he age of globalisation has witnessed considerable economic development, but some of it has come at the expense of national identities. The unrelenting onslaught of Western-style development has prioritised a transnational economic complex over thriving national societies.
This phenomenon is entrenched in Western worldview’s binary of nature and human that has led to the market’s objectification as an economic entity, disassociated from societal and cultural context.
Resultantly, natural resources have been exploited in pursuit of progress and development. Moreover, modern scientific rationalities and capitalist market logic have turned grossly hegemonic, spurning available perspectives and systems as illegitimate.
The dominance of the economic worldview has enabled the odious annulment of alternative knowledge systems, derived from diverse natural worlds, dismissing them as irrational. The notion that informs social development with its political stratagem is not a natural phenomenon. It is a product of a brutal transformation inextricably linked to colonial domination and its legacy in the Global South.
Truman’s affirmation of a new era of development decoupled itself from the legacy of colonialism, shedding the negative connotations that had long accompanied economic expansion. Truman delinked development from colonisation aiming at rebranding the pursuit of economic growth, cutting its historical ties to imperialism and centuries of loot and plunder.
By emphasising economic growth, he succeeded to convince the rest of world that they were under-developed. Alternative development paths and cultural notions of progress were ignored.
The perception of scarcity in the context of development is often a construct rooted in the Western economic paradigms. Beneath the veneer of economic development lies a deeply flawed and unsustainable system. The flaws manifest themselves in the form of societal and environmental crises.
Karl Polanyi observed that the market system had violently distorted world views so that these were proving one of the main obstacles to the solution of the problems of our civilisation. The Euro-Atlantic civilisational model was fuelled by the exploitation of biotic resources, plundered from colonised lands and extraction of fossil-fuels.
The Euro-Atlantic model of growth and development emerged under the exceptional conditions requiring social exclusion. The conditions necessary for of its success are no longer available as biodiversity is threatened, fossil-fuel resources are depleting and the global climate has been destabilised.
Wolfgang Sachs astutely defines development discourse as a product of the post-war era’s fossil fuel-driven triumphalism, entrenched in colonialist perspectives and the legacy of Western rationalism. However, this discourse perpetuates the overwhelming force of the economic worldview, causing a flagrant devaluation of alternative forms of social existence.
The idea of growth as development is intrinsically cannibalistic, consuming both nature and communities. While the tawdry surface of development often veils the underlying darkness of displacement and dispossession, the cultural self-identity of different communities has been compromised by the acceptance of this development worldview.
The perception of scarcity in the context of development is often a construct rooted in Western economic paradigms. Beneath the veneer of economic development lies a deeply flawed and unsustainable system.
Peoples and nations thus appear to move along a single road following the pacemakers. The diversity of nations across the globe has turned into a hierarchical order with countries with bigger GDPs at the top of the development cone.
The model is difficult to sustain. Beginning with the industrial revolution, it was predicated on the subjugation and destruction of both human beings and nature. The current crisis, unfolding at the expense of environment and climate, is a direct consequence of the imposed logic of competition, the notion of relentless growth and the unrelenting pursuit of development.
After the era of direct colonialism, global institutions, through their promotion of mega-infrastructure projects and extractive industries, have invaded territories, commodified sources of life and expelled local communities from their ancestral lands. This has resulted in a deepening of the socio-environmental crises.
These ideas lie at the core of the global institutions such as the World Bank. International finance institutions (IFIs) continue to push for economic growth.
Over the last three decades, the IFI advice on reforms in Pakistan has focused on the energy, agriculture and water sectors. It is also in these policy areas that the climate-related impacts of their interventions are most visible.
Some of the big developmental projects supported and funded by the IFIs have proved disastrous and destructive for biodiversity, local livelihoods and economic systems. Since Pakistan’s first loan agreement with the IMF in 1958, the World Bank Group and the IMF have been central to shaping the country’s development trajectory.
Early WBG involvement centred on supporting large-scale, government-led infrastructure projects, such as the Indus Basin irrigation system.
The hegemony of the Western world-view necessitates devaluation of alternative knowledge systems. Pursuit of development, as defined by Western paradigms, has often resulted in the destruction of diverse ecosystems, the erosion of indigenous cultures and the exacerbation of social inequalities.
A transition from economies based on fossil-fuel resources to economies based on biodiversity is paramount. In contrast to the ever expanding nature of ‘development,’ recognition of the limits is at the root of numerous attempts to re-embed the economy in the biosphere. Examples abound in architecture, agriculture, energy production, forestry and some industries.
While the massive use of fossil fuels and extracted resources allowed one to disregard the character of specific places, the strength of bio-economic systems lies in connecting with local ecosystems and energy flows. For this reason, decentralisation and diversity will be the guiding principles for solar economies.
The push-back initiatives in the Global South emphasise community rights to natural resources, self-governance and indigenous ways of knowing and acting. There is a need to call for epistemic justice by empowering knowledge systems to have equal chances of prosperity and self-realisation.
The violence inflicted by the Global North and its economic system demands not only financial compensation but also restorative justice.
As we navigate the complex intersection of climate change, infrastructure and human well-being, transformative action is urgently needed. This will require long-term thinking, a gradual decommissioning of harmful infrastructure projects, debt cancellation and accountability of global institutions. Adaptation practices must be informed by local communities, who have developed resilience through centuries of living in harmony with their natural world.
To ensure Pakistan’s future resilience against climate-induced challenges, a holistic and adaptive approach is essential. A new system is needed to restore harmony with nature and humanity.
The writer is a lawyer and policy researcher at a think-tank specialising in energy and climate issues
