GENERATIVE DEVELOPMENT
What makes development possible?
Development is too often imagined as a programme delivered from elsewhere — a set of policies, technologies or reforms imported into a society and expected to take root. This theme asks instead what development becomes when it is understood as generated from within: from the historical legacies, institutions, capacities and relationships already present in a place. It gathers essays that read growth, capability and flourishing as something made, not delivered — and asks what follows for policy, method and justice when development is treated as generative rather than prescriptive.
Essays in this theme
Development
When a Decade Is “Lost”: A Reflection on the World Bank’s 2026 Outlook
This week, I was conducting research for a paper when I pulled up the World Bank’s June 2026 Global Economic Prospects report. I was flabbergasted, to say the least, by the breathtaking candour of the…
Dr Dinah Hippolyte
31 Oct 2026 · 7 min read
Development
The Cost of Recovery: How Climate Change Is Consuming the Caribbean’s Future
The aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, which hit Jamaica in October 2025. What is the cost of climate change to the Caribbean? There is the economic and physical damage, but what of the lives taken, the …
Dr Dinah Hippolyte
10 Aug 2026 · 4 min read
Development
The One Where the Development Movie Plays on Repeat
In 2022, Jason Hickel and his co authors published findings that should have unsettled the foundations of contemporary development thinking. They estimated that, between 1990 and 2015, the Global Nort…
Dr Dinah Hippolyte
8 Apr 2026 · 5 min read