Why Forests? The Sustainable Forest Transitions Project Launches at Manchester Museum
On Wednesday 6th March, the Manchester Museum hosted the launch of the Sustainable Forest Transitions research project. Led by Dr Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development at the GDI, the five-year research programme will study reforestation and what it means for forest communities globally.
Why attend communities of practice?
In 2024, the Global Development Institute will host a programme of communities of practice, inviting alumni, academics, students, and development practitioners to come together and discuss some of the pressing problems facing development leaders today.
Sessions will take place online and are open to all. If you’d like to discover more about communities of practice before signing up, we’ve put together some helpful information below.
GDI Lecture Series: Semester 2
The second semester of the GDI lecture series will start up again on Wednesday, 24th January with a lecture on ‘Industrialization and Assimilation’ by LSE’s Elliott Green. We’re excited to be hosting a wide range of guests to talk about issues affecting global development, and encourage staff and students to attend. Lectures are free and open to everyone.
Below, you will find the provisional list of lectures taking place this semester. As you will see, there are a few details left to be confirmed. Check our events page and Twitter account for the latest updates. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible, and please do remember to spread the word with friends and colleagues!
Building a community of practice: Lessons in migration and human mobility praxis
On Friday, 15th December, the Global Development Institute held an online community of practice session about supporting migrant- and refugee-led organisations. Organised in recognition of International Migrants Day (Monday, 18th December), the event offered valuable opportunities for alumni, academics, and practitioners to share ideas and experiences.
The event was hosted by Natalie Cunningham (Lecturer in Leadership for Development), with Pamela Hartley Pinto (Development Practitioner and Researcher), Matthew Cramm (Economic Development Programs Coordinator), and Oliver Bakewell (Reader in Migration Studies), kicking off proceedings by sharing their initial thoughts and prompts. Later, other participants shared their own insights and perspectives on the topic.
The following blog entry details Pamela’s reflections on the community of practice and its outcomes, including key lessons practitioners and academics can use to inform their work and improve the lives of migrants and refugees across a range of localities and contexts.
Development Studies Association Conference 2024 – Call for Papers Open
Scholars across the Global Development Institute are convening or co-convening a range of exciting panels at this year’s Development Studies Association Conference, taking place at SOAS between 26th and 28th June 2024. The event theme is ‘Social justice and development in a polarising world’, allowing attendees to explore issues surrounding rights and representation, redistribution and restoration, and reproduction and production.
If you’re interested in submitting a paper to present at this year’s conference, please view the full programme here. You’ll also find more information about DSA2024, including key dates and practical information, on the DSA’s website.
Billions have been raised to restore forests, with little success. Here’s the missing ingredient
Dhanapal Govindarajulu, University of Manchester
Protecting and restoring forests is one of the cheapest and most effective options for mitigating the carbon emissions heating Earth.
Since the third UN climate change summit, held in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, different mechanisms have been trialled to raise money and help countries reduce deforestation and restore degraded forests. First there was Koyoto’s clean development mechanism, then the UN-REDD programme initiated at COP13 in Bali in 2008. Voluntary carbon market schemes came into effect after COP21 in Paris in 2015, but all met with limited success.
In some cases, these schemes interfered with communities that have tended and nurtured forests for generations, restricting their access to the forest for fuel, grazing and food. Meanwhile, deforestation has proceeded under the aegis of global markets hungry for beef, palm oil and other commodities.
Professor Bina Agarwal Wins Prestigious Kenneth Boulding Award
Bina Agarwal, Professor of Development Economics and Environment at the Global Development Institute, was recently honoured with the 2023 Kenneth Boulding Award for her contributions to the field of ecological economics. This prestigious award commemorates the work of economist Kenneth E. Boulding, a renowned systems thinker who integrated social theory with the natural sciences and moral philosophy.
Bina and David Barkin, Distinguished Professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Mexico City), were jointly conferred the award for their outstanding research on environmental governance and social equity in developing countries. read more…
PhD studentship on Sustainable Forest Transitions
We are delighted to share a fully funded PhD studentship on the social and environmental outcomes of reforestation processes based on the Sustainable Forest Transitions research project.
Deadline: 12 February 2024 Midnight (GMT)
Interviews: 22 February 2024
Studentship Funding
The Sustainable Forest Transitions (SFT) Project is recruiting one full-time PhD student at the Global Development Institute (University of Manchester) from September 2024 to work on one of two themes:
Theme 1: Evaluating social and environmental outcomes of reforestation drivers using large- scale publicly available social and environmental datasets.
Theme 2: Development of rapid evidence synthesis methods and products using emerging artificial intelligence tools and other existing systematic review instruments.
SFT seeks to advance a better understanding of the social and environmental outcomes of reforestation drivers globally. This position is fully-funded for 3.5 years, covering academic fees, an annual maintenance stipend of £18,622 (TBC for 2024-25) and research travel. You will be part of a multidisciplinary research team led by Dr Johan Oldekop, including post-doctoral researchers, PhD students, case-country partners (initially in Mexico, Brazil, India, Nepal and Indonesia), and other affiliated researchers. read more…
Critiquing established migration studies frameworks – Interview with Oliver Bakewell
The following extract is taken from an interview with GDI’s Reader in Migration Studies, Dr Oliver Bakewell, in the recently published Handbook on Forced Migration. Below, Oliver responds to a question about the risks we run when aligning research agendas on mobility with the priorities of policymakers. He returns to previous critiques of policy-centred research, discusses whether the relationship between research and policy has evolved in recent years and expands upon the ethical questions facing scholars working in and around migration studies today. read more…
From firefighting to social justice: One World Together’s role in strengthening citizen-led movements
GDI’s Nicola Banks reflects on an event co-hosted with One World Together and two of their partners, the brilliant Community Savers in Manchester and the North-West and Muungano wa Wanavijiji in Kenya.
Multiple crises are exacerbating pressures on low-income communities and the needs and vulnerability of their community members are increasing.
Yet funding is harder to get than ever.
That was the clear message from community organisers at a recent event we held exploring the funding landscape for social movements. ‘We’ are One World Together, a new social enterprise that Chibwe Masabo Henry and I co-founded this year, and our newly initiated One World Together Students’ Union Society. We were lucky to have our Kenyan partner, Muungano wa Wanavijiji, in Manchester and took the opportunity to bring them together with our UK partner, Community Savers, for a public event. read more…