Marginality

Development is a process through which an individual, a community or a nation can progress economically, socially, culturally, psychologically and spiritually. The centre of any development is the human being, and human wellbeing is the ultimate goal of development. Major development concerns worldwide are eradication of poverty; improvement of health, nutrition and educational status of the people; removal of discrimination along gender, racial, and ethnic lines; and protection of environment for ensuring inter-generational equity. These are concerns that have fi gured prominently in setting the millennium development goals. Signifi cant progress has been achieved in the reduction of income poverty in the developing world through economic progress, targeted safety nets and social protection programs. But economic growth and targeted transfers may not be suffi cient to achieve development. We must address
structural factors such as ecological vulnerability, discrimination and deprivation of rights caused by poor governance and other socio-political and cultural drivers, and forces of ecological diversity and climatic change that cause vulnerability and erode the resource base for livelihoods of the people, particularly for those who are at the margin of subsistence. All this calls for a broader perspective on development policies and programs through which the nexus of poverty, discrimination and environmental degradation can be addressed. It points to the need of understanding the increasingly complex drivers of persistent poverty at societal and ecological margins. This is where the marginality concept and framework as introduced by this book become extremely relevant to understand the complexities of underdeve lopment and poverty.
[Cham: 2014]

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