Reflections on an ethic development in rural areas

This article provides some considerations and analytical tools about the issues related to the problems of definition, measurement and policy analysis on development in rural areas. The mutual relations between man, space and time create a dynamic framework in which human development process plays a fundamental role. The identification of a human centred approach in development highlights the presence of a plurality of human needs which should be analyzed, quantified as determinants of a problematic complex essential in the definition of political and economic choices for rural development. In this perspective, development is thus based on a "global interdependence" between economic results and the value of rights, dignity and freedom which has to be incorporated in the evaluation of the resulting situations. The achievement of material and not material resources can be the result of the respect of social rules (duty, loyalty, good will) deriving from an ethic consciousness in which competition and utility as well as rights and freedom can be quantified and qualified through identified parameters of intrinsic value.