Global Development, Converging Divergence and Development Studies: A Rejoinder

Abstract

This rejoinder addresses key cross-cutting issues in the contributions to this Forum Debate, most notably the contesting of the empirical basis for the converging divergence thesis, the causes that underlie the trends identified, and the implications for development studies and practice. We maintain our argument for a ‘converging divergence’ referring to a direction of change from approximately 1990–2015, which includes but goes beyond income and takes account of growing inequality within many countries. Moreover, we argue that the case for reframing international development as global development, as briefly outlined in the original article, goes beyond empirical data to underlying causal processes of globalized capitalism and global climate change. We hope that this Forum Debate significantly enriches the discussion about 21st century global development and helps weaken the intellectual appeal of the binary logic that has underpinned the concept and practice of international development. The contributions to this Debate section, which respond to our original article, highlight the considerable limitations of claims of convergence between the global North and South in relation to income. There appears to be less contention, or even discussion, in relation to the health and education trends identified in the original contribution. With the important exception of Büscher (this issue), the responses pay little attention to the ‘bad news’ story of the environment, which has profound implications for economic and human development, while the negative experiences of divergence within many countries also receive relatively little attention. The substantial economic growth generated in the global South between 1990 and 2015 has been geographically very uneven. Although East Asia has demonstrated that significant economic development in the global South can happen within the capitalist world system (Bangura, this issue), it is the only such macro-region to have dramatically increased its share of global income since the 1960s (see also Ghosh, this issue). China especially has played a major role in the reduction of global income inequality and in poverty reduction (Sumner, this issue; see also Edward and Sumner, 2018), significantly more so than India, Brazil or elsewhere. As a number of responses note, our choice of baseline date, mostly 1990, can play a key role in shaping observations regarding convergence. For example, Fischer (this issue) observes that such a baseline hides the economic development gains of the 1970s and the damage done in the 1980s, when international financial institutions (IFIs) aggressively promoted structural adjustment. Moreover, Bangura (this issue) notes how moving the baseline from 2000 to 1990 for official assessments of progress on the Millennium Development Goals has allowed for the inclusion of the substantial gains in China in the 1990s. Elsewhere, a review by Johnson and Papageorgiou (forthcoming) finds little progress since 1960 with the exception of a few countries in East Asia, whereas Patel et al. (2018) point to unconditional income convergence since 1990. As Sumner (this issue) especially highlights, threshold effects are also influential for classifications of the numbers living in poverty, middle-class populations and countries by income group. Adopting higher poverty lines reveals that global poverty reduction has been largely about moving people from below an exceptionally low line (though we would argue this was an achievement which should not be discounted). However, considerable economic change is also present outside China (and wider East Asia). Sumner (ibid.) identifies three stylized facts regarding income changes in the global South beyond China that lead to new binaries within the global South: (1) between ‘moving’ countries which have had dramatic rises in mean GDP per person and mean consumption per person and about 30–40 ‘stuck’ countries; (2) between overseas development assistance (ODA)-dependent countries and post-ODA countries; and (3) between countries that have the domestic resources to end absolute poverty at low poverty lines (where the majority of those living under US$ 5 a day are to be found) and those that do not. Such trends provide support for our sense of the broader direction of change. Less contention is voiced by our discussants regarding human development trends between North and South, in increased life expectancy, reduced maternal and under-5 mortality, and enrolment in schooling. Bangura (this issue, p. 402) is one of the surprisingly few commentators to consider trends in health and education and to observe that it is ‘at this basic level of human development that real global convergence has occurred’, and that ‘even Africa … does fairly well on these basic human development indicators’. These converging trends in human development have been longer lasting (Fischer, this issue, points to Dyson's 2001 work, but also Deaton, 2013; de la Escosura, 2018; Kenny, 2005), although they also have limitations, such as treatment capacity or educational attainment. Yet there is some good news here — a point that the popular global