From the Local to the Global: Key Issues in Development Studies

Introduction: Creating New Paradigms for Development

Stephen McCloskey

The publication of the third edition of From the Local to the Global appears at an important juncture for international development and the perennial debate on how we ‘develop’ as communities within nations living on a planet with a finite capacity to sustain our current modes of production and growth. The first edition of this book (2003) was published in the aftermath of the Millennium Summit in 2000 which agreed the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that have guided global development policy over the past 15 years. The MDGs had the overarching target of reducing by half the number of people living in extreme poverty (less than $1.25 a day) by 2015. Framed at a Millennium Summit in 2000 and enshrined in a United Nations General Assembly resolution that sought to make the ‘right to development a reality for everyone’ (UNGA, 2000), the eight goals agreed in the Millennium Declaration were as follows:

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development (www.un.org/millenniumgoals)

A UN ‘outcome document’ published in 2013 in which heads of state and governments assessed progress toward achieving the MDGs referred to concerns at ‘unevenness and gaps in achievement’ and the ‘immense challenges that remain’ as the goals approached their end game (UNGA, 2013). Indeed, it had become apparent by the publication date of the second edition of this book in 2009 that the MDGs were off-track in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, which resulted in reduced aid flows as part of an austerity-driven approach to stabilisation and recovery in the global North (see McCann, 2009: 266–91). The World Bank estimated that an additional 64 million people would be living in poverty as a result of the recession and that the ‘effects on human welfare may be costly and long-lasting’ (2010: 217). As early as 2007, the United Nations Secretary-General admitted that ‘we are seriously off track with some of the goals’ and ‘some regions are further behind than others’ (United Nations, 2007). By 2014, only a few of the goals and targets had been met (on poverty, slums, water and gender parity in education) and several remained badly off-track (including maternal mortality and sanitation) (BOND, 2014).

As the United Nations takes stock of the impact of the MDGs and moves toward ratification of the international development framework that will supersede them, the third edition of From the Local to the Global assesses international development policy and practice in several key areas. It considers many of the priority development issues that will inform the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the new targets that are to replace the MDGs – such as gender, debt and climate change. It also importantly, assesses the neoliberal paradigm that has framed international development over the past four decades.

Dorothy Grace Guerrero defines neoliberalism as ‘a set of political economic practices supported by institutional frameworks that favour strong private property rights, free markets and free trade, which have become widespread in the last 40 years or so’ (2014: 232). According to Guerrero, ‘Liberalism’ refers to ‘political, economic, or even religious ideas’ while the prefix ‘neo’ refers to ‘a new kind of liberalism’ (ibid.). Some of the main characteristics of neoliberal practice include: deregulating markets; minimising the role of the state in areas of social protection, public services and economic management; strengthening the role of private capital, particularly multinational corporations, in public life and services; and creating an intellectual framework for materialism and growth through a marketisation of education at all levels.

This enforced liberalisation has created the need for a deeper analysis of and resistance to global capitalism and its impact on the environment, people and the economy. This book is supporting that resistance and encouraging a closer, critical examination of the prevailing development model while also considering alternative paradigms such as those offered by many social movements and states in Latin America (Kirby, 2012; Muñoz Cabrera, 2012; McCloskey, 2011). This chapter reflects on the concept of ‘development’ by considering some definitions and diverging approaches to what development means in practice. It considers the implications of the 2008 global financial crisis for the neoliberal development model, suggesting that its time to consider alternative, more sustainable paradigms of development.

What is Development?

Defining development is important in setting out the parameters of our discussion but also in characterising the methods and ultimate goals underpinning the development process. Definitions of development can be contentious, as they can also determine how we measure success or failure in arriving at the ‘developed’ state. The World Bank, for instance, has traditionally measured development in the context of national wealth calculated on the basis of gross domestic product (GDP) and gross national product (GNP) expressed in per capita terms. This form of measurement is contested because the per capita figure does not tell us how national wealth is distributed within a society both among its citizens and to social institutions to maximise societal well-being. The UN Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) Human Development Report (HDR) offered a rebuttal to this narrow, materialist form of development when it suggested in its first report in 1990 that:

[D]evelopment is about more than GNP growth, more than income and wealth, and more than producing commodities and accumulating capital. A person’s access to income may be one of the choices, but it is not the sum total of human endeavour.

