Development and Policy: Rethinking Hegemonic Concepts and Ideas

The Roundtable in Brazil recognised economic growth and equity in access to welfare policies as the main mechanisms to promote development and reduce poverty and social inequality. However, at the IDS40 conference, the author was surprised to hear the challenging proposal that we should rethink the question of equity not in terms of growing consumption but rather through an effort to reduce it. This highlights how new ideas about 'what development should be' are gaining ground - which deserves our attention for two reasons. The first (and most trivial) is that it deals with the constant need to negotiate politically 'what development should be'. The second is concerned with the political processes through which the very meaning and goals of development are negotiated and whether national political systems and traditional institutions (both national and international) can guarantee the necessary political space for a reformulation of development.