1 - Constructing Development
from Part I
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2022
Summary
Part I briefly discusses the history of development, which with the exception of Southeast Asia, has not turned out particularly well despite many good intentions. As depicted in Chapter 1, the project turned out to be much more complex than developers, namely members of International Financial Institutions (IFIs) such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, or members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, surmised. What began as a mission to end poverty and bring progress to what we now term the Global South or developing countries, metastasized into a much larger project that would in essence charge these countries with operating in the image of their Global North patrons. Rather than viewing assistance to former colonies and the impoverished as a form of reparations for the ravages of colonialism or other forms of subjugation, the Global North viewed aid as a form of charity. Charitable benefactors dictate terms and can impose conditions on their charges, and they did just that, mandating programs that proved to be of limited usefulness and often based on current Western, and particularly American, dogmas.
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- Development DisruptedThe Global South in the Twenty-First Century, pp. 5 - 41Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022