(UNDP, 1990: 1)

Mahbub ul Haq, founder of the Human Development Report, expanded upon the vision of human development that informed its publication when he wrote that:

Human development is a development paradigm that is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. Development is thus about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means – if a very important one – of enlarging people’s choices.

(ul Haq, n.d.)

If we accept that development in its fullest form represents more than material advances and economic growth, then the measurement of development needs to reflect this broader definition. The HDR endeavours to measure development through a Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI is calculated on the basis of ‘three dimensions’ to human development: first, ‘a long and healthy life’ measured by life expectancy at birth; second, ‘knowledge’ measured on the basis of adult literacy rates and the combined gross enrolment ratio for primary, secondary and tertiary schools; and third, ‘a decent standard of living’ measured by GDP per capita. On the basis of these indices, the UNDP ranks countries according to their development performance in high, medium and low development categories.

Because the indices go beyond the realm of economic performance, the countries heading the HDI are normally those with strong social indicators in health, education and welfare. Thus the 2013 index is headed by Norway, with the Netherlands in fourth place and New Zealand in sixth (UNDP, 2013: 144). However, critics of the HDI suggest that the index does not provide qualitative data on the delivery of education or health care within nation states, issues that are central to their assessment. The HDI is therefore an improvement on a purely economic conceptualisation of development in recognising the importance of the social pillars of development, especially health and education. However, the index is limited in its capacity to identify regional variations in development which could reveal persistent levels of poverty and social need in specific areas masked by national statistics.

Additional criticisms of the HDI include: the poor quality of the data contained in the report and the frequency of collection; that key indicators of development have been omitted such as civil and political liberties, access to health care and environmental impacts on well-being; and that because the index is based on such a narrow set of indicators, its analysis of contemporary development lacks depth and breadth (Stanton, 2007). More positively, the HDI provides a mechanism for measuring progress in its composite indicators of development within a UN framework that is internationally recognised. By publishing the report annually, the UNDP provides a means for assessing development performance from year to year and identifying policy areas that need strengthening.

Theoretical Underpinning of Development

The contrasted HDI and GDP models of measuring development are also reflected in their theoretical underpinnings. The two dominant theories of development regard it as either a matter of historical progress or a process of modernisation. McGillivray suggests that development as human progress ‘refers to the unfolding of human history, over a long period of time, in a manner thought to be progressive’ (2008: 23). Modernisation, on the other hand, ‘is a process whereby societies move through a fundamental, complete structural transition from one condition to another, from a starting point to an end point’ (ibid.: 23). This process is most directly associated with industrialisation and the transition from a high dependency on agriculture to urban-based manufacturing from the late eighteenth century onward. The influential political scientist Samuel Huntington described modernisation ‘as a process in which societies have more control of over their natural and social environment due to the use of superior scientific and technical knowledge’ (1971). Huntington also argued that as societies modernise they become more complex and disordered, a process that requires political institutions capable of managing the stress of modernisation.

Modernisation and historical progress have also been considered in the work of Walt Rostow (1960), who discussed the evolution of society through five stages of development, from traditional society to an ‘age of high mass consumption’. Rostow was an economist who worked for the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s and advocated the use of US foreign aid as an ideological tool toward advocating American-style economic growth. Through rapid modernisation, Rostow believed that other states could replicate the post-war economic expansion of the United States. Dudley Seers described the Rostow model as ‘growth without development’, arguing that key aspects of human development such as employment, equality and poverty eradication were often casualties of growth that undermined development (1969: 3–4). Rostow’s rapid modernisation theory is clearly related to the GDP per capita measurement of development and the neoliberal model of growth. Seers, on the other hand, was critical of economic growth as the prime objective of development (Nafziger, 2006: 3) and was much closer to the more balanced approach to development in the HDR.

However, the main influence on the HDR was the economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, who in Development as Freedom (1999) argued that development was linked to a set of freedoms: political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security. Although it was widely lauded in development circles, Denis O’Hearn criticised Sen’s concept of development as individualised. Sen, he argued, ‘asserts the positive role of the market and opposes regulations that impeded the freedom of people to decide where to work, what to produce, where to consume’ (2009: 7). O’Hearn found echoes of Adam Smith in Sen, and suggested that his economic philosophy asserts the needs of the individual over social capabilities championing social institutions only as a buttress of individual rights. However, Sen’s conception of development clearly moved away from the narrow configuration of high growth, privatisation, rapid industrialisation and deregulation which characterises the lending and development programmes of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). I turn to the influence of these institutions on development in the global South in the next section.

