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All systems have needs, whether the systems be people,
families, communities, cities, economics or ecosystems. System needs are complex, exist simultaneously, and must be
addressed systemically and holistically, rather than via narrow selection and "targeting". Satisfaction of those needs is
the central meaning of Sustainable Development.
Unsatisfied needs indicate the existence of poverties...
The best development process will be the one which allows
the greatest improvement in people's quality of life. The second question is, therefore, What
determines people’s quality of life? To Max-Neef, Quality of Life depends on the possibilities
people have to adequately satisfy their fundamental human needs. We then come to the third question: What
are those fundamental human needs, and who decides what they are?... Max-Neef suggests that while
the means of satisfying a need may be highly variable, the need itself may be the same everywhere...
- Fundamental human needs are finite, few and classifiable.
- Fundamental human needs are the same in all cultures and in all historical
periods. What changes, both over time and through cultures, is the way or the means by which the needs are satisfied.
Max-Neef has organized Human Needs into nine fundamental categories:
Subsistence, protection, Affection, Understanding, Participation, Idleness, Creation, Identity and Freedom... The Needs are
all necessary, all equal. Any human need that is not adequately satisfied reveals a human Poverty...
- Pseudo-Satisfiers are appealing, but they only promise to fill needs; they
don't actually do so.
- Inhibitors satisfy one need but inhibit another.
A very similar analysis arises from a General Systems approach,
as developed by Bossel [J Peet and H Bossel, An Ethics-Based System Approach to Indicators of Sustainable Development, International Journal of Sustainable Development, v 3 no 3, 2000.], in relation to the requirement to satisfy
the generic fundamental needs (which he refers to as Basic Orientors) for long term viability of a wide range of
systems, human and non-human, living and constructed. These Basic Orientors come in seven basic categories: Existence, Psychological
needs, Effectiveness, Freedom, Security, Adaptability and Coexistence. The nine Max-Neef and seven Bossel categories
map easily on to one another...
The key element in finding out if people’s needs are being
satisfied is prior determination of an ethical principle against which the nature and extent of satisfaction
of basic (or fundamental) needs can be evaluated. This evaluation can be done by identifying Indicators
which must measure not only quantity of possessions or of income, but quality
of life...
Once the unsatisfied needs are identified and assessed,
according to the goal and using the ethical guiding principle described above, it is necessary to seek policies to
“satisfy” them. From analysis of Max-Neef’s list of satisfiers above, it is, we believe, clear
that the ideal is to identify and apply Synergic Satisfiers.
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