STEVE: Before we start could you please divide yourselves into four groups of 10 each, Jon will look after you lot (Top Left), Riley is you (Top right), At the front Alison on this side (left) and Chris on the right.

Try & leave a gap between your groups.

(To tutors) you can join in as well.

Perceptions, are they correct, wrong, different, do they benefit, will they achieve objectives, who drives perceptions etc etc.

 

Hopefully you all know what your doing, so here is Riley with the first question

Development should focus on people. It is not just about achieving economic growth but about improving the quality of life for the millions of poor people living in less developed countries. Development strategies are useless unless they lead to real poverty alleviation.

Western perceptions of development are VERY different to those of people in the Global South – therefore their strategies for development differ.

A western institution prescribing a western perception of development.

A neo-liberal agenda of modernisation that assumes the path to development can only be achieved by following western ideology – free market economies designed to achieve economic growth.

In short, missing the whole point.

Expanding into international markets

Building the assets of poor people

Assessing asset inequalities

"At the level of development theory…Its assumption has been to view development and poverty reduction as…an issue of economic growth."

(Christian Michelson Institute 1998, on World Bank)

Western views on development have been dominant paradigm since end of WW2, and appear to have achieved very little, with nearly 50% of worlds population living on less than $2 per day.

Most policies concentrate on financial growth as being the route to poverty alleviation, and pay insufficient attention to need for a wider perspective.

IMF is an international institution aimed at aiding development and providing financial support. But intrinsically Western due to the ‘one dollar, one vote’ (as with World Bank) that means more funding = more say.

IMF: Structural Adjustment Programmes

• cutbacks on health and education spending
• encouraging the export of cash crops
• privatisation of public industries

opening of financial markets and stock exchanges

Alternatives??

Empowerment of LDC’s by debt relief – encourage poor to become agents in their own development.

Debt relief with accountability to global lenders, who should be democratically restructured (i.e. equal say for all)

No western conditions for lending as in IMF

"It is a common piece of mythology that the bulk of advanced nation consumption is only made possible by mass imports from the third world"

Japan donated the most aid to developing countries in 1998.

When looking at the aid recipients it is clear that western perceptions of development issues has a huge impact on aid flows as most of the donations go to Africa and Asia. People of the ‘west’ see these areas as the continents most in need of aid. This is illustrated by the fact that 84 % of people get their information about the developing world from the television news Aid donations tend to reflect the occurrence of natural disasters or political conflicts. During these times the developing world becomes front page of the news, increasing the reaction from the ‘west’, which is illustrated by increased donations. For example, just four weeks after the bombing on America, USA raised their foreign aid to Afghanistan above the $100 million mark.

Foreign aid has been highly successful in reducing poverty in countries with sound economic management and robust government institutions. The number of countries that now meet the criteria for using aid well has increased dramatically in the 1990s. Yet aid has fallen to its lowest point in more than 50 years.

A world bank report finds that, due to a wave of economic reform in developing countries in the 1990s, three out of four people afflicted by absolute poverty -

- nearly 2 billion people - live in countries where more foreign aid would speed up poverty reduction. But while the list of countries that can use aid effectively has risen, foreign aid has fallen to 0.22 percent of donor countries' GDP in 1997 - its smallest volume since it was first institutionalised with the Marshall Plan in 1947. Taking into account inflation, financial aid from rich countries to poor countries is one-third lower today than in 1990.

Questions included

About the nature of despotic leaders, rampant corruption, human rights abuse, the diversion of aid for personal gain and their influence on the subjects. We thought it highly likely that the T. Blair would have at least one more term in office. etc.

Aid -

Poverty +

"There is no reason why, in 50 years time, the average citizen of the developing world should not be as comfortably off as Americans are today."