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Delivering Development: Globalization's Shoreline and the Road to a Sustainable Future
In Delivering Development, author Edward Carr calls into question the very universal, unquestioned assumptions about globalization, development, and environmental change that undergird much of development and economic policy. Here he demonstrates how commonly held beliefs about globalization and development have failed the global poor. Over his 13 years of working along what he calls "globalization's shoreline," a world region buffeted by the economic, political, and environmental decisions of those living in wealthier places, Carr has concluded that most experts misunderstand what they are trying to fix, and cannot tell if they are fixing it. Delivering Development is an eye opening, you-are-there book that compels the reader to question conventional wisdom, redefines what assistance to the developing world really means, and explores alternative ways of achieving meaningful, enduring improvements to human well-being.
260 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 15, 2011
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April 6, 2015
A challenging, paradigm-shifting, passionate and deeply humane plea for a different approach to human development.
Carr is an archaeologist and geographer and his analysis — deeply rooted in a close and long engagement with life in poor rural communities in Ghana — is a powerful reminder of why we need more social scientists of all stripes engaging the big debates in development. If we leave it solely to the economists, well, we're probably buggered.
Carr draws on his fieldwork in two communities in Ghana’s Central Region, the villages Dominase and Ponkrum, to question common assumptions and policy prescriptions about how globalization and development do and should impact those on "globalization's shoreline" ( which he defines as "the point of connection between people living in communities at the edges of global trade and politics, and the economic, political, and environmental decisions of those living in other places").
Noting that conversations about development have largely become conversations about globalization, he identifies the key assumptions driving contemporary approaches to development. These being, largely, the notion that “a growing economy is the same thing as improving human well-being" and that development needs to lead people to engage with "global markets to maximise their incomes and their well-being" or be left behind.
Yet, he notes that this model of development already leaves huge numbers of people behind, with the vast majority of wealth created in the last four decades captured by the already wealthy in already countries, and with lagging gains in food production and life expectancy, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. He highlights, too, the increasingly clear realisation that these development assumptions are coming up against biophysical limits.
He makes four key claims, all amply backed by evidence of his fieldwork:
1) Places we characterize as lacking, or neeeding, development are often better understood as the outcomes of development and globalization. That is, even the most remote locations already have their own histories of engaging with global markets and networks, often first through colonialism and more recently through development. And that this globalization plays out differently in different places, creating context-specific opportunities and challenges.
2) For poor and vulnerable communities, particularly, the experience of "development is often negative. Integration into a global economy can bring new opportunities and sources of income but generally also brings new “challenges and uncertainties that come at a cost to people’s incomes and well-being.”
3) Globalization is not a one-way process. People and communities manage engagement as well as disengagement with global markets and networks in order to try to achieve locally defined goals and meet locally defined needs.
4) Globalization and development do not directly create positive or negative outcomes for those in the developing world. Rather they are the catalysts for change which create opportunities and challenges.
While, there is a wealth of story and analysis (economic, ethnographic, archaeological, sociological) relating to the villages with which Carr primarily engages, the story he tells of the 2004 construction of a road connecting the villages to the capital, Accra, is particularly instructive. Contrary to commonly held assumptions about globalization's benefits and the desirability of closer transport and other ties to national and local markets, Carr finds that most households actually had less wage and commercial income and higher reliance on farm income after the road's construction than before, making them more vulnerable to environmental shocks. They also had a less balanced blend of subsistence and market production, with greater orientation towards market production and crop homogeneity, leading to less resilient production. The reasons for this relate to perfectly logical choices dictated by local priorities, gender and household relations, and risk management of these poor farming communities within the local, national and global economy. But they are deeply counter-intuitive for those steeped in development's prevailing myths.
The book is built on a very close study of these two small communities in Ghana, and occasionally the level of detail about transportation systems, clan and household relations, cropping techniques, burial practices and the like, can seem a little overwhelming. Carr does, though, seek to "scale up" his analysis to draw out implications for how we do developmentI.
The most important implication is that there is no reliable and universal outcome for globalization or response to development.
He also strongly asserts that assumptions underlying the dominant global development pathway, are
Since it is not possible, "under current manufacturing, agricultural and energy-generation regimes, to elevate the standard of living of the entire globe to that of the advanced economies," then alternatives are urgently needed, which are both attentive to the needs and interests of the poorest inhabitants of globalization's shoreline and cognizant of the interests of those who — by virtue of their overwhelming economic, political and ecological power and impact – set the agenda.
He is justly sceptical of single-issue, quick-fix approaches to development, typified by Jeffery Sachs' Millennium Villages Project. While he sides more with Easterly's locally-rooted "seekers" and entrepreneurial approach to seeking solutions to community challenges, he is cautious about Easterly's focus on institutions and governance as the key barrier to, or driver of, development.
Carr argues strongly for a data revolution that genuinely engages the knowledge of the poor, a letting-go of self-serving assumptions about the global economy and its impact on poor communities, an end to rich-world agricultural subsidies which effectively cut the most cost-efficient and environmentally sustainable farmers in the world off from global markets, as well as a renewed commitment to genuine participation in the work of "development".
Finally, his is a call for humility – both in what we can claim to know about development and its applicability in many and varied local contexts and in how we live, knowing that the lifestyles of those who occupy the sunlit and comfortable uplands of globalization has a profound and often negative impact on those at the shoreline.
