Which principle ensures equal access to opportunities for all in the context…

Concept: the four pillars of human development

The human-development approach, which underlies the modern idea of sustainable development, rests on four inter-related pillars: equity, sustainability, productivity and empowerment. Equity is the distributive pillar. It asks whether every person, irrespective of gender, caste, race, income group or region, begins with the same access to the chances a society creates, and whether the barriers that hold particular groups back have been dismantled. It is a principle about fairness of access, not about identical outcomes.

Application to this question

The stem asks for the pillar that guarantees equal access to opportunities for every person. Reading the four definitions in turn, that description matches the distributive pillar, which is equity.

Contrast with the other three pillars

• Sustainability is about continuity over time: the natural, physical, human and financial resources a society draws on must be passed on to later generations undiminished.

• Productivity is about efficiency: human labour is enriched through capability building so that people contribute more fully in remunerative work and income generation.

• Empowerment is about agency: people hold the freedom and the power to make their own choices in the decisions that govern their lives.

Result

The principle that ensures equal access to opportunities for all is equity.