culture and development- missing link

8/3/2019 Culture and Development- Missing Link

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Published in The News on Sunday, Political Economy, 12 July, 2009

Culture and development are intimately linked together in anincreasingly globalised world, where development or its lack, is

seen both as cause and solution of domestic social and cultural problems of global proportions. The strategic deployment of

development and reconstruction plans in the border regions of

Pakistan and Afghanistan, to break the fundamentalist's hold on

cultural productions and regional economy, offers one of more

dramatic illustrations of this relationship.

A textbook example of relationship between culture anddevelopment is the relative success of Aga Khan Rural Support

Program, a non-sectarian development project in Northern

Pakistan, especially in Ismaili dominated regions, attributed

largely to a mutual fit between development agenda and the

cultural and religious organisations.

Irrespective of the geo politics of development, common to both

cases is the emphasis placed on culture as a means of humangrowth and empowerment and the recognition that in order to

achieve sustainable development, and international peace,

economic, financial and social reforms have to be addressed from

a cultural perspective.

The consensus on the cultural dimensions of development in the

international development sector has been slow to emerge, largelyout of experience of administering development in the Third

World as well as with interactions between development

practitioners and academicians in the field of anthropology,economics and sociology. Central to the culture in development

approach is the emphasis placed on culture as a means of human

growth and empowerment and the recognition that in order to

achieve a sustainable development, and international peace,economic, financial and social reforms have to be addressed from


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a cultural perspective.

Culture and development are linked in a number of different ways,

and the connections relate both to the ends and the means of

development. In the current global policy thinking, culture is notmerely a means of promoting material progress but constitutes as

the very basis of human development. Understood, as comprisingof norms, tradition and values of a society, culture plays a critical

role in economic performance and business behavior. Weberian

analysis of the role of values in the emergence of capitalism is of

considerable interest in the contemporary world, particularly in the

light of the recent success of market economies in non-Protestantand even non-Christian societies.

While culture is regarded as the means and instrument of

development, the notion of development, following Amrata Sen, is

based on substantive expansion of freedom. It is not only the

growth of GNP, but the enhancement of freedom and well being of

people in a broad, holistic sense to include universal, physical,

mental and social growth.

Appended to this approach is the idea that fostering respect for

diversity and cultural pluralism is of crucial importance in the

context of global and national culture, as the rapid spread of mass

culture and its hegemonic tendencies are threatening the survival

of traditional values and the interests of minorities. The need for

respect for all cultures is particularly urgent at a time in which theuneasy acceptance of global culture and reactions against the

alienating effects of large-scale modern technologies are reflectedin the fast spread of religious fundamentalism and social

intolerance.

Although the connections between cultural values and economic

performance have been made in cultural theory as well asdevelopment economics, it remains debatable which set of values


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would work under what conditions. As in case of countries likeJapan, China and India with fast economic growth, the relative

merits of Confucian, Buddhist and Hindu values in shaping

economic behavior are being debated.

Unfortunately, we lack informed debates on mainstreaming culture

in development programmes and investments in the governmentand the non-government sector in Pakistan. The development

sector in Pakistan is fairly cognizant of the importance of culture

in development planning, yet the awareness of linkages remains at

a level of project intervention in select areas rather than providing

an overarching framework to restructure the developmentdiscourses. Organisation like UNESCO, which have from its very

inception stressed the connection between culture and

development have invested only in limited range of cultural arenas

such as cultural tourism in Pakistan where as much more needs to

be done to make cultural factors the focal point of all strategies fordevelopment.

culture and development- missing link

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