The search for the silver bullet: a personal perspective on 50 years of the international development effort

ABSTRACT

The international development effort over the last fifty years has been characterised by overlapping phases of what may be termed paternalism, conditionality, intervention, targetry and governance. There have been some successes, most notably the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. But there have also been failures, especially those resulting from poorly thought through military intervention. The elimination of absolute poverty in developing countries now requires a sustained effort to strengthen the instruments which underpin accountable governance. DFID, widely admired for its ability to deploy those instruments, should remain an independent Department of the UK Government, focusing sharply on Africa, governance and the threat posed by climate change.

KEYWORDS:

• Development
• conditionality
• conflict
• targets
• governance
• DFID

Notes

1. Cmnd 2736, ‘The Work of the New Ministry’.

2. Sir Andrew Cohen, 1909–1968.

3. IMF/World Bank, EHIPC Initiative, Status of Implementation Reports, 2006 on.

4. Sir William Ryrie, ‘First World, Third World’, Macmillan, 1995.

5. Amartya Sen, ‘Poverty and Famines; an essay on entitlement and deprivation’, Oxford University Press, 1990.

6. OECD Development Assistance Committee, ‘Shaping the 21^st Century: the Contribution of Development Cooperation’, 2016.

7. United Nations, Millennium Development Goals Report, 2015.

8. McArthur & Rasmussen, ‘Change of Pace’, Brookings, 2017.

9. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon quoted in United Nations Development Program, MDG Report, UN, 2015.

10. 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, United Nations, September 2015.

11. Paul Collier, ‘The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing’, Oxford University Press, 2008.

12. Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier, The Panama Papers, oneworld, 2016.

13. Reuters, ‘Kenya corruption threatens to engulf government, auditor general says’, June 14 2018. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-corruption/kenya-corruption-threatens-to-engulf-government-auditor-general-says-idUSKBN1JA1H9

14. Paul Volcker et al., ‘The Independent Panel Review of World Bank Institutional Integrity’, World Bank, 2007.

15. OECD, Development Assistance Committee, peer review of the UK, line 1, OECD, 2006.

16. World Bank Data Blog, Sept 2018. http://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/number-extremely-poor-people-continues-rise-sub-saharan-africa