Since
its
early
days
with
a
focus
on
training
civil
servants
and
others
in
the
newly
independent
former
colonies
it
has
come
a
long
way.
The
institute’s
founding
director, Dudley
Seers,
laid
out a
vision
for
‘development’ that
was
progressive
and
far-reaching,
aiming
to
generate
economic
independence
and
wealth
in
ways
that
would
banish
the
idea
of
a
separate,
poor,
marginalised
‘third
world’
over
time.
That
this
hasn’t
happened,
and
that
there
are
even
starker
inequalities
today
than
60
years
ago
is
a
recognition
of
the
persistence
of
particular
capitalist
relations,
with
geographic
centres
of
power.
These
geopolitical
axes
of
course
have
shifted,
and
no
one
could
have
predicted
the
rise
of
China
or
even
India,
Mexico,
Brazil
or
Indonesia.
But
the
failure
of
development
–
and
particular
‘aid’
–
in
many
parts
of
the
world,
especially
Africa,
is
witness
to
the
limitations
of
the
development
project.
Today,
the
very
idea
of
‘development’
–
and
so
development
studies
and
institutes
like
IDS
–
is
being
questioned.
The
collapse
of
funding
is
well
known
but
it
is
perhaps
the
shift
in
discourse
that
will
have
the
most
lasting
impact.
No
longer
are
‘northern’,
rich
OECD
countries
such
as
the
UK
expected
to
provide
development
support
as
part
of
an
internationalist
commitment
to
other,
poorer
places.
Percentage
targets
of
GDP
as
aid
spending
are
being
slashed
or
simply
ignored.
The
ideals
of
the
1960s
no
longer
exist,
and
the
late Barbara
Castle,
who
was
the
Labour
minister
responsible
for
supporting
IDS
at
its
inception,
would
be
appalled
by
the
attitude
of
the
current
Labour
government.
An
IDS
journey
Rather
shockingly
I
have
been
employed
at
IDS
for
just
over
half
its
existence.
I
arrived
from
the
International
Institute
for
Environment
and
Development
(IIED)
in
January
1995
just
as
the
last
of
the
core
funding
was
being
cut.
Margaret
Thatcher
had
put
paid
to
earlier
largesse,
but
it
didn’t
suppress
the
commitment
to
big
ideas
and
important
debates.
There
were
the
classic
debates
around
the
role
of states
and
markets under
neoliberalism;
the
important
discussions
over
the economics
of
poverty;
pathbreaking
work
on gender
and
development;
research
on
the
politics
of democratic
decentralisation and
many
important
studies
on
the
impacts
of
globalisation and
changing patterns
of
trade.
Some
years
back, Richard
Jolly
produced
a
fascinating
personal
history of
the
place,
which
is
well
worth
a
read.
I
arrived
at
IDS
having
engaged
with
the
institute
through
different
connections
before.
At
IIED
we
had
worked
closely
with Robert
Chambers and
the
on-going
work
on
participation,
rapid
(later
participatory)
rural
appraisal
and
approaches
to
farmer
participatory
research
(farmer
first
and
beyond).
I
had
also
worked
with Jeremy
Swift,
who
years
before
was
my
external
PhD
examiner,
together
with
Camilla
Toulmin
on
pastoralism
and
dryland
development,
and
the
whole
emergence
of
the
‘new
ecology’
or
rangelands
and
pastoralism.
With
the
establishment
of
the
Environment
Group
by
Melissa
Leach
and
Robin
Mearns,
IDS
(belatedly)
engaged
with
environment
and
development
issues.
Through
our
collective
work
on
‘environmental
entitlements’,
‘environmental
policy
processes’
and
‘sustainable
livelihoods’,
IDS
began
to
get
a
reputation
for challenging
conventional
wisdoms
and
bringing
a
social
science
perspectives
to
such
debates.
We
were
able
to
develop
this
through
ESRC
funding
for
the STEPS
Centre
from
2006 in
partnership
with
SPRU
(Science
Policy
Research
Unit)
at
Sussex,
continuing
remarkably
for
16
years
until
2021,
and
through
many
other
projects
led
by
IDS
fellows
and
partners.
On
the
back
of
generous
funding
for
research
from
the
then
UK
Department
for
International
Development
after
1997,
along
with
others,
IDS
blossomed
–
and
grew.
Staff
and
student
numbers
expanded
on
the
back
of
the
international
development
aid
boom.
‘Things
can
only
get
better’,
as
the
New
Labour
song
went.
But
times
change,
and
the
rise
of
inward-looking
nationalistic
policies,
linked
to
populist
positions
that
reject
an
internationalist
outlook,
has
meant
that
an
unwavering
commitment
to
development
–
once
part
of
a
strong
cross-party
consensus
in
the
UK
–
has
gone.
With
Trump
and
Musk
slashing
USAID,
the
impossible
became
certain,
and
many
other
governments
have
followed
suit,
if
with
a
bit
more
stealth
and
subtlety.
Declining
funding
has
been
made
worse
by
the
collapse
in
international
student
numbers,
with
hostile
immigration
policies
discouraging
many
from
coming
to
the
UK.
A
perpetuation
of
austerity
policies
has
decimated
higher
education,
and
the
bright
uplands
of
the
1960s
are
nowhere
to
be
seen
today.
