Last month, I visited Istanbul for the Fourth U.N. Conference on the Least Developed Countries – the meeting of governments, businesses and civil society organizations to map out the specific challenges faced by the world’s poorest nations. This takes place every ten years.
I was there on behalf of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the international aid and development arm of the Japanese government, whose U.K. office I recently joined. Having worked in international development for the last ten years, the conference represented a great opportunity to apply my increasing knowledge of JICA’s operations to the broader debates with which I have long been familiar.
Yet as I took my place amongst the 11,000-strong crowd of delegates, it was clear that an unparalleled sense of optimism was now breathing new life into the old arguments. New development orthodoxies were taking shape and participants were visibly energized.