1. The Age of Development: Mission accomplished or RIP?
Duncan Green
April 2014

2. Let’s start with the good news story.
A. Deaton (2013) describes ‘the greatest escape in human history’ – the escape from poverty and death. A century ago the US was on the cusp of global superpower status, but one in five children died before the age of 5 and life expectancy was 54 years. Nowadays, all but the most broken of the world’s countries do better, even at lower levels of economic activity, than the US a century ago – knowledge and technology (such as vaccines and basic sanitation) have seen to that.
A. Deaton (2013)The Great Escape: Health, Wealth and the Origins of Inequality, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

3. Global poverty
Global poverty trajectory based on alternative scenarios for consumption growth and distribution, 1990–2030
Source: L.Chandy et al. (2013) ‘The Final Countdown: Prospects for Ending Extreme Poverty by 2030’ (last accessed June 2015).

4. Worldwide battle deaths
The waning of war: world-wide battle deaths per 100,000 people
Source: Human Security Report Project ( the Uppsala Conflict Data Project, ( and the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (

5. Shrinking gap in women’s participation in workforce
Gender gap in labour force participation, 1990 to 2010 (male minus female labour force participation rates, in percentage points)
Source: International Labour Organization (2014) ‘Key Indicators of the Labour Market’ (accessed June 2015).

6. So much for the good news...
Where do we go from here?

7. What is poverty, anyway?
D. Naraya et al. (2000) ‘Voices of the Poor: Can Anyone Hear Us?’ World Bank Group
(last accessed June 2015).
Shepherd (2011) ‘Tackling Chronic Poverty: The Policy Implications of Research on Chronic Poverty and Poverty Dynamics’ Chronic Poverty Research Centre
(last accessed June 2015).
OECD Better Life Initiative:

8. Well-being vs. GDP
The correlation between (a) reported increases in well-being as a result of (b) increasing GDP
R=0.70 N=65 p<0.0000
Source : R. Ingelhart (1997) Modernization and postmodernization: Cultural, economic, and political change in 43 societies, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Source : World Values Surveys, GNP/capita purchasing power estimates from Word Bank (1997) ‘World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World’ (last accessed June 2015).

9. Who’s in charge?

10. Shocks are the new normal
The global financial crisis was a watershed event, triggering historic geopolitical change, including the shift from G8 to G20 and the rise of the emerging powers. It drew attention to the risks of an excessively ‘financialised’ global economy, but failed to lead to a reining in of the excessive size and volatility of ‘hot money’, condemning us to future financial crises, possibly starting with Europe in the coming months. More broadly, the advent of the G20 has failed to reenergise the multilateral system, with global talks on climate change, trade and arms control all paralysed. Some commentators are even talking of a ‘G zero’, with no-one in charge.

11. A food system meltdown
The food price spike, which in many countries traumatised the lives of poor people to a much greater extent than the financial crisis, reversed decades of low and falling prices, threatening long-term progress on hunger and nutrition. That has led to renewed attention to food security worldwide, but with some unfortunate side effects such as ‘land grabs’ across the developing world by investors from rich countries.
Source: Institute of Development Studies (2009) ‘Accounts of Crisis: Poor People’s Experiences of the Food, Fuel and Financial Crises in Five Countries’ (accessed June 2015)

12. Inequality

13. Globally, it’s the 2%
Source: Lakner, C. and Milanovic, B. (2013) ‘Global Income Distribution from the Fall of the Berlin Wall to the Great Recession’, Policy Research Working Paper No. 6719, World Bank, (accessed September 2014).

14. G20 could learn from Latin America
Source: Oxfam using data from F. Solt (2010) ‘The Standardized World Income Inequality Database’ (v3.0)

15. Climate chaos

16. Closed vs. open system
The doughnut model – a safe and just space for humanity
K. Raworth (2012a) ‘A Safe and Just Space for Humanity: Can We Live Within the Doughnut? (last accessed June 2015).
Source: K. Raworth (2012a) ‘A Safe and Just Space for Humanity: Can We Live Within the Doughnut? (last accessed June 2015).

17. A linking theme: Complex systems
But it goes deeper than that. The unpredictability and systemic nature of the shocks has driven home the inadequacy of development thinking predicated on linear processes of change. That raises real challenges for traditional systems of planning and measuring results. Oxfam recently sent a complexity physicist ( to visit its programme in Northern Kenya, and the insights from this kind of interdisciplinary work are likely to play an important role in transforming our thinking in coming years.
PA Knowledge Limited (2009) ‘Afghanistan Stability / COIN Dynamics’

18. ... But the aid business prefers linear

19. Implications: Thinking harder about ‘how change happens’
Fast feedback - If you don’t know what is going to happen, you have to detect changes in real time, but also have the institutions to respond to that information
Shocks can provide windows of opportunity
Focus on problems not solutions - The role of outsiders is to identify and amplify problems, but leave the search for solutions to local institutions. 
Rules of thumb > best practice - Aid workers on the ground operate far more using rules of thumb than our project reports admit. If we were honest about it, we could have a better discussion on how to improve those rules of thumb.
Fail faster (be a venture capitalist) - Run multiple experiments and then zero in on what seems to be working best.
Counting what counts - put more L in your MEL (Monitoring Evaluation and Learning).

20. So which is it?

21. Remember this?
A. Hochschild (2005) Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery, New York: Houghton Mifflin.

22. Thankyou!
‘From Poverty to Power’ A conversational blog written and edited by Duncan Green: