Paper short abstract:

Keywords: participatory approaches; synergistic satisfiers; collective capabilities This paper looks at locally led and grounded development approaches , their capability elements and links to the contemporary human security framework and the transition challenges we face today.

Paper long abstract:

The key elements of the UN’s Human Security framework that focus on agency, empowerment, solidarity and protection, all need to be grounded in dialogical approaches that link locally led initiatives horizontally and collaboratively. Plenty of theorists talk about the value of generative, locally grounded action (e.g., Scharmer and Kaufer 2013, Max-Neef 1991, Guillen-Royo 2016). This paper looks at the capability elements required to address these human security challenges.

• First, there is a large measure of agreement that transition initiatives towards a sustainable economy and society need to be locally generated, while supported by enabling governmental policies, laws, regulations. Max-Neef’s Human-Scale Development (HSD) (Max-Neef 1991), elaborated by Guillen Royo (2016) and others, for example, is a form of locally led development, as are the participatory approaches that gained traction in the 1990s (e.g. Chambers 1997).

• Second, one question arising is the link between satisfiers in the Max-Neef model and capabilities in Sen’s and Nussbaum’s approaches. Many HSD satisfiers are capabilities, especially those in the non-goods categories, and can be used to develop further a set of capabilities sufficient for a human security approach. Guillen-Royo (2016) develops, for example, through community workshops sets of ‘synergic bridging satisfiers’, and some of these can be soon too as capabilities. This link will be explored.

• Third, we need to address the role and nature of collective capabilities, which are essential to the advancement of solidarity and forms of HSD. The types of satisfiers talked about in the Max-Neef approach, and any focus on solidarity, empowerment, agency and locally led development, can generate thinking around the form of collective capabilities required. Guillen-Royo (2016) notes how her workshop participants agree that collective activism and networking are synergistic satisfiers, and these can be seen as collective capabilities.

The final section of the paper will link this discussion on capabilities in HSD approaches back to the UNDP human security framework (UNDP 2022) and its emphases on agency and solidarity in addition to protection and empowerment. Bringing these threads together aids thinking on locally led human development approaches, and how these might aid transition to more sustainable societies and economies more centrally.

Chambers, Robert (1997) Whose Reality Counts? Putting the first last, Rugby: Practical Action Publishing.

Guillen-Royo, Monica (2016) Sustainability and Wellbeing: Human scale development in practice, London: Routledge.

Max-Neef, Manfred (1991) Human Scale Development: Conception, Application and Further Reflection, London: Apex Press.