Taking the Road less Travelled: New Pathways to Prosperity

She began by juxtaposing her optimism regarding the recent Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the reality that increasing living standards over the past few decades have been accompanied by rising inequality and environmental degradation. In other words, the progress that has been made in recent years is not sustainable.

Moore identified a 'mono-culture', based on knowledge, time, scale and productivity that limits our imaginations and ties us to a unilineal idea of progress, leaving us unable to conceive of a future without growth. The key feature of this 'mono-culture' is that it fetishizes a particular notion of what constitutes the 'real economy' to the exclusion of alternative forms of knowledge and experience that should form part of what is considered to be a desirable society.

There are already signs that this is becoming an area of political dispute. Moore cited the 'green' and 'care' economies as examples of projects that are attempting to reconfigure our understanding of what a desirable society should look like. Although such initiatives are yet to have the paradigm-shifting affects that might have been hoped for, Moore contends that they are indications of a new political moment, in which alternative viewpoints and new theories of social change might prosper.

She calls for a productivity revolution in social innovation that goes beyond current understandings of economic growth. Whilst studies by Deloitte suggest a weak relationship between improvement in GDP and social progress as defined by the SDG's, countries such as Costa Rica have achieved dramatic improvements with relatively little income. The lesson from Costa Rica is that alternative socially-agreed upon conceptions of the 'good life', or 'pura vida', can be a more significant determinant of social progress than narrowly defined economic indicators such as GDP. However, any successful conception of the 'good life' must embrace pluralism and avoid the temptations of a 'one-size fits all' approach. This represents a particularly acute challenge for the vast global bureaucracies that currently dominate the aid and development arena, as such institutions tend to exhibit a pathology towards top-down standardisation that is antithetical to the kind of approach Moore is advocating.

South-South and South-North learning are key foundations of the new 'ecologies of knowledge' that would underpin Moore's pathways to prosperity. She cites examples of dramatic improvements in prosperity being made without the input of any western aid agencies, such as the regeneration of vast desertfied regions in Burkina Faso using traditional farming methods, and a text messaging service in Kenya which provides a platform for farmers to exchange agricultural techniques that greatly increase their yields. The key insights of such examples are that providing people with ownership of their own communities and the stability to plan for the future are essential elements for achieving sustainable prosperity.

Latin America has seen that groundswells of social movements have significant impacts on the political landscape. In Guatemala, a protest originally organised by one woman on Facebook led to tens of thousands of people on the streets of Guatemala City, successfully demanding the resignation of President Baldetti. In Uruguay, an alliance between trade unions, environmentalists and farmers successfully protested against the signing of a Trade in Services Agreement, which can be seen as the rejection of imposed conceptions of progress in favour of a broader understanding that the 'good life', includes a prioritisation of healthcare, education and a sustainable relationship with the environment. The challenge moving forward is to create the new forms of cooperation and institutional design that will be required to translate social movements and technological advancements into tangible social progress.

In doing so, Moore stresses the need for recognition by those in the global north that we don't necessarily have the answers; that we need to stop teaching and start listening. She highlights the need for creative and innovative solutions to global issues, which the Global Governance Institute, and indeed UCL as a whole, should take as a laying down of the gauntlet. The task ahead requires being open to the knowledge and experiences from the global south that have previously been excluded from the discussion, whilst fostering a multidisciplinary culture that is conducive to the kinds of creative solutions that will be needed to achieve global prosperity in a complex and changing world.