What is the difference between development and growth?
Clearly the two people before me aren’t terribly helpful.. Economic growth is usually a growth in real GDP (that is a growth in the total of everything that a country produces, adjusted for inflation). However, all of this growth can be concentrated in the hands of just a few people, which means whilst the country’s GDP is increasing, the general population aren’t getting any richer. This is especially true when mining or fuels are involved. Development could be said to be when a country’s population are getting richer. There is an indicator, the Human Development Index, that measures things like doctors per thousand people, access to clean water etc. Equitable increases in national incomes will increase the HDI, and you could call this development. So the two can be the same, it depends on the circumstance.