The Bretton Woods Institutions

The key outriders of global development policy for the global North in the post-Second World War period were the World Bank and IMF, otherwise known as the Bretton Woods Institutions, set up in 1944 to rebuild the shattered post-war economy. Both institutions have since shifted their attention toward development lending and economic restructuring in the global South. They have been hugely influential in determining the economic policies of developing countries by attaching neoliberal conditions to investment programmes, loans and services.

Although often couched in language that is hard to resist – such as ‘freedom’, ‘improving lives’ and ‘expanding choice’ – the World Bank’s record of delivery has been questioned by many development organisations. The World Development Movement (WDM), for example, argues that the World Bank ‘has a long history of funding projects that are destructive to the environment and undermine human rights, investing in projects regardless of their devastating impacts both on local populations and on our planet’ (n.d.). The WDM estimates that the World Bank has expended $6.7 billion on development projects in the global South, many of which have resulted in environmental denudation, the displacement of indigenous communities and human rights abuses (ibid.). But it is the Bank’s lending policies, together with those of the IMF, that have done most to undermine economies in the global South. Known best as the ‘Washington Consensus’, the development strategies pursued by the IMF and World Bank were focused on restructuring global South economies through privatisation, liberalisation and price stability. The American economist Joseph Stiglitz described this economic cocktail as ‘a set of policies predicated upon a strong faith – stronger than warranted – in unfettered markets and aimed at reducing, or even minimizing, the role of government’ (2004: 1).

One of the main criticisms of the Washington Consensus was its ‘one size fits all’ approach to development, which prescribed the same medicine to all countries irrespective of their resource capacities, in-country economic and political context, and development priorities. Stiglitz argues that inherent within the Washington Consensus ‘was a failure in understanding economic structures within developing countries, in focusing on too narrow a set of objectives, and on too limited a set of instruments’ (2004: 2). The structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) that were attached to loans and development projects in the global South were rooted in the notion that left to their own devices unfettered markets will generate growth and distribute wealth without the interfering hand of the state. The social and economic ‘shock’ induced by these programmes resulted in accelerated poverty levels and greater economic vulnerability and volatility in the global South (Bello, 2002; Klein, 2007; Stiglitz, 2002). By tracing shock economics from their laboratory stage in (General Augusto) Pinochet’s Chile in 1973 to the exploitation of disaster-shocked New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Naomi Klein (2007) traced a lineage of free market policies that have supported and profited from mal-development; the precise opposite of what the Washington Consensus and its adjustment programmes claimed to achieve.

Structural adjustment has been a key characteristic of the current phase of accelerated globalisation, which the economist and activist Walden Bello (2002) believes started in the early 1980s. It resulted in an unleashing of market forces and removal of constraints on global capital by ‘labour, the state and society’. The accelerated globalisation of the 1980s and 1990s was attended by increasing deregulation of the financial system and resulted in the international financial crisis of 2008.

Global Recession

According to the WDM, in 2008 global capitalism ‘entered a fundamental crisis of legitimacy, triggered by a perfect storm of the banking meltdown, rising energy costs and a spike in world food prices’ (2008). The financial crisis had its origins in the sub-prime property market in the United States, where banks and mortgage-lenders operated in a financial bubble of low interest rates and risky and/or fraudulent mortgage lending, which exposed the banks to bad debt and mortgage-holders to repossessions. No less a figure than Alan Greenspan, chair of the US Federal Reserve for 18 years, admitted ‘that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending’ (Andrews, 2008). During his tenure as chair of the ‘Fed’, Greenspan developed a reputation for prudence and wise stewardship of the economy, with the business sector hanging on his every syllable. However, a humbled Greenspan told a (US Congressional) House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that ‘those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief’. He added that ‘I have found a flaw (in my ideology). I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact’ (ibid.).

A striking characteristic of the 2008 crisis was that it impacted most severely on countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland, that were closely wedded to the neoliberal model of development. In the case of Ireland, for example, the once buoyant ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy – a poster child for neoliberalism – endured a spectacular collapse when forced to accept an €85 billion loan from a troika comprising the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF, losing its economic sovereignty in the process (Labanyi, 2010; McCloskey, 2012, 2014). In fact, the IMF (as of March 2013) has committed more than $300 billion in loans to its member countries since 2007, many of whom are in the global North and have responded by introducing what the 2013 HDR describes as ‘harsh austerity measures that reduce the government’s welfare role and cut back on spending and public services’ (UNDP, 2013: 21). In short, chickens have come home to roost with an IMF, renewed by the crisis, now discharging the same kind of medicine in the global North as it has been administering for generations in the global South.

