M a i t r e y e e Newsletter of the Human Development and Capability Association Number 1, March 2005 Dear Members of the HDCA, Last October, we announced the launch of Maitreyee, the quarterly newsletter of the Human Development and Capability Association. Maitreyee is an initiative that helps to inform and facilitate interaction and discussion between all members of the HDCA. It aims to be a place where anyone committed to justice and a better quality of life for all in both the South and the North, and anyone who desires to explore a more equitable economic framework, may find challenging and stimulating discussion partners. It is worth stressing again that agreement with the human development and capability approaches is by no means a requirement of HDCA membership! As the essence of Maitreyee is to be a discussion forum for academics and practitioners alike, each newsletter will be divided into three sections: 1) ‘Insights’, which features three invited columns on a particular theme, with a selected bibliography; 2) ‘In Practice’, which collates experiences from development workers and activists as well as policy-makers practitioners in the Global South and North; and 3) ‘Events’, which lists both academic and non-academic events that are focused on or related to the Capability Approach around the world. The theme of this first Maitreyee is ‘The capability approach as an alternative economic framework’. Ingrid Robeyns opens the debate by discussing the extent to which the capability approach is better able to include issues of culture in well-being assessment than mainstream economics. The second contribution emerges from a ‘working party’ organised by the HDCA last November in Cambridge, UK. During four days, a group of people gathered to discuss ways in which the insights of the capability approach could be communicated on an ongoing basis to the wider public. In ‘freedom that enslaves’, some participants examine the differences between the freedom of the capability approach and the freedom of neo-liberalism. In ‘winning the war of ideas’, Angus Ritchie retraces the journey of Hayek’s liberalism, examining the reasons for its success in influencing policies and drawing some lessons for the capability approach regarding tactics. ‘In the Practice’, Manu Mathai discusses the way indigenous communities in the state of Orissa in India are struggling for a better quality of life. The themes for the following newsletter will be ‘Contributions of the capability approach to the achievement of the MDGs’. We invite any contribution you might have on the subject. We would like to begin in the next Maitreyee a ‘Letters’ section, so if you have any reactions to the contributions, do send your reactions to us (newsletter@capabilityapproach.org). We hope you will enjoy reading this first Maitreyee, and any suggestion or critique is more than welcome. Séverine Deneulin and Manu V. Mathai Editors