'Examine the claim that development is impossible to measure'

To measure development it needs to be defined. The are different types of development - environmental, social, economic. It can be argued that development is impossible to measure, due to the fact that it is seen as a western concept - often societal development that have been introduced by Western theorists where universalistic Western norms and values have been introduced to the development process. This supports the dependency theory, that the global North relies on the exploitation of the global South, to continue to generate profit, so keeps presenting development as an unattainable Western concept, that the South need to 'catch up to'. Secondly, limitations in the methods of measuring development, many don’t take into consideration culture - includes all aspects of human life, GDP doesn’t equal development but is continually the main factor for a global understanding of developed countries. An example is Costa Rica which has a low GDP but came first in the Happy Planet Index twice, showing their cultural development to be high even if economic is low. Furthermore, the US is developed country with a high GDP US but is considered to have the 4th highest income Gini coefficient (the higher the more disparity). Concept of development is indivisible from cultural values in that country, models of development do not take into consideration culture However there are new, alternative ways of measuring development such as the Happy planet index -which overcomes the problem of too much focus on economic activity - looks at citizen wellbeing and resources used looks at sustainable well being. Perhaps effective measuring of development relies on a comparison between the different ways of measuring (there is no perfect process). Furthermore, it can be shown that countries classed as ‘developed’ have less corruption and war, perhaps peace is a withstanding indication of development.