Therefore, how countries incorporate human concerns should be an integral part of their adjustment programs. Export-led growth has carried as a corollary the erosion of basic human needs. The cooperation of Third World governments with local and international private interests in a triple alliance has meant that none of the three is beholden to or likely to serve the needs of the poor. Encouraging developing countries to become self-reliant in food production is a key component needed to ensure that countries can weather balance of payments storms with their people's welfare intact. There is rarely commitment by the people to any policy which is imposed from above or from outside by those who assert that they have the knowledge and arrogate to themselves the authority to decide for others.
Participation is a human right.
People should be enabled to reflect on their own problems and to articulate their own ideas of solutions to such problems. Only if this is done can development be seen as a liberating process, and the creation of conditions for people and societies, particularly those presently oppressed and marginalized, to identify their own needs, mobilize their own resources and shape their future. At the international level, democratization and social reform in the Third World is contingent upon the degree of internal change in the core countries and their institutions. International financial institutions, so long dominated by the G-7 countries, need to be democratized. Thus the G-7 exercise dominant influence over these institutions' decisions, while the vast majority of poorer countries have no real power at all.