Global Development Institute Blog

Global Development Institute Blog

We’re the Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester: where critical thinking meets social justice.

Call for Papers: Europe in US-China rivalry

Call for Papers: Europe in US-China rivalry

Nick Jepson and Seth Schindler, in collaboration with Nana de Graaff and Imogen T. Liu, are organising a workshop entitled “Europe in US-China rivalry: The implications of great power politics”. The workshop will take place on 9-10 October 2023 in Amsterdam and there is a call for papers out with a deadline of 15th June 2023. Full details on how to submit a proposal can be found at the bottom of this page. read more…

One thing that should never be taken away from you is your education!

One thing that should never be taken away from you is your education!

Malavika Krishnan

Malavika was recently a nominee in the University of Manchester’s Social Responsibility Making a Difference Awards. She was highly commended in the category of Outstanding Social Innovation, for her work around education in India. She also recieved two commendation awards for equality, diversity and inclusion, and Outstanding contribution to widening participation category.  This blog outlines her invaluable work.

As a 25-year old Indian citizen, I would like to present the dichotomy in the standard of living I have witnessed over the years. Considering India’s remarkable performance in Information Technology and Information Technology enabled services, it is no surprise that the country is regarded as a global knowledge and service hub. It would be easy to assume the country is making significant economic growth and progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1 of eradicating all forms of poverty (UN, 2022). read more…

GDI at the Development Studies Association Conference 2023

GDI at the Development Studies Association Conference 2023

Academics from the Global Development Institute are presenting papers and convening panels at the annual Development Studies Association conference, which is taking place at the University of Reading 28-30th June 2023. This year’s conference is hybrid, meaning a chance for DSA members to get together in person for the first time since 2019.

The title of the conference is Crisis in the Anthropocene: Rethinking connection and agency in development. The Athropocene – and its conditions, structures and relationships under which we operate – signals a new era in human development in which crises of environment and nature are increasingly take centre stage.

At a time when new challenges are continually emerging in an interconnected world and uncertainty, risk and precarity are the ‘new normal’, this era unsettles and potentially overturns, conventional ways of theorising and practising development. read more…

Africa Research Group Conference: 7th Annual Conference 

Africa Research Group Conference: 7th Annual Conference 

Mount Kenya University Rwanda will host an international conference from 28th to 30th August 2023 in conjunction with the African Research Group (ARG) of Nottingham University in the U.K.

The conference will be held at Mount Kenya University Rwanda, Kicukiro, KK 554 St, Kigali, Rwanda on the theme of “Contemporary developments in the management of organizations in Africa: tapping into indigenous knowledge and developing viable partnerships”. Professor Aminu Mamman is part of the organising committee. read more…

From sea change to tidal wave: Can One World Together sweep away the inequalities in the aid chain that undermine grassroots-oriented civil society organisations and action?

From sea change to tidal wave: Can One World Together sweep away the inequalities in the aid chain that undermine grassroots-oriented civil society organisations and action?

Here GDI’s Nicola Banks and her co-Founder and CEO, Chibwe Masabo Henry, talk about how recent momentum in the sector has led them to build on the University of Manchester’s long-standing research on development NGOs and civil society organisations to launch One World Together, a new platform for building solidarity and better financing for grassroots organisation and action.

Nicola Banks and Chibwe Masabo Henry

The sea change of locally-led development

A sea change is afoot in the development sector when it comes to funding for and through non-governmental and civil society organisations. Some donors and many civil society organisations from the Global North and South are all talking about one thing: the need to shift power and resources from the Global North to the Global South so that organisations closest to the communities that they represent can access a greater volume of funding on more equitable terms. A stronger global civil society, made up of agile and sustainable organisations that can respond to their communities’ needs as they develop, is dependent upon this. read more…

Will minting Messi solve Argentina’s economic crisis?

Will minting Messi solve Argentina’s economic crisis?

By Miguel Kanai, University of SheffieldSeth Schindler, Global Development Institute and Javier Díaz Bay, Universidad Nacional de Luján

Argentina won its third FIFA World Cup last December in Qatar. This major sporting achievement fulfilled team captain Lionel Messi’s life-long ambition and consolidated the country’s status as a football powerhouse.

Now some in Argentina’s government hope to monetise sporting glory – literally. Plans are afoot to commemorate the World Cup victory by issuing a commemorative banknote, which officials hope will secure much-needed foreign currency and mitigate inflation. But after years of recession and decades of crises, this may not be enough to transform Argentina’s economic fortunes. read more…

Diverging diasporas 

Diverging diasporas 

Oliver Bakewell, Reader in Migration Studies, Global Development Institute

For over twenty years, African diasporas have been increasingly recognised as important actors in development across the continent. A question that often remains unasked is: who is part of this diaspora that makes this contribution to development? The importance of this came out in the discussions at a recent research project workshop in Nairobi, where it became clear that when we talk about diasporas, we may have rather different ideas in mind.

This workshop was organised as part of the Transnational Lived Citizenship project, which explores how diaspora populations establish different forms of political belonging orientated towards their homeland, their current place of residence, and across a wider transnational network. The project has focused on Eritreans and Ethiopians who are long-term residents of Nairobi and Khartoum and Eritreans in Addis Ababa. Many of these people have refugee status, and few see little prospect of a return to Eritrea or Ethiopia, even if they hope for it. Instead, they are focused on building their lives where they now live or trying to secure resettlement in Europe or North America. read more…

Transnational lived citizenship and local struggles: Ethiopian migrant communities in Nairobi

Transnational lived citizenship and local struggles: Ethiopian migrant communities in Nairobi

 Tanja Müller, Professor of Political Sociology, Global Development Institute

Reflections from the second emerging findings workshop of the ESRC-funded project: Transnational lived citizenship: practices of citizenship as political belonging among emerging diasporas in the Horn of Africa, held in Nairobi, 22-23 February 2023.

The Transnational Lived Citizenship project examines how migrant populations establish different forms of political belonging. The empirical data highlights the complex dynamics of lived citizenship and belonging and how it interacts with changing political environments, locally, regionally and globally. The second emerging findings workshop in Nairobi included the project team, Prof Tanja Müller and Dr Oliver Bakewell from the University of Manchester, and local project lead Dr Linda Oucho and her team from the African Migration and Development Policy Centre (AMAPDOC), along with key stakeholders: representatives from community organisations and other NGOs, practitioners, and policymakers. read more…

In Conversation: Tom Goodfellow + Pritish Behuria

In Conversation: Tom Goodfellow + Pritish Behuria

In this episode of the GDI podcast, 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. read more…

Finding Home in Europe: Chronicles of Global Migrants

Finding Home in Europe: Chronicles of Global Migrants

Bringing together the voices of nine individuals from an archive of over two hundred in-depth interviews with transnational migrants and refugees across five European countries, Finding Home in Europe, a new book edited by Luis Eduardo Pérez Murcia and Sara Bonfanti, critically engages with how home is experienced by those who move among changing social and cultural constraints.

Highly conscious of the political strength of their voices, migrants and asylum seekers speak out loud to the authors, as this volume seeks to challenge the narrative that these people are ‘out of place’ or cannot claim their right to belong.

read more…

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