GDP - The Global Development Primer

We're 6 years out from the Sustainable Development Goals, and it's not looking good. The COVID-19 pandemic, Russia's war against Ukraine, and now war in the Middle East have put a handbrake on the global goals. What's more, the cost of everything has gone up, and it will likely mean that hundreds of millions of people will not ascend out of poverty by 2030. To help us understand the rough ride ahead, Oliver Schwank joins us to explain why we're off track, and what we need to do to get back on.

Mr. Oliver Schwankis a senior economist in the Financing for Sustainable Development Office of the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and the author of the thematic chapter of the 2023 Financing for Sustainable Development Report: Financing Sustainable Transformations.He is part of the policy analysis team that leads the substantive follow-up to the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development, and focuses on debt sustainability and integrated financing frameworks. 

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Mass migration and climate change are urban crises. The lack of preparedness of cities around the world to handle climate adaptation is lagging. What's more the current and future stresses on mass migration due to climate and conflict will impact cities the most...and in particular a handful of cities in the global South. How can cities be better prepared for what lies ahead? Vittoria Zanuso has a plan. Empower cities with the resources and expertise necessary to get the job done. She has assembled a global coalition of more than 200 mayors who are willing to step up the challenges that are looming on the horizon.

Vittoria Zanuso is the Executive Director of the Mayors Migration Council (MMC), a global coalition of 200+ mayors working to accelerate action on migration and displacement. As MMC chief executive, Vittoria built the MMC startup from concept incubated by the Open Society Foundations and Swiss Government to a successful nonprofit organization, raising over US$20+ million and growing the funder base from two to 12 donors; working with Leadership Board mayors to facilitate organizational oversight and strategic input; recruiting, overseeing, and developing a team of 10+ full-time employees; and representing the MMC in multilateral fora, such as the UN General Assembly, and in external governing bodies, including the Steering Committee of UN Migration Multi-Partner Trust Fund. Vittoria has positioned mayors worldwide as influential players in emerging policy frontiers — from climate migration to municipal finance. Her impact and thought leadership has been recognized in high-profile outlets, such as Time, Al Jazeera, The Hill, Bloomberg, Inside Philanthropy. Prior to the MMC, Vittoria held several positions at the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative (100RC). As a founding staff member of 100RC, Vittoria helped establish a network of 100 cities from the ground up and created the organization’s urban migration practice. Vittoriabegan her career in the field of strategic communications, first at the Spokesperson’s Office of the Vice-President of the European Commission in Brussels and then on the Communications team of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City. Originally from Milan, Italy, Vittoria holds an MPA in International Policy and Management from NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a BA in Politics from Queen Mary University of London. 

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"We all remember Alexander the Liberator [Alexander II] and Yaroslav the Wise [Yaroslav I]. Well, now we’ll have Vladimir the Poisoner of Underpants...and it is the duty of every person to defy him"Some of the final words from the late Russian Opposition Leader Aleksei Navalny. Navalny was a ferocious opponent to Vladimir Putin, and he was also pretty hilarious. Telling jokes until his final hours in a Russian prison camp, Navalny's sense of humour made him relatable to many in Russia. Considering that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a comedian too, it appears that Putin's fiercest opponents are comics. Why is Putin afraid of a joke?

Comedian, writer, and all around funny guy Kyle Hickey joins us on GDP this week to talk about how comedy plays out in global politics. Why is Putin scared of a good joke? What do Trump supporters joke about? How did Barack Obama use comedy while in the Whitehouse? Is the entirety of British politics held together through wisecracks and jokers? As is turns out, a bit of live comedy may be a fundamental ingredient to strong and inclusive democracies.

After starting stand-up comedy over a decade ago at an open mic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Kyle Hickey has blossomed into a talented writer, actor and comedian, making appearances at the Boston Comedy Festival, CBC's Ha!ifax Comedy Festival and JFL42 in Toronto, as well as acting roles on both YTV and MTV. His two live comedy albums, Experimental Phase and The Fresh Prince of Donair can be heard in rotation on channel 168 Canada Laughs on SiriusXM Radio as well as being found on iTunes and Spotify. 

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Check out Kyle's comedy here: https://kylehickey.com

In so many parts of the world children with intellectual disabilities are excluded from education opportunities. Once they are shunned, they are stigmatized. Once stigma sets in, entire families can fall victim to various acts of hatred. It is why inclusive education for persons with physical and intellectual disabilities needs to count. The Honourable Mike Lake (PC MP) travels widely to tell audiences about the story of him and his son Jaden, who lives with non-communicative autism. Mike and Jaden's story is touching, inspiring and revealing. Revealing in how people who learn and work with Jaden gain a great deal from him when they begin to understand the world from his perspective rather than try to drag him into theirs. It's a powerful message that extends well into politics, and one that Mike Lake joins us today to discuss.

Mike is the six-term Conservative Member of Parliament for Edmonton-Wetaskiwin, first elected in 2006. In both 2019 and 2021, he received the highest vote total of any federal candidate, for any party, in Canada.

Mike served for eight years as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry and was appointed to the Queen’s Privy Council in 2012. He has served as Shadow Minister for Youth, Sport, and Accessibility; International Development; and Mental Health, Addictions, and Suicide Prevention.

Prior to entering federal politics, Mike worked for 10 years with the Edmonton Oilers Hockey Club where he served as National Accounts Manager, Director of Ticket Sales, and Group Sales Manager.  Mike holds a Bachelor of Commerce (with distinction) from the University of Alberta.

Mike has two adult children, his son, Jaden, and daughter, Jenae.  The Lakes have been active supporters of autism organizations, families and neurodiverse individuals across the country, and around the world, while sharing their story of life with Jaden, who has autism.

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How many times have we pursued Global Development Projects, from agricultural technology to power grids, with the promise that it will all be okay, and then it falls short? All the time. How many times have Global Development Theories encouraged a change in discourse to rest upon idolized examples that mask over important complexities? All the time.

This time Dr. Ilan Kapoor and Dr. Gavin Fridell have written a provocative book Rethinking Development Politics. Where they confront an often invisible, but active unconscious fetish for perfection and simple solutions in Global Development. Whereas mainstream development politics is organized around stability and rationality, psychoanalysis points to disharmony and irrationality, helping to explain the development subject’s often self-defeating behaviour — for example being seduced by growth and shopping, despite being aware of the inherent perils of inequality and climate crisis. From Sweatshops to E-Vehicles, can we grow beyond these fetishes?

Ilan Kapoor is Professor of Critical Development Studies at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University, Toronto. His research centers on psychoanalytic and postcolonial theory/politics, and ideology critique. He is the author of seven books. 

Gavin Fridellis a University Research Professor and Chair of Global Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University. His research focuses on fair trade and free trade, global political economy, and critical social and psychoanalytic theory. He is a member of the Trade and Investment Research Project of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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Soledad is a documentary by Peabody Award Winner Lisa Molomot that tells the story of a young woman from Central America who was imprisoned in the Eloy Detention Facility when she sought asylum in the United States. Soledad set out on a perilous journey from her homeland after enduring horrific persecution where she was kidnapped, sex-trafficked, tortured and nearly killed.

Through one woman's story, Soledad illustrates the plight faced by many asylum seekers and refugees arriving at the U.S. border and highlights the incredible work of lawyers and activists who donated their time to fight for another woman's future. Soledad puts a human face to our current immigration system and invites audience members to reflect on what kind of country we want to be and how our stance on immigration impacts real human lives.

Lisa Molomot is a documentary filmmaker based in the American Southwest. Her recent film work (Soledad, The Cleaners, Safe Haven) has focused on immigration and immigrant communities, as well as public education in the U.S. Lisa's feature documentary Missing in Brooks County, about migrant deaths in Texas, won a 2023 Peabody Award. She teaches documentary filmmaking at the University of Arizona. website: https://www.lisamolomot.com/

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To get access to Lisa's film, contact her here: https://www.lisamolomot.com/⁠

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There is a lot of talk amongst Global Development Studies as to whether or not the discipline itself is in decline. One of the key features of global development education was the opportunity to gain real world experience in cross-cultural settings. Dodgy past practices, climate concerns, and decolonial critique have put service learning abroad out of style.

Prof. Anke Schwittay says that before we bury development studies, we should ask "How can university work experiences contribute to reframing International Development from expert saviourism rooted in colonial legacies into a project of social justice and global solidarity?" She joins Dr. Bob in a conversation about approaches to development education that can keep the discipline alive and kicking.

Anke Schwittay is Professor of Anthropology and Global Development at the University of Sussex, UK. She is the author of New Media and International Development: Representation and Affect in Microfinance and Creative Universities: Reimagining Education for Global Challenges and Alternative Futures.

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Check out Dr. Bob's latest piece in the Times of Higher Education.

