The Capability Approach in Practice: A New Ethics in Setting Development Agendas

This book develops a philosophical framework for selecting goals for development purposes. This inclusive and democratic framework integrates a variety of resources including philosophical theory, empirical analysis, stakeholder deliberations, local knowledge, and advice from development experts. The author contends that we must provide good reasons and arguments in order to justify a particular development agenda. That is, we need to ask why we choose certain kinds of development goals over others, why we include certain agents in the selection process and not others, and why we select goals through one method rather than another.
In response to these questions, the author argues that development should aim at expanding people’s capabilities and functionings. Capabilities and functionings―capabilities that have been realized―tell us what people are actually able to do and be with their resources, goods, and formal freedoms. He advances the view that local stakeholders should have more authority in deciding what a development agenda looks like. This
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