Development Cannibalism and the Sustainable Development Goals

In an allusion to cannibalism which refers to the eating of one by another of one’s own species, “development cannibalism” refers to the situation where one development organization with the aim of improving its capacity to achieve set goals deploys various strategies to draw in resources belonging to another development entity which are critical to the survival or success of that organization leading to that entity’s eventual collapse. To illustrate, development cannibalism is when actors responsible for implementing development program A use various strategies covert, overt, or both toentice or draw inresources of development program B they consider necessary for their program to succeed leading to the collapse of development program B. These resources may be staff, key partners, funds, etc.