Abstract
When the modern discourse on development began in the mid-twentieth century, the focus was mainly on the potential of macro-level processes to spur economic growth and industrial development in the south. The past three decades have, however, witnessed a move towards more holistic accounts of development which incorporate social, cultural and human perspectives. This move has been accompanied by increasing attention to participatory approaches which imply a shift from seeing individuals in the south as passive ‘beneficiaries’ of development efforts to casting them in more active roles as ‘collaborators’, ‘clients’ and even ‘citizens’. However, the actual capability of individuals to access and appropriate opportunities to participate has been less thoroughly analyzed in the development literature, and even less considered in practice. Breaking the Poverty Cycle sets out to address this gap by exploring the notion of the individual as an agent capable of identifying, creating and utilizing development opportunities, especially within the context of ‘tight’ southern societies in which the prevalence of repressive socio-cultural and political norms tends to preclude autonomous action.
Informed by psychological theories of behaviour change and Amartya Sen’s (1999, 2003, 2004) conceptualization of development as the expansion of individuals’ capabilities, Breaking the Poverty Cycle takes a decidedly micro-level approach to analysis of the requirements for sustainable change. It argues that macro-level analyses need to be complemented by an understanding of the ‘psycho-social’ elements which determine how marginalized individuals in particular perceive and respond to social, economic and political opportunities within their contexts. The book primarily presents the work that the not-for-profit Mexican Institute of Family and Population Research (IMIFAP) is doing, principally in Mexico as well as in other countries across Latin America, North America, Europe and Asia, to equip marginalized individuals with specific information and general ‘life skills’ to respond effectively to contextual challenges and opportunities.
At the core of the book is IMIFAP’s Framework for Enabling Empowerment (FrEE) and the resultant ‘Programming for Choice’ strategy aimed at facilitating an agent-oriented approach to development practice. The framework and the strategy constitute successive components of a practical approach built on strong theoretical and conceptual foundations, which the authors advocate as a means to foster developmental impact that is ‘sustainable, expandable, and scalable’ (p. 207). The core material is organized in three main sections. The first section lays a foundation for the ensuing argument by describing restrictive aspects of the social and political culture in Mexico which necessitate IMIFAP’s emphasis on the enhancement of individual agency. The section goes on to demonstrate the empowering impacts of IMIFAP’s people-centric approach and explicates how these impacts have prompted identification and articulation of the concepts embedded in FrEE. This is followed by a dense conceptual core which expands on the behaviour change and human development theories that form the basis of IMIFAP’s framework. The final section systematically delineates the practical process of designing, implementing and evaluating development programmes on the basis of the framework.
FrEE makes an important distinction between extrinsically and intrinsically motivated change: the former is limited in scope and will likely be difficult to maintain in the absence of external stimuli, while the latter, premised on ‘personal change’ and ‘internal motivation’, will likely expand an individual’s capability to respond to situations beyond the scope and duration of an external intervention – hence increasing the likelihood of sustainability. Though primarily focused on the centrality of the individual to development policies and programmes, the book constantly stresses the interconnectedness between individuals and their context. It argues that an ideal combination of extrinsic and intrinsic factors is required for both maintenance of the change recorded on particular programmes and multiplication of the impact of such programmes. FrEE makes a further distinction between the concepts of ‘personal agency’ and ‘intrinsic empowerment’, one which the authors identify as lacking in the literature: individuals first develop a sense of personal autonomy and agency through repeated experiences of successful behaviour change, and then become empowered to actively participate in influencing contextual norms, structures and arrangements.
The interview excerpts or ‘testimonies’ of programme participants scattered throughout the book are perhaps the most revelational components of the narrative. They clarify explanations and provide convincing evidence for the book’s claims regarding the potential of a psycho-social approach to deliver exponential human development gains. The preponderance of testimonial evidence and the concomitant paucity of quantitative data point to the difficulty of measuring complex psycho-social phenomena and controlling for external factors, a complication which the authors acknowledge but are unable to satisfactorily resolve. Thus, the book does little to further the understanding of how progress may be more precisely monitored and evaluated in ‘capacity development’ programmes, a dilemma which has been a longstanding subject of debate in the field.
The book does not, however, aim to present a psycho-social approach as a panacea to all development ills; it simply contends that the potential of such an approach to engender sustainable change has not been sufficiently explored in theory and practice. In illustrating its argument for a human-centred approach to development with positive results from past and ongoing programmes, the book does succeed in its objective of demonstrating a way of operationalizing Sen’s Capability Approach, which has been criticized as being overly fixated on the notion of human agency and insufficiently cognizant of the necessity of human action. In outlining a framework and a step-by-step strategy for development programming however, the book tends towards presenting a template for change – the total absence of which, as the authors recognize, is one of the main strengths of Sen’s conceptualization.
Although the book mostly presents findings from marginalized groups across Latin America, the argument for a psycho-social approach to human development is applicable to broad sections of societies in the south where inclusive social, economic and political participation remains a challenge. The book’s analysis of theories of the relationship between macro contextual factors and micro individual characteristics will be of interest to development scholars across the spectrum. The translation of those theories into practice makes the book a valuable resource for development practitioners as well as politicians and government administrators responsible for the design and delivery of programmes and policies in developing countries.