International development can be broadly defined as any effort to assist nation states, and their citizens and institutions, to, in various ways, "modernize." Over the past fifty years, international development has taken many forms, usually focusing on projects to make "underdeveloped" "developing countries" more similar to "developed countries", with specific efforts in such areas as infrastructure development, industrial capacity, governance, poverty reduction, market reform, education, health care, and economic restructuring.

Development is generally distinguished from humanitarian aid or disaster relief in that development is a transformative project; "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he'll eat forever."

As a contemporary project, international development began in 1949 with the inaugural speech of Harry S. Truman on January 20th:

We must embark [Truman said] on a bold new program from 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 envision is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair dealing.

However, the very notions of "developed" and "underdeveloped" have proven problematic, because they seemingly sidestep notions of rich and poor, colonizer and colonized , to create almost a consumerist dynamic between have and want. Development is, first and foremost, the cure for underdevelopment, and some theorists see most development efforts as ultimately neo-colonial. There are also post-developmentalists who see the development as a form of western cultural imperialism which hurts the people of poor countries and endangeres the enviroment. Post-developmentalists want to reject development altogether.

The World Bank, IMF and UNDP are global organisations often associated with International Development. According to the World Bank economist Martin Ravallion, 1 billion people live for under $1 a day. This estimate is at the core of the branch of international development dealing with poverty reduction. The number is found by doing a vast number of household surveys and by using the purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates.

During the decades development thinking has changed often. The current trend in World Bank and in international development community is called "poverty reduction ". This is manifested in poverty reduction programs that have said to be replaced old structural adjustment programs . Poverty reduction thinking rejects (implicitely and perhaps even unconsciously) the old idea of modernization according to which poor countries should go through the social and economical structural transformation that includes industrialization (and intentional industrial policy). The poverty reduction consists of direct budget support for social welfare programs and creating macroeconomical stability that should to increase economical growth.

See also

• Millennium Development Goals
• Economic development
• Development aid
• Trade and development
• Globalization