I once read a book about Development in which at Chapter 5 it discusses how an issue is determined as development-related. Chapter 5 was entitled:
IDENTIFICATION OF EMERGING ISSUES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Development is a wide term that can be referred to a lot of things. To name some; social development, political development, economic development and such. However, digging deeper what development means as a whole according to a phone interview I have conducted with a DevCom Senior student in UPLB he stated and I quoted that development means
“Development is the liberation of individuals, people, and societies from the barriers which hinder them from enjoying their basic rights and civil liberties, and well as from realizing their optimum potential”
Development definition may vary depending on whose shoes we’ll try to fit on. After we define our own development we may now identify issues underlying it, issues that are development related. For what purpose? Simply to try aiming to solve that issue to the point that one can attain progress. I’ll start discussing about identifying a development related topic leaving this table below;
Setting the table as our reference we can see that there are numerous criteria in identifying a development-related topic. Topics ranging from its importance, impact, novelty, persistence, resolvability, ubiquity and even irreversibility. The main idea that I want to share in writing this blog is that we can have different views of development but we are one with our goals and intentions. Finding a development topic from my own point of view can be done in 5 steps.
1. Observe – from the most common sense, sight. Having the ability to witness things work, what complicates it and what seems to be the problem is a great start.
2. Check 3I’s (Intention, Impact, Interest)- well I just created the 3I’s that I think is necessary in starting and choosing a topic. First was the intention, checking our intention on weighing in a specific problem we’ve notice at step 1, after in which we check the impact of choosing it a development-related topic and lastly, the checking the interest of both parties involved in resolving the said issues. With that said and done we can arrive at step 3.
3. Search for FACTS– After having an eye on a specific topic it is necesarry that we look for facts to support it, not everything will be based on our judgement and guts. To have a close to perfect development-related topic is to backed it up with evidences that’ll make it even stronger.
4. Try to imbibe what it feels like to be the subject of your topic, it is important that we try to experience what we wanted yo change. Its like giving us the motivation whether we’ll continue on that specific topic or its not worth our time and effort.
5. Understand that development-related topics are not always perfect– after identifying our own development-related topic we must bear in mind that not everyone will agree that it should be the one with the spotlight on. After understanding our own identified topic we must embrace it as our own problem to be solved.
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