DESIGN FOR DEVELOPMENT
Restoring People to the Centre of Design Education & Practice
A draft Proposal - April 2000

Ashoke Chatterjee
Distinguished Fellow,
National Institute of Design
Ahmedabad 380 007
INDIA

The Issue

  
The importance of industrial design for survival in the marketplace has been established by the enormous expansion in international trade and competition. Design is acknowledged as the crucial factor for attracting and holding consumer interest, as products and services seek distinction through perceptions of quality stimulated in the eyes and minds of the consumers.

In regions where industrial design is a comparative newcomer, this situation has catapulted design awareness into circles of decision-making that earlier regarded design investments as a luxury that could be postponed. The change has brought opportunities for design professionals on a scale hitherto unimagined. Burgeoning consumerism has escalated demand for design skills and training that can respond to new markets. The public image of 'design' is being set largely by the fashion and entertainment industries.

In some countries, such as India, this transformation is identified with a semantic shift. The term 'designer' has moved from noun to adjective. The preoccupation with 'designer' goods symbolises huge new opportunities. It also represents a distinct shift away from the development paradigm that first brought industrial design education and practice to the country almost fifty years ago. Design for basic need is a challenge not difficult to neglect where rampant consumerism beckons with quicker rewards, and where client systems for attracting design talent into social sectors do not exist. New opportunities have therefore, come at a cost one that can be particularly high in societies where for most citizens the basic needs for survival are still to be met. It is this dilemma that calls for re-statement of the mission of design for development, and an understanding of how that mission can be implemented and sustained. The premise of this paper is that design for basic needs must be restored as a prime concern for the profession.

Industrial design as a force for development was introduced to India in the late 1950's. It was the first experiment of its kind in the Third World. The declared intention then was that design should assist in identifying and sustaining those qualities which Indians regard as essential to a good life. Societal issues and value systems were seen as essential to the designer's mission. The designer was to be an important factor in making crucial decisions that could ease the transition from tradition, through changes that respected the need for dignity and identity I the process of modernisation. In today's preoccupation with those who have an ability to spend, only a handful of Indian design professional are directly engaged in resolving those problems that rank their nation with the poorest in the world. Professional opportunities are largely directed at the aspirations of India's middle class and at the nation's international aspirations. While design opportunities exist in the social sector, they are sporadic and poorly paid. They are seldom linked to organised systems of marketing or implementation that can take design experiments into actual service. It is difficult for a young professional to find a sustainable career of service to India's enormous educational or public health requirements, to the improvements of public service, or to its community of disabled and ageing. Yet each of these 'design markets' represents a potential that is probably the largest of its kind in the world.

Over the past, such challenges, have from time to time, exercised the mind of the design community in many parts of the world (Annex. 1). Charles and Ray Eames reflected on these concerns in their "India Report" in the late fifties, leading to the foundation of the country's National Institute of Design. Its founders clearly intended a development mission through the introduction of the Bauhaus legacy in a newly independent India. Victor Papanek's "Design for the Real World" (1974) was a seminal work. In the 1970's, ICSID and Philips introduced an award for design contributions for development needs. In 1979, ICSID, UNIDO and Indian authorities together organised the first UN-sponsored meeting on design, which culminated in the Ahemdabad Declaration on Industrial Design for Development (Annex. 2). It articulated a global mission and suggested the actions essential to its fulfilment. Several national and international design associations incorporated development concerns in their statements of intent and conduct. The Green Movement in Europe initiated major re-thinking on consumption patterns and designed policies compatible with ecological sustainability. Futurology think-tanks brought distinguished minds to bear on design for tomorrow's needs. Design thinkers such as Nigel Whiteley have examined the social and political implications of design in developed societies. Yet, it is difficult to see any coherent approach to design as a discipline and as an attitude that should help transform the lives of the earth's majority. The teaching and practice of design, no where in the world, places basic human needs at the centre of its focus. It is discouraged from doing so by the absence of organised client systems capable of supporting such an emphasis. The Ahemdabad Declaration remains one of intent, not achievement, 21 years after it was articulated.

Experience, over two decades, has underlined the difficulty of advocating design outside of its use as a competitive weapon in the marketplace. While leaders in the industry are quick to utilise design, others find the term difficult to grasp. Few planners and economists have any familiarity with the potential of design as a development approach or resource, regarding it as the realm of art and culture. It would be difficult to locate provision for industrial design in the development plans and budgets of any developing nation.

Where can we go from here?

There is advantage in the fact that the consumer market established the importance and ability of the design profession. This status can now be utilised to extend its contribution to wider goals. There is a need to link this advantage with new opportunities for acknowledgement and demonstration of design in the context of human need. The intellectual and financial resources for this exist, and can be mobilised. Among successful designers the world over, there is a palpable urge to 'give back'. Not a few design institutions are troubled by the take-over by market forces of a professional ethos once linked to concepts of "dignity, service and love." This fund of concern and talent constitutes a profoundly significant resource. It provides professional rigour to what might otherwise be dismissed as efforts at design charity. It provides access to sources of funding, capable of challenging industry to support a second stream of professional design activity. Training institutions are already providing opportunities for such demonstration, albeit on a limited scale. In may countries, civil society has established partnerships with design practitioners. It is increasingly able to use design to articulate its needs as a client, even if still uncertain of its ability to pay for design services.

