“Peace is what happens when all peoples are free to develop themselves in the way they want, without having to fight for their rights.” —Bruno Picozzi
One concept or idea that often complements peace studies is development. Economic, cultural, and political development can supposedly take "underdeveloped" nations and peoples out of poverty, thus helping bring about a more peaceful world. As such, many international development agencies carry out projects funded by the governments of industrialized countries, mostly the western, designed to "modernize" poor countries.[1]
The concept of peace has been linked to the wide idea of development, assuming that development is not the classical pursuit of wealth. Peaceful development can be a set of many different elements such as good governance, healthcare, education, gender equality, disaster preparedness, infrastructure, economics, rule of law, human rights, environment and other political issues.[citation needed] The measuring of development uses not only GDP but also numerous measures such as:
• Literacy rates
• Life expectancy
• Gini coefficient
• Per capita income
• Maternal survival rate
• HIV infection rates
• Number of doctors per capita
• Human Development Index
• and others
In this frame, the problem of peacefully involves the complex matter of human development, what explains the complexity of any peace-building processes.