Carr is an archaeologist and geographer and his analysis — deeply rooted in a close and long engagement with life in poor rural communities in Ghana — is a powerful reminder of why we need more social scientists of all stripes engaging the big debates in development. If we leave it solely to the economists, well, we're probably buggered.
Carr draws on his fieldwork in two communities in Ghana’s Central Region, the villages Dominase and Ponkrum, to question common assumptions and policy prescriptions about how globalization and development do and should impact those on "globalization's shoreline" ( which he defines as "the point of connection between people living in communities at the edges of global trade and politics, and the economic, political, and environmental decisions of those living in other places").
Noting that conversations about development have largely become conversations about globalization, he identifies the key assumptions driving contemporary approaches to development. These being, largely, the notion that “a growing economy is the same thing as improving human well-being" and that development needs to lead people to engage with "global markets to maximise their incomes and their well-being" or be left behind.
Yet, he notes that this model of development already leaves huge numbers of people behind, with the vast majority of wealth created in the last four decades captured by the already wealthy in already countries, and with lagging gains in food production and life expectancy, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. He highlights, too, the increasingly clear realisation that these development assumptions are coming up against biophysical limits.
It is simply not possible, under current manufacturing, agricultural and energy-generation regimes, to elevate the standard of living of the entire globe to that of the advanced economies.
He makes four key claims, all amply backed by evidence of his fieldwork:
1) Places we characterize as lacking, or neeeding, development are often better understood as the outcomes of development and globalization. That is, even the most remote locations already have their own histories of engaging with global markets and networks, often first through colonialism and more recently through development. And that this globalization plays out differently in different places, creating context-specific opportunities and challenges.
2) For poor and vulnerable communities, particularly, the experience of "development is often negative. Integration into a global economy can bring new opportunities and sources of income but generally also brings new “challenges and uncertainties that come at a cost to people’s incomes and well-being.”
3) Globalization is not a one-way process. People and communities manage engagement as well as disengagement with global markets and networks in order to try to achieve locally defined goals and meet locally defined needs.
4) Globalization and development do not directly create positive or negative outcomes for those in the developing world. Rather they are the catalysts for change which create opportunities and challenges.
While, there is a wealth of story and analysis (economic, ethnographic, archaeological, sociological) relating to the villages with which Carr primarily engages, the story he tells of the 2004 construction of a road connecting the villages to the capital, Accra, is particularly instructive. Contrary to commonly held assumptions about globalization's benefits and the desirability of closer transport and other ties to national and local markets, Carr finds that most households actually had less wage and commercial income and higher reliance on farm income after the road's construction than before, making them more vulnerable to environmental shocks. They also had a less balanced blend of subsistence and market production, with greater orientation towards market production and crop homogeneity, leading to less resilient production. The reasons for this relate to perfectly logical choices dictated by local priorities, gender and household relations, and risk management of these poor farming communities within the local, national and global economy. But they are deeply counter-intuitive for those steeped in development's prevailing myths.
The book is built on a very close study of these two small communities in Ghana, and occasionally the level of detail about transportation systems, clan and household relations, cropping techniques, burial practices and the like, can seem a little overwhelming. Carr does, though, seek to "scale up" his analysis to draw out implications for how we do developmentI.
The most important implication is that there is no reliable and universal outcome for globalization or response to development.
Globalization plays out in different ways in different places, creating place-specific opportunities and challenges. These opportunities and challenges do not determine the way people behave. Instead people leverage these challenges and opportunities to advance their own goals, which may have little to do with what we understand as development or progress.
He also strongly asserts that assumptions underlying the dominant global development pathway, are
putting us on a path to economic and environmental disasters out of which even advanced economies will not be able to buy their way. The entire world has long relied on the natural resources along globalization’s shoreline to regulate the global climate and fuel the global economy. The conditions of life along this shoreline are such, however, that the residents are being forced into decisions that may make these roles unsupportable in the near future.
Since it is not possible, "under current manufacturing, agricultural and energy-generation regimes, to elevate the standard of living of the entire globe to that of the advanced economies," then alternatives are urgently needed, which are both attentive to the needs and interests of the poorest inhabitants of globalization's shoreline and cognizant of the interests of those who — by virtue of their overwhelming economic, political and ecological power and impact – set the agenda.
He is justly sceptical of single-issue, quick-fix approaches to development, typified by Jeffery Sachs' Millennium Villages Project. While he sides more with Easterly's locally-rooted "seekers" and entrepreneurial approach to seeking solutions to community challenges, he is cautious about Easterly's focus on institutions and governance as the key barrier to, or driver of, development.
Carr argues strongly for a data revolution that genuinely engages the knowledge of the poor, a letting-go of self-serving assumptions about the global economy and its impact on poor communities, an end to rich-world agricultural subsidies which effectively cut the most cost-efficient and environmentally sustainable farmers in the world off from global markets, as well as a renewed commitment to genuine participation in the work of "development".
Finally, his is a call for humility – both in what we can claim to know about development and its applicability in many and varied local contexts and in how we live, knowing that the lifestyles of those who occupy the sunlit and comfortable uplands of globalization has a profound and often negative impact on those at the shoreline.
We in the advanced economies live the way we do because billions of people along the shoreline of globalization do not. There is no way to perpetuate historic rates of economic growth in advanced economies if the entire world, or even a significant percentage of the world, consumes resources at the same rate as the advanced economies... We already take up too many resources to allow for transformative growth and change along globalization’s shoreline.
February 11, 2018
I liked the concept and ideas, but it felt like a dry slog getting through this book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews