Join us online or in person for a seminar with Professor David Lowe.

Reflections on the Colombo Plan’s little achievements: a perspective from Australia in the world in the 2020s’

David will be discussing his new book – The Colombo Plan – Development Internationalism in Cold War Asia.

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.

16th July 2025, 11am AEDT

Burwood: C2.05.01
Waurn Ponds: IC1.108
Zoom: Click here

Professor David Lowe is Chair in Contemporary History at Deakin University, and the Co-Director of the Centre for Contemporary Histories. Davids policies in the 1940s and 1950s.