Debating Development Research

08/07/2025

Navigating the Tipping Point: Four Futures for Global Development Cooperation

By Stephan Klingebiel and Andy Sumner

The global system of development cooperation is in a state of flux. In a new policy brief we discuss how and why the very foundations of international aid and development are being shaken by geopolitical shifts, contested norms, and institutional upheaval. The brief argues that the crisis is not a mere cyclical downturn, or nor is it only about money, but a fundamental reordering of the global development landscape. In short, a “tipping point” in the sense of a dramatic moment when incremental changes coalesce into a transformative shift, for better or worse, is in the offing. We ask what might come next.

01/07/2025

Green Trade Barriers? Circular Economy, Trade, and the Future of the Global South

By Pınar Yardımcı

In recent years, redesigning economic growth to reduce pressures on ecosystems has become central to sustainable development policies. The circular economy (CE) has emerged as a vital framework that not only aims to minimize waste and optimize resource efficiency but also promises to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation.

24/06/2025

Post-Development from the Global South: Radical Alternatives or Ambivalent Engagements?

By Alba Castellsagué and Sally Matthews

Are communities in the Global South rejecting the idea of development in favour of radical alternatives rooted in Indigenous concepts and practices? Some commentators, such as the contributors to the book Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary, argue that they are. Our new edited book, Post-Development from the Global South: Radical Alternatives or Ambivalent Engagements, presents a more complicated picture. Based on case studies from across the Global South, we reveal the ambivalent picture that emerges when marginalised communities engage with the concept of development, and with alternatives to it. Bringing together case studies from Africa, South America, Asia and the Middle East, the book is rooted in careful engagement with specific communities grappling with development and its alternatives.

20/06/2025

Rebuilding Legitimacy for Global Governance: The Case for a New Independent Commission

By Andy Sumner, Stephan Klingebiel and Arief Anshory Yusuf

The global landscape of development cooperation is fracturing. The promise of the 2030 Agenda and the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals is giving way to geopolitical tensions. The international order is no longer merely under strain; it is in disarray. Amid this uncertainty, the idea of convening a new Independent North–South Commission (INSC) has re-emerged in the German government’s coalition agreement and potentially in the UK’s proposal for a ‘global conference’. We argue that the time has come to imagine a new independent commission. A new INSC could offer a credible response to today’s fragmentation by providing a structured space for international dialogue grounded in fairness, feasibility, and forward-thinking. But such a commission must be different in tone, structure, and ambition from the high-level panels of the past.

17/06/202517/06/2025

Decolonizing Expertise: Reflections on Power, Knowledge, and Governance in International Organizations (IOs)

By Marine Gauthier / part of our “Share your Decolonising Story” project

A Personal Reckoning with Expertise

My engagement with international development has always been entangled with postcolonial sensitivities—an awareness shaped by my Belgian family’s colonial past, my academic training on North-South relations in environmental governance, and my own professional trajectory which started in Senegal as the only white development worker in a national NGO. Yet, despite this awareness, I found myself deeply embedded in the very structures I sought to critique.