How Has Our World

Progressed?
What is wrong with
development then?
Growing Inequality
Environmental Degradation
Unemployment
Limited Natural Resources
15 Global Development Challenges
The 15 Global Challenges:
1. How can sustainable development be achieved for all while
addressing global climate change?
2. How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict?
3. How can population growth and resources be brought into
balance?
4. How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes?
5. How can decision-making be enhanced by integrating improved
global foresight during unprecedented accelerating change?
 6. How can the global convergence of information and
communications technologies work for everyone?
7. How can ethical market economies be encouraged to help reduce
the gap between rich and poor?
8. How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune
micro-organisms be reduced?
9. How can education make humanity more intelligent,
knowledgeable, and wise enough to address its global challenges?
10. How can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic
conflicts, terrorism, and the use of weapons of mass destruction?
 11. How can the changing status of women help improve the human
condition?
12. How can transnational organized crime networks be stopped from
becoming more powerful and sophisticated global enterprises?
13. How can growing energy demands be met safely and efficiently?
14. How can scientific and technological breakthroughs be
accelerated to improve the human condition?
15. How can ethical considerations become more routinely
incorporated into global decisions?
What do post-development theorists say?
Development is obsolete because;
Reductionism
Universalism
Ethnocentrism
Post-Development Theory
First-wave post-development theorists suggest that development
processes undermine and destroy the diversity of social, cultural,
economic, and political systems that pre-dated development, and
were consequently replaced with externally imposed homogenous
models of society.
Inversing the logic of development, Sachs (1992) argues that we
should not be afraid of developments failures, but rather its success.
 Arturo (1995: 215) summarizes the hallmarks of the
first wave of post-development theory:
(1) an interest not in development alternatives, but in
alternatives to development, and thus a rejection of the
entire paradigm,
(2) an interest in local and indigenous knowledge,
(3) a critical stance towards established scientific
discourses, and
(4) the defense and promotion of localized, pluralistic
grassroots movements. A common thread found in this
first wave of post development theory is that it derides
development as a Eurocentric discourse and advocates
for new ways of thinking about non-Western countries.
Critique of post-development theory
Post-Development literature is highly influenced by Foucault and the
method of discourse analysis: consequently, hegemony and power
structures are being deconstructed. But what follows is the ignorance
of how discourses can be transformed and resisted at the local level.
 The celebration of local knowledge and local resistance
leads to a romanticization and an unquestioned belief in
tradition. The Local is set equally with authenticity and
emancipation. But power structures are, especially in
application of the work of Foucault, ever-present
(Jakinow 2008).
Why then are grassroots movements guarantors for being
inclusive, non-hierarchic and democratic? Local forms of
oppression are overlooked (Engel 2001).
Nederveen Pieterse comments: while the shift towards
cultural sensibilities that accompanies this perspective is
a welcome move, the plea for peoples culture',
indigenous culture, local knowledge and culture, can lead
if not to ethno-chauvinism, to reification of both culture
and locality or people. It also evinces a one-dimensional
view of globalization which is equated with
homogenization (Nederveen Pieterse 1998) .
 the fundamental criticism on modernity and modern science implicates a
rejection of the benefits: for example, the rights of the individual as well as
the techniques of modern medicine are dismissed, although they brought
health security and a higher life-expectancy (Ziai 2007).
Nederveen Pieterse even classifies Post- Development to belong to the
neo-traditionalist reaction to modernity (Nederveen Pieterse 1998).
In his opinion, Post- Development is struck into a paradox: not showing any
regard for progressive implications and dialectics of modernity but at the
same time dealing with issues like anti-authoritarianism, democratization,
emancipation, that all clearly arose out of the Enlightenment and the
modern age, is highly inconsistent (ebd. 1998).
 global structures of
inequality are not
taken into concern.
Storey asks for
example how local
actors are supposed
to find solutions at
the global level
(Storey 2000).
 in emphasizing cultural diversity
and in rejecting universalism,
Post- Development is criticized of
being cultural-relativist. Therefore
Post- Development stands in
suspicion to accept oppression
and violence and to be indifferent
towards the violation of human
rights.
 The final criticism is that Post-
Development, instead of offering
a solution, sticks on the classical
development paradigm by being
in position of permanent
critique.
Second Wave of Post-Development Theories
Ending development doesnt mean stopping the bettering of social
organisation, or considering social organisation to be impossible
The locals is not a monolith; there are fragmentations within the
locals. This will counter the fear of ethno-chauvinism
The development needs of subaltern communities in developed
nations are evident; therefore, the West and the rest might not
be a correct reading of the situation
 Although the post-World II development endeavor may be obsolete and
bankrupt, the goal of improving peoples lives must not be abandoned.
Thus a call for alternatives-to-development is an appeal for a new way of
changing, of developing, of improving, to be constructed in the place of the
ruin of the postWorld War II development project, (Matthews, 2004: 367-
377).
Udombana (2000) argues that the developing world has a responsibility for
their own economic and social development in accordance to their own
priorities and plans, reflected by their political and cultural diversities.
There is a necessity for the subaltern to turn inward, as opposed to being
dependent on external agencies, to devise more effective and meaningful
programs and policies for improvement
 one must be careful not to naturalize traditional worlds, that is
valorize as innocent and natural an order produced by history The
local is neither unconnected nor unconstructed (Escobar, 1995:
170).

Source: The Waves of Post-Development Theory and a Consideration of

the Philippines,
Joseph Ahorro, University of Alberta