The global governance of development

Abstract

The idea that the economic advancement of poorer countries and the promotion of living standards for the citizens of these countries ought to be pursued at a global level came about gradually. Today, however, it is more or less undisputed, and development governance is now conducted by a wide variety of actors and institutions, including financing institutions, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and other private initiatives, public-private partnerships and unilateral state-sponsored aid. Though, for decades, development governance was driven and funded by the so-called 'Bretton Woods Institutions' - the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank) - alongside a few long-standing regional development banks, these institutions now share an increasingly crowded field with other institutions and actors, such as new investment banks like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The result is that what was once a relatively unified and hierarchical governance regime is becoming increasingly fragmented global governance regime. Alongside these developments, the drivers, conditions and objectives for development governance have evolved and diversified over time, responding to geopolitical and economic changes and as new actors enter the governance field. This chapter introduces the concept of global governance, identifying two key components to understand the evolution of global governance, namely the proliferation in type of actors and the presence of soft law types of commitments. Next the chapter discusses three main developments in the global governance of development: first, the expansion of the development agenda to a broad global agenda on sustainable development; second, the emergence of new development actors with a specific focus on informal intergovernmental initiatives and voluntary sustainability standards; and third, the evolution of the global development regime.