Neoliberalism Discredited

The post-crisis period has been characterised by large injections of state financial support to banks, many of which were on the point of failure, and some of which – like Lehman Brothers in the United States – were allowed to fail. In Britain, for example, the National Audit Office (NAO, n.d.) calculated that peak outlay to banks in guarantee commitments and cash in the aftermath of the crash was a staggering £1,162 billion. This reveals the depth of the crisis, and contrasts sharply with the UK aid budget in 2011 of £8.6 billion or 0.56 per cent of gross national income (GNI) (DFID, 2013). The instinct of neoliberal economies in response to the financial crisis was to socialise the debt of failing financial institutions and cut government expenditure in areas of high social spending such as health, welfare and education. In Britain this resulted in ‘the most swingeing programme of cuts and tax increases for 90 years’ (Milne, 2013), which exacerbated rather than slowed economic contraction. In early 2013, the IMF released research ‘suggesting that it had significantly underestimated the damage European austerity would do to EU growth rates’ (2013).

The response to the crisis therefore in most EU states and in North America was to apply ‘shock economics’ on the back of recession through public spending cuts that targeted the poor while socialising the debt of the rich. As the Nobel Laureate for Literature José Saramago put it, ‘the laws of the market led to a state of chaos that brought a rescue of thousands of millions of dollars – to the culprits, not the victims. In other words, rescue meant privatise the profits, nationalize the losses’ (2010: 55). The results of austerity-driven ‘recovery’ measures were predictable. By the end of 2012, unemployment in the Eurozone stood at 11.8 per cent, and was markedly higher in countries that had suffered the severest economic jolts during the crisis. For example, in Cyprus it was 14 per cent, in Greece 26 per cent, and Spain 26.6 per cent (Eurostat, 2013). Even more concerning is the unemployment rate among young people, which at the end of May 2013 was at an EU average of 24.4 per cent; in Portugal it was 42.5 per cent and in Spain 56.4 per cent (Allen, 2013).

Neoliberalism had not only failed on its own terms – markets were negligent in their self-regulation and failed to sustain wealth and growth – but exacerbated the financial crisis through misjudged ‘slash and burn’ economic solutions. By imposing market-based solutions to crises created by deregulated financial institutions, governments and IFIs deepened the economic malaise in the global North, adding to the misery of those on low incomes.

Alternative Paradigms for Development

The region of the world that was arguably most heavily penetrated by neoliberalism from the 1970s onwards was Latin America. The violent overthrow of democratically elected President Salavador Allende in a military coup by the US-backed dictator General Pinochet in 1973 was followed by what Klein described as the ‘most extreme capitalist makeover ever attempted anywhere’ (2007: 7). Pinochet imposed a ‘rapid-fire transformation of the economy – tax cuts, free trade, privatized services, cuts to social spending and deregulation’ (ibid.). This was classic neoliberalism, and would be repeated in other states in the region, often imposed by dictatorships propped up by the United States. It also resulted in the emergence of a new Latin American left that challenged neoliberalism, liberal democracy and the close alignment of the continent with the United States. This new leftism arguably first manifested itself in the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico in 1994, and has since swept across the continent through new governments and social movements. As Kirby suggests:

Contradicting all the presumptions of neo-liberal thinking, country after country began electing left-wing governments from the late 1990s onwards so that some ten countries are now ruled by the left, and countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador are experimenting with what their presidents call a ‘21st century socialism’.

(Kirby, 2012: 27)

Barrett, Chavez and Rodriquez-Garavito suggest that these ‘new forms of social mobilization and the proposals and experiments offered by contemporary progressive governments go beyond the narrow confines of classic modifications of the market economy and representative democracy’ (2008: 2). They suggest that the new left transcends the traditional development concerns of economic equality and democracy to tackle a range of agendas related to ethnicity, gender, race and other sources of inequality.

