Global Prospects for Development and Human Security

Abstract

It is a great honour to be invited to present this keynote address in Calgary. Canada has an admirable record of constructive concern with broad issues of international development and this country has historically been a generous donor of foreign aid. Canada has also been much concerned with measures intended to improve the lot of the poor directly and has been among the few to provide a warm welcome to immigrants from developing countries and elsewhere. This Association deserves much credit for contributing to the global research effort on the problems faced by developing countries and to public education on those problems in this country. The theme of this year’s conference — violence, human security and development — is very apposite, for it touches upon hitherto neglected topics which suddenly have come to the forefront of international debate. There are multiple connections between violence, security and development which are being explored in some depth during the conference. My ambition in this presentation is a modest one: to scan a small part of the terrain from the perspective of an economist.

Keynote address at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of the Study of International Development (CASID), Calgary, 12–14 June 1994, published in the Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Vol. XVI, No. 3 (1995).