Basic Human Needs: Concepts or Slogan, Synthesis or Smokescreen?

Abstract

Basic Human Needs/Basic Needs emerged in the middle 1 970s as a widely debated way of analysing and formulating development. It has a number of elements and has drawn upon a number of country experiences and is to many proponents an attempted synthesis rather than a slogan. BHN and BN are only partly compatible with each other because of their quite different emphases on participation and equality versus organisation and minimum standards, reflecting broadly divergent political economic goals and perceptions. BHN as a strategy goes further than the provision (production and distribution) of basic goods and services to include full and fairly remunerated employment and participation.