Clean energy is coming to Asia. But who is going to get it there? Multilateral development agencies like the Asian Development Bank are sometimes overlooked, or not well understood as important players by development scholars. But big ideas, big projects, and big dollars are involved in taking on ambitious development work. To get a sense of how the Asian Development Bank rolls, we're joined by Sam Tumiwa to learn about adaptation financing, and what it is like working within a multilateral agency.

Mr. Tumiwa is the Asian Development Bank's representative to North America, where he works with the Canadian and United States governments and their agencies, bilateral and multilateral institutions, research and civil society organizations and the private sector, to increase understanding strengthen collaboration and of ADB’s work. He was previously the Deputy Representative from 2011 to 2016. 

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Check out the Asian Development Bank here: ADB_HQ

2024 is turning out to be deadly for many. Expanding war in the Middle East, the war of attrition continues in Ukraine, and now gangs are trying over run Ecuador. How do we answer the question "Why is this happening"? To some degree the answer lies in understanding why young men, and they are mostly men, are willing to enter into high risk deadly combat in the first place. What's drawing recruits into gangs and mercenary armies? Kate Schecter reminds us that a lack of opportunities at the community level is a big factor. While mercenaries promise cash for your life, community development can offer better opportunities that lead to savings for your future. Check out this conversation about the role of better finance for a more peaceful planet.

Kate Schecter, Ph.D., joined World Neighbors as the President and CEO in June of 2014.  World Neighbors is a 71 year old international development organization that works with rural isolated communities to help find solutions to permanently lift these communities out of poverty.  Dr. Schecter is responsible for managing World Neighbors’ programs and operations in 14 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.  In her previous position, she worked for the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) for 14 years.  As a Senior Program Officer at AIHA, she had responsibility for managing health partnerships throughout Eurasia and Central and Eastern Europe.  She worked with over 35 partnerships addressing primary healthcare, chronic disease management, hospital management, maternal/child health, Tuberculosis, blood safety and HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Schecter holds a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and an M.A. in Soviet Studies from Harvard University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served on the Board of Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. from 2010 to 2018.

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If you think it's a real chore getting your parents or grandparents connected to new technology? Try 3.7 billion people! That's the digital divide we're facing today on a global scale. Industry wants to see this happen, and as we've seen in the past, there are ethical concerns about getting connected too quickly. Where are governments on this in terms of providing effective aid? Is the development sector missing out? The Canadian Association of International Development Professionals (CAIDP) will be holding a 3 day conference in Ottawa at the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University. CAIDP Board Member Evan Due will be there, and he will be moderating a panel on the digital divide.

Evan Dueis an executive fellow at the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, a sessional lecturer at the Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University, and a senior advisor to the China Development Research Foundation in Beijing China.  He has over 30 years of experience in international development cooperation, public policy, international trade, and project management.  He has held positions with the International Development Research Centre of Canada in Singapore and India, Global Affairs Canada in Ottawa, New Delhi, and Islamabad, and has served as a consultant to the United Nations and the Government of Sri Lanka.  He represented Canada at the OECD Development Assistance Committee, and in various multilateral forums.  He obtained his doctorate from the University of Sussex, U.K.

Check out CAIDP here: https://www.caidp-rpcdi.ca/

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⁠CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE ON THE BILL KELLY PODCAST.⁠

Nearly two years into the war in Ukraine, is the west still paying attention, notably the United States? If funding or support from Washington wanes, will Ukraine be able to win a war of attrition against Russia? For this special issue of GDP, Dr. Bob is interviewed by legendary radio personality, Bill Kelly. Bob and Bill get down the brass tacks of what's needed in Ukraine, and why this matters for global stability

⁠CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE ON THE BILL KELLY PODCAST.⁠

Bill Kellyis born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, has a prolific background in media. He has five decades of broadcast experience, including but not limited to hosting a daily, nationally broadcast, interactive political talk show for five years on CHTV, hosting a leading news talk radio show on CHML from 1988-1997 and working as a stadium announcer for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats for 13 seasons.

Bill also held a council seat in Hamilton for 9 years from 1997-2005, and is a graduate of Mohawk College where he founded Mohawk’s first student radio network. He was honored as one of Mohawk College’s Alumni of Distinction. Now, he’s working hosting his new podcast where he’ll get to dive more in depth into all the topics he knows and loves.

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Check out the Bill Kelly Podcast here: https://kite.link/the-bill-kelly-podcast

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Ecuador has tumbled into a state of fear and peril. In early January 2024 armed men stormed a popular evening television show in Guayaquil. It was a brazen visualization of growing gang violence across the country. Under state of emergency, Ecuador is now facing declared internal conflict. Why? In part due to the changing geography of narco-trafficking in the region, in part due to economic instability and increasing poverty across the country, and in part due to broader global economic trends. Maria Gabriela Palacio Ludeña joins us to bring some clarity to the crisis, and to explain why this is occurring and what we need to consider to bring Ecuador back from the this grip of fear.

Maria Gabriela Palacio Ludeña is an Assistant Professor in Development Studies at the Latin American Studies Programme - Institute for History. She contributes to the programmes BA International Studies and MA International Relations. She teaches courses on a variety of topics such as (global and regional) political economy, social policy, nation-building processes in Latin America, neoliberalism, informality and labour segregation, and social reproduction. Her courses engage in dialogue with various literature streams, namely political economy, anthropology of the state, and development studies. While her work primarily focuses on the Latin American region, she welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with students whose research focuses on other regions but deal with issues of social exclusion, inequality, poverty, labour economics, gender and queer methodologies and/or social policy.

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So you want a career in Global Development? You asked your professor about what to do next, and their response was underwhelming? A lot of that going around. This is why Gretchen Villegas is the person to talk to. In this interview with GDP, Gretchen shares some powerful advice on how to get involved in global development. Sharing stories of her own career, Gretchen spells out why more students should be interested in a career in global development, and how to get there. Not only is career in global development rewarding, it is needed now more than ever before.

Gretchen Villegas is a 25+ year veteran global development professional specializing in mission-driven innovative program designs through partnership development, impact scaling, and revenue growth.  Gretchen has professional experience working in collaboration with both non-profit and for-profit partners in the implementation of local country programs that support vulnerable communities in Latin America, Africa and Asia, with a portfolio totaling over 320M+.

Gretchen has wide-ranging expertise in executive level leadership of global program portfolio effectiveness through evidence and data, intentional program design to optimize impacts for vulnerable children and their families, rigorous research to learn and adapt in program implementation, and revenue strategies to scale and enhance reach of programmatic initiatives.

She has secured funding and implemented projects for Institutional donors including the United States Agency for International Development and the United States Department of Agriculture, Foundations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MasterCard Foundation and worked closely with private sector partners General Mills, Cargill Animal Nutrition and Danone to name a few.  

Gretchen is fully bi-lingual in Spanish and a collaborative leader, skilled facilitator, and team builder.  She has a proven track record of bringing together consortiums of stakeholders for social impacts, including the private sector, to achieve common goals. She is driven by data and analytics and believes that evidence-based programming and for-profit partnership is essential for effective and sustainable development in the long-term.

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Today, nearly one billion people lack electricity, over three billion lack clean water, and 750 million lack basic literacy skills. Many of these challenges could be solved with existing solutions, and technology enables us to reach the last mile like never before. Yet, few solutions attain the necessary scale to match the size of these challenges. Scaling Up Development Impact  is written by Isabel Guererro, Siddhant Gokhale, and Jossie Fahsbender. In this interview with GDP, Isabel and Siddhant offer some important takeaways as to why scaling up development is "mission criticall".

Isabel Guerrero is an economist, a psychoanalyst, and the co-founder of Imago Global Grassroots, which helps organizations scale up. Since 2014 she has taught the course on "Scaling Up and Systems Change for Development Impact" at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to this, Isabel worked for 30 years at the World Bank, including five years as Vice-President for the South Asia region. She holds a master's degree from the London School of Economics and graduated from the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute.

Siddhant Gokhale is a knowledge manager at Imago Global Grassroots, where he built the knowledge function. He co-authored a recent theoretical paper on the Adaptive Evaluation methodology and advises Imago's evaluation projects. He previously worked at the Behavioral Development Lab, establishing J-PAL South Asia's first project in the state of Goa. He holds a master's degree in public administration and international development from the Harvard Kennedy School and an MA in economics from Columbia University.

Check out Scaling Up Development Impact Here. (https://bit.ly/imagoggbook)

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The war between Israel and Hamas is unfolding into a humanitarian catastrophe. Water is the most precious resource for Gaza, and it is in short supply. Ground water supplies are sparse, and Israel controls inflow into Gaza. To punish Hamas, Israel temporarily turned off the taps which led to further humanitarian emergencies.

Israel has mastered scarce water resource technology, including de-salinization. This technology could come to Gaza, but it is not. Why? Clive Lipchin joins us to share his expertise on how this technology could greatly help the people of Gaza, and he explains why it hasn't been brought in it yet.

