What is international development really? | Alanna Shaikh

I'm pretty excited to be here and be giving a talk that's not gonna make me cry on stage I've been working in international development for almost 15 years and the more time I spend working in this field the more I realize just how much I don't know so today I'm going to talk about three things that you probably don't know about international development the first thing is we don't actually know what international development is one of the major activities for academics in this field is arguing about a proper definition pretty much any report or article about development has to start by defining its terms because there is no set definition we have some definitions that are in play though the UN definition is the reduction of poverty and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals nice solid basic sort of definition gets a lot of use right now the 1960s definition very idealistic it's the liberation of people and people's based on structural transformation which is a fantastic definition with this idea that we'd actually changed the global economy to help the poorest to the poor and I think it's really a reproach to us that we've moved away from thinking that big there's the postmodern definition a set of ideas that shapes power relations because they value certain things over other things now in this case the things they value are paved roads and clean water and the things that they're valuing over our unpaved roads and water that might make you sick so that's a value judgment I'm comfortable with but this definition is an important reminder that it is a value judgment finally like the economist Amartya Sen defines development as freedom and I think that's probably my favorite definition now dr. Sen had five aspects to freedom he had Economic Opportunity social opportunity security government transparency and I forgot one Guernica moment you all right we're just gonna move on okay the second fact that you probably don't know about international development is it's about a whole lot more than just official development aid there's a lot of things we can do that would help the developing world that aren't about it changing trade policies in wealthy countries would benefit people in developing countries right now we encourage the developing world to embrace free trade to abandon protectionist barriers while the countries in Europe and the United States continue to keep up our own tariffs to protect our farmers Bill Clinton actually apologized to Haiti for what he'd done to their economy by encouraging them to embrace free trade while not changing American policies allowing more immigration into wealthy countries would benefit developing countries now this is kind of a controversial topic so we don't tend to talk about it that much but the fact is Filipino migrant workers sent home twenty four billion dollars in 2012 that's 10 percent of the national GDP Tajikistan little tiny country migrant workers sent home three billion dollars in 2011 that's forty five percent of the national GDP Mexican workers sent back twenty two billion dollars that's a whole lot of money that dwarfs the money they're getting in aid slowing climate change would benefit people in developing countries developing countries contribute the least to our carbon burden and they're going to suffer the most from the impacts of climate change this little girl in Pakistan surviving a flood could probably tell you a little bit about surviving climate change that she did not cause the third thing that you didn't know about international development is that the developing world is actually subsidizing us for every dollar that the developing world gets in aid ten dollars flow out into tax havens and international banks because of elicit dictator spending they hide their money Mexico lost fifty two billion dollars in 2010 in illicit capital flows they lost four hundred and seventy six billion over the last decade and that doesn't even count the billions of dollars in hard cash that left smuggled out in cars over land borders finally when developing countries need to improve their infrastructure they don't have the equipment or the capacity to do these kinds of projects themselves so they hire big construction firms from wealthy countries to come in and do it for them for example Turkmenistan has paid two billion dollars to a French contracting firm to build monuments and roads and bridges and a giant artificial lake in the country this mosque cost sixty million dollars to build now what all of this means is the International Development it's surprisingly personal and if you want to get involved in development and make a difference you have to define for yourself what development means for you and what about development is the place that you want to make your change and that doesn't necessarily mean giving more money and aid it might mean that you want to advocate for changing your country's trade policy or immigration policy just to close things up this is my definition of international development that boy in the green shirt there that's my son and he's there with three of his friends from Tajikistan and what I want is each of those Tajikistan and education and the opportunity to build themselves a life that my little American boy has thanks [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TED Archive

Views: 24,792

Rating: 4.9203186 out of 5

Keywords: TED, Archive

Id: R08tIdvs0AY

Length: 6min 13sec (373 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 25 2017