Future of development, or development of the future?  

I was born in 1959 in Kinshasa, then known as Léopoldville. That same year, Congo was claiming its independence. An old world was shifting. New hopes were taking root, soon to be deceived. I have lived my life through the echoes of that awakening.

I began as a photojournalist. I moved with my lens through all kinds of stories, across Europe, Africa and America — it opened my eyes. To complexity. To reality. To what it costs to cross social borders.  How learning  a new language translates into learning another’s world. 

Later, I worked across continents, with NGOs and UN agencies. Went through disasters, wars — Hurricane Mitch, the war in Angola, Haiti’s earthquake — while walking the long road of development work — health, education, social protection. I served in capital cities and remote villages. In offices, planes, trucks, and everywhere else. Over the years, I saw the system from within. Its limitations. But also its ambition, SDG is one of the longest-term and most comprehensive global planning frameworks currently in existence. The drive to work with imperfections, while reaching for the greater good — always just out of reach. That, more than anything, is the picture I carry with me. 

I recently retired from the ILO. And started setting out on a new path — independent, open, curious. Freelance, yes. But also, freer to reflect, to question, and to explore new ways of doing.

Today, again, an old world is collapsing. It’s loud. It’s messy. As the saying goes: the tree that falls makes more noise than the forest that grows. But the forest is growing. A iIt brings with it a question: can we embrace this change, keep what matters, and make it better? This  future won’t shape itself. If we don’t guide it with clarity and resolution, others will do it for us.

Naomi Klein calls it the “shock doctrine.” Moments of crisis attract predators. Power steps in when people are weak. Fear is profitable. We must resist but also offer credible alternatives—not abstract promises, but practical paths forward. Development is not obsolete, yet it urgently needs renewal—transitioning from aid to exchange, from teaching to learning, from growth to balance.

Rethinking Development

It has often been imagined as a set of systems — aid, growth, policy, targets. Beneath these technicalities lies a deeper human instinct—to adapt, to learn, to connect, and to create meaning together. It is our collective quest to evolve socially, ethically, economically, and ecologically. This pathway is increasingly urgent as climate disruption, social unrest, digital monopolies, and erosion of trust reshape our lives and dreams.

To face them, we need new ways of thinking. And new ways of being.

Structural inequalities remain entrenched, but overcoming them demands internal transformations—cultural shifts rather than simply technical or institutional adjustments. No international framework, however progressive, will be enough if it does not nourish people’s ability to think, speak, and act together. What the world needs now is not just policy but active civic cultures, courageous engagement, collaborative spaces, and communities of care. Rather than exporting standardized models, we must foster local ecosystems of learning and seed lasting movements.

Development should no longer be conceived as something the North provides to the South but as a universal endeavor we engage in together. As Olivier De Schutter argues, poverty, a central focus of development work,  is not exclusive to the South but a structural issue embedded universally, manifesting in diverse forms—material, temporal, emotional, and existential. The 2022 UNDP Human Development Report reinforces this, emphasizing that poverty and insecurity transcend geographic boundaries, advocating for an interconnected, universal model of development.

We need to restore development as a space of shared values. Marcel Mauss reminds us that giving is never just about the gift — it creates bonds of reciprocity rather than dependencies. And we increasingly see this reciprocity in practice: Latin American cities have inspired participatory budgeting reforms in European municipalities; community-based health models developed in Africa have informed inclusive care services globally; social protection floor initiatives originally designed to address extreme poverty in the Global South are now inspiring new conversations about minimum income and universal coverage in high-income countries; and solidarity economy practices from the Global South are helping reimagine social enterprise and local resilience in these same settings. These are not exceptions — they are signs of a world in transition, where knowledge, innovation, and inspiration flow in every direction, and where vulnerability is the new universality.

We need to protect the space where people can voice, question, and build. Paulo Freire taught us that dialogue is the path to liberation. We must also reclaim communication. Noam Chomsky warned us: media filters truth. Power shapes what we hear. But today, new voices are heard. Technology allows new stories to surface. If we use it well, it can help restore trust. If we don’t, it will divide us further.

A New World in the Making

This is not about North or South anymore. It is about people. It is about the systems we build—and those we must dismantle. It is about the world we want, and what we are willing to do to make it happen.

Yes, dark forces are here. Nationalism. Greed. Authoritarian drift. But so are the forces of connection and renewal. The forest is growing. People are connecting. The knowledge built through decades of development work has become a shared resource. A growing number of actors in the Global South are now contributing to policies and innovations in the North. At the same time, the erosion of public services — once a stronghold of social cohesion in high-income countries — is creating renewed relevance for development approaches rooted in rights, evidence, participation, and equity. 

New trees reach for the sky.

The future is not something we inherit. It is something we shape.

JL