Clive Lipchin is a renowned environmental scientist and water resource management expert. Clive has dedicated his career to addressing water-related challenges in arid regions, particularly in the Middle East. He founded and currently directs the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies' Center for Transboundary Water Management, an institution recognized for its innovative work in cross-border water management and cooperation between Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians. Throughout his career, Lipchin has actively promoted regional collaboration on water-related issues, seeking to foster peace and sustainability through shared water resources. His work has earned him international acclaim and has made a significant impact on the field of environmental science and peacebuilding in the Middle East.

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As smelly as they are, flatulent cattle really take their toll on the climate. Major producers of methane, cattle, and other industrialized animals in agriculture, produces detrimental levels of methane which warm the planet faster than carbon. Not only is there no end in sight to seeking alternatives to this industry, but the World Bank has approved Industrial Agriculture as being compliant to the Paris Climate Commitment. Kelly McNamara joins us this week to offer a stern warning as to why industrial agriculture for animals should be a thing of the past for a climate conscious future.

Kelly McNamara is a senior research and policy analyst in Friends of the Earth US’ Agriculture and Climate Finance Program. Her work involves collaborating with teams across FOE and broader coalitions of NGOs from the Global North and South to engage multilateral development banks (MDBs) and private sector financiers on their investments in industrial animal agriculture. Prior to joining Friends of the Earth, Kelly worked as a business researcher and writer at Harvard Business School and EY and as an advisor and research fellow at industrial animal agriculture-focused NGOs including The Humane League and Pivot Food Investment. Kelly holds a BA in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and an MPhil in philosophy from Cambridge University.

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War is raging in The Gaza Strip. As Israel prepares for a ground invasion, Hamas holds dozens of prisoners, and now with knowledge that U.S. citizens are in the mix, it all spells disaster for Gaza. The Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million people under a heavy blockade on movement and basic resources, are now facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in this conflict.

The simple question is: "Why"? Why blockade water, energy, bread, and ice, when the worry is military rockets? Why restrict movement so strictly, when trade routes for weapons are clearly succeeding in getting weaponry into Gaza to use against Israel. It makes no sense as to why humanitarian hurt is being used a military tactic. To help us unpack this, we have Rida Abu Rass joining use from Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Rida Abu Rass is a PhD candidate at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, born in Tayibe, in the ‘Triangle’ area near the West Bank, and raised in Jaffa and Tel Aviv. He is interested in the factors that facilitate and obstruct political mobilization among ethnopolitical movements, with an emphasis on the Palestinian community within Israel. Rida has also taught and written about the political history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, on Middle East politics, social movements, democratization and nationalism. Before coming to Queen’s, he worked as a data coordinator at B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization. In his spare time, he writes op-eds, and he blogs.

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Almost 1/3 of the 8 billion people on this planet have never used the internet. Landlocked countries, conflict zones and remote islands have the highest rates of people who have never "logged on". This is a problem that goes beyond being a new face of inequality. As Anir Chowdhury says, the internet "is like oxygen"as those who have it, exist through it. But for those who do not have access or have low-literacy skills in technology the opportunities for exploitation, deception, and misinformation are enormous. Through "frugal innovation" Bangladesh's a2i programme plans to push back against the threats of the digital divide. Anir Chowdhury joins us from Dhaka.

Anir Chowdhury is the Policy Advisor of the a2i Programmme of the ICT Division and the Cabinet Division of the Government of Bangladesh supported by the UNDP. In this capacity, he leads the formation of a whole-of-society innovation ecosystem in Bangladesh through massive technology deployment, extensive capacity development, integrated policy formulation, whole-of-government institutional reform, and an Innovation Fund. His work on innovation in public service has developed interesting and replicable models of service delivery decentralization, public-private partnerships, and transformation of a traditional bureaucracy into a forward-looking, citizen-centric service provider.

He is a regular speaker in international conferences on public service innovation and reform, digital financial inclusion, data driven policy making, civil registration and digital identity management, SDGs, youth and community empowerment, educational transformation, public-private partnerships, and South-South Cooperation. He regularly writes in reputed national and international blogs, journals and publications. 

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The Sustainable Development Goals were at the top of the agenda for the United Nations General Assembly in New York this year. How many donor countries get a failing grade when it comes to meeting the target of contributing 0.7% of their Gross National Income? A lot. But 3 countries in Europe are standing out as leaders in surpassing the 0.7% commitment. And this comes at a time when countries like the United States and the United Kingdom are focusing more development dollars back on to their own shores and borders.

In this episode of GDP, Ian Mitchell from London's Centre for Global Development joins us to talk about why some countries are giving more than ever to international development, and why others are losing interest.

Ian Mitchell is a senior fellow and the director of development cooperation in Europe at the Center for Global Development. He leads CGD’s work in Europe on how governments’ policies accelerate or inhibit development and poverty reduction—considering both the effectiveness of aid and policies beyond aid including trade, migration, environment, and security. He is also an associate fellow at Chatham House and at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

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Did the bedlam of Brexit impact the United Kingdom as a global partner and donor? Is Russia and China pushing the UK out of Africa? Are partner nations in Africa rejecting the "assistance" from former colonial powers? Looking at the changing dynamics in East Africa, Simon Rynn and Michael Jones take a deep dive into the subject with their recent policy paper Furthering Global Britain? Reviewing the Foreign Policy Effect of UK Engagement in East Africa - Occasional Paper. In this discussion we learn that British foreign policy is struggling to keep up with changes underway in East Africa, but they're not out of the game, yet. Rynn and Jones offer advice on how Britain can retune its foreign policy to be a strong player in the region.

Simon Rynn is Senior Research Fellow for Africa at the International Security Studies department at RUSI. His experience covers conflict prevention and peacebuilding, stabilisation, security and justice, de-mining, humanitarian, governance and small arms control. 

Michael is a Research Fellow in the Terrorism and Conflict team examining political violence, governance by non/pseudo-state armed groups, and the convergence of violent extremism and insurgent militancy in East and sub-Saharan Africa. 

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It continues to baffle many as how hunger remains in a planet of 8 billion people when there is the ability and potential to feed everyone. In this conversation with Tim Prewitt, CEO of the Hunger Project, we explain why Las Vegas buffets probably won't save humanity from hunger. But local level community development projects in Uganda just might.

In Uganda, The Hunger Project is working in nine districts where agro-ecological zones - referred to as epicenters - have been set up. Across the epicenters in Africa, participants create community farms, where they learn regenerative agriculture practices such as composting, intercropping, and drip irrigation to promote biodiversity, improve crop yields, restore soil fertility, and make the best use of scarce resources. In addition, community partners receive training on food processing to reduce food waste. 

Tim Prewitt is an international executive, CEO and board member with more than 20 years of experience leading global teams to deliver impact at scale, through agricultural development, social enterprises, gender empowerment, impact investment, community-led development, and policy reform. He joined The Hunger Project as President and CEO on February 1, 2021. 

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The spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank are underway. Climate change adaptation is a top concern, and many wonder whether or not emerging economies can be part of the New Green Industrial Age. Technology, resources and political will exist. But do the finances? Will green technology remain a reserved commodity for affluent nations? Is it possible to change over millions of two-stroke Tuk-Tuks to emission free vehicles. None of it will happen without the right economic model behind. Oliver Schwank joins us this week to talk about how we can actually make that possible.

Oliver Schwank is a senior economist in the Financing for Sustainable Development Office of the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and one of the authors of the 2022 Financing for Sustainable Development Report: Bridging the Finance Divide. He is part of the policy analysis team that leads the substantive follow-up to the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development, and focuses on debt sustainability and integrated financing frameworks. Prior to his current role, he held various positions in the Secretariat of the United Nations, including as part of the writing team of the World Economic and Social Survey, a flagship UN publication, and in the Office of the Special Advisor on Africa. He also was a consultant with UNIDO and a lecturer in development economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and at the University of Vienna. He holds a Doctorate in Economics from the Vienna University of Economics and Business. 

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Globally, public health is pretty beat up after the pandemic. High and low income countries alike are struggling to get their own health systems back to capacity, let alone think about preparing for the next global pandemic. Yet, if pandemics teach us anything, being prepared for the next one is what really matters. As Spring meetings commence for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Amanda Glassman from the Center for Global Development joins us to talk about what world leaders should be thinking about when it comes to pandemic readiness, and the lessons learned coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amanda Glassman is executive vice president and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and also serves as chief executive officer of CGD Europe. Her research focuses on priority-setting, resource allocation and value for money in global health, as well as data for development. Prior to her current position, she served as director for global health policy at the Center from 2010 to 2016, and has more than 25 years of experience working on health and social protection policy and programs in Latin America and elsewhere in the developing world.

