ADDRESSING 'ROOT CAUSES'? DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES, DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION AND GLOBAL ECONOMICS.

How much attention to the global economic system do the international development and development education sectors give? Based on a small scale research assignment concerned with the situation in Ireland (but including references to elsewhere in Europe) the answer has to be: not much. Although within both sectors evidence exists of attention to economic systems and their impact on poverty, inequality and injustice, most development agencies referred to in the article do not contextualise their work in a broader, explanatory framework. Aside from that, both sectors appear to give little attention to engaging the public in educational processes that attempt to explore, discuss, reflect on and respond to such structural economic issues. The article outlines the findings from the research, based on the premise that for the sectors to be successful in creating a lasting impact on poverty, inequality and injustice they need to give attention to the root causes of those issues, and that this will require attention to systemic economic processes and ideologies and to the development of educational approaches involving the public with those issues, processes and ideologies. Conceptually, the article discusses global economic processes as an expression of neoliberalism / 'free market' economics. In investigating how those processes operate according to development agency policy analyses the research referred to Systems Thinking as a means of investigating and clarifying global development phenomena, making use of an adaptation of the Development Compass Rose to highlight the interlinked and dynamic nature of global economics. Without coming to firm conclusions, but hoping that it will lead to further work on this, the article also addresses the question of what helps or hinders the sectors from giving attention to global economic systems in their education work with the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]