The Challenges of Development Today: Practitioners' Perspectives on Where to Move Forward

What role might Canada play in the developing world today? Since at least the 1960s, Canada has striven to be a leader in fostering development in the global south, consistent with the role it has sought to play on the global scene more generally. Yet the international context for understanding the challenges of promoting development has changed considerably—and often dramatically—in recent years. This seminar is intended to start a dialogue that will help develop a new understanding of Canada’s potential role in working with developing countries. Co-sponsored by McGill University’s new Institute for the Study of International Development (which has absorbed the Centre for Developing-Area Studies) and the Public Policy Forum, we have convened an impressive array of people with diverse experiences as “development practitioners.”