GDI Lecture: How China is reshaping the global economy with Rhys Jenkins
Listen or watch Professor Rhys Jenkins, University of East Anglia, discuss his book “How China Is Reshaping the Global Economy”
China’s growing economic involvement in Africa and Latin America have been a source of controversy and debate. Although there are parallels between China’s involvement in the two regions, particularly in terms of the drivers of Chinese involvement, there are also significant differences in terms of scale and impacts that the lecture will explore.
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GDI Lecture: Gender and work: capturing the gains in Global Value Chains with Stephanie Barrientos
Listen or watch Professor Stephanie Barrientos, Global Development Institute, discuss her new book Gender and work: capturing the gains in Global Value Chains.
Building on years of detailed empirical research across different industries and in several countries, Barrientos examines how global values chains are reshaping the gender profile of work across many middle- and low-income countries. Gendered patterns of work in these global value chains can both relegate women workers to poorly paid and unrecognised labour or lead to economic empowerment and enhanced worker rights. read more…
Urban transformation and the ‘Medellín Miracle’
Keisha Maloney, MSc Global Urban Development and Planning
Escaleras Electricas in Comuna Trece.
Once notorious for violence, cartels and drug trafficking, the city of Medellín in Colombia is increasingly becoming known for its transformation not only to peace – but prosperity. Like cities all around the world, Medellín has seen a dramatic increase in its population in the last few decades, exacerbating urban inequality. During the 1970s Medellín was Colombia’s industrial hub, mainly producing textiles. When civil conflict broke out a few years later, rural to urban migration rapidly increased. The housing market was incapable of keeping up with the steady flow of migrants, causing housing prices to increase, and forcing rural, poor migrants to construct homes along the unstable, steep mountainsides that frame Medellín. When Pablo Escobar’s drug cartel gained influence across Colombia, Medellín and its informal settlements became the main theatre for Escobar’s violence. Promising young men riches and status, the hillside comunas became engulfed in extreme violence, poverty, and became inaccessible to police and government officials who feared they would lose their lives upon entering a comuna and crossing an “invisible border” that divided one gang from another. read more…
GDI Lecture Series Autumn 2019
We are delighted to announce the autumn line-up for our GDI Lecture series. The series brings leading development thinkers to Manchester to discuss their latest research and ideas. read more…
Tackling non-communicable diseases in rural Indonesia through mobile technology
Dr Gindo Tampubolon, Lecturer in Poverty, Global Development Institute
Indonesia is the fourth most populous country with more than 210 million people, undergoing wrenching demographic and epidemiologic transitions. The country is young, though its adult population is already under a grave threat from non-communicable diseases such as heart failure and stroke. One in three deaths, common and costly among prime age adults, is caused by cardiovascular diseases. This death toll is in line with global figures.
Chronic Poverty Report on Growth
The Chronic Poverty Advisory Network has launched its new Chronic Poverty Report on Growth, which also includes a briefing note on ‘pathways to sustained poverty reduction: balancing growth from above and below’
The Chronic Poverty Advisory Network was originally the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) which was based at The University of Manchester. The CPRC worked to assess and explain the extent and nature of chronic poverty in developing countries. read more…
Call for Papers: Disrupting Theory, Unsettling Practice: Towards Transformative Forced Migration Scholarship and Policy
University of Ghana, Accra, 27th – 30th July 2020
Nicole Hirt, GIGA Hamburg & Tanja R. Müller, The University of Manchester
Panel Title: Forced Migration and Agency – New dynamics within and beyond the nation state
In this panel we look at new dynamics of agency among refugee and migrant populations, how these are fostered or hindered by other societal actors, and how these are linked to and intersect with the nation state and the wider transnational social field.
We thus call for papers that engage with any of the following issues:
- New actors in engagement with forced migration (e.g. the corporate sector)
- Diaspora engagement
- Transnational belonging and political agency
- Citizenship claims beyond the nation state
New evidence highlights growing urban water crisis
New research has found that in 15 major cities in the global south, almost half of all households lack access to piped utility water, affecting more than 50 million people. Access is lowest in the cities of sub-Saharan Africa, where only 22% of households receive piped water.
The research also found that of those households that did have access, the majority received intermittent service. In the city of Karachi in Pakistan, the city’s population of 15 million people received an average piped water supply of only three days a week, for less than three hours.
On Civil Society: joint responsibility in the construction of the public in Latin America and the Caribbean
Daniel Díaz Vera, PhD Researcher, Global Development Institute
For many people, the city of Medellin conjures images of drug traffickers, horrible murders and chaos. That image is probably due to series such as Netflix’s Narcos, rather than the current situation in this Colombian city.
In the first week of July, Medellín hosted the 12th Conference of the Latin American and Caribbean Network of the International Society for Third Sector Research. With the backing of the SEED Conference support fund, I had the opportunity to participate both in the Conference and the Doctoral Seminar that took place before it.
Medellín is the capital of the province of Antioquia. Located between mountains, and surrounded by a perpetual green, it is home to 2.5 million inhabitants as the second most populated city in Colombia, after Bogotá, located about 400 kilometres southeast. read more…
Podcast: Adnan Naseemullah discusses development after statism
Dr Adnan Naseemullah of King College London, recently visited GDI to discuss his new book, Development After Statism: Industrial Firms and the Political Economy of South Asia. read more…