In Pursuit of Development

Many well-designed development programs do not deliver social benefits effectively, especially to marginalized citizens. While political will and good policy design are vital for a program’s success, they often run into resistance from local power systems. How states react to the local exercise of power that often comes into play at the “last mile” of project implementation appears to be particularly important. Indeed, the extent to which development programs avoid being captured by state or local power systems is key and something that concerns both scholars and practitioners. My guest has studied whether the opening of government records and the use of digital technology provide higher levels of government with better tools to effectively monitor local state action. Rajesh Veeraraghavan is an assistant professor in the Science Technology and International Affairs Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. In a wonderful new book, Patching Development: Information Politics and Social Change in India, Rajesh explores two crucial and interrelated questions: First, how can states best deliver social benefits to marginalized citizens? And second, what role can marginalized citizens and members of civil society play in strengthening systems of accountability? Twitter: @RajeshVeeraaKey highlights:Introduction - 00:52India's ambitious social protection agenda - 05:02Bureaucratic capacity and motivation in the implementation process - 14:08Rights-based development programs and the Right to Information - 20:03The "patching development" concept - 33:45Addressing resistance in development programs - 50:54 Host:Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPodApple Google Spotify YouTubeSubscribe: https://globaldevpod.substack.com/https://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com/ HostDan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)Apple Spotify YouTube Subscribe:https://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.comhttps://globaldevpod.substack.com/

Charles Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington DC. He was previously at the World Bank, where his assignments included coordinating work on governance and anticorruption in infrastructure and natural resources, and managing investment and technical assistance projects covering telecommunications and the Internet. Charles has written several books, two of which we discussed in this conversation: Getting Better: Why Global Development is Succeeding, and Our World, Better: Global Progress and What You Can Do About It. We also discussed a recent report, where Charles and his coauthor Zack Gehan created a set of scenarios for the shape of the global economy in 2050. While their forecast for richer countries is not very optimistic, what they found is largely positive for developing and middle-income nations. For example, the report finds that incomes per capita on the African continent could be 76% higher in 2050 than they were a few years ago, and in India incomes could jump 136%. Twitter: @charlesjkennyKey highlights:Introduction - 00:46Global development viewed from Washington - 02:52Reducing extreme poverty by 2050 - 07:15Economic growth, poverty and “degrowth” - 15:40What should the World Bank be doing more of? - 28:25The global public goods agenda - 39:00OECD DAC aid has lost its credibility - 43:30Combating pessimism and short-term thinking – 50:18 Host:Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPodApple Google Spotify YouTubeSubscribe: https://globaldevpod.substack.com/https://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com/ HostDan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)Apple Spotify YouTube Subscribe:https://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.comhttps://globaldevpod.substack.com/

Our guest on this very special (100th) episode is someone I greatly admire and needs very little introduction. Helen Clark has engaged widely in policy development and advocacy across the international, economic, social and cultural spheres. She was Prime Minister of New Zealand for nine years and has also served as the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. Since 2019, she has chaired the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and in 2020, she was appointed co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, established by the World Health Organization. In addition to serving on numerous advisory boards and commissions, Helen is a strong and highly influential voice on gender equality and women’s leadership, sustainable development, climate action, peace and justice, and global health. Twitter: @HelenClarkNZ Resources:Transforming or Tinkering? Inaction lays the groundwork for the next pandemic (Report of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response)It is time for ambitious, transformational change to the epidemic countermeasures ecosystem (The Lancet, 2023)The Helen Clark Foundation Key highlights:Introduction - 00:45Development as it ought to be understood - 04:10The fragmented global development agenda - 08:10Role and relevance of the United Nations system - 15:37Preparing for the next pandemic - 20:28How politicians translate research into policy - 35:35The challenges faced by female leaders - 42:20 Host:Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPodApple Google Spotify YouTubeSubscribe: https://globaldevpod.substack.com/ HostDan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)Apple Spotify YouTube Subscribe:https://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.comhttps://globaldevpod.substack.com/

