In his article on well-being as a new development concept, Romesh Vaitilingam seems to offer new perspectives to develop a more comprehensive approach to development (‘Be well’, The Broker 12). But is it amount to anything more than just putting a new label on development itself? Vaitilingam refers to a definition of well-being as a ‘state of being with others, where human needs are met, where one can act meaningfully to pursue one’s goals and where one enjoys a satisfactory quality of life’. That definition could also easily be applied to the notion of ‘development’. The well-being concept seems little more than development itself. Well-being is a second-order concept. One cannot realize well-being in a direct way. ‘Well-being’ refers to many aspects of people’s lives. And in the reality of individuals and communities well-being is contextual: for some health is the most important aspect, while for others it may be education, or security, or jobs or identity. And, to make it even more complicated, people and communities define well-being in different ways over time. In different periods of life different aspects of well-being are urgent and pressing for attention and answers. At the direct level of interventions the concept of well-being doesn’t offer enough to guide programmes and projects.

René Grotenhuis is director of Cordaid.