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It's hard to predict what will happen next week, let alone more than 25 years down the road. Nevertheless a new report has come out from the Centre for Global Development titled: Scenarios for Future Global Growth to 2050. In it, there are many positive calls made. Severe poverty may disappear as we currently know it and measure it. Military spending may well be exhausted, and rich country growth will slow down. What can we make of these global predictions and trends? What can be said about how the future will unfold at the local level? Countries will continue to submerge into the sea. The poles will get warmer, and urban centres may face punishing extremes from a changing climate. To help us navigate this foggy crystal ball, is Charles Kenny.

Charles Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. His current work focuses on global economic prospects, gender and development, and development finance. He is the author of the books “The Plague Cycle: The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease,” "Getting Better: Why Global Development is Succeeding," “The Upside of Down: Why the Rise of the Rest is Good for the West,” and “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Utility: Happiness in Philosophical and Economic Thought.” He has been a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine and a regular contributor to Business Week magazine. Kenny was previously at the World Bank, where his assignments included coordinating work on governance and anticorruption in infrastructure and natural resources, and managing a number of investment and technical assistance projects covering telecommunications and the Internet.

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During the COVID-19 pandemic women health care leaders stood out. Jurisdictions with women as elected leaders or top public health policy experts seemed to manage the challenges of the pandemic a bit better, and with a bit more public trust. Well before the pandemic, in parts of rural India communities that train Dalit women as community health workers often experienced dramatic improvements in health outcomes, all the while challenging rigid gender norms. We know that gender equity in health delivery, policy and management only brings better outcomes. Yet, the glass ceiling remains, and is seemingly reinforced. In countries where more than half the medical students are women, the majority of specialists remain men. In other countries women who enter the health professions as nurses stay planted as such while men ascend to leadership roles. For Ann Keeling this needs to change. Listen to this episode of GDP where she discusses why we'd all benefit from taking gender equity seriously in global health.

Ann Keeling is Women in Global Health’s Senior Fellow, is a British citizen whose 40-year career in global health and social development has included posts in Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, the Caribbean, Belgium, the USA, and her home country, the UK. She held the post of Head of Gender Equality Policy with the UK Government and is currently the Chair of the NGO Age International and Senior Fellow of Women in Global Health. Ann Keeling has been CEO of two global health NGOs, was UNFPA Country Representative Pakistan, and Director Commonwealth Secretariat leading on Health, Education, and Gender. Between 2008 and 2012 she was Chief Executive Officer of the International Diabetes Federation, founded the NCD (Non-Communicable Diseases) Alliance, and as Chair, led the successful campaign for the 2011 UN High-Level Summit on NCDs. Ann Keeling spent 9 years in Pakistan with the British Council, DFID, and UNDP working on human development and women’s rights. She also held senior posts with the Governments of Papua New Guinea and Pakistan. She studied at Oxford University UK, Ann Arbor University USA, and in 1981, at the People’s University in Beijing, China.

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Many countries around the world are growing deeply concerned about the health and well being of their democracies.  China's foreign interference in elections is is a major concern at the moment for Canada, as it has been to New Zealand.  But foreign governments are not necessarily the greatest to the health of democracies.  In fact, one of the greatest threats to democratic well being may be a lack of feminism.  On this international women's day, Dr. Gabrielle Bardall takes us through the concerns and threats that arise when democracies shrug feminism.  She also makes the case the democracies are best prepared for foreign threats and interference when they embrace feminist principles.  Check out this episode of GDP to learn more.  

An educator, advisor and activist, Dr. Bardall has worked to advance democracy and human rights in over 60 countries worldwide over the past two decades. She has advised and trained diplomats, legislators and civil servants from Parliament Hill to Capitol Hill. Recognizing that "democracy" as we know it and support it around the world often replicates structures of oppression, she started her own consulting firm in 2019, Herizon Democracy, to bring feminist vision to international democracy assistance. She has advised the US National Security Council, State Department and NATO on feminist approaches to democracy support and offered testimony to Canada's Parliament. Bardall has worked with leading organizations in realizing this vison, including numerous UN agencies and international non-profits. A prolific author and public speaker, she holds degrees from McGill University (BA), Sciences-Po Paris (MA) and l’Université de Montreal (PhD). She received the American Political Science Association’s Congressional Fellowship and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Doctoral Scholarship for her work in comparative democratization. Dr. Bardall lives on the South Shore of Nova Scotia with her husband and toddler twins.

Visit Dr. Bardall at Herizon Democracy.

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"Permacrisis" was declared word of the year by Collins English Dictionary.  The idea is that state of crisis lingers on despite society's best efforts to wish it weren't there.  War, climate change, economic crisis, and global inequality are with us.  How do we begin to understand what we're up against?  Do we pursue learning in order to find solutions?  Do we attempt to learn new skills to adapt?  Or do approach these heavy topics with the intent to take care of our selves, especially our own emotional needs?  In this episode of GDP Solla Zophoniasdottir joins us to talk about ways to lean into the permacrisis, so that we can adapt, we can improve, and we can face challenges with bravery and compassion.  Check out this episode where Dr. Bob shares some of his stories handling crisis as a firefighter - even when calls come in during a podcast recording.  

Solla Zophoniasdottir is the Learning Services Orchestrator at EIT Climate-KIC where she is responsible for the strategic development of learning and capability building activities across the organization.

Over the past 15 years, Solla has worked to expand and facilitate the learning processes of organisations, with a focus on skill building and shifting mindsets to see transformation in the climate space. She is an expert in organizational change management, working to create change both within and across different cultures. She is passionate about systems change and innovation and working with practitioners who have the power to make transformational change on some of our world’s biggest challenges.

Solla holds a MSc in Strategic Leadership towards sustainability and a BA in in Leadership and process management. In addition, she has accreditation in Organization & Relationship systems coaching.

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We promise that this podcast write up is in fact written by a human being.  But we can't say the same about this episode of GDP itself.  In this episode we let ChatGpt do some of the work by scripting dialogue, and then we ask it to write an essay about climate change and climate justice.  With us this week is Dr. Becca Babcock and Dr. Anders Hayden both from Dalhousie University.  Dr. Babcock provides some reflection on the use of AI, and how she has managed to go as far as using it as a teaching tool in her classes.  Dr. Hayden evaluates a ChatGpt essay and even gives it a grade.  It's an episode for educators, students, and development practitioners who fear that AI may take their jobs.  Worry not, as our guests this week discuss, AI remains a tool rather than a certain path of cyborgs taking over the planet.

Dr. Becca Babcock is the Assistant Dean of Student Matters in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Dalhousie University, where she also teaches writing. She has published two books: a novel, One Who Has Been Here Before (Vagrant Press/Nimbus Publishing, 2021) and a short story cycle, Every Second Weekend (Blaurock Press, 2011). Her forthcoming novel, Some There Are Fearless (Vagrant Press/Nimbus Publishing) is due this April.

Dr. Anders Hayden is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie University, with an emphasis on environmental politics. He is particularly interested in the concept of sufficiency and related post-growth ideas and initiatives. This interest has led him to examine issues such as sustainable consumption, work-time reduction, and the political and policy impacts of alternative measures of wellbeing and prosperity (“beyond GDP” measurement) in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Bhutan. He is the author of When Green Growth Is Not Enough: Climate Change, Ecological Modernization, and Sufficiency (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014) and Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet: Work Time, Consumption & Ecology (Zed Books / Between the Lines, 1999). He is the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Global Sustainability Governance (Routledge, 2020) and Towards Sustainable Well-Being: Moving beyond GDP in Canada and the World (University of Toronto Press, 2022).

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If you've studied global development, you probably didn't get too far into the curriculum before learning about how private partnerships in development have led to ruin more than once.  Oil companies, mining companies, water companies, chemical companies and others have all been called out on human rights abuses.  Yet, the private sector remains a major player in global development.  Gina Volynsky suggests that it is because the private sector has evolved into a broader ecosystem than in the past.  Now with more binding accountability for ecological and human impact, private sector partnerships continue to emerge in difficult circumstances, but with the ability to learn and improve?  Or is there a risk for repeated mistakes of the past? And what about the concept of the private sector in China's development model? Listen here, and you be the judge.

Gina Volynsky is a senior director of private sector practice with PACT.  She has over 25 years of experience in international development, including 14 years of living and working in emerging economies. She has dedicated much of her career to collaborating with the private sector to address development challenges, which included heading a team working for USAID on private-sector engagement, and designing and managing multi-country programs for the UNDP that created the infrastructure to partner with multinationals. While at the World Bank she served as country manager for MIGA, which provides political risk insurance to companies that invest in emerging economies. She set up and managed business development divisions for Crown Agents and CARANA. She has also worked directly in the private sector, running her own import-export company, and served as director of marketing for a U.S.-based financial services company.

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Journalists, it’s often said, write the first drafts of history because they are the first recorders and commentators of current events and social realities.  And the last couple of years have been a meaty first draft.  A global pandemic, a rise in authoritarianism, economic chaos, war in Europe, and now Artificial Intelligence that will write essays for you, and probably one day curate podcasts.  Has the world gone upside?  Will it right itself?  Instead of searching fro the prolific crystal ball, Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández suggests that we get the historians involved to understand how broader social processes connect these issues, and how crises have been handled in the past.  Can the perspective of history seriously work to guide societies out of crisis and chaos?  Tune in to find out.

