Southern Pioneers of International Development

Abstract

What is the origin of the norm that international institutions should support the economic development of poorer countries? It is commonly argued that the norm of international development was pioneered by US president Harry S. Truman in a famous 1949 speech as a means of serving US economic goals in the early Cold War. But this norm in fact emerged much earlier from Sun Yat-sen's thinking in China in 1918 and after that from Latin American preferences in the inter-American context of the 1930s. The latter were particularly influential in encouraging US officials to design, in the early 1940s, the first international institution with a strong development mandate: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. During the negotiations leading up to the 1944 Bretton Woods agreements, Latin American policymakers supported and reinforced the US plans, as did representatives of China, India, and Eastern Europe. For officials from these countries and regions, international development promised suppor...