Contemporary Development

Successfully leading development in the twenty-first century necessitates an appreciation of a changing global landscape characterised by shifts in power whereby the Global South has made notable strides towards greater autonomy with respect to shaping its own development paths and objectives. The prevailing development challenges of gender, poverty and inequality, global trade, the environment, urbanisation, participation, modernisation, technology, and conflict have assumed new, often quite pragmatic, dimensions. These factors are now being approached from multiple, and non-Western, development perspectives as South-South development assistance begins to take hold and where previous paradigms of development are being contested and discredited. However, alongside the argument for a non-Eurocentric ‘post-aid’ world, grand visions of development continue in the form of the SDGs and Agenda 2030, alongside significant, if falling, quantities of ODA. These elements, through a blend of theory and practice, form the basis of this subject’s content.