Managing expectations in a context of protracted displacement
By a Civil Society Worker
The intention of this post is to present challenges and conflicts that arise when managing expectations as part of civil society actors’ work with statusless and marginalised populations. The setting is the civil society landscape in Israel shaped by the protracted nature of this refugee scenario. Balancing our clients’ expectations and ours is an exercise of imagining a narrative together where we can agree on basic premises to discuss together as we try to mitigate our clients’ lack of agency with our own limited agency as civil society workers.
I have been working with African asylum seekers – mostly Eritreans and some Sudanese – living in Israel since 2015 as part of a civil society organisation aiming to support marginalised populations through advocacy and mediation with various local-level state institutions. They have lived in a state of limbo for a decade, under constant pressures and constraints associated with their protracted statuslessness; a decade in such a status quo takes its toll both on asylum seekers and civil society. We’ve built relationships with various stakeholders and work in tandem with other initiatives to fill gaps for each other -for example, where one organisation focuses on legal aid; we will help collect the paperwork they need and ensure clients get to their appointment on time. This is all to say that we are limited in what we can tangibly do beyond advising, assisting, and offering logistical, financial, and emotional support to clients in their individual challenges navigating a liminal life, who themselves often look to us for much more than we can possibly provide. read more…
Five lessons on social determinants of healthy ageing in 28 rich countries: childhood poverty gets in the epigenome
Gindo Tampubolon, Senior Lecturer in Poverty, Global Development Institute
Maintaining health up to the centenary takes more than just genetic inheritance. Social determinants of health including wealth, income, education, social class and social networks throughout life combine to shape who survives and who thrives. In a recent chapter I wrote about a new set of findings that extends empirical evidence on the social determinants of health of people up to 100 years old (Tampubolon 2023). read more…
Is there a silver lining to this Covid-19 pandemic? The impact of government transfer on financial inclusion
The toll of the Covid-19 pandemic is still being counted. Meanwhile, new variants continue to threaten because the reservoir of people infected is still large enough for some random mutations to take hold and spread. Excess deaths, a global measure, were estimated by the WHO to be around 14.9 million in 2020-2021.
With all this immense suffering, is there a ray of hope? After all, governments supported family finances, delivered through digital and other means. With deepening financial inclusion (more families owning bank accounts or formal institutions), there are benefits to share. Account holders can smooth consumption and manage risks, banks can arbitrage between savers and inventors, governments can expect increased investment in the economy and better information on the funds circulating, useful for macroeconomic management. read more…
MSc HRM Enhancement Programme: Ethical Grand Challenge and Visit to Stoke-on-Trent
On-campus session with the University Ethical Grand Challenge Team and Organisational Visits to the World of Wedgwood and Trentham Gardens
The MSc Human Resource Management Enhancement Programme (HRMEP) has been developed over seven years, with support from Heads of School and Faculty, to offer closer student engagement with a wide range of organisational contexts in the field of HR practice, with a focus on the professional, cultural and social dimensions of student’s experience. HRMEP aims to equip learners with a robust theoretical framework in human resource management and at the same time to provide students with an opportunity to gain insights into practice-focused human resource practices across a wide range of management contexts and sectors. read more…
Responses and resilience to future climate extremes in urban areas: ECR vacancy
The project
We are seeking an ECR (working on their PhD or having recently been awarded a PhD) to work on an exciting research pilot. Our project aims at generating a step-change in our understanding of societal responses and resilience to future, unprecedented climate extremes in urban areas. To help achieve this aim, we are developing a new conceptual approach, which combines critical social sciences and climate projections to explore the interplay of future climate extremes and urban inequalities. read more…
DSA Call for papers: Development Studies Association conference 28–30 June 2023
Academics from the Global Development Institute are helping to convene a number of panels at the annual Development Studies Association conference taking place on 28–30 June 2023. The theme of the conference is Crisis in the Anthropocene: Rethinking connection and agency for development.
The annual conference will be hybrid (in-person and online combined) to ensure the highest levels of inclusion, flexibility and engagement.
There is a call for papers for all panels at the DSA Conference, for more information on all the panels visit the DSA website. The deadline for submitting papers is 10 February.
For full details of each session and to propose a paper, click on the title. read more…
Podcast: Community-led planning and transformation with Charity Mumbi and Jane Wairutu
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.
MSc HRM Enhancement Programme: Learning from industry partners including the European Commission
The MSc Human Resource Management Enhancement Programme (HRMEP) has been developed over seven years, with support at school and faculty level, to offer closer student engagement with a wide range of organisational contexts in the field of HR practice, with a focus on the professional, cultural and social dimensions of their experience. read more…
MSc HRM Enhancement Programme: Learning from industry partners
The MSc Human Resource Management Enhancement Programme (HRMEP) has been developed over seven years, with support from Heads of school and faculty, to offer closer student engagement with a wide range of organisational contexts in the field of HR practice, with a focus on the professional, cultural and social dimensions of their experience. HRMEP aims to equip learners with a robust theoretical framework for careers in human resource management and at the same time to provide students with an opportunity to gain insights into practice-focused human resource practices across a wide range of management contexts and sectors. read more…
Call for Papers: Africa Journal of Management
Towards understanding the African entrepreneurs and their cultural context: Economic rationality and African value system. read more…