What 'development' means after 2025 in a world redefined by crisis

For more than half a century, “development” carried a simple promise: poorer countries would follow a known path, industrialise, grow, integrate into global markets, and eventually resemble the wealthy West. That promise has quietly expired.

By 2026, few governments in the Global South publicly admit it, but many now operate as if the old model no longer applies. The language remains, growth targets, reform agendas, donor frameworks, but the behaviour has changed. Development is no longer about catching up. It is about coping, stabilising, and surviving in a world that no longer offers predictable rewards for doing things “the right way.”

This shift did not begin with a manifesto or conference declaration. It emerged from shock.

A world that broke the model

Between 2020 and 2025, the global system delivered a series of blows that exposed the fragility of development orthodoxy.

The COVID-19 pandemic showed how quickly global supply chains could collapse and how unevenly global solidarity functioned. Vaccines arrived late in much of Africa, despite years of participation in global health frameworks. Countries learned a hard lesson: integration did not guarantee protection.

Then came war-driven inflation, energy shocks, and food insecurity. Sanctions, once portrayed as targeted tools. became blunt instruments with spillover effects far beyond their intended targets. For many African economies, external crises they did not cause became domestic emergencies they had to manage.

Climate extremes added another layer. Floods, droughts, and heatwaves no longer appeared as future risks but as recurring costs. Adaptation replaced mitigation as the urgent priority, even as climate finance remained slow and conditional.

In this environment, the old development bargain began to look hollow. Play by the rules, open your markets, reform your institutions, and prosperity will follow. After 2025, fewer policymakers believed that sequence still held.

The quiet end of 'catching up'

Development thinking was long built around comparison. Income levels, infrastructure density, literacy rates, health outcomes, progress meant closing gaps with advanced economies.

But comparison assumes a stable destination. That assumption has eroded.

Western economies themselves now struggle with ageing populations, political polarisation, infrastructure decay, and fiscal stress. Their development path no longer looks universally desirable, let alone replicable. At the same time, the costs of reaching those benchmarks, environmental damage, social inequality, and external dependence are clearer than ever.

As a result, many countries have stopped measuring success by proximity to an external ideal. Instead, they ask narrower, more immediate questions: Can the lights stay on? Can food move from farms to cities? Can hospitals function under pressure? Can young people find some form of livelihood, even if it is informal?

This is not a resignation. It is recalibration.

Development as functionality

In 2026, development increasingly means functionality rather than transformation.

Power systems do not need to be world-class; they need to be reliable enough to support small businesses, clinics, and households. Healthcare does not need cutting-edge equipment everywhere; it needs trained staff, supply continuity, and referral systems that work under constraint. Transport does not need megaprojects; it needs roads that remain usable during the rainy season.

Across the Global South, especially in Africa, “good enough” solutions are quietly outperforming ambitious master plans.

Mini-grids expand energy access faster than national grid overhauls. Digital health platforms fill gaps left by overstretched public systems. Informal logistics networks move goods more efficiently than formal supply chains burdened by bureaucracy.

Who defines success now?

If development is no longer about meeting Western benchmarks or donor indicators, a deeper question emerges: who decides what progress looks like?

This question unsettles long-standing hierarchies. Global institutions still produce rankings and reports, but their authority is weaker than before. National governments, local communities, and regional blocs increasingly set their own priorities, even when these diverge from international advice.

This creates tension. Functionality may coexist with inequality. Stability may come at the cost of rapid reform. Pragmatism may override ideals.

The post-2025 development landscape does not offer moral clarity. It offers trade-offs.

Not the end, but a reckoning

To say that development has changed is not to say it has ended. People still want better lives, longer health, safer cities, and meaningful work. What has changed is the belief that there is a single, universal path to those outcomes.

In 2026, development is less about becoming something else and more about strengthening what already exists. Less about imitation, more about adaptation. Less about promises, more about systems that hold under pressure.