Paper short abstract:

This paper begins with the premise that most donors’ development interventions in developing countries are guided by strategic interests. However, its main concern is to what extent donors’ strategic interests undermine sustainable development and if strategic interests can ever be compatible with local needs.

Paper long abstract:

Development intervention has not, since the end of World War Two and the post Cold War period, been without controversy. Both interveners (mostly Western donors) and aid recipients share mutual suspicion. From the intervener’s perspective, developing countries seek to transfer development responsibility to the West, while most in the global south perceive development intervention to be a continuation of imperialist agenda. For instance, development is seen as “central to the new or culturally coded racism that emerged with decolonisation” (Duffied 2007). By implication, interveners are driven less by the need to alleviate the sufferings of the recipient, but more by the need to protect their strategic interests.

However, since 9/11 and the increasing global and domestic terrorism, development intervention is now more visibly seen as part of a comprehensive response to global (in) security. This is clearly illustrated by the post 2015 Sustainable Development Goals which followed the relatively low achievement rate of the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015). Evidently, Western nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States have now synced their development aids with their defence and diplomacy in an effort to achieve a single comprehensive national security framework.

In response to the insurgency in Nigeria, donors, particularly the US and the UK have designed and implemented development programmes that produce serious ramifications for sustainable development and security. This paper considers those development programmes including their prospects and limitations towards sustainable development.