Two other more recent developments worldwide offer significant policies to lift the position of industrial design on the development agenda, and for attracting support to the notion of 'Design for Development'. Agenda 21, which emerged from the 1992 Earth Summit at Rio, is one of these. It demands urgency for alternative patterns of consumption that are compatible with ecological sustainability. Agenda 21 has, over ten years, become an important element in the industrialised North. It has also served as an early warning system for the South. The second opportunity is the perspective offered by the UNDP's Human Development reports. These reports define development and progress in terms of a quality of life that can enlarge people's choices and their capacity to fulfil them. The 1998 HDR investigated consumption from a human perspective - consumption for development - in what could be interpreted as a charter for design in the new millennium.

Other opportunities too have emerged. These include movements for the empowerment of women and for consumer protection, the new respect for the knowledge and wisdom of indigenous tradition, the revival of crafts world-wide, the search for alternative patterns of income generation and employment to meet the needs of expanding populations, the growing respect for institutions and professions that have a capacity for inter-disciplinary team-work, and the search for values more enduring than their brand-names. Each of these is a potential partnership for 'design for development'. Each suggests the need to communicate the experience and contribution of designers, working in virtual isolation all over the world and in need of a collective strength that can help take their efforts to scale.

How can we get there?

India is in a unique position, and has a unique responsibility, to demonstrate design as an indispensable force for development. It has traditional value systems, linked to systems of learning and production, that identify quality in human terms. Its contemporary history includes first efforts to include first efforts to link Bauhaus' concepts of industrial design to the realities of a poor society. Its designers have demonstrated an ability to blend tradition with modernity in key sectors of national need. What India still lacks is any comprehensive approach to implementing the Ahmedabad Declaration nationally.

This challenge has been discussed with individuals and institutions within and outside India over the years. It was shared at a convention of architects and interior designers in 1998. Discussions were held with senior designers and design teachers in Britain and an exchange of ideas was organised at the Royal College of Art in May 1999. The Erasmus/Cumulus Conference of design educators in Slovenia in October 1999 offered a further opportunity to share this thinking with a spectrum of Europe's experience. These opportunities indicated that development concerns were deeply shared in societies that are industrially advanced. Some design practitioners, institutions and interested individuals in India and elsewhere have expressed support. Interaction with the Principal Co-ordinator of the UNDP's Human Development Report team has been particularly encouraging. It has highlighted the importance of translating 'design for development' into terms that economists and planners can more easily understand and use as a development tool. From these exchanges, the following strategy has emerged.

A Short Term Strategy

Identify a core of designers/design institutions in both the North and South who might be interested in developing and advocating a case for design for human development. These partners will need a shared understanding of "human development" based perhaps on the Ahmedabad Declaration and the UNDP Human Development Reports.

Key experiences of design for development, with the Ahmedabad Declaration and its Major Recommendations as a possible starting point, will need to be identified and documented as case examples. A format will need to be developed to facilitate this process.

Case Studies must define the problem addressed and the contribution of the design process toward problem-solving. The search will be for learning, not merely for "success stories". Issues of importance could include experiences in building capacities for self-reliance, for achieving economics/social/cultural dignity and sustainability, for addressing basic human needs and aspirations. Inter-disciplinary teamwork, supports essential from systems of governance, resource needs (human, financial and technical) and how these can be addressed, the sustainability of such efforts, their implications in social/economic/political/ecological terms - all these are considerations essential to this investigation. Wherever possible, the participation of non-designers should be encouraged, as the ultimate users, clients and "beneficiaries" of design.

A team of development specialists, including economists, would then review these case studies. Designers would work with such a team to help translate the examples into the language of developmental economics and politics. The learning to be communicated would be in terms of impact, cost-benefits, sustainability, and application to the situation of other communities and societies. Issues of cost benefit would be particularly important, and should include an understanding of the cost of not including design in development activity. Indicators will have to be innovated that can help assess the impact of investments made in design for non-commercial goals.

Conclusions drawn from such study could then be used to advocate a case for design in development planning and action. The approach to design integration, and the indicators developed to assess its impact, could be used to ensure that future investments in social sectors include provision for design activity.

The outcome would need to be fed back simultaneously into centers of design education and training as well as to associations of design. ICSID and ICOGRADA as well as national design associations could be key instruments for feedback, response and advocacy.

Simultaneously, design curricula would require serious re-examination. This can ensure that the capacity of designers to contribute to the development process is actively supported, and career opportunities innovated that encourage and attract young professionals into such areas of service. It is this that will be the ultimate test of whether design for development can succeed as a professional alternative.

A follow-up to the 1979 UNIDO-ICSID-India Conference could be considered, to examine the relevance of the Ahmedabad Declaration in a current context. International understanding and support for such a "Design for Development" initiative would be sought and confirmed through formal acknowledgement by governments and authorities of the role of designers in development planning and partnerships. The agencies of the United Nations could have a key role in facilitating such a shift, with UNIDO's 1979 commitment and the Human Development reports as key instruments for change.

India should offer itself at last as the example of "Design for Development", no longer as adhoc interventions but as a major element in national planning. Indian Design institutions should be among the first to demonstrate how this dimension can be intelligently integrated into teaching and training activities. Associations of professional designers should develop norms for design service in the social sector. Careers in this sector must be actively encouraged as a practical option for young Indian professionals.

Depending on the response to these ideas, a review meeting could be arranged later this year (possibly in London) with Dr Richard Jolly of the UNDP. Meanwhile, work can begin in identifying partners and sources of future support. A modest private donation is available to cover communication costs over this preparatory phase. The human and financial resource implications of this campaign will be easier to estimate once a first round of consultations is completed.