development book Factfulness (Rosling et al., 2018) and the website Our World in Data1 have prominently argued. A clear-cut ‘bad news’ story — that related to carbon emissions and global climate change — is very surprisingly overlooked by most of our discussants, excepting Büscher (this issue). As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report Global Warming of 1.5°C has emphasized, climate change is only growing in terms of its significance for shaping global societal development (IPCC, 2018). We did not make explicit enough that what matters is the unprecedented level of absolute emissions, as Büscher has highlighted. Big differences are present across global North and South in terms of per capita emissions, and China disproportionately contributes to the aggregate total of the global South, as noted in our original paper (p. 359). Taking climate change into account makes the case for a global development approach inescapable. Another major ‘bad news’ part of our account relates to growing within-country inequalities, that is, the ‘divergence’ part of ‘converging divergence’. We were also surprised that this trend did not attract more substantive attention in the responses, with the notable exception of Onaran (this issue). Fischer (this issue) argues that within-country inequalities are not new, but gives little attention to how they have largely changed for the worse in recent decades. Alemany et al., however, note agreement that ‘the inequality map is certainly being redrawn, given the pronounced inequalities that have recently emerged within countries of both the North and the South’ (this issue, p. 474). Data estimation issues are present here too, with improved top income and wealth data likely to provide higher estimates of within-country inequality (Sumner, this issue). The extent and importance of these inequalities have been highlighted further in some major reports (Alvaredo et al., 2018; Credit Suisse, 2018) that were released after our initial article was ‘advance’ published. Despite attracting high-profile attention elsewhere (e.g. Alston, 2018; OHCHR, 2018), stagnation or decline for many people living in the global North is only briefly noted in the responses here. Internal divergence helps explain why many people in the global North face greater struggles than per capita GDP figures might suggest, and why many in the global South have not benefited from the converging trend between North and South in aggregate. ‘Converging divergence’ is a stylized fact rather than the product of robust tests as understood in the development economics literature. A key trend in much of the global income inequality literature across individuals points to converging trends between countries. Just a week after our original article was first published, the 2018 World Inequality Report stated that ‘global income growth dynamics are driven by strong forces of convergence between countries and divergence within countries’ (Alvaredo et al., 2018: 40). Of course, our trends on ‘converging divergence’ extend beyond the economic to include the health, education and environment aspects too. Moreover, converging trends between North and South in aggregate are not just in ‘good’ aspects of development (income, life expectancy or falling under-5 mortality), as Ziai (this issue) suggests, but also involve carbon emissions, the precariat, vulnerability to non-communicable diseases, as well as inequalities within countries. The economic, human and environmental trends discussed here are not the only factors that matter for development, or for assessment of potential converging divergence trends. For example, as the contributors to this Debate argue, gender (see Alemany et al.), class and race (see Ziai) have featured little in our discussion. Bangura points to important disparities between global North and South that we did not cover, notably social protection, although a ‘quiet revolution’ is nonetheless underway in this domain in the global South (Barrientos and Hulme, 2009; Bastagli et al., 2016; ILO, 2017). Büscher also points out that carbon emissions are just one aspect of the environment, with biodiversity loss another major issue. Claims of convergence can be supported by the aggregate GDP performance of the global South, its growing share of middle class population, aggregate carbon emissions, and the reclassification of countries as middle income, and also by health indicators and educational enrolment. However, these trends mask the substantial gaps that many individuals in the global South still face relative to the ‘citizenship premiums’ from which people in the North continue to benefit. (pp. 372–73) The responses rightly point out that our original paper did not adequately address the causation behind ‘converging divergence’. The causal processes, and their global character and effects, augment the case for thinking of (uneven) development in relation to the whole world. We can recognize, as Ghosh (this issue, p. 379) argues, that capitalism ‘has always been a global system, and one that has therefore always had implications for development (or the lack of it) across the globe’, connecting the production of riches and poverty (Büscher, this issue). Of course, just pointing