As of March 2026, this website is no longer being updated. I now work mainly on climate issues, especially in Brighton and Hove, and new work can be found on the website of Climate:Change, our independent think-tank on socially inclusive action in the City: www.climatechangebh.org.uk.
Meanwhile, however, this website has over 850 entries, mostly representing my work on international development from 2010-2025. Among much else, there are over 50 book reviews, more than 20 papers and training cases on bridging research and policy and on managing think-tanks, and many papers on other topics, including aid, food security and nutrition, and the future of international development. See ‘Topics and Themes’ for more details. I can be reached at sm@simonmaxwell.net.
The Washington Consensus is Dead! Long Live the Meta-Narrative!
The Washington Consensus is Dead! Long Live the Meta-Narrative, ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) Working Paper 243, Jan 2005
Also published as The Washington Consensus is Dead! Long Live the (European) Meta-Narrative!, in Nord-Sud aktuell, volume 15, number 4, 2004
The Washington Consensus has been replaced by a new and improved orthodoxy, called here the ‘meta-narrative’. It emphasises the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as an over-arching framework, and lays out the link between the MDGs, nationally owned poverty reduction strategies, macro-economic policy (including trade), effective public expenditure management, and harmonised aid in support of good governance and good policies. It also recognises the concern for security and poorly performing countries, as well as the international trade and finance agenda. The current meta-narrative can be improved, by paying more attention to rights, equity and social justice, to the problems of ‘infant economies’, and to issues of aid policy and aid architecture. There are implications for policy and for research................. (see link in title for full article)