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Saturday 9 Aug, 2025
The failure of Third World Development
Speaker Geoffrey Rockliffe-King
The “Third World” was the loose collective term coined for the many colonies that became sovereign nations after 1955, renamed over time as Developing Countries, then Least Developed Countries and now the Global South. Most began with a new name, flag and high hopes but limited economic resources and prospects. International “development” projects started with technical and financial assistance to governments for productive infrastructure and strengthening public services, then with direct investments in the private sector and latterly to promote community resilience and self-help initiatives, including overt welfare transfers.
The decades of well-intentioned Third World Development interventions have failed in their own terms to promote the livelihoods, wellbeing and social cohesion of the majority of the people in a hostile global context driven by greed and violence, both internal and external. Conflict has long been the most profitable business on the planet. The main achievements have been in the unrelated humanitarian assistance provided by governments and NGOs in response to natural and man-made disasters, albeit with no lasting benefit.
Intractable poverty is highly correlated with the widening income disparities observable within both the richest and poorest countries. Rightly, the initial emphasis on economic growth was broadened to tackle health, education, peace and other important aspects of societal development. Despite the greatly improved understanding of what needs to be done and how to do it, there is now very little prospect of achieving the Millenium / Sustainable Development Goals. The imperative for the mass of rural people in semi-arid Africa is food/nutrition security based on financially and environmentally sustainable agriculture, a goal becoming ever harder with increasing pressure on depleted productive natural resources compounded by climate change and conflict.
Room 1.26 / 1.27
The “Third World” was the loose collective term coined for the many colonies that became sovereign nations after 1955, renamed over time as Developing Countries, then Least Developed Countries and now the Global South. Most began with a new name, flag and high hopes but limited economic resources and prospects. International “development” projects started with technical and financial assistance to governments for productive infrastructure and strengthening public services, then with direct investments in the private sector and latterly to promote community resilience and self-help initiatives, including overt welfare transfers.
The decades of well-intentioned Third World Development interventions have failed in their own terms to promote the livelihoods, wellbeing and social cohesion of the majority of the people in a hostile global context driven by greed and violence, both internal and external. Conflict has long been the most profitable business on the planet. The main achievements have been in the unrelated humanitarian assistance provided by governments and NGOs in response to natural and man-made disasters, albeit with no lasting benefit.
Intractable poverty is highly correlated with the widening income disparities observable within both the richest and poorest countries. Rightly, the initial emphasis on economic growth was broadened to tackle health, education, peace and other important aspects of societal development. Despite the greatly improved understanding of what needs to be done and how to do it, there is now very little prospect of achieving the Millenium / Sustainable Development Goals. The imperative for the mass of rural people in semi-arid Africa is food/nutrition security based on financially and environmentally sustainable agriculture, a goal becoming ever harder with increasing pressure on depleted productive natural resources compounded by climate change and conflict.
Room 1.26 / 1.27
