The unfulfilled promise of the ‘Development Project’

Perplexity and extreme dissatisfaction with business-as-usual and standard development rhetoric and practice, and disillusionment with alternative development are keynotes of this [critical] perspective. Development is rejected because it is the 'new religion of the West', it is the imposition of science as power, it does not work, it means cultural Westernisation and homogenisation and it brings environmental destruction. It is rejected not merely on account of its results but because of its intentions, its world-view and mindset. The economic mindset implies a reductionist view of existence. Thus, according to Sachs, 'it is not the failure of development which has to be feared, but its success'. (Pieterse in "After Post Development")

It is more than 30 years since the developed world made a promise to transfer 0.7% of GDP in development assistance, and only a small handful of nations have ever achieved that target. The Millennium Declaration was ratified in September 2000 by 189 heads of state at the United Nations Millennium Summit. The Millennium Development Goals aimed to ... "Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, Achieve universal primary education, Promote gender equality and empower women, Reduce child mortality, Improve maternal health, Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, Ensure environmental sustainability, and to Develop a global partnership for development." On present trends the commitment promised will not be realised, and the MDGs only be inconsistently achieved.

A sense of disappointment with the unfulfilled promise of the 'Development Project' (1) has not only accompanied the continued efforts to reform aid strategies, adapt approaches and improve effectiveness, but also contributed to a growing criticism of the underlying approach adapted since development was put on the international agenda following the Second World War. But as Pieterse points out in the quote above, this criticism not only stems from an evaluation of failed achievements, but of a suspicion of the economic mindset that 'steers a Western-led caravan on the path to modernity'.

This is not an argument to abandon addressing poverty and the huge inequalities that are continuing to grow. But something is not working, and to find out why, it is necessary to spend a moment of critical reflection and question old assumptions.

With the new millennium, the globalisation project is gaining prominence and carries forward the promise of the development project. Is this only the latest reincarnation of an exploitative system in favour of the Western world that "has seen the perpetuation of dependencies created during colonial times and institutionalised through late 19^th century imperialist doctrines"?

In his book Rethinking Development Geographies, Marcus Power challenges the reader, writing "How can we begin to dismantle and think beyond the western idea of development remedies? One fundamental starting point is to accept that the global apothecaries of development medicines, potions, remedies and drugs developed a 'licence' to dispense their prescriptions as a direct result of histories of western imperialism and Cold War geopolitics."

The history of the Development Project

Historically, it was the Portuguese who followed the endless coasts stretching into the South in sight of Gibraltar and who set off the race for 'unclaimed' resources that eventually saw the profit-minded European principalities and their merchant classes conquer rich empires stretching the globe.

By the late 19^th centuries the one-way resource extraction of colonialism, had grown into sophisticated imperial administrations, which were developing markets for their rapidly growing industries. For instance, the British were at that time pro-actively cultivating markets for textile products in their Indian colonies by manipulating economic regulations in their colonies. Or, to use terminology more familiar to 21^st century readers, the development of captive global markets was the strategy that European empires were pursuing when the First World War interrupted.

The war brought with the ascension to power of the communist party in Russia, and the beginning of a new and large-scale social experiment. The central planning approach in the socialist republics was later echoed with another social experiment in the West, when Keynesian theories justified state regulation and intervention in market-based economies.

The social upheaval of the Great War was further fuelled by the Great Depression of the 1930s and the violent geopolitics of the Second World War that followed. By the time this was over, the idea of the nation state that had arisen out of the ashes of the Great War, became the marshalling call for the colonies seeking equal ranks with their former masters.

To propel these new nations onto the road to the western ideal, the Development Project was begun. This was signalled by the landmark inauguration speech of newly elected U.S. President Harry Truman in 1949. "We must embark on a bold new program for … the improvement of underdeveloped areas." Implicit in Truman's speech was the unconditional belief in the concept of progress and in the 'makeability' of society
(2) for the part of the world thus labelled underdeveloped.

Overcoming disappointments

However, development advances proved hard to achieve and a sense of disappointment set in. By the nineties, the discourse of development studies was more and more self-critical with development alternatives failing to pass examination of a growing criticism that was putting in question the underlying paradigms (3). Increasing scrutiny followed in the wake of continuing set-backs with the achievement of development efforts. From the side of the beneficiary states, the credibility of development strategies was deteriorating and commitment to goals requiring painful sacrifices was eroded. Focus shifted to short term benefits that could be scooped of bilateral development assistance. And more importantly, there was a growing awareness that the Western conception of what a good life and good change constitutes is different and at times incompatible with those of the women and men themselves that are deemed in need of development.

As the development project accelerated from industrialisation, then economic capacity improvement to health and education for all, the challenges refused to disappear. By the 1990s, the most appropriate targets appeared to be good governance, participatory approaches, gender focused practice, civil society development and constructing partnerships with southern collaborators. The concepts employed by international non-governmental organisations, were matched by institutional and bilateral donors with calls for sustainable development, poverty eradication and market-orientated development.

But the promise was perhaps unrealistic from the outset. The development medicine that Power refers has proved insufficient so far. The obstacles that development has to navigate are substantial and include unfair trade by developed countries, undemocratic international organisations, capital flight, brain drain, poor governance, technological change, incessant conflicts, to name just a few.

The return to economic language as promulgated by the World Bank, confirms the analysis of the development vision as dominated by economic priorities (1) masking a neo-liberal agenda. This analysis regards with suspicion the growing number of states and international bodies that are promoting the successor to the Development Project, the Globalisation Project. Still, the tag of 'underdeveloped' country remains in place, although the viability of nation states on the path to economic growth is more and more undermined.

While developmentalism continues to redefine itself, other –isms are also thriving: Environmentalism, feminism, communitarianism, emancipation and rights-based approaches ... What then will be the discourses that will come to shape the futures of the "underdeveloped"?

Rendt Gorter is a PhD student at the University of Auckland ("Participation in Environmental Governance"), with ten years experience as project manager in international development aid.

Bibliography

Pieterse 2000 "After Post Development"

(1) McMichael 2000 Development and social change: a global perspective, p 24

(2) Schuurmann 2000 Paradigms lost, paradigms regained? Development studies in the twenty-first century

(3) Sachs 2000 The rise and decline of an ideal, Wuppertal Papers Nr 108