Development

The history of the chameleon

Like the real chameleon, also development initiatives changed their “coloration” over time. Let’s have a look at different faces of development in history.

Development has come a long way in the past six decades. The Western world confronted the new challenge of rebuilding countries in Europe, a continent that had been shattered by war. The institutions that would help manage this process, such as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (which soon came to be known as the World Bank), were created for the task. Initiatives were notably successful and European economics grew fastest in their history. On a basis of this success, the World Bank tried to use the same approach to help developing countries: they largely borrowed money to support economic growth and decrease poverty.

Similar initiatives were organized also by countries of the Eastern part of Europe. One of them was also Czechoslovakia, which was involved in interventions in developing countries from 1950s. Development activities were influenced by the Cold War and priority target countries (non-European socialistic countries) like Cuba, Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam etc., were selected accordingly.

But even before that, there was an interesting development initiative in Czechoslovakia called Interhelpo established in 1923 in Žilina to help build socialism in soviet Kirhgiz.