‘Reparations.’ Once I heard that word from a friend, everything I had been taught as an economist was challenged at a fundamental level.
As someone working at a large INGO where I have spent years targeting the drivers of poverty, I recognise that development isn’t working the way it should. We know we haven’t achieved enough because where you are born still massively affects your life chances. That doesn’t mean that the international development sector isn’t having any impact at all. The last two decades have brought undeniable success on the metrics of child and maternal mortality, and there are other validated achievements.
But we’ve also become so assured that we play a positive role in achieving change that we don’t sufficiently question why there is progress against some indicators and none against others - like inequality. That’s important because rising inequality negates poverty targeting over the long term.
