Maldevelopment is the state of an organism or an organisation that did not develop in the "normal" way (used in medicine, e.g. "brain maldevelopment of a fetus"). It was introduced as a human and social development term in France in the 1990s to replace the word "underdevelopment." The word maldéveloppement did not exist before then (the medical terms are malformation or développement anormal), so the word is a neologism meant to be analogous to the difference between undernutrition and malnutrition. The 1990s decade refers to the years from 1990 to 1999, inclusive, the last decade of the 20th Century. ... Underdevelopment is the state of an organism or of an organisation (e. ... A neologism is word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (coined) —often to apply to new concepts, or to reshape older terms in newer language form. ... Malnutrition is a general term for the medical condition in a person caused by an unbalanced diet—either too little or too much food, or a diet missing one or more important nutrients. ...

Maldevelopment is a global concept that includes human and social development. Under the philosophy of sustainable development, economic development is only a "tool" that allows for greater human and social development, not the final goal. Under-development is a quantitative notion, implying that a nation has a lack and must gain something to reach a particular reference state—the state of the nation that judges another nation as underdeveloped. So this notion also implies a unique development model—the one of the judging nation. Sustainable development is a process of developing (land, cities, business, communities, etc) that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs according to the Brundtland Report, a 1987 report from the United Nations. ...

Mal-development, or ill-development, is a qualitative notion that expresses a mismatch, a discrepancy between the conditions (economical, political, meteorological, cultural, etc.) and the needs and means of the people.

See also

• Human development theory