Evo Morales, President of Bolivia

Unfortunately, he was not able to give his presentation because of an unforeseen trip to Cuba? Really? Makes you wonder how old Fidel is faring these days.

President Morales', who comes from an indigenous background, presentation was given by a surrogate, who may have been the VP. Honestly it wasn't very clear. What was clear was the powerful case made for the blazing of a new trail to development. Over and over again the speaker denounced the "linear, exploitive, extortionist, subordinating and singular" path to what is commonly accepted as western development. He makes the very salient point that the natural world cannot support this sort of development for the whole world so we must be creative in our thinking about new ways to eliminate the scourge of extreme poverty.

He calls for a "post-modern" approach to development. What that actually is never became clear but, boy, it sure sounds great. Of course we need to rethink the predominant approach to development but the president's speech falls too far short of a real answer. It sounded too much like political rhetoric to make any sort of difference.

What would a post-modern development paradigm look like? I'm sure there is a ton of literature out there that discusses this point but I don't think that I've come across it. I think, and I'll probably bring it up again and again over the next few days, it begins with creating local food economies. I think this would begin to disarm the "unfair mechanisms of new colonialism" that Morales wanted to bring to light.