The concept of basic needs is today at the center of many discussions about development and the international order. Some international organizations are rethinking their prior evaluation of development policies based largely on aggregate economic output, in particular, the welfare of the very poor, are increasingly brought onto the agenda. The purpose of this article is to address these questions using as a basis the Bariloche Model. This model studies development strategies oriented towards the satisfaction of basic needs of the population of different regions of the world, and it does so for the first time in the context of large scale econometric development modelling. I will discuss the results of the model and then analyze further the implications of the basic needs approach to develop policies, and to implications for the international economic order.