Development is not simply economic growth. Development aims at improving quality of life of all people in the country. Measures of development can be judged by asking three simple questions:

What has been happening to poverty?
What has been happening to unemployment?
What has been happening to inequality?

There could be robust economic growth in a country but national income may not be equitably distributed. For instance during 1964-74 the GNP registered a rise of 10 percent in Brazil but income of the poorest section declined from 10 to 8 percent per cent. Rise in per capita income in Brazil did not mean any improvement in the conditions of poor people.

Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen believes that end product of development is freedom rather than bare economic statistics that are currently being used for economic growth. In his book "Development As Freedom" (1999) he provided a new yardstick of measuring development. Development, according to Sen, is removal of "major sources of unfreedom: poverty and tyranny, social deprivation, neglect of public facilities and intolerance or inactivity in repressive states."

The term "accountable development process" would mean policies and programmes of development including the PRSP (Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers) must represent not only the output of consultations among the government agencies but should also represent views of various segments of society, extending from private think tanks, experts to business leaders, farmers, labour unions, NGOs and a widest possible variety of stakeholders.

Our hardworking farmers have reportedly given 12 bumper crops, through their innovative and adaptive farming mechanism. Our private business entrepreneurs have on average maintained 15 percent export growth per year through their imaginative endeavours. Our social entrepreneurs have focused successfully their activities on poverty reduction and mass literacy in rural areas.

Till today, development policies and programmes have seldom been discussed, debated argued and firmed up in an organized and systematic way in the Parliament or in the forum of political parties or of civil society. Monitoring and evaluating progress in the implementation of development programmes is ordinarily taken by donors but not by our stakeholders.

The role of women in domestic economy and their views on development is still being ignored. Many female activists criticized the male bias in development policies. The reason is believed to be that process in development has tended to consolidate male-based societal values since women have inadequate access to resources.

Let the civil society begin a consultation process or dialogue with representatives of successful farmers (men and women) of 64 districts as to know what they want and where are the defects in the current development strategy. The development strategy must begin from the bottom and not from the top. Majority of rural people may not be the product of universities but they are product of years of experience and their views are important for development process.

The process of wide consultations countrywide with all segments of society and stakeholders is expected to establish an accountable development process. There lies an important element in an accountable development process.

Socio-economic development is inter-linked with political development and unless there is parallel development in the two strains, "real" development is not likely to take place.

Barrister Harun ur Rashid is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.