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The era of development
The second half of the 20th century has been called the 'era of development'. The origins of this era have been attributed to: It has been argued that this era was launched on January 20th, 1949, when Harry S. Truman made the following remarks in his inaugural address :
 * the need for reconstruction in the immediate aftermath of World War II ;
 * the collapse of colonialism and the establishment of new relationships between so-called 'developed' and 'underdeveloped' nations ;
 * the start of the Cold War and the desire of the United States and its allies to prevent the Third World from drifting towards communism.

''We must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. The old imperialism - exploitation for foreign profit - has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development based on the concept of democratic fair dealing.''

Before this date, however, the United States had taken a leading role in the creation of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now part of the World Bank Group) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), both established in 1944, in the United Nations in 1945, and the Marshall Plan in 1947. It is also worth noting that CARE, one of the largest development NGOs in the world, was founded by a group of Americans in 1945 to provide relief to survivors of World War II.

If international development had its origins in U.S foreign policy, it acquired a conceptual underpinning during the 1950's in the form of modernization theory espoused by Walt Rostow and other American economists. By the late 1960's, the critics of modernization, some of whom were Neo-Marxists, were advancing a dependency theory to explain the evolving relationship between the West and the Third World. In the 1970's and early 80's, the modernists at the World Bank and IMF adopted the neoliberal ideas of Milton Friedman, which were implemented in the form of structural adjustment programs, while their opponents were promoting various 'bottom up' approaches, ranging from civil disobedience and conscientization to appropriate technology and Rapid Rural Appraisal.

By the 1990s, development theory had reached an impasse and some academics were imagining a postdevelopment era. The Cold War had ended, capitalism had become the dominant mode of social organization, and UN statistics showed that living standards around the world had improved over the past 40 years. Nevertheless, a large portion of the world's population were still living in poverty, their governments were crippled by debt and concerns about the environmental impact of globalization were rising.

In response to the impasse, the rhetoric of development is now focussing on the issue of poverty, with the metanarrative of modernization being replaced by shorter term vision embodied by the Millenium Development Goals. At the same time, some development agencies are exploring opportunities for public-private partnerships and promoting the idea of Corporate social responsibility with the apparent aim of integrating international development with the process of economic globalization.

The critics have suggested that this integration has always been part of the underlying agenda of development. They argue that poverty can be equated with powerlessness, and that the way to overcome poverty is through emancipatory social movements, not paternalistic aid programmes or corporate charity.

While some critics have been debating the end of development other have predicted a development revival as part of the War on Terror. To date, however, there is limited evidence to support the notion that aid budgets are being used to counter islamic fundamentalism in the same way that they were used 40 years ago to counter communism.