather than people and the planet serving growth.
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