Description: Conceived in 1950, the Colombo Plan for Co-operative Development in South and Southeast Asia was a unique experiment in foreign relations. Meeting annually across what we now know as the 'Indo-Pacific', talented administrators facilitated foreign aid provision, and promoted development fuelled state-making, internationalism and experimental regionalism across postwar Asia. David Lowe argues that this new setting and dynamic international cast created an unusually productive diplomatic environment of development internationalism. The Colombo Plan did not escape power politics or Cold War divisions. However, it did run according to its own rhythm, and, unlike other experiments, it endured, continuing today in much reduced form.
Brief description: David Lowe is Chair in Contemporary History and Director of the Centre for Contemporary Histories at Deakin University.
Review Quotes: 'Lowe's study demonstrates an alternative channel of the voices of the post-independent countries of Asia to the A-A movement of the Bandung Conference (1955). It identifies the Columbo Plan's Consultative Committee as a fora-based international organization grown beyond the original Commonwealth base, where these countries, especially India and Sri Lanka, shaped external and intra-regional aid projects. A great contribution to the growing literature on the history of international development.' Tomoko Akami, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific