Author(s)

Juan David Gómez-Quintero¹, Chaime Marcuello-Servós¹, Maria Luisa Sierra Huedo²

¹Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain.
²Universidad San Jorge, Zaragoza, Spain.

This paper examines the existence of a hidden agenda in international development i.e. a group of latent ideas to promote social change in “traditional” societies. The arguments to support and analyse this proposal come from empirical work during several years and places, with special emphasis in Colombian ethnic minorities who receive aid from European agencies. This main idea focuses in three areas that are the part of the development projects: gender equality, environmental awareness and economic rationality. The transmission of a hidden agenda does not correspond to any explicit intention of the foreign aid actors, but to the empowerment of modern logic as the only possible way to establish “adequate” social changes.

Colombia, Hidden Agenda, Development, Modern Society, “Traditional” Society

Gómez-Quintero, J. , Marcuello-Servós, C. and Huedo, M. (2014) International Development’s Hidden Agenda: Towards a Latent Modernization of “Traditional” Societies. Open Access Library Journal, 1, 1-11. doi: 10.4236/oalib.1100870.