to capitalism doesn't explain contemporary trends in global inequalities and capitalist development needs to be theorized, as Büscher acknowledges. Both he and Ghosh propose theories of uneven development. Ghosh raises the question of whether the processes that generate uneven development under capitalism have altered and suggests that it is still the same system. Fitting with the questioning of any converging trend, the frameworks suggested by the commentators in this Debate — including imperialism (Ghosh), neo-colonialism (Ziai), or neoliberalism (Fischer) — are mostly oriented around forces reproducing inequalities between countries and the perpetuation of the North–South divide. Sumner also sees the forces shaping economic development, including global accumulation, transnational corporations and global finance, as relatively similar in their impact. However, we see dynamics associated with the era of 21st century globalization as consistent with the pattern of ‘converging divergence’, and as part of a new iteration of uneven development. Recognizing processes of colonialism and the global trading system (e.g. Wallerstein, 1979), linkages of privilege and prosperity across global North and South are not new. Nevertheless, late 20th/early 21st century globalization of capital, goods and services has involved significantly more functional interconnectivity, linking privilege and poverty across space to a much greater degree. In a context of trade liberalization and facilitated by information and communication technologies, fragmentation of production into global value chains (GVCs) is interpreted by Sumner (this issue) as inhibiting the prospects for economic development through structural transformation. However, the rise of GVCs has also provided opportunities for firms in the global South to access knowledge and information through supply relationships (Baldwin, 2016), as well as for those who have established capabilities to access wider market opportunities. The share of Europe and the US in the global production of goods and services has fallen from 70–80 per cent from 1900 to 1980 to only 50 per cent by 2010 (Piketty, 2014: 59). Within such a structure, the gains are hugely differential and sectors in many parts of the world have struggled to achieve comparable upgrading trajectories to those experienced in East Asia. The best economic development outcomes have been in countries that have managed their engagement with the global economy in an era of economic globalization. Importantly, there is no sense amongst our commentators or us of convergence being an automatic process, an infamous suggestion derived from Solow (1956) and subsequent related growth models. Economic growth in countries in the global South has been a major driver of reduced between-country inequality (for both income and wealth) since the beginning of the 1990s, with China and, to a lesser extent, India key for population-weighted measures (Bourguignon, 2015; Milanovic, 2016). The responses recognize that the global system cannot be caricatured as a straightjacket condemning places in the global South to underdevelopment under neoliberalism, neo-colonialism or neo-imperialism, thus offering some possibilities for income convergence. Bangura, Fischer and Ghosh (this issue) argue that economic development over the last half century in the Asian Tigers, as well as China (see also Ang, 2016), has involved strategic interventions in trade, domestic regulation and management of capital flows (also Gore, 2000). A sense of connectivity between these gains for emerging middle classes in the global South (and the global elite) and relative stagnation for the working and middle classes in the global North (and the poorest globally) is suggested by patterns of change in the global income distribution (Milanovic, 2016). Economic change in the global South is not just limited to East Asia, however, and has involved considerable reductions in extreme poverty elsewhere. Asadullah and Savoia (2018) attribute income poverty reduction during 1990–2013 to state capacity in the form of countries with greater ability to administer their territories — Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and others — creating the conditions for poverty reduction through growth and the expansion of social protection programmes (Barrientos and Hulme, 2009). Bangladesh is one especially telling example of considerable economic, as well as human development, progress since the 1980s as a result of a move beyond market-oriented reform to considerable state and NGO commitment to pro-poor growth and social policy (Hossain, 2017). At the same time, growing within-country inequality is widely linked to processes of globalization and associated skill-rewarding technological change. Capital has moved more easily across countries, and its bargaining power has increased vis-à-vis the more territorially constrained labour. Amongst the responses, and as noted elsewhere in the literature on global inequality (Bourguignon, 2015; Milanovic, 2016), Onaran (this issue) has highlighted this trend across the global North as well as in major emerging economies. Salaries of top managers of large firms have also increasingly become separated from