ABSTRACT
A new development paradigm is needed that matches the complexity of big global problems at their root and confronts the political challenges needed to make meaningful progress. This means addressing the elephant in the room, marketisation of public services and utilities, and the reckless deregulation of global capital. The Global Goals are tinkering at the edges of this problem and will not address it head on. We need a development sector that re-embraces development education as part of a public engagement process that is radical and meaningful. We need to confront the issues of global capital that shackle the development of poor countries particularly through illicit financial flows, tax havens and debt. Aid is not the answer to these far-reaching economic issues and continuing to operate as we have done as a sector will only undermine public trust in the capacity of the development sector to effect meaningful social and economic change.
International non-governmental organisations and development educators need to stake out a new development paradigm that embraces a de-growth strategy and a Green New Deal that simultaneously limits carbon emissions and reduces global inequality. The conclusion deconstructs the concept of development in the age of neoliberalism and reflects on how we can make it a genuinely transformative process.
