3 The concept of international development

The use of the term International Development has its origins in the global political landscape of the twentieth century. As industrialisation spread across Europe, North America and Australia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, income inequalities with other parts of the world increased rapidly. The terms ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries emerged in fields of development study and practice and became a means of contrasting the different economic trajectories of the two groups of countries. The focus for international development policy and practice became one of addressing inequalities by enabling developing countries to emulate the economic pathways of developed countries and ‘to catch up’.

In this framing, development is associated with the purposeful and planned interventions undertaken by national governments of wealthier countries such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and by international development agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Activity 2: Views on development

Timing: Allow 15 minutes

In 2019, The Open University hosted the Development Studies Association (DSA) conference attended by academics, researchers, policymakers and practitioners all interested and working in the development industry. In Video 1, conference participants talk about the contrast between development in the twentieth and the twenty-first century.

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Transcript: Video 1: What does development mean in the twenty-first century?

INTERVIEWER

What does development mean to you in the twenty-first century?

JULIUS MUGWAGWA

Very interesting question. I think development to me means the same thing maybe that it has meant for so many other generations of people that do think about development, really about, how do you change societies? How do you improve societies? How do you deal with societal challenges? Or quoting the famous definition by Robert Chambers, "good change."

So development for me still means the same, whether it’s the twenty-first century or in another century. Of course, the dynamics and the challenges might be different. But at the end of the day, it’s all about, how do we restructure societies so that everyone can really have the good world being that they deserve?

KAMNA PATEL

So development to me in the twenty-first century means a really different way of thinking about development. And in the twenty-first century, what I hope is that we have learnt from the issues around how development has been conceptualised traditionally, the types of geographies that get mapped into development, the types of people that get mapped as development workers, and the types of people that get mapped as development educators.

MYLES WICKSTEAD

So I think development is different and viewed differently these days because I think the concept of development historically has been about the North helping the South to get on in its country, improve rights of people. What is increasingly evident, I think, is that development is something for everybody, for the North and the South, and that’s why I believe the sustainable development goals, which are universal goals, they apply as much to the UK as to Kenya, are really important to the very important sort of framework for all of us to think about development in the twenty-first century.

NEHA HUI:

So development in the twenty-first century basically means a rethinking of binaries that were extremely popular in the narrative in the last 50 years or so. And that is because – so the narratives like the binaries narrative, like global North and global South or developing and developed, those binaries are no longer relevant the way they were in the last century. This is as a consequence of the fact that, say, across the world, inequality has increased. So inequality has increased in the developed countries as well as in the developing countries. So the global South is no longer the geographical locus of development challenges.

REBECCA HANLIN:

So development to me in the twenty-first century means– well, that’s a difficult question because I think when you think of development, you think of progress. And increasingly, I think you also– people also talk about it in terms of good change. And increasingly, the narrative is definitely concentrating more on the good than the change. So there is a lot of work now looking at trying to make system-level changes, trying to make transformational changes, not just looking at economic progress but social and sustainable progress in terms of environment and climate change.

RORY HORNER:

I think development’s not an end point. It’s very much a process. And it’s a process towards a more prosperous, more inclusive, and more sustainable world. And it’s something that relates not just to the global South or so-called developing countries, but it relates to all countries in the world, particularly when we think about the causes of global development and think about global inequality and climate change as well as a classic focus on poverty in the global South.

HELEN YANACOPULOS:

So development in the twenty-first century is– we have to think of it very differently than we have in the past. I think the biggest problems right now that we have to address are those of climate change and inequality. And those are pivotal in the way that we do development, how we look at structures, how we look at individuals, mattering equally across the globe, how we deal with our– the way that we live in the world. That is the vital part of the way that we have to look at development in the future.

SMITA SRINIVAS:

I think the old way of thinking of development has been quite difficult and problematic, and it’s really a challenge now to rethink what we want. Development, I think, has to be both ambitious, and it has to incorporate people’s aspirations, going beyond minimum needs requirements and thinking more systematically about the way in which people feel more secure, more able. There’s a better sense of well-being.

PAUL MARSCHALL:

Development means process. It means there are many variables and influence that corresponding process. And because of that, many things can happen.

End transcript: Video 1: What does development mean in the twenty-first century?

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Video 1: What does development mean in the twenty-first century?

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Comment

Respondents in Video 1 see development as a process, a process that seeks to change problem situations for the better. A number commented that the conceptualisation of how such change should happen and who should be involved needs to be updated. In the twentieth century development was thought of in terms of ‘developed’ countries helping so-called ‘developing’ or ‘underdeveloped’ countries to progress according to a Western model of modernisation.

In the twenty-first century, thinking in terms of such opposing binaries – developed and underdeveloped countries, the ‘rich’ global ‘North’ and the ‘poor’ global ‘South’, and those who work in development and recipients of development – is no longer appropriate. Important issues such as climate change and inequality affect people across the globe and are not confined to particular countries or continents.