Alongside provocative national interest language and missed opportunities on the the results-ownership balance, prosperity is mentioned 20 times in the UK’s new aid strategy (pdf).
Promoting economic development and prosperity in the developing world with a view to reducing poverty and strengthening UK trade and investment opportunities is one of the four strategic objectives of UK aid, along with strengthening global peace security and governance, strengthening resilience and response crises, and tackling extreme poverty. As with national interest and results-ownership, the debate is about the spirit of this objective rather than the words themselves.
Taken plainly, who could be against economic development and prosperity? Certainly not the world’s poorest countries, which are desperate for the kind of economic development and prosperity seen in the west and, increasingly, experienced by many traditionally developing countries. Nor the poorest communities in those countries for whom prosperity is surely the main aim, not just lifting themselves out of the most extreme forms of poverty.
Most agree that economic growth has been one of the main factors behind poverty reduction in recent decades. In its absence, it is hard to see how poverty can be sustainably reduced.
Prosperity is also quite closely associated with the sustainable development goals (SDGs), which are self-consciously not just about focusing on the poorest. Prosperity is about building countries’ abilities to respond to their own problems through improved, growing economies.
On the one hand, the clear shift in rhetoric from the UK government in recent years, epitomised in this latest document, is to be welcomed. It fits pretty neatly with a new era of development where the focus is on the sustainability of change rather than just responding to urgent need.
Many are concerned about this language, however, and they’re probably right to be. We may be witnessing a gradual return to economic growth as the sole focus, with no emphasis on distribution of the fruits of that growth, more characteristic of previous eras of development thinking. The question we should be asking is: whose prosperity?
This is because, while the past few decades have taught us that economic growth is a necessity, they have also shown that it is a means to an end rather than a goal in itself. Without a raft of other measures in place, it can be fairly meaningless to the poorest people, and often in tension with their rights.
If the UK government had really got with the programme set out by the SDG process – in which David Cameron at one time played a leading role – then the document would at least namecheck certain issues. Yet there is nothing on sustainable consumption and production, environmental sustainability, increasing conflict for limited resources including land, and – above all – inequality. This might be taken to imply that, rather than building on the evidence and thinking behind the SDG process, the UK aid strategy is indeed part of an ideological realignment towards the bad old days of growth first, development later.
This is certainly an area to be closely monitored. But we should not go back to the binary analysis of previous generations, whereby a focus on economic growth was considered threatening. Aid and other types of international public finance (loans that may not count as aid if not concessional enough, for instance) should absolutely be used to help economic growth where appropriate, in support of the development plans of sovereign governments. Infrastructure like roads, ports, energy generation and telephony are critical in making poverty reduction sustainable.
Everything the strategy says about economic growth and prosperity is eminently sensible. Nonetheless, a balance needs to be struck between growing the cake and distributing it, recognising the unique role aid can play in the latter. The details of economic growth plans are critical.
There is nothing wrong, for example, with trying to extend basic financial services (bank accounts and micro-financing solutions) to all people including the poorest. But overemphasising the idea that poor people can work themselves out of poverty may mean insufficient emphasis is placed on the development of decent jobs in a growing manufacturing sector.
Those worried about the direction of the UK government should fight for the kind of growth and prosperity they want to see, rather than allowing the debate to focus on words that all should readily appropriate as fundamental to the development agenda. The kneejerk rejection of growth and prosperity language, which still exists in many development movements around the world, needs to give way to more nuanced debate – not about whether, but about how.