Manfred Max-Neef is a Chilean economist who has worked for many years with the problem of development in the Third World, articulating the inappropriateness of conventional models of development, that have lead to increasing poverty, massive debt and ecological disaster for many Third World communities. He works for the Centre for Development Alternatives in Chile, an organisation dedicated to the reorientation of development which stimulates local needs. It researches new tools, strategies and evaluative techniques to support such development, and Max-Neef’s publication Human Scale Development: an Option for the Future (1987) outlines the results of the Centre’s researches and experiences

Max-Neef and his colleagues have developed a taxonomy of human needs and a process by which communities can identify their “wealths” and “poverties” according to how these needs are satisfied.

Human Scale Development is defined as “focused and based on the satisfaction of fundamental human needs, on the generation of growing levels of self-reliance, and on the construction of organic articulations of people with nature and technology, of global processes with local activity, of the personal with the social, of planning with autonomy, and of civil society with the state.” (Max-Neef et al, 1987:12)

The main contribution that Max-Neef makes to the understanding of needs is the distinction made between needs and satisfiers. Human needs are seen as few, finite and classifiable (as distinct from the conventional notion that “wants” are infinite and insatiable). Not only this, they are constant through all human cultures and across historical time periods. What changes over time and between cultures is the way these needs are satisfied. It is important that human needs are understood as a system – i.e. they are interrelated and interactive. There is no hierarchy of needs (apart from the basic need for subsistence or survival) as postulated by Western psychologists such as Maslow, rather, simultaneity, complementarity and trade-offs are features of the process of needs satisfaction.

Max-Neef classifies the fundamental human needs as: subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, recreation(in the sense of leisure, time to reflect, or idleness), creation, identity and freedom. Needs are also defined according to the existential categories of being, having, doing and interacting, and from these dimensions, a 36 cell matrix is developed which can be filled with examples of satisfiers for those needs.

Satisfiers also have different characteristics: they can be violators or destroyers, pseudosatisfiers, inhibiting satisfiers, singular satisfiers, or synergic satisfiers. Max-Neef shows that certain satisfiers, promoted as satisfying a particular need, in fact inhibit or destroy the possibility of satisfying other needs: eg, the arms race, while ostensibly satisfying the need for protection, in fact then destroys subsistence, participation, affection and freedom; formal democracy, which is supposed to meet the need for participation often disempowers and alienates; commercial television, while used to satisfy the need for recreation, interferes with understanding, creativity and identity – the examples are everywhere.

Synergic satisfiers, on the other hand, not only satisfy one particular need, but also lead to satisfaction in other areas: some examples are breast-feeding; self-managed production; popular education; democratic community organisations; preventative medicine; meditation; educational games.

This model forms the basis of an explanation of many of the problems arising from a dependence on mechanistic economics, and contributes to understandings that are necessary for a paradigrn shift that incorporates systemic principles. Max-Neef and his colleagues have found that this methodology “allows for the achievement of in-depth insight into the key problems that impede the actualisation of fundamental human needs in the society, community or institution being studied” (Max-Neef et al, 1987:40)

This model provides a useful approach that meets the requirements of small group, community-based processes that have the effect of allowing deep reflection about one’s individual and community situation, leading to critical awareness and, possibly, action al the local economic level.

http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/background/maxneef.htm

The unbelievable, like biblical text on KM.

And the UNESCO chooses the instrumental approach.

Just enabling. Chapeaux!

But soooo boring.

How nice this Ashoka edict. A lot BC!!

Super easy interface; almost widget. Actually it is a widget, or browser add on.

Jaap 3:38 PM http://learnonthefly.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/2008-os-guide.jpg
Peter 7:23 PM So WordPress is the Wiki “for collaborative, unstructured intereactions, among formal and informal groups….” That sounds very like what we are doing on the Google group. Or have I got this the wrong way around and Google is the Wiki and WordPress is a blog. It all still sonds like a mashup to me. Can you say it in one sentence (preferably without using the word clouds)?
7:23 PM Currently if someone ‘invites’ me to look at the Wiki I can do so but I still have no idea how to get there from scratch on my own. I just seems to arrive at a log in site that or (viz: Btw http://washcost.wordpress.com) a public site (WASH Bost Blog – What does Bost mean?)
7:23 PM Not blogging but drowning…
Jaap 10:18 PM Hi Peter,
Peter 10:19 PM Hi
Jaap 10:19 PM Brilliant observations.
10:19 PM washcost.wordpress.com is a blog like Cor uses for Source.
Peter 10:19 PM I know I keep being told but it does not seem to stick
10:19 PM OK I get that
Jaap 10:19 PM The software for the wiki we use comes from Socialtext
Peter 10:20 PM OK
Jaap 10:20 PM Bost was a typo; should be Cost
Jaap 10:20 PM Why dont we host our ‘groups’ on the same platform (fewer passwords to remember etc)
Jaap IRC 10:20 PM Google groups have to do with e-mail
10:21 PM The same platform would be Blogger by Google …
Peter 10:21 PM But our groups are not really email are they – we get an email telling us ther eis a message and when we click on it we go to a website – a google site
Jaap 10:21 PM Anyway we did not synchronize that, but use for all the accounts the same password might help
10:21 PM I do that!
10:22 PM The e-mail you get from our wiki is a link
Peter 10:22 PM So we could have done it all on one platform – the is not a difference in concept, just in the provider
Jaap 10:23 PM The e-mail you get from our group has te complete message; but you can also go to a webaddress where you can find al messages send to the goup
10:24 PM Provider is not our concern; we do use a number of platforms: SocialText wiki, Google groups and WordPress
Peter 10:26 PM I am not criticising just clarifying – although from where I sit it seems confusing. For exmaple I haved a social text password (for socialtext .net) but it does not access our Wiki. If I get a message form the Wiki then I can go there but I can never remember how to just go there because I want to visit.
10:27 PM Add to this that Cariidad uses another WordPress site and another WordPress password for Source – and you  can see that I feel I am in revolving doors.
Jaap 10:27 PM No, I love this conversation because it shows my blank spots in using computers / Internet / Web 2.0 etc …
Peter 10:28 PM o tell me one last time how to access the Wiki (without first receiving a message).
Jaap 10:28 PM It also adstruckts that we (WSHCost-ers) have trouble working together …
10:29 PM I understand now from you that having two wiki’s … I will check \, just a second
10:33 PM The socialtext.net wiki you should dump.
Peter 10:33 PM OK
Jaap 10:34 PM Do you know your password for the wiki with the newsletter for WSHCost?
10:34 PM URL http://www.washcost.net/teamwork
Peter 10:37 PM JUst let me see if I can do it Hang on. I just got in but I am not convinced. It seemed to adjust my password to a smaller number of letters.
Jaap 10:38 PM If you are in you can change your password
Peter 10:38 PM So apparantly I do know my password.
10:39 PM I think I wioll stick with the one that worked and chuck away the other social text entry (they had different passwords which is here the confusion comes in).
Jaap 10:40 PM Good
10:40 PM Now I am going to sleep… 10.30 here
Peter 10:40 PM OK – thanks _ I will get back to editing the urban sanitation paper 9.30 here so another hour or so.
Jaap 10:40 PM Take care

Technorati Doh! The Technorati Monster escaped again.

We’re currently experiencing backend issues and are working to resolve them as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

Sometimes you will find gems on the way. A colleague got interested / curious about this wiki and edited a page telling a deep truth.

Indeed personal focus takes an effort and the possibilities – technically – are overwhelming. Indeed the typo is part of the experience….