In When the World Turned Upside Down: Politics, Culture and the Unimaginable Events of 2019-2022, award-winning historian and nationally syndicated columnist Luis Martínez-Fernández adeptly examines current U.S. and worldwide events from the intersection of opinion journalism, chronicling, and historical writing. This rare combination of methods and approaches offers readers unique insights on how history sheds light on contemporary matters and how our present preoccupations shape the way we look at and understand the past. The book, thus, invites readers into a dialogue between past and present, and at times, the near future.

Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández is a historian, university professor, author, consultant, and public speaker, whose fields of expertise include Latin America, the Caribbean, education, and Latino/Hispanic politics, culture, and society.

Born in Havana, Cuba and raised in Lima, Peru and San Juan, Puerto Rico, he holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in History from the University of Puerto Rico and a Ph.D. in History from Duke University.

Dr. Martínez-Fernández has vast experience as consultant in the areas of education, diversity, transcultural communications, outreach, media, and publishing.

A Pegasus Professor of History at the University of Central Florida since 2004, he is recognized as one of the most prolific and influential scholars in the field of Caribbean history. His publications include articles in Cuban Studies, Slavery and Abolition, Latin American Research Review, The Americas, Caribbean Studies, and in numerous edited volumes.

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The power of stories in global development cannot be under-estimated.  Chronicling experiences, encounters and adventures can inspire others to journey, engage and do the same.  Rich stories can build relations and understanding in rich and dynamic ways.  Telling stories comes with great power and responsibility.  Stereotypes can be forged, speaking on behalf of others leads to patriarchy, and sensationalism can create harmful representations of the land and life of peoples and cultures.  These issues matter to Nancy Edwards.  Having established an impressive career in global health and nursing, Dr. Edwards is now taking the time to explore the power and purpose of memoirs.  Check out this episode of GDP to hear her thoughts and the advice she offers others hoping to chronicle their journeys.

Nancy Edwards is a Distinguished Professor and Professor Emeritus, School of Nursing, University of Ottawa.  Dr. Edwards obtained her undergraduate nursing degree from the University of Windsor and completed graduate studies in epidemiology at McMaster University and McGill University. She is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

Dr. Edwards’ professional interests are in the fields of public and population health. She has worked in global health for most of her career focusing on capacity building, the delivery of maternal and child health programs, reducing health inequities, and implementation research.  She has mentored many colleagues, led global health program delivery and research initiatives on four continents, and shaped strategic directions for global health during her tenure as a Scientific Director with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

In both Canada and abroad, Nancy has drawn on her foundational global health learning roots in Sierra Leone, West Africa, where she worked as a community health nurse and program evaluator for five years.  Nancy captures these experiences in her book Not One, Not Even One: A Memoir of Life-altering Experiences in Sierra Leone, West Africa.  Her bookwas released by FriesenPress earlier this year (www.nancyedwards.ca).

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When a World Bank Development project gets rolling, people's lives will be impacted. Sometimes for the better?  Sometimes for the worse.  If you are a person living in a project impacted community, and you feel that your life will worsen, what can you do?  Protest? Standby and watch?  Leave your home?  These are all options, but another key option is to take your concerns to the highest levels of the World Bank.  Sometimes forgotten in many international development studies courses, the World Bank's Inspection Panel is an arm's length body that will hear complaints, look over the details, and take it to the top brass in the World Bank.  How do negatively impacted peoples get a hold of the panel?  Is there accountability?  Can the panel put the brakes on a potentially harmful project?  Listen to this episode of GDP where Ramanie Kunanayagam, the Panel Chair of the World Bank Inspection Panel, takes us through the details.  

Ramanie Kunanayagam, is a Sri Lankan-born Australian citizen, was appointed to the Inspection Panel on December 16, 2018, and became Panel Chair on January 1, 2022. She brings to the Panel three decades of experience across diverse geopolitical and multicultural environments in the private and public sectors.

Ms. Kunanayagam spent more than 10 years doing fieldwork in a remote part of East Kalimantan, Indonesia. She has held leadership positions in sustainability in both the private sector (working for two FTSE 10 companies) and the nonprofit sector. Most recently before joining the Panel she was the Global Head for Social Performance and Human Rights for BG Group. She has been a member of the boards of two international non-profit development organizations—RESOLVE and the Institute of Human Rights and Business.

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Frederico Fellini films are a mix of "memory, dreams, fantasy and desire" that create idiosyncratic interpretations of society.  If you're have any ties to, or interests in, Cuba, it might feel like you're in a Fellini script.  Cuba entered the pandemic on the front foot.  Sending its own health care workers around the world to assist with COVID-19 care, and then exporting its domestically engineered vaccines abroad, it seemed like Cuba was THE GLOBAL HEALTH POWER.  Now at the beginning of 2023, roughly 300,000 people have left the island (many between the ages of 26 - 42).  The domestic supply chain is in chaos, with everything from foods to medicines in short supply.  And COVID-19 made its way into the island claiming thousands of lives, while the country continues to wrestle with the challenges of one of the longest embargoes in history.  Protests have been common in Cuba during the pandemic, and more recently Cuba has reaffirmed its loyalty to Vladimir Putin.

What in the world is going on in Cuba?  Helping us look into the cloudy crystal ball is Joseph Scarpaci, a seasoned scholar and analyst of Cuban politics, culture and society.  In this season premiere episode, we take a deep dive into Cuba's current turmoil.

Dr. Joseph L. Scarpaci, Executive Director, Center for the Study of Cuban Culture and Economy, has been involved with cultural and educational travel to Cuba since 1991. Since then, he introduced more than 500 students, faculty, alumni, and interested travelers to the island. He aims to show travelers the many nuances of Cuban culture and economy. He is the author of three books and dozens of articles about Cuba. These include Cuban Landscapes: Heritage, Memory and Place (with Cuban geographer Dr. Armando Portela, New York: Guilford, 2009); Plazas & Barrios: Heritage Tourism and Globalization in the Latin American Centro Histórico(University of Arizona Press, 2005)

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Health and human needs only intensify during a conflict.  Persons relying on disability-inclusive spaces and services face enormous challenges when attempting to flee their homes because of the threat of invasion or attack.  Moldova continues to receive refugees from Ukraine, many of whom are in great need of disability inclusive care.  But Who Cares?  Where does the responsibility to provide care and services lie in such crises?  One organization is stepping in to answer the call. Based on in its long-term work in Moldova, Keystone Human Services made a Commitment to Action at the Clinton Global Initiative to provide spaces of care for those fleeing the war in Ukraine.  Recorded live at the Clinton Global Initiative in Manhattan, we are joined with Charlie Hooker, Charles Sweeder, and Nicolae Ciocan to talk about the important work that they are doing in Moldova today.

Keystone Human Services (KHS) announced a new Commitment to Action at this year’s Clinton Global Initiative in New York. Through this Commitment, entitled “Inclusive Crisis Response and Recovery – Rebuilding Forward – Moldova/Ukraine,” KHS will coordinate a national-level disability-inclusive relief and response effort within Moldova to support refugees from Ukraine, as well as Moldovan communities providing support, addressing both immediate basic and longer-term targeted needs.

Learn more about Keystone Human Services Here.

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The Guatemalan genocide was the systematic murder of Maya civilians during the government rule in the 1970s and 1980s.  Some 200,000 lives were taken by military and paramilitary operations during this era, all the while the government denied it was occurring. Governments are notoriously lousy at hiding secrets forever, and the military dictatorship in Guatemala was no exception.  In 2005 an abandoned room was discovered by Guatemala's human rights office.  In it was a vast collection of police records, reports and other documents that revealed the systemic implementation of murder and violence against Maya people by the government. A "staggering discovery" of records that proudly documented abuse and murder, this collection of documents was one of the most revealing collections of documents from Guatemala's dirty war.  

The police archive revealed that not only was genocide carefully planned and systemically executed, but it was proudly recorded!  Dr. Catherine Nolin's research and teaching focuses on learning from the afterlife of those who were targeted during the genocide.  Her research digs into the deeper significance of the genocide and how it was recorded.  And, she even takes her students and colleagues on field trips to Guatemala to engage in this historic landscape of violence first hand.  In this conversation, she outlines her work.

Catherine Nolin is a Professor of Geography and Chair of the Department of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at UNBC (newly re-named in April 2021). In July 2020, she was honoured to Chair the Conference of Latin American Geography (CLAG)organization. CLAG is the premier organization for geographers engaging in research in Latin America and the Caribbean and works to foster research, education, and service related to Latin American geographical studies. She considers herself a long-time insurgent researcher and social justice advocate, including more than 25 years grappling with the afterlives of the Guatemalan genocides.