the rest as part of meritocratic extremism (Piketty, 2014: 333–34). Simultaneously, the rise of the precariat across the global North and South has been attributed to liberalized labour markets, which involve flexible, insecure labour relations (Standing, 2011). Key changes in taxes and redistribution also shape divergence, with tax rates and transfers both falling as market income inequality has risen in Western Europe, the US and Japan (Atkinson, 2015; Milanovic, 2016). Rising income inequality and higher rates of return for the wealthy, together with a renewed significance for inherited wealth and privatization of public wealth, have driven wealth inequality in many countries (Alvaredo et al., 2018: 204). The health and education trends we identify, which attracted surprisingly few responses by the commentators, follow the income trends but are not completely determined by them. Indeed, major health improvements have taken place without significant income growth, driven by the demographic transition and facilitated by a better understanding of disease and improved public health infrastructure (Fischer, this issue, points to Dyson, 2001; see also Deaton, 2013; Kenny, 2005). Income effects can also be present in the form of greater emphasis on health treatments, nutrition, access to healthcare and greater resources for potential government spending (Weil, 2015). As we noted (p. 366), both access to and quality of education are often linked to income per capita. As with health, causation can go in both directions here, with higher incomes leading to greater provision of education, and vice versa. Privatization of provision, as well as growing income inequalities, have affected within-country inequalities for health and education. Educational inequalities have in turn been proposed as significant, yet often neglected, factors behind increases in income inequality within countries (Ravallion, 2018: 631). The processes underlying these lifestyle and policy shifts need to be explained and, as noted in our original introduction, globalization and skill-biased technological change are frequently cited. Trade liberalization, deregulation and privatization — linked to increasing within-country inequalities — have been pushed through forcefully in the global South by IFIs as part of debt-related conditionality, and through the promotion of global policy ideas as part of the Washington Consensus (see also Alemany et al., this issue). Globally, many states have struggled with taxes and redistribution in an era of globalization (Milanovic, 2016). While recognizing external influence in some cases (e.g. via the IFIs), Onaran (this issue) emphasizes the importance of national institutions and policies, related to taxation, labour unions, social protection and minimum wages (see also Alvaredo et al., 2018; Ravallion, 2018). Although the element of domestic choice involved varies substantially across different geographic contexts, including across and within global North and South, over-emphasis on the structural or exogenous factors can absolve key domestic actors of their responsibilities for creating divergence. Major differences exist across countries, such as between those in continental Europe and the United States, in terms of tax codes, minimum wages, public provision of education and healthcare (Chancel, 2018), or carbon intensity of lifestyles. The Latin American example that has produced some fall in income inequality through the expansion of conditional cash transfers, the implementation of minimum wages, and a wider move in questioning inequality (Alemany et al., this issue; see also Cornia, 2014; Evans, 2018), demonstrates again that, although common global trends may be present, the global system is not a straightjacket and that some countries have been able to adjust. Both as a development process and in terms of implications, Büscher importantly argues that ‘climate change has always been inherently “global”’ (p. 489). He argues that there is a strong correlation between capital and carbon; the discussion of carbon inequalities in our original article is mostly drawn from Chancel and Piketty (2015) who estimate CO2 elasticities according to income changes. Absolute carbon emissions have risen since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, yet have accelerated especially dramatically over the period 1990–2015. Büscher (this issue) relates the emissions explosion to China becoming the ‘factory of the world’. Underlying changes in the geography of production through separation from consumption via global value chains have, as Büscher suggests, contributed to relocating territorial-based emissions especially to Asia. Rises in top and middle incomes in the global South, as well as relative income stagnation for the majority in the global North (where more energy-efficient production processes have also been deployed in some countries at least), have played key roles in North–South aggregate convergence. Nevertheless, considerable variation in carbon emissions exists between countries at similar income levels, related to the influence of the energy mix of production processes, urban forms and national consumption patterns. For example, estimates for production-based