The recent Annual Democracy Forum 2014 co-hosted by Botswana and International IDEA has been another fresh look at the old debate on the link between democracy and development.
One could claim from time to time that there is a weak connection or even disconnect between the two which tend to hold reasonable in the short run. However, the overwhelming majority face some undeniable empirical evidence of strong connection between development and democracy in particular in the long run. The question these days is not so much the link between the two, but rather the nature and kind of interrelation between the two.
The debates in Gaborone also revealed that the state and the quality of democracy that impact development — and vice versa — also matter and should be the subject of further investigation.