Successful growth and/or development processes happen roughly in the same period, and tend to be similar in their basic elements. This is not a mere coincidence. What this means is that development opportunities are dependent upon worldwide phenomena that affect all countries at the same time. It means that there is a strong link between what is going on in the core countries and the possibilities for initiating or continuing the development process in the periphery. Except in the case of former socialist countries of the Soviet System, successful growth and development processes in the past 50 years have been positive sum games - development opportunities are generated by conditions in the core countries and are taken advantage of by those developing countries which have the appropriate strategies.
1. Development opportunities are a moving target in the sense that what worked yesterday will not work today and what is working today will not necessarily be effective tomorrow. Successful development strategies respond to specific opportunities, and these are constantly changing based on technological revolutions.