emissions per capita in the US are more than twice those in Western Europe (Chancel and Piketty, 2015: 18). In addition, carbon emissions within countries vary significantly with socio-demographic characteristics (ibid.: 21), with higher income earners usually emitting more. As a result, within-country carbon inequalities largely follow trends in income inequalities. While difficult to encapsulate within a singular theory, the key underlying causal processes behind converging divergence are not limited to just global South or North, but clearly have a global dynamic. Capitalism underlies global uneven development (Büscher, this issue; Ghosh, this issue), and is heavily linked to climate change which also has a global dynamic (Büscher, this issue). The original case for thinking of global development, based on an empirical blurring of North and South in aggregate and the contemporary nature of development challenges, is thus augmented by global causal processes. What then of the consequences for development studies and practice, and how do they relate to our argument for global development? Much more needs to be done to justify global development as an overarching approach, as explicitly raised by Bangura (this issue) and our original article (pp. 372–73), and as we have begun to address elsewhere (e.g. Horner, forthcoming). For us, a global development framing can better respond to the blurring of North–South boundaries, to the underlying driving processes of development under globalized capitalism and to the challenge of climate change. The original article (pp. 371–72) notes that one possible understanding of global development is as scale, based on which Bangura (this issue) questions whether a single-world, global approach should replace lower-scale geographic categories or binaries. He sees global development as an approach where issues such as climate change, pandemics such as Ebola or even economic crises and migration, are prime dimensions — that is, for the most part global public goods-type issues. He equates global development issues with representing ‘what the world will look like and can do if there is a global government’ (p. 407) and questions a focus on that scale alone, arguing that much responsibility for advancing development still rests within states, while (supra-national) regional integration is particularly relevant for countries in Africa. This understanding of global as scale has parallels with the distinctions of national from international and global development as outlined by Currie-Alder (2016). Instead, as briefly noted in our original contribution and elaborated subsequently (Horner, forthcoming), we understand global development as scope in relation to the whole world, involving multi-scalar processes and actors. Conceptually and methodologically advancing multi-scalar analysis is a priority for development studies. Another line of thinking in some responses (e.g. Fischer, Sumner, both this issue) is that the geographic scope of the challenge of development, and consequently the focus for development studies, is very much just the global South. This is framed as a more classical take on economic development, through structural transformation. Sumner suggests a focus on late or delayed development, for which (and consequently for where) the ‘core “problem” is the elusiveness of more substantial and sustained structural transformation in many developing countries’ (p. 421). Very explicitly, Fischer refers to a huge difference between ‘perversities of rich countries’ and ‘the real challenges of development that are still paramount to the large majority of countries around the world’ (p. 441). While resonating with the suggestion of Fischer to focus on the deeper underlying processes of capitalism to ‘bring development back into development studies’, as per Bernstein (2006), it is unclear why that should be limited to the global South. Given the nature of 21st century global challenges — including the underlying processes of global capitalism, South-induced economic restructuring in the North and especially the climate change aspect of sustainable development — a more global perspective is required. A further line of thinking involves alternative viewpoints constructed with a potential geographic relevance that is global in scope, going beyond just the global South. Büscher's argument for revolutionary development, involving ‘thinking and imagining developing beyond capitalism’ (this issue, p. 492), relates to the global North as much as the global South. The initiatives he cites as already doing this — buen vivir, degrowth, doughnut economics and radical ecological democracy — have potential relevance everywhere. For example, Raworth, proponent of doughnut economics, has frequently argued that ‘we are all developing countries now’ (e.g. Raworth, 2018). Although the revolutions Büscher cites are dwarfed in their impact by the contemporary capitalist revolutions of (chronologically) Brexit, Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, his vision nevertheless provides an important set of contentions if the environment, broadly interpreted, is to be taken seriously. Similarly, Ziai's (this issue) radical programme for (post-)development, involving