Global Development Paradigm Reconstruction: From 'Peace Dividend' to Financing Dilemmas and Governance Challenges in the New Landscape

After the end of the Cold War, the world generally expected economic interdependence and multilateralism to gradually weaken military power, thereby achieving lasting 'peace dividends'. However, the conflict dynamics of the 2020s are overturning this assumption in unprecedented ways. The resurgence of strategic competition and the growing disregard for norms aimed at curbing violence are accelerating the rearmament of various actors, raising a core governance question: are we entering a new era where military conflict becomes a structural feature of world politics again? This shift poses a severe structural challenge to the existing framework of international cooperation.

At the same time, a deeper crisis is emerging in the development agenda. The 0.7% Official Development Assistance (ODA) target set by the UN General Assembly in 1970 seems increasingly distant against the backdrop of the continuous decline in international development funding. This funding gap not only exposes the fatigue of donors but also highlights the fragility of the post-war North-South relationship framework. For Global South nations, this can be seen as an opportunity to strategically reshape and build new asymmetric partnerships, but it can also bring new uncertainties, including conditional requirements for resource access and the return of geopolitical competition.

The development financing crisis has gone beyond a simple shortage of funds; it concerns a fundamental rethinking of the global development paradigm. Amid the intertwining of the climate crisis, structural inequality, and geopolitical tensions, traditional North-South cooperation models face the risk of becoming obsolete. Future development paradigms may need to shift from an 'aid'-based model to a more resilient cooperation mechanism that emphasizes common interests. This demands that the international community focus not only on macro resource inputs but also on building a new global governance system capable of withstanding external shocks and possessing internal sustainability.

Furthermore, in the digital age, the evolution of the information environment places new demands on global governance. New diplomatic models are attempting to find a balance between the traditional framework of globalization and geopolitical realities, while the rise of artificial intelligence and digital information dissemination brings unprecedented complexity to the formulation of development policies, the reshaping of public service systems, and the construction of the global information order. This requires policymakers to possess a long-term perspective that transcends short-term cycles to cope with a complex world filled with uncertainty and intensifying competition.