The eminent economist, Simon Kuznets defined a country’s economic growth as “a long term rise in capacity to supply increasingly diverse economic goods to its population, this growing capacity based on advancing technology and institutional and ideological adjustments that it demands”
Economic growth essentially involves three components i.e. capital accumulation, growth in population and technological progress. The major foundations of economic growth are the investments that improve the quality of the existing physical and human resources and increase the quantity of resources.
A few countries have attained high levels of economic growth (developed countries) while many others are still at fairly low levers of economic growth (developing countries).
At a global level, this inequity is often termed as an economic divide between the countries of industrialized or developed ‘North’ and the developing ‘South’. The developed North is often blamed by the developing South for influencing the international institutions to orient their policies to favor the ‘North’. The challenge in the era of liberalization and globalization is to bridge this divide if sustainable development is to be achieved. This would involve cooperation between the countries of the North and South (North-South cooperation), amongst the countries of the South (South-South cooperation) and development initiatives within the countries themselves.
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Several such initiatives have been taken. The developing countries are mostly rural economies with agriculture as their base and have not been much affected by modern industry and technology. Therefore many of their practices do not suffer from the adverse environmental impacts that arise from polluting practices in industrialized economies. Such ‘indigenous’ practices and experiential knowledge is also being recognized and agriculture has been the major area of focus. At the grassroots level, the peoples groups like the Panchayats and the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in many parts of India are working towards the upliftment of the socio-economic and environmental conditions of both the rural and urban areas.