Re-evaluating the MDG framework in Papua New Guinea

Introduction Amartya Sen’s (1989) ‘capability approach’ has been influential in the development field, especially in broadening the understanding of development as necessarily involving a greater range of concerns than economic growth, as reflected in the crude measure of gross national product (GNP). Sen’s work falls into the arena of individual freedoms and functionings but also draws attention to the social structures and institutions that shape agency in given cultural contexts. Sen (1999: 53) acknowledged the importance of institutions for people’s freedoms when he argued in Development as Freedom that ‘there is a need to develop and support a plurality of institutions… [which can] incorporate private initiatives as well as public arrangements and also more mixed structures, such as nongovernmental organizations and cooperative entities’. Individual capabilities are effectively dependent on enabling social structures and this is part of the reason Sen (2004) rejected the idea of a definitive list of capabilities saying that they should be open to renegotiation within different social contexts and across different time periods. Sen’s ideas point to some radical implications when we think about social context in meta-cultural terms because it opens up the opportunity for consideration of institutional forms beyond market-based (developed) economies. This chapter takes up Sen’s concern with the institutional facilitation of capability through an investigation of social and economic reproduction in Papua New Guinea’s (PNG’s) pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). According to the MDG Monitor, PNG is currently ‘off track’ for achieving its MDGs by the target date of 2015 (UNDP 2007a). However, what might constitute ‘development’ in the PNG context is contested. As an agriculturally-based economy with a labour force predominantly made of ‘smallholder’ growers, cooperative production and collective institutions, such as traditional forms of land tenure, may facilitate capability, while at the same time challenging the very development model implicit in the MDGs agenda. A capability lens permits a critical examination of the strategies for poverty alleviation which inform development orthodoxies institutionalized through policy frameworks such as the MDGs. In turn, it enriches an examination of the challenges facing the small island nation of PNG, supporting a deep metacultural critique of prevailing development strategies. The first section of the chapter surveys Sen’s ideas on capability and development, situating his approach within broader debates over development. This approach provides a robust critique of the economic development orthodoxy, yet also remains limited within the liberal paradigm that gives authority to prevailing development strategies. The second section examines the MDG-based development strategy which currently guides development practice internationally. The third section provides a case study of the problematics raised in the previous sections by examining development progress in PNG.