1. Proposal on Development.
We understand the term Development as a state of the culture in a society that favors the orientation of relations among people and their organizations, in order to generate opportunities where organizations and people can put into practice all their capacities.

A developed culture is that where institutions based in values of equality, solidarity, justice, liberty and peace are present. These values give origin to and sustain activities of socialization that take place in the organizations, especially in the educational systems, political and economic organizations, where people build in their daily lives a social being ready to broadening his or her autonomy.

This culture, and the growing interdependence promoted from the autonomy of each person and organization, makes a contribution to economic growth and political participation, aimed at building a social order where differences are a part of the construction of a collective project. This order rules and foresees the ways in which society balances its relations with the environment.

2. Arguments on the promotions of Development.
Our proposal concerning Development involves as a strategy of promotion, the creation and strengthening of relations where actors in society, especially those related to the design of public policies at a local, regional and national levels, meet the manifestations of participation that people and their organizations.

This communication and reflective spaces are identified at a local level, but they represent networks or organizations that work among different sectors. These organizations propose or implement projects and programs that look for solutions concerning legal, administrative, public health, economic, ethnic, environmental problems, among others. These problems exist among the population in a community, province or region.

Due to the scope of the activities developed by the Fundacion de Ayuda Social de la Iglesias Cristianas (FASIC), our proposal on Development starts at a local level. This implies an endogenous and local development, which makes use of the capacities and resources in the communities, to project a common proposal that allows a sense of belonging, both with their problems as with their solutions.

This way of conceiving development replaces the economic growth in it unique quality: that of being a mean to achieve a collective aim. In this sense, the productive initiative is valued as far as it relates in synergy both with the resources at a local level, and with the problems lived by the populations. It also values democracy in its contribution in the promotion of institutions that allow not only scrutiny and representation, but fundamentally in allowing different versions of the future of organizations through a systematic civic practice, which makes development be a notion charged with a political sense.

3. Development indicators.
It is important to present briefly indicators that allow us to consider the understanding that FASIC has on development, in order to make possible an evaluation, checking and reflection on a specific historical society. These indicators would also allow us to foresee the formation of societies in transition to the definition above.

These indicators are categorized in four levels: cultural, social, economic and ecological or environmental.

a. Cultural level. It is understood as the system of articulated values that sustain the relations among people and their organizations. These systems of values configure organizations; which are articulated according to the following axis:

• Liberty. People and organizations cannot only transit freely in a geographical sense, but also systematically find opportunities to manifest their problems and solutions.

• Equality. People and organizations do not only have rights expressed in the national Constitution and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but also in their way to observe the world and to make daily life, which makes them find social spaces where they can be valued.

• Diversity. People and organizations do not only count with possibilities of material and social existence, but also make use of political possibilities that allow them to reorganize the norms that rule everyday life.

• Justice. People and organizations function and develop under the dignity they have, and value truth in their daily lives.

• Peace. People and organizations create and/or strengthen mechanisms for peaceful resolution of their conflicts, preventing violence to have a place in their way of being in the world.

b. Social level. It is understood as the system of relations that allow the collective or community to build a social being that includes them. This relations can be social networks that connect in a crosscutting way every person and organization.

• Ample participation mechanisms. People, organized or not, know ways to have an access to express their demands and possibilities for solutions of collective problems. Furthermore, they participate in the design and implementation o public programs and policies.

• Networks of strengthening of participation. Organizations in society that form their new members and promote political participation: educational systems (primary school, high school and universities)

• Civil organizations. Civil organizations may not only be reduced to the implementation of some “welfare assistance” public policies using voluntary work. Essentially, they form a sector of the economy, the Social Economy, that generates services and goods for collective use for a compensation.

c. Economic level. It is understood as the system of relations that allow the collective or the community to build favorable environments for the economic production. These relations can networks that articulate local, regional and global economies.

• Incorporation of technology. Local communities, in relation to technology development, seize its cultural, social and material resources to add value to their goods and commodities.

• Regulation of competition relations. Local societies establish rules to prevent the existence of monopolies and oligopolies.

• Promotion of association. Local communities promote relations of solidarity in productive activities, mainly among universities, enterprises, NGOs and the State.

d. Ecological or environmental level.

• Investment in the environment. Local or provincial communities regulate the payment of taxes for the exploitation of commodities or natural resources. These taxes are invested by the local government together with the local population in the areas affected by the economic and/or community exploitation.

• Delimitation of urban expansion. Local communities define a plan for urban growth (or urban settlements), which reflects the will of the population, according to the relations they want to establish with their natural environment.

• Use of renewable energy. Local communities and their organizations define a budget to maintain a sustainable energy system that does not affect negatively their environment.

Nicolás Gómez, sociologist FASIC