Economic and Social Variables and Basic Needs Performance

The last chapter related performance on BN to the broad strategies countries have followed. Yet actual achievements in BN depend on specific performance with respect to specific variables — for example, how much food is actually consumed and by whom. Performance with respect to such specific variables depends largely on the general economic, social and political strategy adopted. But for planning for BN, it is important to identify the requisite achievements with respect to the specific variables, for while planning operates within a broad political economy context, it influences specific variables. This chapter, therefore, aims to explore the relationships between performance on specific variables and BN-achievements. The first part of the chapter investigates how successful and unsuccessful countries’ performance on a number of economic and social variables has differed from the achievements of ‘average’ BN-performers. The second part summarises findings of other studies of this question. A comparison between these findings and our own permits some conclusions on the ‘robustness’ of the various findings.