Until recently, the links of knowledge and development were obvious. There is an increasingly proliferous literature on knowledge diffusion, knowledge management, and governance at organisational and societal levels in both developed and developing countries (Torraco 2000; Foss 2007). In the globalised world, the role and flow of knowledge in solving problems of
“underdevelopment” have (re) gained growing attention both in development research and practice (see for example Molenaar, Box, and Engelhard 2009). The information and communications technology (ICT) revolution, market development, and positive political and social change environments on a global scale have provided easier access to knowledge and information and thus opportunities for economic leapfrogging, resolutions for social problems, and sustainable development innovation (Ramady 2005; Mohamed, Stankosky, and Mohamed 2009). The increasing importance of knowledge as a resource for economic development has been strongly justified (Conceicỗóo et al.
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1998). In the 1998-1999 World Development Report titled Knowledge for development, the World Bank critically assessed the power of knowledge for development and the “knowledge is power” adage:
“Knowledge is like light. Weightless and intangible, it can easily travel the world, enlightening the lives of people everywhere. Yet billions of people still live in the darkness of poverty - unnecessarily.
Knowledge about how to treat such a simple ailment as diarrhea has existed for centuries - but millions of children continue to die from it because their parents do not know how to save them”
(World Bank 1999, 1).
Under this knowledge-for-development umbrella, a number of large development institutions have started to provide knowledge-based development systems in which they identify themselves as development ‘doers’ and knowledge brokers or providers. The World Bank has been able to maintain its growth as the world-leading knowledge broker agency (“Knowledge Bank”) so far due to the quality and relevance of its development research bank (Dethier 2007). This approach has been criticised since it suggests knowledge receivers are passive containers of poured-in knowledge while the Bank maintains “command and control over the ‘right’ type of knowledge management” (Ellerman 2000;
Enns 2014). Knowledge is reductionistically considered as information, and the establishment of knowledge banks facilitates knowledge to flow to knowledge users in need. Given its power and promises6, knowledge is not freely shared and used to enlighten the lives of people in need around the world. The power resides in knowledge sharing and diffusion rather than in the knowledge itself (Aguirre, Brena, and Cantu 2001, 65; Liebowitz 2001) because its value in development depends on its distribution7 (Deane 2000, 240). The changing development landscape in fact deals with the twin issues of globalisation and localisation (Deane 2000). Foreign experts in technical transfer projects need to follow a collaborative exchange rather than a colonial model if they are to produce effective assistance and local autonomy (Grammig 2002). Development work has shifted its focus to the intangibles of knowledge, institutions, and culture (Stiglitz 1999; UN Millennium Project 2005).
The mainstreaming of knowledge for development has in fact grown out of the grand shift witnessed over the last few decades from the third industrial revolution, a post-industrial society, the information era, a networked society to a knowledge economy8, a knowledge society9, knowledge-based
6 For example, knowledge is considered in many government’s policies as a, if not the, main driving force of innovation, economic growth, modernization, and development (Evers 2005, 61-62). “Knowledge societies” are said to be the key to our future prosperity, and “nations that want high incomes and full employment must develop policies that emphasise the acquisition of knowledge and skills by everyone” (Marshall and Tucker 1992).
7 Successful stories of knowledge diffusion suggest that “it’s more about ‘creating space’ for the country stakeholders to ‘learn by doing’ than ‘filling the space’ with Bank-prepared solutions; it’s more about creating the
‘best local fit’ than applying the ‘best global practice’; and it’s more about nurturing effective behavioral competencies than strengthening a staff ’s technical skills” (World Bank 2005, xiii).
8 OECD (1996, 7) defines economies as “economies which are directly based on the production, distribution, and use of knowledge and information.”
9 A knowledge society is believed to have the following characteristics: “(i) Its members have attained a higher average standard of education in comparison to other societies and a growing proportion of its labour force are employed as knowledge workers, i.e. researchers, scientists, information specialists, knowledge managers and related workers; (ii) Its industry produces products with integrated artificial intelligence; (iii) Its organisations – private, government and civil society – are transformed into intelligent, learning organisations; (iv) There is increased organised knowledge in the form of digitalised expertise, stored in data banks, expert systems,
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development, or even knowledge civilisation (Laszlo and Laszlo 2002; Kenway et al. 2006; OECD 2004).