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Child exploitation.  Any is too much.  No government in the world would openly advocate for child exploitation.  Yet, it occurs with impunity.  The Out of the Shadows Index is a tool that can help get governments get on track to prevent vulnerabilities for child exploitation. Check out this episode with Rute Caldeira from Ignite Philanthropy, who is overseeing the strategic direction of the Out of the Shadows Index.

Rute Caldeira has almost two decades of experience in the development and the good governance sectors, where she has built considerable expertise in evaluating the impact of evidence-based advocacy initiatives that aim to enable policy changes, and in developing effective and sustainable strategies for these initiatives. Currently she works as Ignite Philanthropy’s senior strategy advisor responsible, among other things, for the strategic direction and impact of the Out of the Shadows index.

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We want affordable housing!  And we want housing to be the greatest appreciating asset!  How can it be both?  

This antipodal relationship is not only impossible to fulfill, its consequences are falling on renters.  In the United States the average renter has a few thousand dollars of net wealth, while home owners boast hundreds of thousands.   

Michael Barnes sees this problem not as a wealth management problem, but as an issue of racial and gender discrimination.  The renter wealth equity gap is aimed at single mothers, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and newcomers.  His firm, Viva Equity Fund, has a plan to get more wealth into the pockets of renters, while costing landlords nothing in the process.  How?  Tune in to this Episode of GDP, recorded live at the Clinton Global Initiative 2022, to find out. #CGI2022

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A 17-year old student from Ukraine who may be able to put the land mine business out of business.  A video game that connects players to solving pressing climate change challenges.  And a robotic habitat for bees.  These are 3 stories of innovations that are unfolding not just so people can thrive, but so they can thrive.  In this episode of GDP, broadcast live from the CGI 2022 meeting in New York City alongside the UNGA, we meet 3 innovators who's ideas put into action may make a world of difference.  Praise aside, these innovators show how a commitment to be present to a problem can lead into an executable action.  It's a lesson for students, teachers, and policy makers alike on how to beat "development anxiety" and put it into commitments to action.

Igor Klymenko studies Physical and Mathematical sciences at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Igor is passionate about raising awareness of, and solving, the global landmine problem.

Sankari Studies is  a team of game developers, ecopreneurs, creatives, dreamers, technologists, solutionists, visionaries, storytellers, rebels, disruptors, and environmentalists, who have rallied to take a stand to fight the demise of our planet and pull it back from the brink of destruction.

Saar Safra is a tech-geek, a serial entrepreneur, and CEO of Beewise

Learn more about Igor Klymenko's Anti-mine quad copter here: 

Learn more about Katoa the Game here from Sankari Studios.

Learn more about Beewise here.

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#CGI2022

Not since 2016 has the Clinton Global Initiative met in person to make commitments for action against pressing global challenges.  Climate change, health care, inclusive economic growth, gender inequalities, even the health and well being of bees.  It's all on the table.  For this episode of GDP, Dr. Bob heads to New York to catch the conversations of world leaders in government, business, or the non-profit sector to better understand "The business of how".  How are these leaders approaching these problems, and what will they do about it?

In this episode we hear from Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, and José Andrés founder of world central kitchen about getting ideas "unstuck" and what needs to happen going forward when it comes to climate change and the emergencies that follow climate-related disasters.

Learn more about the Clinton Global Initiative Here.

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Imagine this.  A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) founded in a post-conflict country in Western Africa that offers assistance to the Global North.  And what if that same NGO refuses funds from those who disagree with its feminist mandate, and yet continues to thrive?  And what if this organization, Purposeful - based in Sierra Leone, is a leading example of how to turn the development industry right around.  In Sierra Leone Chernor Bah the Co-CEO of Purposeful joins GDP this week to explain exactly how a commitment to values, respect of morals, and belief in the goal of empowering girls is an approach to development that is so sorely needed.  For any development practitioner, student, or scholar, you will not want to miss this conversation.  

Chernor Bah is a feminist leader, activist, and champion who works in Sierra Leone and around the world to empower girls and young people. As the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Purposeful- the first Africa-rooted global feminist hub for girls activism - he dedicates his time to building power and amplifying  the voices of girls and young women while promoting distribution of  unrestricted funds to girls and feminist activists in Sierra Leone and over 150 countries around the world. He’s a leading voice of reform and decolonisation of the global development industry.  A lifelong champion for human rights, at age 15, Chernor founded and led the the Children’s Forum Network  -a mass movement of children who mobilized to demand their voices be included in peace and reconciliation efforts after Sierra Leone’s civil war. Globally recognized for his activism and expertise on girls, global education and youth rights, he has been appointed numerous times by the United Nations Secretary-General and is a frequent speaker and advisor at high-level platforms including the United Nations, The European Union, the World Bank, and at major universities around the world. His writings have appeared in the Lancet, the New York Times, the Guardian, Africa is a Country, DEVEX, and several other influential platforms.

Learn more about Purposeful here.

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Great ideas can be contagious.  But they need networks, validation, and times mentorship.  For the first time since 2016, the Clinton Global Initiative is coming back to New York alongside the United Nations General Assembly to bring together established and emerging leaders from government, business and philanthropy to tackle some of the world's most pressing challenges.  From war in Ukraine to the global climate crisis, to searching for inclusive economic development coming out of the pandemic.  It is a gathering, both in person and online, that will foster commitments to action to address these issues at local and global levels.  In the words of President Clinton, this event is about bringing diverse partners together to take action and to achieve real results to create a cultural of possibility in a world hungry for hope.  Kevin Thurm, the CEO of the Clinton Foundation joins us to discuss how this initiative works.

Kevin Thurm is the chief executive officer of the Clinton Foundation. He previously served as a senior counselor at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he worked with Secretary Sylvia Burwell and HHS senior leadership on a number of cross-cutting strategic initiatives, including continuing implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Prior to that role, Kevin held various leadership positions at Citigroup, including chief compliance officer and deputy general counsel. Before joining Citigroup, Thurm served as the deputy secretary and chief of staff for the Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Donna E. Shalala. He received a bachelor’s from Tufts University in 1983; a bachelor’s/master’s from Oxford University in 1986, where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1989.

Learn more about the Clinton Global Initiative Here.

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Finish your prescriptions even if you feel well.  Wash your hands.  And get ready for a tough new era of global health: Antimicrobial resistance.  Antibiotics were the greatest heroes of World War 2.  Thanks to this miracle medicine the 2nd world war was the first major conflict where people died of the actual wounds, not of infection.  Praise for antibiotics was so high following World War 2 that it put entire global health literatures of disease prevention and health promotion on the shelf - with the hope that pills would be enough.  And in 2022 we're still overprescribing antibiotic technology from the 1960s and 1970s to people and animals alike.  The consequence?  Bacterium is starting to adapt.  And when it does, as with diseases like tuberculosis, the consequences are horrendous.  Anthony McDonnell is sending a clear warning, that without proper change and action, antimicrobial resistance will impact global health so hard, it will make COVID-19 look like an annoyance.  

Anthony McDonnell is a senior policy analyst at the Center for Global Development (CGD), working to support national decision making and prioritisation of healthcare in Ethiopia through iDSI and as the technical lead for CGD’s working group on Antimicrobial Procurement. Previously, McDonnell led CGD’s work to analyse the COVID-19 vaccine portfolio and a project examining policy interventions to protect the supply chains for pharmaceuticals from COVID-19 induced shocks.

Before joining CGD, McDonnell worked as the Head of Economic Research for the UK’s independent review into antimicrobial resistance (O’Neill Review). Following this, he co-wrote a book with Harvard University Press called Superbugs: An Arms Race against Bacteria. He has also worked as a Senior Health Economist at the University of Oxford studying malaria interventions, and as a research associate at ODI where he led work examining why countries established universal health coverage and how best to get health care to left behind groups.

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In Uganda 1 in 5 high-school aged children attend classes.  In rural areas the number plummets to only 5% for young girls.  This is in a country where 55% of the population is under 18.  Ronald Kibirige works with InteRoots, an organization that sees how serious this education crisis is in Uganda.  Beyond getting students into classrooms, there is real concern that traditions, oral histories, and knowledges are at risk of vanishing.  It is why his work is about keeping traditional knowledge alive and well for all generations in Uganda.  It is a project with a solid and sound reminder that it is community strength and resilience that is at the heart of development.  

Ronald Kibirige is a Music and Dance Practitioner, Instrumentalist, Educationist and Researcher of African Music and Dance traditions. He pursued his undergraduate education in Music and Dance at Makerere University – Kampala. He completed graduate studies in Dance Knowledge, Practice and Heritage in a consortium of four Universities; University of Blaise Pascal-France, University of Szeged – Hungary, University of Roehampton – London, and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology – Norway, where he recently completed his doctoral studies in Humanities and the Arts.

