Global Development Institute podcast

The latest episode of our podcast brings together Sam Hickey, President of the Development Studies Association UK, Heloise Weber, President of the Development Studies Association Australia and special guest Winnie Mitullah from IDS, University of Nairobi. The three discuss the relevance of development studies in the current climate. Sam Hickey is President of the Development Studies Association UK. He is Head of the Global Development Institute, Professor of Politics and Development and Deputy CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium. His research examines the links between politics and development, including issues of state capacity and elite commitment, natural resource governance, social exclusion and adverse incorporation, citizenship participation and NGOs and the politics of social protection and social justice.Heloise Weber is President of the Development Studies Association Australia. She is Senior Lecturer in the School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland, Australia.  Her research addresses how knowledge-production and representation shape and justify framings of 'development' at a macro-political level, and what this means for peopleWinnie Mitullah is a Research Professor of Development Studies at the Institute for Development Studies, The University of Nairobi (IDS) and UNESCO UNITWIN Chair. She has researched and consulted in the areas of governance, in particular in the area of provision and management of urban services and the role of stakeholders in development. Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog BlueSky LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Newsletter Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters

In this episode Elisa Gambino is joined by Kathy Dodworth. They discuss Kathy’s new book, Legitimation as Political Practice, her transition from working at an NGO to academia and the idea of the non-stateDr Kathy Dodworth is a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh's Centre for African Studies. Her current fellowship critically re-examines contemporary community health work in Kenya. She recently published her book Legitimation as Political Practice: Crafting Everyday Authority in Tanzania, which combines ethnographic fieldwork with theoretical innovation, reworking legitimacy as a collection of practices.More about Kathy DodworthLegitimation as Political Practice: Crafting Everyday Authority in TanzaniaKathy Dodworth Follow Kathy on TwitterDr Elisa Gambino joined GDI in 2023 as Lecturer in Global Development, with a focus on Global Political Economy. In January 2024, she will begin a three-year Hallsworth Political Economy Fellowship titled “African hubs, Chinese trade, and global circulation,” which focuses on the networks of Chinese companies and entrepreneurs increasingly engaged in cross-border exchanges in West Africa.More about Elisa GambinoElisa Gambino Follow Elisa on Twitter  Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog BlueSky LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Newsletter Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters

People in South Sudan have experienced decades of forced displacement and cross-border mobility, resulting in families split across the country and neighbouring Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. According to the United Nations as of 2021, more than four million South Sudanese citizens were displaced either internally or internationally.Samuel Hall in collaboration with Research and Evidence Facility (REF) explored the experiences of displacement, return, and reintegration among South Sudanese refugees, returnees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). This podcast, based on the report released by Samuel Hall and REF, explores the experiences of displacement, return and reintegration among South Sudanese refugees, returnees, and internally displaced persons. Through their stories, expert insights and our analysis, we understand key systemic and discuss potential durable solutions for sustainable reintegration.With thanks to, Chris Siracuse, Devyani Nighoskar, Tanya Kathuria, Nassim Majidi and Joseph Malish. Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog BlueSky LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Newsletter Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters

 In this episode Tanja Müller talks to Lisa Ann Richey about her career and her recent book, Batman Saves the Congo: How Celebrities Disrupt the Politics of Development. Lisa Ann Richey is Professor of Globalisation and Development Studies at the Department of Management, Society and Communication Copenhagen Business School. Her research looks at values and international politics of humanitarianism. More about Lisa Ann Richey Batman Saves the Congo: How Celebrities Disrupt the Politics of DevelopmentLisa Ann Richey Follow Lisa on Twitter Tanja Müller is Professor of Political Sociology at the Global Development Institute. Tanja has recently completed a research project on the potential role of the business sector in refugee integration andhumanitarian response. She is currently the Principal Investigator of an ESRC-funded project on transnational lived citizenship and political belonging in the Horn of Africa. She is also developing a new cooperation with Prof Adriana Kemp from Tel Aviv University on inscribing mobile lives into urban peripheries. More about Tanja Müller Tanja Müller  Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog BlueSky LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Newsletter Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters

In this episode Tom Goodfellow and Pritish Behuria discuss Tom's career and his new book, Politics and the Urban Frontier: Transformation and Divergence in Late Urbanizing East Africa.Despite the rise of global technocratic ideals of city-making, cities around the world are not merging into indistinguishable duplicates of one another. In fact, as the world urbanizes, urban formations remain diverse in their socioeconomic and spatial characteristics, with varying potential to foster economic development and social justice. In his book, Tom Goodfellow argues that these differences are primarily rooted in politics, and if we continue to view cities as economic and technological projects to be managed rather than terrains of political bargaining and contestation, the quest for better urban futures is doomed to fail. Dominant critical approaches to urban development tend to explain difference with reference to the variegated impacts of neoliberal regulatory institutions. This, however, neglects the multiple ways in which the wider politics of capital accumulation and distribution drive divergent forms of transformation in different urban places.Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Studies & International Development at the University of Sheffield.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change.More about Tom GoodfellowPolitics and the Urban Frontier: Transformation and Divergence in Late Urbanizing East Africa.Tom GoodfellowFollow Tom on TwitterPritish Behuria is Senior Lecturer in Politics, Governance & Development at the Global Development Institute. His research operates at the intersection of development studies, comparative politics and international political economy. He is a political economist, taking an interdisciplinary approach to studying the challenges associated with late development under 21st Century Globalisation.More about Pritish BehuriaPritish BehuriaFollow Pritish on Twitter Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog BlueSky LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Newsletter Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters

