Opinion Pieces – Page 24 – Debating Development Research

06/09/202306/09/2023

Why might Green Finance and Sustainable Blended Finance be needed under the Global Plastic Treaty?

By Daniel F. Akrofi

The proposed global plastic treaty currently being negotiated seeks to end plastic pollution by regulating the entire lifecycle of plastics. To end global plastic pollution and decarbonize the global plastic economy, financial flows that fuel the global plastic industry must truly be tailored towards transitioning away from the current models of economic development, consumption, and overreliance on fossil fuel-derived virgin plastics – considering that 98 percent of plastics produced globally are fossil fuel-derived. This will require a 360-degree shift from the current mode of financing in the global plastic industry that encourages overreliance on fossil-fuel feedstock to produce excessive plastics (in some cases non-recyclable plastics) to green financing aimed at ending global plastic pollution.

30/08/202326/06/2026

Reflections on Development in Development Studies

By Henning Melber

There is a history to Developmentalism long before the US-American President Truman’s interpretation in his inaugural address of 1949. He then advocated development as an integral part of Western policy embracing the emerging independent states through aid in support of sovereign governance. An embracement, which often turned out to be more of a strangulation than a provision of oxygen to breathe the winds of change as signs of freedom and self-determination to make own choices.

04/08/202304/01/2024

Contested development imaginaries: Hindutva and the co-optation of ‘decolonisation’

By Kalpana Wilson, Giti Chandra and Lata Narayanaswamy

We live in a time where deeply embedded, historically entangled perceptions persist of a bifurcated world, made up of a civilised ‘developed’ or ‘rich’ world as set against a largely corrupt, ungovernable ‘developing’ or ‘poor’ world. The perniciousness of these ‘development’ imaginaries came into sharp relief in October 2022 when Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, in a keynote speech to the European Diplomatic Academy, described Europe as a ‘garden’ where ‘everything works’ and the rest of the world as a ‘jungle’, a metaphor that he extended to further suggest that the ‘jungle’, without political engagement, ‘could invade the garden’.

31/07/202311/09/2023

Four approaches to shifting mindsets for decolonising knowledge

By Peter Taylor and Crystal Tremblay

In the context of knowledge for development, what does it require to deconstruct the dominant narratives and personal privileges embodied in our race, class, gender, etc.? And, in a knowledge landscape littered with potential minefields, how do we go about shifting the mindsets that shape the ways in which ‘we’ understand the world and our subsequent values, behaviours, and attitudes?

04/07/2023

Simplifying Living Income

By Ruerd Ruben

The idea of a “living income” is increasingly considered as an important strategy to guarantee that smallholder farmers’ revenues are sufficient to meet their and their families’ basic needs, as well as to put aside some savings, thus being more likely to find their way out of poverty. There is growing acceptance of an international standard for estimating living income benchmarks and an active community of practice to support its implementation. However measurements are cumbersome and require a lot of resources.