Beyond Academia and the Arts, Ronald has significant experience with nonprofit collaborations and management in Africa.

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Check out InterRoots here:  https://interoots.org

People are paying more for food in 2022 - a lot more!  And in countries where food security is frail, access to the basics is going to get harder.  Price spikes are being felt around the world.  In some cases leading to violence, in other cases, triggering famine warnings.  Russia's war in Ukraine is fuelling the crisis first by targeting Ukraine's wheat and sunflower oil producers, and second by disrupting global trade networks.  What should G7 and G20 nations be doing about this?  According to Ian Mitchell, it may be time to go beyond traditional notions of food aid, and to look at a bigger determinant:  Finance.

Ian Mitchell is a senior fellow and the director of development cooperation in Europe at the Center for Global Development. He leads CGD’s work in Europe on how governments’ policies accelerate or inhibit development and poverty reduction—considering both the effectiveness of aid and policies beyond aid including trade, migration, environment, and security. He is also an associate fellow at Chatham House and at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Mitchell has expertise in the economics and developmental impact of including on trade, agriculture, and policy development in the EU and G20. He leads the annual Commitment to Development Index (CDI) and the Quality of Official Development Assistance (QuODA). Recently, he has developed new measures of how agriculture and trade policies affect lower income countries; identified new metrics of aid effectiveness; and developed new approaches to the UK’s development policy post-Brexit.

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In this season finale of GDP, James Grall joins the conversation about how development practitioners can do what they do best in a challenging post-pandemic world.  Will remote working be part of the equation?  Are there risks of relying remote technology in countries with heavy handed internet surveillance?  Are there opportunities for development scholars and practitioners to get "back in the field".  Now with the war in Ukraine grinding on, what other challenges will continue to unfold for global development going forward?  Don't miss this conversation with James Grall. 

James Grall has 25 years of experience in international development. He has designed and implemented complex activities in economic growth, democracy and governance, energy, environment and natural resources, health and education. James currently leads the Pact regional portfolios for Asia, Europe, Latin America and global programs. James has lived and worked in Southeast Asia since 2005 and is presently based in Bangkok, Thailand. James holds a master's degree in international affairs and U.S. foreign policy from The American University. When not at work, James is usually found with his husband and four dogs on a beach somewhere in Asia or at the piano.

Learn More about PACT HERE

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Deep poverty is increasing.  Since the COVID-19 pandemic is making more people poorer - especially those who are already experiencing poverty.  Some estimates suggest that COVID-19 wiped out the global gains on poverty alleviation in the three to four years before the pandemic.  Knowing this?  Now what?  How can development practitioners begin to address this challenge?  According to Kate Schecter, one of the key components may be more obvious than we think:  "saving money".  Check out this episode of GDP to learn more about her ideas and approach.  

Kate Schecter, Ph.D., joined World Neighbors as the President and CEO in June of 2014.  World Neighbors is a 71 year old international development organization that works with rural isolated communities to help find solutions to permanently lift these communities out of poverty.  Dr. Schecter is responsible for managing World Neighbors’ programs and operations in 14 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.  In her previous position, she worked for the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) for 14 years.  As a Senior Program Officer at AIHA, she had responsibility for managing health partnerships throughout Eurasia and Central and Eastern Europe.  She worked with over 35 partnerships addressing primary healthcare, chronic disease management, hospital management, maternal/child health, Tuberculosis, blood safety and HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Schecter holds a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and an M.A. in Soviet Studies from Harvard University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served on the Board of Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. from 2010 to 2018.

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If you thought that the COVID-19 pandemic knocked put the threat of terrorism to rest?  Think again.  Sondre Lindahl sees the threat of terrorism happening anywhere that there is political instability.  The form it takes?  Who perpetuates it, and how they carry out actions can vary widely, but rest assured, the threat of terror activities remains high.  So how should the world prepare and respond?  Sondre Lindahl suggests that the Global War on Terror was the wrong approach, and instead of using resources and political imaginations that way, can there be better global cooperation to work further upstream to prevent extremism?  Tune in to find out.

Sondre Lindahl is Associate Professor in Political Science at Østfold University College, Norway. He holds a PhD from the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand. His main research interest is counterterrorism, and he is the author of a A Critical Theory of Counterterrorism: Ontology, Epistemology and Normativity. He is a regular commentator on issues of security and terrorism in Norway.

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Humanitarian organizations do their jobs well in times of crisis.  Be it crisis born from conflict, famine, climate change, or natural disasters, the humanitarian sector knows how to respond to people's needs when they are in need.  Mark Lowcock suggests that despite this great work on the ground, it almost always takes shape as reactions to crisis, rather than prevention ofcrisis.  With 35 years of humanitarian experience, Mark Lowcock's forthcoming book "Relief Chief" makes the case that global humanitarian efforts need to work on preventing crisis.  It requires accepting the challenges of a new paradigm of humanitarian emergencies and by ensuring that the needs of those in crisis are heard and responded to with appropriate care and compassion.

Mark's new book is titled "Relief Chief: A Manifesto for Saving Lives in Dire Times.

Mark Lowcock was appointed United Nations Under‑Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator in May 2017 and served in that role until June 2021. He was previously Permanent Secretary of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development. As one of the most distinguished international public servants, Lowcock has spent more than 35 years leading and managing responses to humanitarian crises across the globe. He has authored opinion articles for The Washington Post, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, Le Monde, CNN, and others. He was twice awarded medals by Queen Elizabeth II for services to international development and public service, including Knighthood in 2017. He is a Visiting Professor of Practice in the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and a Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development.

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"We need global leadership in order to prevent starvation" wrote Masood Ahmed and former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the Financial Times.  COVID-19, and Russia's war in Ukraine have created massive disruptions to the world economy, and it will be world's poor who will pay the highest price.  As the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank commence, Masood Ahmed provides a clarion call to world leaders to say that quick fixes and piecemeal policy will not fix our current global challenges.  What is needed now, more than ever, is a commitment to building trust in global development be it between nations, among development partners, and with local communities.  

Masood Ahmed is president of the Center for Global Development. He joined the Center in January 2017, capping a 35-year career driving economic development policy initiatives relating to debt, aid effectiveness, trade, and global economic prospects at major international institutions including the IMF, World Bank, and DFID.

Ahmed joined CGD from the IMF, where he served for eight years as director, Middle East and Central Asia Department, earning praise from Managing Director Christine Lagarde as a “visionary leader.” In that role, he oversaw the Fund's operations in 32 countries, and managed relationships with key national and regional policy makers and stakeholders. In previous years, he also served as the IMF's director of External Relations, and deputy director of the Policy Development and Review Department.

From 2003-2006, Ahmed served as director general, Policy and International at the UK government's Department for International Development (DFID). In that role, he was responsible for advising UK ministers on development issues and overseeing the UK's relationship with international development institutions such as the World Bank.

Ahmed also worked at the World Bank from 1979-2000 in various managerial and economist positions, rising to become Vice President, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. In that role he led the HIPC (heavily indebted poor countries) debt relief initiative, which has to- date brought relief from debt burdens to 36 of the world's poorest nations.

Born and raised in Pakistan, Ahmed moved to London in 1971 to study at the LSE where he obtained a BSc Honors as well as an MSc Econ with distinction.

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When it comes to addressing global health challenges, handling stigma is essential.  In Eswatini 27% of the population lives with HIV.  Organizations like pact have worked within communities to help achieve the 95 - 95 - 95 goal in Eswatini.  This is to say that 95% of persons with HIV are aware of it, and 95% of them have regular access to medication, and 95% of them are experiencing viral suppression.  Getting to this state requires openness, communication, and trust between public health officials and their communities.  Nosipho Gwebu Storer's work in this building that trust is impressive and a lesson for the world to listen to...especially now with vaccine hesitancy against COVID-19.  The story of public health in Eswatini is one the world needs to hear.

Nosipho Gwebu Storer is Pact's Eswatini Country Director. Nosipho Gwebu Storer has more than 17 years of experience in public health and community development, including in HIV care and treatment programs, psychosocial programming and policy and planning. In addition to serving as Pact's Country Director in Eswatini, Nosipho is also the Chief of Party for the Insika ya Kusasahas project and supporting the Eswatini Ministry of Health with technical assistance, messaging dissemination and deployment of the Covid-19 vaccine in the country. Prior to Pact, Nosipho served as a social worker, leading social work support interventions for community prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV programs. She also worked for the Eswatini Baylor Children’s Clinical Centre of Excellence and ICAP with Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. She began her development career working in food security and response programs for areas experiencing severe drought in Eswatini.

Check out the work of Pactworld:https://www.pactworld.org

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away Atul Tandon was making it on Wall Street.  At 39, Tandon was running one of the world’s largest international banking efforts on Wall Street when he was faced with a serious health crisis. Questioning his purpose, Tandon walked away from a life of wealth and turned to the very poorest in the world, vowing to serve those he left behind.