The European Union is collectively the biggest provider of international aid in the world, contributing over € 50 billion a year to the fight against poverty and the advancement of global development. However, while the EU’s capacities and impact in foreign and security policy have been extensively discussed among scholars and policymakers, its role in promoting global development has attracted less attention. Our guest has focused her research on the contestation of international norms and values, particularly the promotion of human rights norms in the EU’s development policy.In identifying the limits to the EU’s approach, her recent book discusses how standardised policies, particularly in the case of human rights sanctions, may be perceived as neo-colonially intrusive and can come at the cost of recognising the experiences and interests of vulnerable groups and allowing for partner countries’ democratic ownership of their own development trajectory. Johanne Døhlie Saltnes is a lecturer and collaborating researcher at the Institute for International Relations (IREL) at the University of Brasilia. She was previously a post-doctoral fellow at ARENA, Centre for European Studies, at the University of Oslo. Her book, The European Union and Global Development: A Rights-Based Approach?, was published in 2021 by Routledge. Johanne is the academic editor of ECPR’s political science blog, The Loop. Twitter: @johannesaltnesKey highlights:Introduction - 00:55The current status of the Human Rights-Based Approach to development - 04:10The EU as a global development player- 07:42The application of the EU's human rights clause - 15:56Impact of applying a human rights-based approach in national contexts - 38:00Host:Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPodApple Google Spotify YouTubehttps://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com/ HostDan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)Apple Spotify YouTube Subscribe:https://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.comhttps://globaldevpod.substack.com/

China plays a crucial role in the development policies of many countries around the world. It offers grants and loans, and builds major infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, power plants, parliament buildings, hotels, and football stadiums. A new book claims that that much of the conventional wisdom about Chinese development finance rests on untested assumptions, individual case studies, and incomplete data sources. The authors argue that Beijing’s use of debt rather than aid to bankroll big-ticket infrastructure projects certainly creates new opportunities for developing countries to achieve rapid socioeconomic gains. However, such actions also introduce major risks, such as corruption, political capture, and conflict. Axel Dreher is a Professor of International and Development Politics at Heidelberg University, Germany. Together with Andreas Fuchs, Bradley Parks, Austin Strange and Michael Tierney, Axel co-authored Banking on Beijing: The Aims and Impacts of China's Overseas Development Program (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Twitter: @DreherAxelKey highlights:Introduction - 00:50On why is it hard to find data on Chinese aid and investments - 04:04Chinese aid, motives, and soft power- 09:40The methods for unpacking Chinese aid data - 24:30Understanding the transition from "benefactor" to "banker" - 32:00The need and long-term viability of big infrastructure projects - 43:44Host:Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPodApple Google Spotify YouTubehttps://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com/ HostDan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)Apple Spotify YouTube Subscribe:https://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.comhttps://globaldevpod.substack.com/

Fridays For Future is a youth-led  movement that began in August 2018. This movement was inspired by 15-year-old Greta Thunberg and other young activists, who sat in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks, to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis. While Greta has become a household name, there are many other young activists around the world who are also making a vital contribution by pressuring their governments to undertake climate action. Our guest – Hilda Flavia Nakabuye – is one of these inspiring young African leaders. While pursuing her university studies in Kampala, Hilda began to acquire a nuanced understanding of the causes of unpredictable rainy seasons, frequent heatwaves, droughts and floods that she had witnessed growing up in southern Uganda. Indeed, she began connecting the dots and realized that much of what she and her family had experienced (and what her country continues to experience) was and is caused by climate disruption. She therefore decided to become a climate and environmental rights activist and founded Uganda’s Fridays for Future movement in 2019. Twitter: @NakabuyeHildaF @Fridays4FutureUResourcesFridays for FutureFridays for Future Uganda Key highlights:Introduction - 00:38How to promote both development and protect the environment - 04:00Growing climate activismamong Africa’s youth- 08:56The menace of air pollution - 24:30Uganda’s oil and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline - 35:40 Host:Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPodApple Google Spotify YouTubehttps://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com/ HostDan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)Apple Spotify YouTube Subscribe:https://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.comhttps://globaldevpod.substack.com/

Indermit Gill, an expert in global poverty reduction, discusses the increase in extreme poverty and income inequality due to the pandemic. He explores the Golden Age of Development, evolving debates on economic development and climate change, strategies for poverty reduction, challenges faced by natural resource-rich countries, and innovations in social protection policies.

