Editorial from ROAPE Volume 24 Number 71
NGOs & Development Industry

In his anthropological critique of ‘development’ Mark Hobart points out that, above all, ‘it is useful to remember that development is big business’ (Hobart, 1993:2). In his notorious onslaught on The Lords of Poverty (p. 42), Graham Hancock refers to the ‘development industry’ , as a fantastically complex, diversified and devolved industry - financed largely by the official aid of rich countries, mandated to promote ‘development’ in the poor ones, it is an industry that employs thousands of people around the world to fulfil a broad range of economic and humanitarian objectives. The Wall Street Journal once referred to it as ‘the largest bureaucracy in history devoted to international good deeds’ . I prefer to think of it as ‘Development Incorporated’ .