reparations for colonialism, deglobalization, freedom of movement for people, and curbing CO2 emissions and resource use, is also relevant across both the global North and South. Echoes are present of a long line of critical development thinking (e.g. Hettne, 1995), including post-colonial approaches which have argued for moving beyond North–South, and for which global development provides a more amenable platform than international development. Disrupting the post-colonial gaze of development studies can help move beyond justice for distant strangers to global social justice. We recognize that a danger, and perhaps a likely scenario in some cases, is that the use of the term ‘global development’ could merely be a relabelling (as Fischer, this issue, implies), rather than offer a substantive shift from international development. Indeed, a parallel example from the field of global health, and its transition from tropical medicine and international health, shows that a mere relabelling with little clear difference has been the case in many instances (Bunyavanich and Walkup, 2001; Fried et al., 2010). For us, global development has considerable potential although requiring critical attention and debate over its framing and application (as in this Forum Debate). Separating out development in the global South provides only a partial picture of the nature and challenges of 21st century development. The challenges, tensions and trade-offs around sustainable development are necessarily global, as the responses highlight in relation to capitalism and climate change. The concept of sustainable development is fraught with contradictions, especially between ‘sustainability’ and ‘development’ (Redclift, 2005). Yet greater attention to global development can bring such tensions between over-accumulation or over-development, however defined, in some places and under-development in others, more to the fore. For example, on the one hand, Redclift (2018: 700) points to the persistent avoidance of key questions around reversing the ‘“path dependency” that has characterized already developed societies’. Notably, Büscher (this issue, p. 492) cannot be accused of this, arguing that greater capital accumulation ‘will further intensify 21st century global development challenges’ including through environmental degradation, although such perspectives do not deeply inform wider development debates let alone many policy initiatives. On the other hand, capital accumulation in the global South has been a key mechanism in addressing global income inequalities (e.g. Bourguignon, 2015; Milanovic, 2016). Huge tensions are present between the temperature and the equity aspects of the Paris Climate Agreement, with the former requiring countries in the global South to ‘leapfrog’ carbon-intensive development (Larkin et al., 2018: 697). Notwithstanding attempts at ‘green structural transformation’ (e.g. Altenburg and Assmann, 2017), the visions offered by Fischer and Sumner vis-à-vis that of Büscher (all this issue) represent wider tensions regarding what constitutes progress, a long-standing characteristic of development studies and practice (Ziai, this issue). While thinking in terms of global as scope does not automatically identify win-win solutions, it provides a more suitable platform from which to debate causal processes and the various contradictions and tensions embedded within. Perhaps a litmus test for global development would involve the question, ‘How would thinking of development in relation to the whole world matter to Africa, as a key geographic focus of development studies and practice?’. Divergence within the global North, including plays on uneven development by ‘the places that don't matter’ (Rodríguez-Pose, 2018), can have serious repercussions elsewhere. Recently, this has included, for example, a globalization backlash (Horner et al., 2018), a context marked by heightened anti-immigration sentiments (curbing a key vector for reducing global inequality), the potential removal of trade preferences (Brown, 2018), the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, and a reduction or reorientation of development cooperation. Moreover, the consequences of climate change, generated by elites in the global North and elsewhere, are widely forecast to lead to food insecurity and human displacement, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where there is the least capability to cope (Rigaud et al., 2018). Critical attention is required to framings of global development, which is not automatically more progressive and could lead to a renewal of Eurocentric universalism. Lal (1983) argued for a neoliberal mono-economics, instead of development economics. A core concern regards the tension between universalism and geographic specificity. A danger is the obfuscation of the extreme inequalities that continue to exist, especially when we go beyond the aggregates of global North and South. More theoretically, this involves moving beyond Eurocentric universalisms, which are often quite parochial, towards genuinely more global understandings (also Hettne, 1995). Relational approaches, which seek to go beyond residual approaches which explain or frame poverty or underdevelopment as a lack of something