Development and Social Goals: Balancing Aid and Development to Prevent ‘Welfare Colonialism’

Working Papers from United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs

Abstract: The current development policy focus on poverty reduction is erroneous. Historically, successful development policy—from the late fifteenth century until the beginning of the twenty-first—has achieved structural change away from dependence on raw materials and agriculture, adding specialized manufacturing and services subject to increasing returns with a complex division of labour. In contrast, the Millennium Development Goals are heavily biased in favour of palliative economics: alleviating the symptoms of poverty, rather than attacking its real causes. This creates a system of ‘welfare colonialism’ increasing the dependence of poor countries, thereby hindering, rather than promoting, long-term structural change.

Keywords: Millennium Development Goals; economic development; palliative economics; welfare colonialism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F02 F13 O10 O19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2006-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-pke
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Working Paper: Development and Social Goals: Balancing Aid and Development to Prevent ‘Welfare Colonialism’ (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:une:wpaper:14

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