Social development is an approach to promoting people’s welfare that is well suited not only to enhancing the quality of life for all citizens but to responding to the problems of distorted development. The conditions of concominant prosperity and deprivation that characterize so many countries today, can best be remedied through a combination of economic and social measures. Similarly, the wide-spread poverty which coexists with affluence in the Third World cannot be remedied by social measures that operate independently of economic solutions.
Social development offers a comprehensive macro-perspective that focuses on communities and societies, emphasizes planned intervention, promotes a dynamic change-oriented approach which is inclusive and universalistic, and above all seeks to harmonize social interventions with economic development efforts. The social development approach uniquely integrates economic and social objectives. It not only recognizes the critical importance of economic development in raising standards of living, but actively seeks to harness economic development for social goals. It is for this reason that social development will be defined {…} as a process of promoting people’s welfare in conjuction with a dynamic process of economic development.
James Midgley, Social Development – The Developmental Perspective in Social Welfare, Sage Publications 1995.
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