“The episteme of knowledge civilization is not formed yet, but the destruction of the industrial episteme and the construction of a new conceptual platform started with relativism of Einstein, indeterminism of Heisenberg, with the concept of feedback and that of deterministic chaos, of order emerging out of chaos, complexity theories, finally – with the emergence principle. […] The industrial episteme believed in reduction principle – that the behaviour of a complex system can be explained by the reduction to the behaviour of its parts – which is valid only if the level of complexity of the system is rather low. […] It should be noted that the emergence principle expresses the essence of complexity and means much more than the principle of synergy or holism (that the whole is more than sum of its parts)” (Wierzbicki and Nakamori 2007, 272-273, emphasis in original).
The knowledge economy has become a dominant economic and ideological lever and driver in today’s world (Kenway et al. 2006). There has been a plethora of buzzwords such as “intellectual capital,”
“knowledge management,” “knowledge workers,” and “knowledge organisations,” words frequently lacking clarity and under-defined yet adopted despite their various combined and recombined configurations (Thorlindsson and Vilhjalmsson 2003). At the organisational level, especially for companies and the business community in general, determining how to harness and manage knowledge for organisational development have attracted both academic and corporate discussions and interventions. In more advanced, industrial economies, however, “the challenge of creating and nurturing a culture of innovation and change is no less daunting” (Stiglitz 1999). The democratisation of knowledge and bridge building between science, technology, and society has modified scientific and technical cultures (Santerre 2008). However, the economic, social, cultural, and ethical values that a knowledge economy fosters, regulates, privileges and marginalises are increasingly problematic and alerted (Kenway et al. 2006). The democratic deficit braced by the knowledge-based economy continues to widen the “knowledge gap” or “digital divide” in that ICT becomes the backbone of a knowledge system, between countries, regions, and areas within a country/economy (Evers and Gerke 2005; Evers, Gerke, and Menkhoff 2006; Evers, Genschick, and Schraven 2009).
“Knowledge-based economies are growing all around us, but they do so without always acknowledging the democratic, ethical, and normative dimensions of science and scientific institutions. The knowledge economy is market-driven and performs according to a market ideology, which stands in a problematic but not necessarily conflicting relation to the norms and ideals of the knowledge society. The knowledge economies we live in suffer from a democratic deficit. This does not mean that they have to be overturned or rolled back—that opportunity may not even exist. But what seems clear is that the democratic deficit needs to be addressed if academic life and culture should survive in the era of fierce global competition, and if they should be able to spread and function in new regions of the world” (Sửrlin and Vesture 2007, 2).
Considering that knowledge has been with us for a very long time (Cortada 1998), knowledge-based development can be realised based on the ‘‘radical’’ development of knowledge-based value systems and knowledge democratisation from the organisational into the social arena (Carrillo 2008).
Knowledge-based developments are taking shape within the transformational discourse and agenda of knowledge for development, knowledge management, and knowledge societies.
organisational plans and other media; (v) There are multiple centers of expertise and a poly-centric production and knowledge utilisation” (Evers 2003, 362).
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Upon closer examination, the link between development and knowledge can in fact be traced back to the early development framework and throughout the evolution of development paradigms:
“Knowledge was an integral part of international development cooperation since its official beginning in the 1950ties. It was knowledge about “Others”, knowledge about what (and who) has to be developed and how as well as knowledge about the desired effect of development cooperation. Often it was western knowledge and epistemology that was spread across the globe and claimed to be the valid, or true, knowledge” (Witjes 2011, 29).
Development in the post-World War II era has constantly discussed and critiqued both theory and practice and shifted over different paradigms: modernisation (development stages as western countries, trickle-down effect; state involvement, regional economic development), dependency (neo-colonialism, regional inequalities), neo-liberalism (free market, structural adjustment, one world), and alternative development (basic needs, grassroots, gender, sustainable development) (see Nguyen Quy Hanh 2007).