This episode comes from the African Cities Research Consortium podcast.Diana Mitlin talks to Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael about her new paper on how reform coalitions can contribute to inclusive equitable urban change in the global South, her experiences of working with coalitions in Africa and Asia, the future of the urban reform agenda in African cities, and an upcoming conference being organised by ACRC.Diana Mitlin is CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium and professor of global urbanism at The University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute.Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael is a postdoctoral research fellow at the African Cities Research Consortium, supporting research across the crosscutting themes of finance, gender and climate change.The African Cities Research Consortium is a major six-year investment by FCDO to fund new, operationally-relevant research to address intractable development challenges in African cities. Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog BlueSky LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Newsletter Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters

This episode comes from the African Cities Research Consortium podcast. “It’s not our data as SDI, it’s not ACRC data, it’s not their data. It’s the community’s data. So you have to have that understanding that, at the end of the day, it has to benefit the community.”In this episode, Miriam Maina talks to Charity Mumbi and Jane Wairutu from SDI-Kenya about community-led mapping and data collection, participatory planning processes, and the role of research in inclusive urban transformation.Charity Mumbi is an urban and regional planner and a project officer at SDI-Kenya, supporting community-led planning, research and data management activities.Jane Wairutu is a sociologist and programme manager at SDI-Kenya, working closely with data and project implementation teams.Miriam Maina is from Nairobi and is a postdoctoral research fellow at the African Cities Research Consortium, working on the housing domain.The African Cities Research Consortium is a major six-year investment by FCDO to fund new, operationally-relevant research to address intractable development challenges in African cities. Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog BlueSky LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Newsletter Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters

In the latest Global Development Institute podcast Amani Abou-Zeid, African Union Commissioner in charge of infrastructure, energy and ICT, talks to Seth Schindler about energy security and infrastructural development in Africa.Ahead of COP27 in Egypt, they reflect on Africa’s energy “evolution” in relation to climate change, why integration is key to bridging the continent’s infrastructure gap, the impact of rising interest rates on foreign and local investment, and the regional innovation and cooperation that has emerged in response to multiple crises, including Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine.Amani Abou-Zeid is the twice-elected African Union Commissioner in charge of infrastructure, energy and ICT, and is also chair of African Cities Research Consortium's advisory group, which is based at GDI. She holds a PhD in social and economic development from the Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester.Seth Schindler is senior lecturer in urban development and transformation at The University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute and co-research director of the African Cities Research Consortium.Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog BlueSky LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Newsletter Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters

Development studies often focuses on the negative: constraints, challenges, negative impacts, etc. But what if we could use new digital datasets to identify positive deviants: outlier individuals, households, districts and others that outperform their peers in achievement of development goals?In this episode, Basma Albanna and Richard Heeks discuss the “Data-Powered Positive Deviance” (DPPD) programme. The programme built on an original idea by GDI researcher, Basma Albanna, that was fleshed out in a paper co-authored with Richard Heeks, GDI’s Professor of Digital Development. It argued that traditional methods of identifying positive deviants relied on costly and time-consuming primary data-gathering from the field. Instead, it might be possible to identify outliers in the growing number of digital datasets already available.Basma Albanna studied for her PhD at the Global Development Institute. She is now a lecturer at Ain Shams University and a Consultant for the GIZ Data LabMore about Basma Albanna:Basma AlbannaFollow Basma on TwitterRichard Heeks is Professor of Digital Development in the Global Development Institute, part of the School of Environment, Education and Development.  He is Director of the Centre for Digital Development.More about Richard Heeks:Richard HeeksFollow Richard on TwitterMore about the“Data-Powered Positive Deviance programmeFind out more about DPPD Read the paper: Data-powered positive deviance: Combining traditional and non-traditional data to identify and characterise development-related outperformers Data Powered Positive Deviance blogData Powered Positive Deviance handbook Contact the Data Powered Positive Deviance team   Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog BlueSky LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Newsletter Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters

In this episode, Stefano Ponte talks to Aarti Krishnan about his research into sustainability, the wine and seafood value chains in South Africa and his recent book Business, Power and Sustainability in a World of Global Value ChainsDr Stefano Ponte is a Professor of International Political Economy at Copenhagen Business School. His research looks at transnational economic and environmental governance, with a focus on overlaps and tensions between private authority and public regulation. Dr Aarti Krishnan is a Hallsworth Research Fellow at the Global Development Institute More about Stefano Ponte:Stefano PonteContested Sustainability: The Political Ecology of Conservation and Development Partnerships in TanzaniaBusiness, Power and Sustainability in a World of Global Value ChainsFollow Stefano on TwitterMore about Aarti KrishnanAarti Krishnan Read Aarti’s recent article on Multichain strategies and economic upgrading in global value chains: Evidence from Kenyan horticultureIntro music Anna Banana by Eaters Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog BlueSky LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Newsletter Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters