Participate in our upcoming communities of practice
This year, GDI’s Natalie Cunningham (Senior Lecturer in Leadership for Development) will be running a series of communities of practice (CoPs) designed to support development practitioners (and those interested in pursuing a career in development) in building their resilience during an especially turbulent time around the globe.
Affordable Housing, Financialization and Urban Statecraft
A lecture by Tom Gillespie at Cornell AAP explores the scale of the 21st-century urban housing challenge.
Introducing JEOC: why Earth Observation, why Conservation, why Justice?
By Rose Pritchard and Timothy Foster
The Just Earth Observation for Conservation (JEOC) project explores how Earth Observation technologies and data are changing biodiversity conservation and what this means for people living in or near protected areas. We work in four sites around the world (in Guatemala, Kenya, Spain and the UK), as well as engaging with EO data producers and analysts. This blog provides a brief outline of why we believe researching this EO/conservation/social justice nexus to be so important.
Could moss preservation mitigate the effects of climate change in Africa?
By Rabiatu Adamu Saleh, Master’s student in Global Development (Environment and Climate Change)
African cities are dealing with the dual issues of climate change and urban heat islands (UHI), leading to increased interest in innovative nature-based solutions (NbS). Moss preservation and restoration have been suggested as viable techniques for urban cooling and climate mitigation. Due to moss’s inherent capacity to insulate, retain moisture, and promote biodiversity, several scientists propose that preserving current moss ecosystems or introducing moss in urban settings may aid in alleviating heat and diminishing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A thorough evaluation is important to ascertain if moss preservation may serve as a feasible, scalable, and successful option for Africa’s distinct urban environments.
Reflections on Embedded Research, Transformation & Impact
By Dr Helen Underhill
Building bridges with Palestine: DSA 2025 reflections on what higher education can and must do
by Sandy Nofyanza, PhD student in GDI
It was the final session on the last day of the 2025 Development Studies Association (DSA) Conference in Bath. Yet, it stood apart from any other session I’ve experienced in my entire career.
Titled “Gaza Action Planning Workshop,” the session was organized by Susannah Pickering-Saqqa (University of East London), Ibrahim Natil (DCU Conflict Institute), and Bassem Abudagga (York St John University and Al-Azhar University in Gaza). Around 30 people were in the room, with a few joining online directly from Gaza or the surrounding area.
What Would “Positive Development Studies” Look Like?
By Richard Heeks
(First posted on the ICTs for Development Blog)
Development studies has long grappled with the pressing realities of global inequality, poverty, conflict, and environmental degradation. As a field rooted in critical inquiry, it often focuses on diagnosing systemic problems and challenging dominant power structures.
But what if development studies could also make more space for the affirmative? What if it cultivated a deeper orientation toward hope, creativity, and transformation?
Convergence, Divergence, Flatlining or Plateau: What has happened to inequality between and within countries over the last decade?
by Saumik Paul (Senior Lecturer in Global Development, GDI) and Andy Sumner (Professor of International Development, KCL)
Understanding inequality trends remains central to assessing both development progress and global justice. Two major dimensions—inequality between countries and inequality within countries—have long structured debate in development studies.
In the 1990s, Lant Pritchett’s provocation that the world was experiencing “divergence, big time” captured the mood of an era in which income gaps between countries were seen to be widening. More recently, the “converging-divergence” thesis proposed by Horner and Hulme in late 2010s argued that while inequality between countries was declining, inequality within countries was on the rise. In this blog, we argue that something new has emerged over the last decade akin to a flatlining or plateauing.
New environments and fresh perspectives: Reflections from a visiting PGR
by Valquiria Almeida, PhD student at the Federal University of Minas Gerais
Valquíria is a PhD student in Demography at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil), who recently spent six months on research leave at GDI. She is currently a researcher at the National Committee for Refugees of the Brazilian Ministry of Justice and Public Security and has nine years of experience working with civil society organisations dedicated to the socioeconomic inclusion of migrants and refugees in Minas Gerais (Brazil).
Her research focuses on international migration to Brazil, gender and race issues in migratory trajectories and integration into Brazilian society, migration law, the life course approach, and social policies. In this blog post, Valquiria reflects on her experiences of studying abroad as a migration researcher.
Globalisation in Flux: What does the Transformation of Value Chains mean for the Governance of Decent Work?
by Louisa Hann
The exploitation of workers and the governance of decent work in global value chains (GVCs) represent long-standing issues spanning Development Studies, Political Economy, Economic Geography and International Business. While private and public ethical standards have done something to address problems like poor wages, lack of workplace security, and lack of social protection within global value chains, there’s still a long way to go before the world realises the UN’s 8th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) – to promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all.