New
narratives,
recasting
development
Instead,
in
this
new
context,
new
narratives
around
development
are
being
developed,
centred
on
national
self-interest
in
a
geopolitical
context
where
a
‘rules-based’
order
is
rejected.
So,
for
example,
development
is
being
recast
as
a
project
of
‘green
extractivism’,
driven
by
the
rush
for
critical
minerals
to
supply
the
energy
transition;
as
centred
on
market-based
instruments,
public-private
partnerships
and
state-funded
‘derisking’
for
absolutely
everything;
and
wrapped
up
in
attempts
to
stem
the
flow
of
migrants
from
poor
places.
All
are
seen
as
domestic
priorities,
with
opportunities
for
Western
companies.
Rather
than
confronting
or
transforming
capitalism
and
the
privileges
of
the
imperial
powers
in
favour
of
the
periphery,
‘development’
is
instead
mobilised
to
support
the
core,
sometimes
linked
to
military
adventurism.
Much
of
this
new
development
discourse
is
narrow,
regressive
and
deeply
uninspiring.
In
the
face
of
all
this,
what
next?
One
response
is
simply
despair
and
depression;
another
is
to
imagine
that
funding
will
return,
and
everything
will
go
back
to
‘normal’;
but
the
most
useful
is
to
rethink
and
recast,
not
getting
too
dispirited,
while
accepting
that
the
‘aid
era’
was
time-delimited
and
has
ended.
The
1960s
vision
of
development
was
often
paternalistic
and
condescending
as
has
been
much
development/aid
practice
since.
Development
as
imagined
then
should
have
long
been
over.
But
how
can
the
idea
of
development
–
a
progressive
vision
of
change
that
confronts
power
and
privilege
and
seeks
out
alternatives
–
be
reimagined?
Development
reimagined
for
a
post-aid
world
I
am
frequently
asked
what
is
IDS
going
to
do
next?
I
don’t
know
the
answer,
but
I
can
offer
my
two
cents
worth
of
what
I
hope
will
be
a
future
in
the
‘post-aid’
world.
Even
if
old
ideas
of
aid
as
charity
die
(certainly
a
good
thing),
there
remain
a
number
of
critical
global
issues
that
affect
us
all,
including
those
in
‘the
global
north’.
A
robust,
progressive
internationalism
around
so-called
‘global
public
goods’
is
a
necessity,
but
such
priorities
also
usefully
serve
national
interests
and
have
support
from
domestic
electorates
too.
What
am
I
thinking
of?
Addressing
climate
and
environmental
change;
global
public
health
(and
pandemic
preparedness);
humanitarian
support
in
conflict
areas;
and
innovating
around
the
governance
of
economic
architectures
for
inclusive
economies
are
all
crucial
–
and
importantly
interlinked.
There
are
of
course
many
international
organisations
and
agencies
with
mandates
in
these
areas,
and
lots
of
international
relations
and
geopolitics
research
groups
and
thinktanks
that
do
research
on
such
topics,
but
there
are
few
that
can
connect
global
challenges
to
local
realities
and
back
again.
With
the
60-year
IDS
track
record
on
themes
such
as
citizen
participation,
sustainable
livelihoods,
social
protection,
gender
dynamics,
governance
and
politics,
a
social
science
take
on
these
global
themes
remains
much
needed.
Such
research
would
help
counter
the
hubristic
assumptions
of
solutions
coming
from
top-down
global
policies
or
techno-fixes
offering
silver
bullets
to
solve
problems,
while
at
the
same
time
as
offering
ways
of
linking
to
local
contexts
and
realities
–
real
people
and
places
–
in
ways
that
only
deep,
engaged
research-action
partnerships
can
do.
While
such
an
agenda
may
not
appeal
to
the
extremely
narrow
nationalist
populist
politics
of
Trump
or
Farage,
a
reclaiming
of
an
internationalist
politics
and
with
this
a
new
type
of
development
must
surely
be
possible.
This
will
mean
less
aid
of
the
old
type,
fewer
projects
and
more
mature,
long-term
partnerships,
more
of
a
focus
on
global
public
goods
and
less
emphasis
on
national
and
local
problems
that
are
best
dealt
with
by
national
governments
and
citizens.
Such
a
vision
surely
must
be
central
to
any
politics
that
confronts
an
ascendant
populist
right
across
the
world.
IDS
is
a
special
place,
both
for
ideas
and
people
and
it
is
has
allowed
me
the
flexibility
to
pursue
interesting,
engaged
research
with
many
collaborators
over
31
years,
including
throughout
this
period
in
Zimbabwe.
The
networks
with
colleagues
at
the
University
of
Sussex
have
been
central
to
this,
through
the
STEPS
Centre
(co-run
with
SPRU,
also
60
this
year),
as
well
as
many
other
interactions.
Let’s
hope
that
IDS
–
and
other
similar
organisations,
north
and
south
–
can
carve
out
a
future
in
an
increasingly
turbulent
world
with
a
bold,
internationalist
and
progressive
vision
that
challenges
the
narrow
negativity
that
currently
dominates.
This
post
was
written
by Ian
Scoones and
first
appeared
on Zimbabweland.
Post
published
in:
Agriculture