and as separate from the processes generating wealth and prosperity, offer potential for global development. Relational perspectives pay attention to historical, economic and political processes of adverse incorporation and social exclusion (Hickey and Du Toit, 2007; Mosse, 2010) and how they cut across conventional geographical divides (Elwood et al., 2017; Lawson et al., 2018; Roy and Crane, 2015). This ultimately grounds development studies back in the social sciences (Bernstein, 2006). It requires going beyond structural inevitability of overly deterministic accounts, such as world systems theory oriented towards the reproduction of older divides. Relational approaches facilitate situating development within wider economic, ecological, political and social relations, while allowing for geographic contingency. Clearly, some countries and regions (both sub- and supranational) have been able to ‘manage’ in an era of globalization and economic liberalization better than others. This is not an argument for ending development cooperation, contra Alemany et al.’s interpretation (this issue). We are wary of ‘charity begins at home’ type arguments (e.g. Deaton, 2018), and recognize that government assistance to poor people domestically in the global North or in emerging donor countries dwarfs that to the foreign poor (Kenny and Sandefur, 2018), while wider taxation and social transfer policies are much more significant factors behind inequalities within countries than aid budgets. This is an argument for considering a much wider range of global development challenges and practices that go beyond those that are typically considered as subject to aid financing (see also Hulme, 2016; Janus et al., 2015). Notably, in this issue, Alemany et al.’s arguments for a United Nations tax body as well as a treaty on transnational corporations and human rights extend far beyond a more narrowly conceived development aid and are steps in the right direction. Although we note Bangura's (this issue) scepticism as to their influence (see also Horn and Grugel, 2018), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) may serve as a trigger mechanism in this regard. Diffuse and long-term UN influences ‘ahead of the curve’ (Emmerji et al., 2001) have successfully placed human development alongside income growth in public debates and public action, and the next challenge is to foster the ideational progress of the SDG ‘goals’ — such as inequality reduction, lower consumption by the better-off, sustainability and improved governance — in debates about global development. This is not directly through ‘plans’ and ‘policies’, but by reshaping the concepts and measures that help structure conversations about public and private action. We hope that this Forum Debate contributes to constructive discussion about how the world is changing, what the causes of these changes may be, and about development studies and practice that are more attuned to the 21st century. We believe there is validity in the ‘converging divergence’ trend as a stylized fact imbued with considerable nuance. The underlying processes of global capitalism augment the case for thinking of global development. In a world of uneven development facing a major climate and wider sustainable development problem, important avenues of enquiry are open for work on global development, where a relational approach offers considerable potential. Through this Debate, we have sought to challenge the particular geography which is embedded in what we consider as international development. We believe all parts of the world face major ‘development’ challenges. Some may make a case for zeroing in on the classic issues, approaches and geography of development. While not discounting long-established focuses, we believe that there are opportunities for breaking down some of the silos that can separate a more classic focus of development studies on the global South from other issues of social justice in the North, or from global societal development, such as climate change and redistribution. Many of these challenges are interconnected in various ways, while many people engaged in development research and practice care about, and are engaged in various forms of practice and activism on, such issues. Our viewpoint seeks to contribute towards global development fitted to the 21st century. Rory Horner (corresponding author: rory.horner@manchester.ac.uk) is a Senior Lecturer at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK and a Research Associate at the Department of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. A geographer by training, his research focuses on globalization, trade and development, with a particular interest in South–South trade and the pharmaceutical industry in India and sub-Saharan Africa. David Hulme (david.hulme@manchester.ac.uk) is Professor of Development Studies at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK. He has published extensively on global poverty, rural development, microfinance, NGOs, environmental management and social protection. His most recent books include What Works for Africa's Poorest? (Practical Action, 2017), Should Rich Nations Help the Poor? (Polity Press, 2015) and Global Poverty (Routledge, 2015).