This more rounded and ‘bottom up’ approach to development is rooted in the indigenous concept of Buen Vivir (sumak kawsay) which originates in the worldview (cosmovisión) of the Quechua peoples of the Andes. It describes a way of doing things that is ‘community-centric, ecologically-balanced and culturally-sensitive’ (Balch, 2013). It is a conscious rejection of market economics and global capitalism, and directly fed into the Ecuadorian constitution which states: ‘We … hereby decide to build a new form of public coexistence, in diversity and in harmony with nature, to achieve the good way of living’ (ibid.). Patricia Muñoz Cabrera suggests that Buen Vivir is:

[R]ooted in indigenous epistemology and bears a strong relation with the emancipatory struggles fought by indigenous peoples since the Spanish conquest. At its core is the struggle against racist, cultural and economic hegemony and the disenfranchisement caused by capitalism-driven colonial power.

(Muñoz Cabrera, 2012: 67)

She describes how Buen Vivir has directly influenced the economic visioning and experimentation by women’s groups in Latin America in identifying paradigms for social justice based on a feminist rethinking of neoliberalism. ‘Concretely’, she suggests, ‘Buen Vivir, re-defines the nation-state as multi-cultural and pluri-lingual with the primary task of promoting and regulating a social, cultural and economic model driven by equity, human dignity, and social and environmental justice’ (ibid.: 67–8). By reaching back into its indigenous past, Latin American social movements and governments have found a paradigm that, as Muñoz Cabrera suggests, ‘is driven by the idea of redistributive justice; equity in the distribution of wealth and resources, and equality of conditions, not only of opportunities’ (ibid.: 68). Unlike neoliberalism, which focuses primarily on the individual and the material, Buen Vivir is concerned with ‘the individual in the social context of their community and in a unique environmental situation’ (Balch, 2013). There is an underlying harmony in Buen Vivir between humanity and nature, predicated on the sustainable use of resources and respect for indigenous cultures. This starkly contrasts with the rapacious consumption of fossil fuels and other natural resources that underpins neoliberalism.

There are sometimes tensions within Latin America as to how far these new paradigms need to go in challenging neoliberalism. As Kirby suggests:

Essentially one can identify two competing alternatives emerging. All agree on the need for more state direction of the economy, more social investment and more recognition of multiple identities, especially in countries with large populations of indigenous origin. However, where real differences are emerging is in the balance to be struck between economic development and environment protection.

(Kirby, 2012: 29)

These competing approaches are evident in the ‘soft’ versus ‘hard’ left administrations in Latin America, with Argentina and Brazil examples of the former and Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela examples of the latter. But all of these governments, as Kirby suggests, are in agreement on the need for enhanced state management of the economy to afford greater social protection to the poor and stronger regulation of capital. Latin America has therefore crossed the Rubicon in terms of the need for paradigm change, and most states in the region have started to implement alternative models of development. Unsurprisingly, Latin America came through the 2008 global recession in a much healthier position than most regions in the global North, because it was less exposed to the failed deregulated neoliberalism still prevalent in most developed countries. As the IMF’s John Lipsky suggests, ‘[M]ost Latin American countries weathered the Great Recession of 2008/2009 well, both in comparison to other regions and to the past. The region did not experience the large-scale banking or balance of payments crises that had besieged it in previous periods of global strain’ (2011).

The global North should learn from the South’s engagement with paradigm change, and in particular the idea that the development process should be informed by social need, remain harmonious with nature, and distribute resources equitably. The ticking clock of climate change in particular demands that the process of paradigm change should start now. As Naomi Klein suggests, ‘we can seize this existential crisis [of climate change] to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better’ (2014). The concern for development practitioners must be that if the new SDGs are predicated on the same neoliberal economic system that has failed us in the past, then they too will fail to eradicate poverty. Perhaps more than simply changing the goals underpinning development, we need to change the development paradigm underpinning the goals.

About the Book

In this new edition of From the Local to the Global, all of the chapters retained from the two previous collections have been revised and completely updated. Core components of international development policy and practice – aid, debt, trade, gender and climate change – are all explored with the same degree of depth and clarity found in previous editions. However, new chapters have been added to this edition which demanded inclusion on the back of increased popular activism and the rise of social movements, particularly in the Middle East. At the end of 2010, a wave of popular protests erupted against unpopular, autocratic leaders in North Africa and the Middle East. The touchpaper was lit by pro-democracy protests in Tunisia that resulted in the downfall of the deeply unpopular President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. This inspired pro-democracy activists across the Arab world in a spontaneous outpouring of generations of anger against oppressive regimes that cloaked their people in poverty and silence through fear. When President Hosni Mubarak was deposed after 29 years of unbroken authoritarian rule in Egypt, it seemed that anything was possible for the social wave of protests known as the Arab Spring. Heba Khalil, deputy director of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), a Cairo-based human rights organisation, provides frontline analysis of the Arab Spring and its prospects going forward following recent reverses in Egypt and elsewhere.

