Is Sen’s model of “development as freedom” useful to developing countries in light of the current global political and economic realities?

I would argue that the model is useful to developing
countries, even though many developing countries have so far not promoted freedom nearly
as much as they have promoted economic growth.  Let us look at the example of China to
see a reason for this.

A key arguments in Sen's work is
that freedom helps a country's economy by making people more productive.  This is
certainly borne out by the example of China.  As China has given its people more and
more freedom (the China of today is very unlike that of 1989, for example), the
country's economy has boomed.  However, there are still areas (such as innovation) in
which China lags behind.  Innovation would be stimulated by more freedom because people
who are used to being free are more likely to think in the creative ways that cause
innovation.

From this, we can see that Sen's model has
value.  It can help to account for the rise of China as well as for some of its
continuing weaknesses.