The aim of this paper is to investigate to what extent buen vivir\ud (‘good life’), Latin America’s new concept for collective well being, can be\ud considered a way forward beyond current paradigms related to economic\ud growth, development, ideology and state building, with its strengths and\ud potential weaknesses or just a new version of political discourse. In order to\ud answer this question, we will briefly review the literature that can help to trace\ud the buen vivir origins in the cosmovisions of Latino American indigenous\ud peoples, and to connect it to reflections made in different areas of social,\ud economic and political sciences, trying to identify the areas in which\ud divergences arise using established approaches and frameworks. In the\ud conclusions we will also try to look at the added value brought by the buen\ud vivir towards a renewed understanding of political, social, and economic\ud objectives of the associated life

The debate on growth and development that has been going on over the last decades has clearly highlighted a number of flaws and contradictions that the theory, as well as the practice, of International Development Cooperation (IDC) has failed to address in a convincing and effective way. IDC, once the prime tool for promoting a change in the livelihoods of the poorest and most vulnerable, is increasingly under scrutiny and does not seem to have provided an effective response to the current crisis. Buen Vivir (good life), Latin America's new concept for collective well-being, which has emerged over recent years from the traditional cosmovisions of Andean indigenous peoples and translated into political and institutional practice, offers elements of reflection on economy, environment and social life that are useful for reframing the way 'well-being' is conceived within the current development setting: a fresh perspective on the most urgent global concerns is particularly useful as the debate regarding the successors to the Millennium Development Goals post-2015 starts to heat up. The new approach to IDC developed in Ecuador in recent years represents an attempt to put some of these elements into practice. However, beyond the experiences in Latin America, that can claim a closer link, albeit not without tensions, with the indigenous peoples with which the Buen Vivir culture has its roots, these suggestions can show an interesting convergence with alternative views on development emerging from the reflections and practices of Western social movements.

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