In recent decades, development practice has often centred on targeted interventions, narrow poverty metrics, and project-based approaches—frequently underplaying the central role that broad-based economic growth plays in improving human wellbeing. This manifesto argues that it is time to return growth to the centre of development thinking, drawing on historical evidence and new insights from development economics to make the case for a more ambitious and practical reorientation.

This document brings together cross-country evidence—from Vietnam’s structural transformation to South Korea’s innovation-led growth—to highlight how sustained economic expansion has consistently driven reductions in poverty and improvements in health, education, and living standards. The manifesto underscores the need for more integrated, long-term strategies rooted in local context, state capacity, and structural change. In doing so, it calls on the development community to reimagine its goals—not as narrow thresholds to be crossed, but as pathways to lasting prosperity.