This new collection also carries a chapter on China which has had an enormous impact on international development through its rapid internal industrialisation process and external relationships with the global South. Russell Duncan suggests that China’s ‘flexible engagement with developing countries has positioned it as a radical alternative to the West and its development methods’. In an absorbing analysis of China’s development model, Duncan surveys the emergence of Beijing as a major player in international economic cooperation, without losing sight of the sometimes controversial social costs of this development process.

Human rights are also front and centre in another new chapter to this third edition on ‘A human rights-based approach to development’ by Máire Braniff and Paul Hainsworth. International development has often been expressed as the safeguarding and provision of fundamental rights such as the right to work, to housing, to employment and to freedom of expression. This linkage is made explicit by Hainsworth and Braniff, who ‘suggest that an individual’s human rights are enhanced by strengthening their opportunities for security and human development’ through a human rights based approach to development.

The book is structured in five parts, with the first, ‘Development Discourse and Definitions’, exploring the concept of ‘development’: how we measure it and hold it to the highest standards in human rights. Andy Storey explains that the measurement of development can be just as politicised and conceptually loaded as the policies that inform human development. He argues that ‘Measures of development are inextricably linked to definitions of development, pointing to the need for a better understanding of what development is before seeking to measure it’. This discussion is particularly apposite in the context of the current debate on the MDGs and the framing of the SDGs to follow them.

Part II on ‘The Economics of Development’ considers three issues that are central to an understanding of international development: trade, aid and debt. Patrick Marren asks some key questions about overseas development assistance. What is aid? Who provides it? And does it work? It is a complex area of study given the myriad actors in aid delivery, from multilateral institutions to governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Aid regularly comes with political and economic agendas attached, and can sometimes undermine, rather than enhance, the development process. Nonetheless, Marren maintains an enthusiasm for aid and believes that:

[A]id continues to be relevant to a wide spectrum of countries in addressing the issues of the chronically poor, in making investments to transform economies to meet the challenges of climate change, resource use and population dynamics, and transforming governance structures at local and national levels to make systems more responsive, inclusive and accountable to their citizens.

Denis O’Hearn’s chapter on trade discusses economic theory and current approaches to policy given the increasing influence of emerging economies in the global South on trade negotiations. O’Hearn is critical of the free trade model of development pursued by many countries in the global North, and argues that ‘trade is an economic instrument, like many others, that must be carefully managed if a country is to achieve economic growth’. Unfair trade rules can undermine development in the global South, as does the insidious debt burden that has been carried by many developing countries for generations like a millstone around their necks. In her chapter, Nessa Ní Chasaide traces the history of the debt problem in the global South, and discusses how the issuing and subsequent restructuring of loans has been used to enforce neoliberal structural adjustment programmes on economies in the South with disastrous results.

Part III is titled ‘Development Policy’, and considers a range of key influencers on development policy. In Chapter 6, David Selby discusses the considerable development challenges created by accelerating climate change. Selby focuses on the development impacts of climate change, and assesses ‘adaptation and mitigation as distinct but complementary responses to climate change’. He makes clear his view that our adherence to a growth-driven model of development is the ‘fundamental driver of both climate change and disaster risk’.

In Chapter 7, Gerard McCann charts the role of the European Union as an aid provider to, and trading partner with, countries in the global South. The chapter details the emergence of EU development policy and its key strategic interventions in developing regions, from the comparatively progressive Lomé Agreement to the more neoliberal Cotonou Agreement. He suggests that the European Union ‘has prioritised the strategic, security and economic interests of its members when designing development policy initiatives, and in this there has emerged a systemic fault in the European Union’s development policy’. This has become particularly apparent in its current negotiation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the United States and its worrying implications for governmental control of public services.

In Chapter 8, Walden Bello poses the question ‘where next for international development post-2015?’ – the end date for the MDGs. Bello argues that ‘the aim of MDG-type exercises must be not only to measure advances in poverty reduction, but also to address the structural causes of poverty and underdevelopment, and provide policy paths towards altering those structures’. This is a salutary warning to the framers of the SDGs to ensure that they become effective tools for eradicating poverty.

