International Development: Ideas, Experience, and Prospects

Thinking on development informs and inspires the actions of people, organizations, and states in their continuous effort to invent a better world. This volume examines the ideas behind development: their origins, how they have changed and spread over time, and how they may evolve over the coming decades. It also examines how the real-life experiences of different countries and organizations have been inspired by, and contributed to, thinking on development. The extent to which development 'works' depends in part on particular local, historical, or institutional contexts. General policy prescriptions fail when the necessary conditions that make them work are either absent, ignored, or poorly understood. There is a need to grasp how people understand their own development experience. If the countries of the world are varied in every way, from their initial conditions to the degree of their openness to outside money and influence, and success is not centred in any one group, it stands to reason that there cannot be a single recipe for development.

Each chapter provides an analytical survey of thinking about development that highlights debates and takes into account critical perspectives. It includes contributions from scholars and practitioners from the global North and the global South, spanning at least two generations and multiple disciplines. It will be a key reference on the concepts and theories of development - their origins, evolution, and trajectories - and act as a resource for scholars, graduate students, and practitioners.

Bruce Currie-Alder, Regional Director, Middle East and North Africa, Canada's International Development Research Centre,Ravi Kanbur, T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs, International Professor of Applied Economics and Management, Professor of Economics, Cornell University,David M. Malone, Rector, United Nations University,Rohinton Medhora, President, Centre for International Governance Innovation

Bruce Currie-Alder is Regional Director, Middle East and North Africa, Cairo, Egypt. His work examines the governance of public research funding and scientific cooperation with developing countries. His past position within IDRC was Senior Policy Advisor and Chief of Staff, facilitating corporate strategy and contributing to Canada's foreign policy. Before joining IDRC in 2003, he worked on environmental management in the Mexican oil industry and published on grassroots natural resource management in Latin America. He holds a Master's in natural resource management from Simon Fraser University and a PhD in public policy from Carleton University.


Ravi Kanbur bridges the worlds of rigorous academic analysis and practical policy making in development economics. He has served at the World Bank in various roles, including resident representative in Ghana, Chief Economist of the African Region, Principal Advisor to the Chief Economist, and Director of the World Development Report. Professor Kanbur has taught at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Essex, Warwick, Princeton, and Columbia. His work spans conceptual, empirical, and policy analysis, including more than 200 publications, many in leading journals. Kanbur is a graduate of the University of Cambridge and holds a DPhil in economics from the University of Oxford.


David M. Malone is Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Rector of the UN University (UNU) headquartered in Tokyo. Previously, he was President of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and prior to that the Canadian High Commissioner to India and non-resident Ambassador to Bhutan and Nepal. He has also been the President of the International Peace Academy (New York) and a Canadian ambassador to the United Nations. He joined Canada's Department of External Affairs in 1975 and served in Ottawa, Cairo, Amman, and New York. Malone is a graduate of Harvard and Oxford Universities, l'Universite de Montreal, and the American University in Cairo.

Rohinton Medhora is the President of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). Previously Dr Medhora was Vice-President of Programs at Canada's International Development Research Centre, where he undertook a series of leadership roles, including directing the Social and Economic Policy program and heading programs related to international economic relations and economic policy. His publications include 'Financial Reform in Developing Countries and Finance and Competitiveness in Developing Countries'. Prior to IDRC, Dr Medhora was with the faculty of economics at University of Toronto, where he also earned his PhD.