Current efforts to champion notions of multi-dimensional poverty reflect
wider shifts in thinking about international development. Over time the
global community has in effect been moving towards conceiving
‘development’ as the organised pursuit of human wellbeing. This has
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involved broadening the notion of development from a narrow economic
conception, to encompass human development and wider ideals such as
participation and freedom. At its broadest and most utopian, the objective of
international development could be described as the creation of conditions
where all people in the world are able to achieve wellbeing. Thus the
purpose of development policies and the raison d’etre of governments and
the agencies that generate and implement the specific policies and
programmes, is to work to establish those preconditions in different
societies. The Millennium Goals Declaration can be seen as motivated by a
minimal version of such a radical goal.