Africa’s infrastructure reveals many shades of competition and contests that can influence continent’s future
Gilead Teri, PhD researcher, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester
On June 21st 2022, while discussing the newly tabled budget draft a member of Tanzanian Parliament raised an underreporting discrepancy between the amount that the Minister of Finance informed parliament it allocated to pay a single-source Chinese contractor for a section of its Standard Gauge Railway and what the electronic public procurement system has awarded to the firm. The MP noted the difference to be over $600 million. He lamented about corruption, demanded reopening of the tender process, and use competitive bidding. read more…
What’s our role in changing the international aid system? A personal and practical reflection
Dr Nicola Banks, Senior Lecturer in International Development: Urban Development and Global Urbanism
Ten years ago (where has time gone?!), myself and David Hulme’s work went as ‘viral’ as an academic piece of work can go when it was picked up and lambasted by Duncan Green in his well-read From Poverty to Power blog. The research (since republished in World Development) questioned the transformative potential of development NGOs given the array of challenges and restrictions they face across the aid chain. We argued that smaller, more socially-embedded organisations are best-placed to uphold the transformative aspects of development that NGOs are praised for (as opposed to service delivery outcomes) but recognised that this is not where power and resources in the aid chain are concentrated. read more…
Transcribing mobile lives into urban spaces: observations from Haifa
Adriana Kemp, Professor of Sociology, Tel-Aviv University and Tanja Müller, Professor of Political Sociology, Global Development Institute
If citizenship is about shaping cities and urban spaces at the same time shape migrants, the question becomes how the different life-worlds of migrants and cities come together. Cities are increasingly seen as models of complexity, all the more so as we seem to live in multiple ways in times of crises. At the same time, city planning and the social and economic dimensions of crises hardly ever seem to connect. Cities do not seem to be built for the people living in them and their needs – but to live up to some planning ideals or, even more mundane, to the profit strategies of entrepreneurs and global investors. read more…
GDI at DSA2022
Academics from the Global Development Institute are presenting papers and convening panels at the annual Development Studies Association conference taking place 6-8 July 2022. This year’s conference adopts justice and equity as central normative lenses to explore just futures in an urbanising and mobile world, facing a climate and ecological crisis in a pandemic or post-pandemic context.
Below we have highlighted the panels involving GDI colleagues.
Addressing menstrual health in Bangladesh
This blog is a reminder that menstrual health is a human right – rather than just a hygiene concern, and thus, explores what this means within Bangladesh, home to 54 million women and girls who menstruate. read more…
In Conversation: Stefan Dercon
In the latest episode of the GDI podcast Professor Stefan Dercon talks to Dr Sophie van Huellen. They discuss Stefan’s new book, “Gambling on Development: why some countries win and others lose”, his recent departure from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and his advice to academics wanting to work with civil servants and policymakers.
Listen to the podcast or read the transcript in full below. read more…
Researching the everyday of transnational citizenship: Arts-based participatory methodologies and feminist ethics of care
Dr Josephine Biglin explores a recent workshop on ‘Researching the everyday of transnational citizenship: Arts-based participatory methodologies and feminist ethics of care.’ The workshop ran from 16-20th May 2022 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Transnational lived citizenship is a valuable framework to explore how precarious migrant lives transform and are transformed by the urban settings in which they reside, whilst and through, maintaining translation linkages. However, academic researchers working with populations whose language, culture and experiences we do not always share is a complex ethical process. It is necessary to consider our position in the representation of participants’ voices and stories, especially when working with groups that are marginalised, socially excluded and potentially vulnerable. The social sciences have developed many ways to do this, for example, writing a reflexivity section. Other significant ways to do this is to carry out research using participatory methods and to frame our research with a feminist ethics of care.
SEED PGR Conference 2022 – Broadening Perspectives: Meeting Complexity Through Interdisciplinary Research
Anna Thurlbeck, Postgraduate Researcher, Global Development Institute
Taking place on the 5th and 6th of May, this year’s PGR Conference centred around the theme of multidiscipliniarity, chosen to put a spotlight on the extensive breadth of research being undertaken in the School of Environment, Education and Development. In an increasingly complex world, with challenges manifesting themselves on a global scale, it is more important than ever that our solutions to those challenges embrace a wide range of ideas, philosophies and perspectives.
Mini conference – Migration and inequalities in the Global South: Neglected intersections of oppression and privilege
A one day conference on three underexplored areas of migration in the Global South: disability, sexuality and skilled migration.
21st June 2022, 9.30am – 4.30pm.
The conference will be held in person at The University of Manchester. read more…
New Open Access Book – Political Settlements and Development: Theory, Evidence, Implications
Based upon a decade of ground-breaking research within the Effective States and Inclusive Development (ESID) research centre, Political Settlements and Development: Theory, Evidence, Implications, has been just been published by Oxford University Press. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of political settlements study and is available in Open Access. read more…