Within the framework of this paper I explicate the basic elements of colonial as well as development discourse. Although we can identify an obvious rupture line between colonialism and the era of development, I demonstrate that the colonial heritage structures development discourse in various ways. While there have been some significant changes on the rhetoric level, basic colonial concepts still prevail such as a dichotomic and hierarchical worldview, the evolutionary paradigm with the West as its benchmark, the idea of ‘white’ expertise etc. These often racialised assumptions produce unequal power relations within the development industry and structure the very idea of development itself.