23 August 2011: The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) convened a conference aimed at “rethinking” development and exploring critical perspectives on development, understood as the natural unfolding, through history, of the underlying potential of humanity, manifested primarily in technical and economic terms.

The conference, which was held with the support of the Government of Mexico, brought together 40 participants, including 15 international experts, and met on 17-18 August 2011, at the Ministry of Foreign Relations in Mexico City, Mexico. Titled “Rethinking Development: Ethics and Social Inclusion,” the conference agreed that an ethical approach to development offers a clear set of criteria for assessing the relevance of possible development alternatives. Participants debated the implications and the possible solutions to this assessment.

Many agreed on the importance of a more holistic understanding of human needs, and that a more sustainable society would require some profound changes – a “green” society would need to be much different in some ways. “Major disagreement” emerged, however, over whether progress and justice were possible within a State-centered, market-driven international system, or only with a radically different economic and political system.

Conference participants called on UNESCO to support the process of rethinking development and to disseminate its results widely. They underscored that UNESCO’s mandate entrusts it to respond to a crisis of development, stressing that the window for action that will run from the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) in June 2012 to the expiration in 2015 of the commitment period for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) cannot be missed. [UNESCO Press Release]