Harvard International Review: It has recently been suggested that there is a link between development and terrorism. How does development relate to sources of violence and unrest? Does this make development a more pressing issue?

We have to be careful when we try to establish a direct causal relationship between poverty and terrorism. Frankly, it is an injustice to the poor to suggest that they, simply because they are poor, will necessarily resort to violence. There is, furthermore, nothing that suggests that such a strong claim is empirically true. On the other hand, however, there is no doubt that social inequalities generate great tension within populations. The lack of hope associated with poverty can drive some people to otherwise impossible violence. Again, however, one has to be very cautious when expressing this relationship.

This is a crucial time to discuss development issues because of the condition of the world today. There is an unsettling feeling about the future of international affairs, which is caused partly by the terrorism crisis. This feeling is also produced by the realizations that the end of the Cold War was not the end of history and that there are all kinds of new divides emerging because of the impact of globalization, which is contributing to the increasing economic gap between states. On the one hand, the global community is in many ways much more unified. More people have access to free information, they can travel easily. Yet, again, their well-being and welfare in terms of general economic conditions is diverging even more.

One of the frequently cited successes of globalization is the spread of foreign investment and factories from developed countries to less developed ones. Is this a positive trend, or does it prevent developing states from progressing according to their own development programs?

Foreign investment can be a very positive factor in development, and in fact many developed countries have grown thanks to large inflows of foreign investment at some point in their histories. So yes, foreign investment is one source of resources that can help the development of a country. But foreign investment has to be sensitive to a broad framework of social concerns and must be made to benefit the largest number possible, not only certain classes or interests.

I think the big problem of globalization is that so many countries fall outside of globalization’s beneficial aura. Their problem is not whether foreign investment will make their lives better; it is that foreign investment does not come at all. Sometimes these countries lack investment because war or a lack of economic infrastructure makes these countries’ economies less conducive to investment of any kind. And that is where you tend to find the biggest areas of poverty.

Development observers have held contradictory opinions of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Some argue that the redistributive efforts of NGOs help richer countries contribute to poorer ones, while others maintain that NGOs merely help rich countries avoid real responsibility for helping the developing world. What should the role of NGOs be?

NGOs are active in developing countries and help provide health services, education, and many other essential social services that often do not exist before countries have achieved a sufficient level of growth. So NGOs often fill a very important gap.

It is increasingly being recognized in the debate over the best approach to development that countries have to own their own development process. The catch phrase is that they have to be “in the driver’s seat.” The imposition of solutions from the outside or the ad hoc injections of support here and there will not add up to long-term development. As a result, many of the major partners of developing countries are now more ready to sit down with governments and representatives of civil society and attempt to design an overall strategy within which each can play its role. I think that is a very important sort of policy that really should strengthen the effort, as opposed to having each group go in and pursue its favorite topic, its favorite subject, its favorite project. Many efforts are wasted trying to satisfy domestic interests and lobbies rather than responding to the needs of the people in the country.

Some would say that the international development effort has been left to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In the last few years, though, the United Nations has taken measures to reclaim that responsibility. Is it the right organization to handle these issues?

I do not think this is an either/or question. Both the Bretton Woods institutions and the regional development banks have a crucial role to play in the international development effort because combined they represent the main source of major funding for the developing countries. The United Nations does not have the same role to play, but it always has had a role in setting a broad policy framework. You say the United Nations is coming back. Through the caucuses of the 1990s, the United Nations helped to shape the new development agenda. This new common agenda is followed not only by UN agencies but also by the Bretton Woods institutions, which are part of the UN family, and of course by the developing countries themselves. The United Nations is also a provider of services for developing countries. From population programs to education to health, the United Nations is a key player. The world’s expertise on health issues in developing countries, for instance, can be found in the World Health Organization.

Issues over cultural difference often complicate the development process. Does the United Nations, or any outsider, have a role to play in addressing such cultural issues?

The United Nations has played an important role in defining basic norms regarding human rights and helped lead the way to the negotiation of human rights laws. On the subject of women, for example, the successive women’s conferences have helped raise the international community’s level of commitment, but within that broad universe of norms, principles, programs of action, one must still be respectful of different cultures and traditions.

Even when there is broad agreement on certain practices, change does not happen overnight. Social change requires great sensitivity to distinguish between values that are very deeply entrenched in the society and that have to be respected on one hand and abuses that are not justified by any of the cultural values of a people on the other. For instance, the Taliban’s attitude toward women was decried by most Muslim people, who did not believe such treatment was dictated by the Quran. In that case, there was a limit to how much the United Nations could say, “Well, that’s the way they want to do things.”