In Chapter 9, Patricia Muñoz-Cabrera ‘maps out some of the key development challenges for women in the global South and the main policy initiatives aimed at promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment by global development institutions’. In a rich corrective to the neoliberal narrative of the global North, Muñoz-Cabrera ‘assesses the transformative potential of grounded initiatives led by women in response to growth-driven policy frameworks and instruments’ based on her research into grassroots projects across Latin America.

In Chapter 10, Michal Cenker addresses the perennially thorny issue of migration, and in particular debates ‘the positive and negative effects of migration on countries of origin and destination, such as brain drain, or the fiscal impact of migration on rich destination countries’. The chapter concludes with important recommendations for the more effective management of the migration issue, including how to prevent political extremism, xenophobia, racism and labour market discrimination, which is often directed at migrants across Europe.

Part IV considers ‘Regional Development’ trends and how development policy is playing out on the ground. In addition to the chapters by Duncan on China and Khalil on the Arab Spring, Ronaldo Munck debates the highly influential development paradigms that have emerged in Latin America, focusing in particular on ‘forms of hegemony constructed in Latin American peripheral societies’ before considering ‘the present counter-hegemonic moment in the midst of a global capitalist crisis’. In Chapter 14, Chrispin Matenga reflects upon the impact of the MDGs in Africa over the past 15 years, focusing particularly on sub-Saharan Africa, one of the regions seemingly left behind in terms of progress toward development targets. The chapter ‘underscores the view that sustained economic growth and ultimately, poverty reduction, will be a tall order in the absence of the full implementation by the rich nations of key elements of the Goals – such as agricultural subsidies, terms of trade, debt relief, and special and differentiated treatment for poorer countries’. Matenga argues that sub-Saharan Africa needs to become a development target in its own right, ‘with all the energy this entails from the international community’.

The final part is titled ‘Human Development’, and begins with Chapter 15 on child work, an often contentious area of development policy. Madeleine Leonard considers the underlying reasons why children work and the necessity of listening to children in formulating policies governing young people in the workplace. Leonard suggests that a priority in this debate ‘is making distinctions between work considered acceptable and work deemed unacceptable’, and involving working children in this debate from the outset. Leonard argues that removing children from employment is at best a short-term solution to a problem that requires ‘long-term sustainable alternatives’.

Chapter 16 considers the theory and practice of development education as a means towards galvanising civil society in the global North and South to take action that will address the underlying causes of poverty and inequality locally and globally. The chapter explores the pedagogy of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, who conceived of education as a means of empowerment, self-esteem, community development and social transformation. This chapter examines how Freire’s conception of education was introduced in the global North and continues to influence contemporary educational practice.

Gerard McCann’s conclusion considers the policy framework for international development in a post-2015 scenario. He debates the kind of policy direction that international development needs to follow as we reach the end point for the MDGs and consider the priorities for the SDGs. He suggests that political leaders need to redesign development policies away from the neoliberal model toward a process aimed at genuine global development strategies.

Target Groups and Terminology

The book is aimed at tertiary-level students, academics, teachers, development NGOs and civil society groups interested or involved in development work. The text provides a useful introduction to development issues for the uninitiated, but also provides enough new material to support the work of the most experienced development activist. The contributors to the book are a mix of activists and academics – committed individuals with direct experience through research or campaigning on the issues they are addressing.

The contributors to the book use different terms to describe what are often labelled the First and Third Worlds. Alternative terms include developed and developing countries and the global South and global North. All of these terms are considered equally valid and acceptable to the editors; they all have their merits and demerits and would afford an interesting discussion in their own right. The main aim is not to prescribe specific terminology but to engage the reader in a debate on development that will encourage greater interest in and activism on the issues discussed. The esteemed American author Alice Walker said that ‘activism is my rent for living on this planet’, and this book is an education tool toward informing that activism.

References

Allen, K. (2013) ‘Eurozone unemployment hits new high with quarter of under-25s jobless’, Guardian, 31 May, www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/31/eurozone-unemployment-new-high-quarter-under-25s (accessed 25 June 2013).

Andrews, E. L. (2008) ‘Greenspan concedes error on regulation’, New York Times, 23 October, www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html (accessed 12 November 2014).

Balch, Oliver (2013) ‘Buen