In the past few decades, we have witnessed the rise and consolidation of “evidence-based medicine” among health professionals. This refers to a systematic approach to medicine in which doctors and other health care professionals use the best available scientific evidence from clinical research to help make decisions about the care of individual patients. But the COVID-19 pandemic has managed to transform what constitutes reliable medical evidence into a topic of public concern and debate. These debates have taken place within and beyond the medical establishment, such as in news reports and social media posts. And suddenly everyone began offering an opinion on the efficacy of measures such as quarantines, lock downs, school closures, and mandatory face masks. How then should we understand “evidence”? Does evidence mean the same thing in different contexts and constituencies? In their new book, Rethinking Evidence in the Time of Pandemics: Scientific Vs Narrative Rationality, and Medical Knowledge Practices, Eivind Engebretsen and Mona Baker argue that we ought to adopt a more nuanced and socially responsive approach to medical expertise that incorporates scientific and lay processes of making sense of the world and how we decide to act in it. Using the narrative framework, they offer a model of analysis that sheds greater light on why different people arrive at different decisions based on the same sources of evidence and why we must acknowledge their reasons for doing so as rooted in different types of rationality rather than dismissing them as irrational. Eivind Engebretsen is a Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, where he is also the Executive Chairman of the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education.Mona Baker is Director of the Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies at Shanghai International Studies University. She is also affiliated with the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education at the University of Oslo. Host:Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPodApple Google Spotify YouTubehttps://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com/ HostDan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)Apple Spotify YouTube Subscribe:https://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.comhttps://globaldevpod.substack.com/

The global development domain currently faces huge challenges. Apart from trying to stimulate economic growth and ensuring a fair distribution of the benefits of that growth, national governments and their international partners must also tackle complex conflicts, provide humanitarian assistance, and not least address the harmful impacts of climate disruption. What then should the role of external actors be? How can good intentions be best mobilized into effective actions on the ground?Håvard Mokleiv Nygård is a Deputy Director-General of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Norad, where he directs the Department of Knowledge. Until a few years ago, he was Research Director at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), where his research focused on armed conflict and political violence, peace building, and patterns of democratic development. Twitter: @havardmnResources:Joint statement by donors on locally led development (December 2022)Norwegian aid statistics (Norad.no)Key highlights Introduction - 00:49Foreign aid vs. development cooperation - 04:52Locally led development - 13:10The aid effectiveness debate - 24:15What works in global development and how to measure success - 43:49Bridging the gap between research and policy and the future of aid - 52:45Host:Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPodApple Google Spotify YouTubehttps://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com/ HostDan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)Apple Spotify YouTube Subscribe:https://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.comhttps://globaldevpod.substack.com/

The role of social media in spreading political misinformation has received considerable attention. But various forms of social media also facilitate and enable participatory democracy across boundaries. They help to hold leaders to account as well as provide channels for airing the needs and demands of marginalised communities and vulnerable groups. These demands can sometimes even be propelled to the centre of public debates. While there has been considerable focus on Twitter and Facebook, the private messaging application WhatsApp has emerged as a especially popular medium for inter-personal communication. But WhatsApp has not received the attention it deserves. What is so special about WhatsApp and how and why has it emerged as the main form of communication for a wide range of actors on the African continent? Jamie Hitchen is an independent research analyst and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. He has written extensively on social media in West Africa and recently co-edited a volume with Idayat Hassan entitled WhatsApp and Everyday Life in West Africa: Beyond Fake News. Twitter: @jchitchenResourcesSocial Media Disruption: Nigeria’s WhatsApp Politics, Journal of Democracy (2020)If blackouts don’t work, what might? Tackling fake news in West Africa, African Arguments (2022)Host:Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPodApple Google Spotify YouTubehttps://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com/ HostDan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)Apple Spotify YouTube Subscribe:https://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.comhttps://globaldevpod.substack.com/