It's a complex process, underpinned by education. There is a drive to ensure that children all over the world learn to read and write, and that even the most disadvantaged have access to books. When I first visited Nepal books were scarce - often only tattered copies left behind by trekkers or printed on such thin paper you could put your thumb through it. There is now a library in Pokhara, a facility well-used by both children and their parents, with no regard for income nor social status.
But countries can't wait for this generation to mature. They need their economies to grow now. For many, this means providing transport for as many as possible to reach markets - where they can sell their own produce and buy goods from their neighbours. It is a basic means of exchange and can be the prelude to more ambitious trading. Rickety buses trundle up dirt tracks and ford streams in order to make such trading possible. I have shared a bus seat with a woman with a chicken on her knee and another where someone hoped to buy her fare with cucumbers.
This is what I understand by development: the inclusion of as many people as possible in social and economic life, in order to promote the prosperity of the many.
Or am I missing something? For here in the UK, with what we are told is the fifth biggest economy in the world, we are closing libraries (excluding the disadvantaged from access to books) and - here in rural Wiltshire - we are cutting buses (excluding the disadvantaged from access to markets and social interaction).
Or does 'development' only apply to the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' don't matter any more?
