Development is usually perceived as a process whereby all nations, Northern and Southern, move along the same path of increased economic production, although at different rates and from different starting points. In this article, the author argues that development has only widened the economic gap between the North and South and amplified Southern misery. Further, the term “sustainable development” has been co-opted to serve the interests of a Northern-dominated development process. The current view of international development agencies is that improving the management of development, rather than adopting different goals, is the cure for the environmental degradation and poverty that threaten the sustainability of the development process. This amounts to an extension of Northern global hegemony rather than true sustainability.