Brooks, Grist, and Brown (2009) argue that development thinking and practice have been dominantly defined since the 1950s by a development paradigm with its concepts of modernisation, economic growth, and globalisation, which treat the environment as an externality. Therefore, a variety of alternatives of development seems unable to go much further than the changes of vocabularies in the status quo of mainstream development (Esteva 1992) and various “nice-sounding” methods, and tools like “participation,” “empowerment,” and “poverty reduction” used in global development strategies and goals have remained entrenched in the business-as-usual mindset (Cornwall and Brock 2005).
Post-development theorists have advocated alternatives to development by totally dismantling
“development” not merely because of its outcomes, but more importantly “its intentions, its worldview and mindset” (Pieterse 2001), its “westernisation of the world” (Latouche 1993; Sachs 1992), and its “space in which only certain things can be said or even imagined” (Escobar 1995).
Criticisms of post-development vary10, yet what is important is that post-development expands
“development” dimensions in its complex relations with culture, indigenous and local knowledge and practices, and social movements.
Post-development is not necessarily anti-development in that the implementation of post-development theory requires the appreciation of the complexity, multi-laterality and knowledge in which development is practiced. Knowledge of development knowledge has urged all of us to work for transformative agendas towards sustainability (cf. Harcourt 2011). Knowledge is becoming a key agenda in development work, a core theme in development debates and problematisation, and the main driver of development approach transformation. Powell (2006) argues that development is
10 First, post-development disregards positive aspects of development and assumes development to be ‘singular, hegemonic and invariably negative’ (Corbridge 1998). Secondly, development used by post-development theorists is in lack of ‘historical depth,’ since it limitedly refers to the development theories and practices of the post- second world war (Grischow and McKnight 2003). Third, post-development writers romanticise local traditions and social movements, not recognizing that the local is still in global power relations (Ziai 2004). Fourth, as also the most crucial critique, post-development does not offer a concrete alternative program for the future (Pieterse 1998). Hence, it is widely concluded that post-development is just a possible explanation for the poor effectiveness of 50years of development interventions (Nustad 2001) and/or a set of analyses of deconstruction rather than reconstruction (Pieterse 1998).
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fundamentally a “knowledge industry.” Over the years the development sector has indeed envisaged the role of knowledge in tackling of complexities, uncertainties, and long-term planning requirements of problems and opportunities it has faced (Stremmelaar 2009). However, reflexive development11 or the incorporation of such critical literature into development strategies and practices has not gone far enough, resulting in a huge gap in practice and several deficiencies in the knowledge agenda: “a concentration on organisations rather than the development sector, an emphasis on larger organisations while ignoring smaller development actors, and inadequate conceptualisations of learning” (Jakimow 2008). The creation of a space for learning within development agencies, between headquarters and field offices, and between developers and developees seems difficult to implement despite the emphasis on learning and knowledge creation:
“How many of us work in organisations where we are rewarded for reflecting on our work, for reading and listening to what others have to say, for systematising and sharing our experiences so others can critique our work, both within our institutions and in the broader development community? We are working with ever more ambitious NGO agendas, increasing numbers of relevant actors and stakeholders, and more complex change processes. As we learn by doing, real learning becomes even more important. Yet increased complexity increases demands on staff and strains existing infrastructure, meaning there is even less time for reflection and learning. When and how can this vicious cycle be transformed into a virtuous one of reflective practice?” (Roper and Pettit 2003, 14).
In short, despite recent enhancement within the knowledge for development approaches and inception of knowledge societies, the link between development and knowledge has taken a long time and has been developed throughout the evolution of knowledge and development frameworks themselves.
This holistic view allows and urges the use of knowledge and meta knowledge theoretical developments in each field into the practice beyond hi-tech dimensions or post-industrial context curtailment of knowledge apprehension. As such, our notion of knowledge and knowledge production for development highlights an expansion of over reflexive learning across time and space.