Tandon has made good on that promise by expanding Opportunity International’s microfinance and digital banking services – and at the height of the pandemic, serving more than 19 million people in 30 countries, developing a partner network of 100+ microfinance institutions in some of the most remote corners of the world - dubbed one of the “best kept nonprofit secrets” by Freakonomics’ Steven Levitt.

Atul Tandon is a global leader known for building, growing, and turning around some of the world’s best-known for-profit and non-profit enterprises. Tandon currently serves as CEO of Opportunity International, a non-profit organization that designs, delivers, and scales innovative financial solutions to help families living in poverty build sustainable livelihoods and access quality education for their children.

Prior to Opportunity International, Tandon founded and served as CEO of the Tandon Institute, which provides strategy, solutions, and staffing to enable social sector enterprises. Before that, Tandon served as the leader of United Way Worldwide’s 41-country International Network, helping build and shape the world’s largest network of community-based charities. Additionally, he oversaw the network’s worldwide corporate relationships and fundraising functions.

Check out Opportunity International:  https://opportunity.org

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Access to higher education remains a challenge in sub-Saharan Africa.  Select scholarships and bursaries are available to some, but getting access to knowledge to many remains a challenge.  Germaine Tuyisenge,an Assistant Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is working to change that.  By expanding online learning to students in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlight African scholar research on her new podcast "The African Scholar Podcast", Germaine is working to break barriers of knowledge access and knowledge translation in global development.  Check out how she's doing it.

Germaine Tuyisenge is an assistant professor of sexual and reproductive health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London, UK, where she is also a program director for the online masters, Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy and Programming in Low and Middle Income Countries that the school is developing with the University of Ghana and that will start this September.

Germaine’s research focuses on equitable access to sexual and reproductive health services among resource-limited settings

Her PhD research looked at the role of community health workers in promoting access to maternal health services in Rwanda. For her post-doctoral research, Germaine worked with the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity from the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University to explore the dynamics of access to sexual and reproductive health services among immigrant women in Vancouver, Canada.

Germaine has worked with government and non-government institutions in Rwanda, Kenya, the Netherlands and Canada on community-based programs to improve SRH.

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Following from our last GDP podcast on the challenges of online learning, we're pleased to welcome the President of Neontrain, Rob Belliveau to the podcast to talk about how profs can work to overcome real challenges and presumed stereotypes of online education.  In this episode Rob & Dr. Bob make the case that online learning can, in some ways, be more connected, more personal and more attentive to students needs than the traditional classroom setting.  Check it out:

Leading NeonTrain down the track is Founder and NeonTrain President Rob Belliveau. With a background in human resources, Rob has experience working on all aspects of business and process improvement with a specialty in training and communications.

Rob is a former Training Officer with Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency, where he led the project to bring online learning to the Halifax Regional Municipality. Rob understands the challenges with large organizational change and put those lessons to work when he was able to quickly upscale Halifax's learning management system and provide COVID workplace training to over 4000 employees. He is now using these years of experience to help organizations just like yours implement online learning solutions.

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North Korea is used to sanctions by now.  When Pyongyang demonstrates its might with missile tests, or when reports surface of the bone crushing repression within prison camps, the West often responds with financial measures and sanctions.  But now, North Korea has a new plan to move money across borders despite sanctions - cryptocurrencies.  And from what we can tell, it looks like they are using digital coins to evade sanctions to great effect.  On this episode of GDP Ethan Jewelljoins us to talk about North Korea's cryptocurrency plans.

Ethan Jewell is a Seoul-based correspondent for NK News and NK Pro focused on sanctions, trade and maritime issues. He previously worked as an investigations and intelligence contractor for Facebook and as a research intern for the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He also worked as a personal research assistant for Evan Osnos of the New Yorker Magazine, where he researched a range of topics from Chinese economics to American domestic politics. Ethan graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 2019 with a bachelors in International Security with a focus on China and the Korean Peninsula.

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What do Truckers in Canada, Islamophobes in the U.S., Hindu supremacists and incels the world over have in common?  Distorted visions of a golden age when they ruled as they liked.  Selective histories of nationalist glories are on the front steps of Capitols and Parliaments around the world.  Fuelled by half-baked histories and disinformation online, the rise of anti-establishment movements, white supremacy and nationalisms tend to follow a similar script.  Joining us today to unpack that script, and to understand why people fall for it, are Zenaib Farokhi and David R. Anderson.

Zeinab Farokhiis a doctoral candidate at the Women and Gender Studies Institute and Diaspora and Transnational Studies Centre, University of Toronto. She received her M.A in Women and Gender Studies, University of Toronto, and an M.A in Sociology from Osmania University, India, and her B.A in History from Isfahan University, Iran. Her research interests include cyber feminism, transnational feminisms and diasporic studies.Farokhi's mixed-methods dissertation focuses on right-wing extremism, gender, and online radicalization. Her current doctoral work compares the usage of Twitter by Islamophobic right-wing extremists in India, Canada, and the US, focusing on anti-Muslim rhetoric in Hindu and white nationalist discourse.

David R. Anderson is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University. David was born legally blind and grew up in the West Kootenays, a region of the southern interior of British Columbia and the traditional territory of the Ktunaxa and Sinixt First Nations. His dissertation, Seeing Otherwise: Nature, Blindness, Memoir, examines blind, minority, and nature memoirs via close reading practices to evidence how blind and other overlooked ecological sensibilities can promote more just political and environmental collectivities. With an interdisciplinary background in literature, education, and the environmental humanities, his intersectional research promotes the value of and strategies for creating practices of mutual vulnerability, care, and resilience in the face of multiple climate, social, and political crises.

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Russia has just declared Dontesk & Luhansk in the Donbas region of Ukraine to be sovereign states.  Peacekeepers are on the ground.  NATO nations are applying sanctions.  The government in Kyiv has said for months that Russia is attempting to usurp democracy in the country.  Yet Moscow says that it is merely peacekeeping.  Is it peacekeeping?  Is it warmongering?  Is it something else?

As we see the beginnings of a hybrid war emerging in Ukraine, Thomas Hughesjoins GDP to help explain some of the factors that have led up to this escalation.  Will there be a full scale invasion?  What will become of the Donbas region?  Are cyberattacks on their way?  What could and should NATO nations do at a time like this?

Thomas Hughesis a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for International and Defence Policy, Queen’s University. His primary areas of research are on confidence-building, arms control regimes, deterrence, and strategic culture. Thomas defended his dissertation, The Art of War Games: The Political Effects of Military Exercises in Europe, 1975-2018 in August 2021. He co-edited the 2018 volume North American Strategic Defense in the 21st Century, and has also published work on the use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft. Thomas gained his MA from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, Denver, and has also worked for the UN Inter-regional Crime and Justice Research Institute.

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On October 25, 2021 military officers in Sudan staged a coup and took the capital.  Sudan's coup follows coups in Chad, Guinea, and two in Mali.  Madagascar and the Central African Republic experienced a failed attempt each.  For the past twenty years coups were becoming rare in the African continent, and they were never condoned or encouraged by members of the African Union, or the international community.  But now, there is an uptick in strongmen in uniform toppling democratic processes.  Why, and why now?  A long-standing expert on democratic institutions in Northern African and the Middle East, Milica Panic shares her thoughts about what is going on in Sudan, and the growing threats to democracies in the region.

Milica Panic is an accomplished program leader with more than 20 years of experience designing and managing complex governance programs, including deep experience working across both sub-Saharan Africa and the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa). Beginning her career as a peace activist in her native Serbia, Milica went on to design and implement programs focused on women’s political inclusion in South-East Europe, Russia and Palestine for Norwegian People’s Aid. Later she led governance and civil society programs for the International Republican Institute in Iraq, Sudan and South Sudan, before serving as IRI’s deputy regional director for Africa. Before joining Pact, Milica worked with DAI, where she served as a director on the project delivery team. Between 2016 and 2021, Milica was COP for the USAID Liberia Accountability and Voice Initiative, a project renowned for its innovative approaches to network building, adaptive management and politically smart programming.

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Check out the work of Pact:  https://www.pactworld.org

"You can shove your climate crisis up your arse", said Greta Thunberg.  "How many more signs do we need?", asked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  "“And this is a chance, in my view, to make a generational investment in our economic resilience and in our workers and our communities throughout the world," said Joe Biden.  Another climate conference, and another year of incredible disasters linked to climate change.  Intensive hurricanes and cyclones.  Burning temperatures, and an entire town burned to the ground in minutes amid wild fires in British Columbia.  Are politicians finally taking definitive action on the climate crisis?  If they are?  What does it look like?  Can we pump the breaks on carbon intensive industries?  Do we have enough available alternatives at the ready to get the global economy off of carbon?  Here to answer these questions and to weigh in on the Glasgow COP26 conference, it's none other that our regular guest on GDP: Dr. Anders Hayden.

Anders Hayden is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  He is particularly interested in the evolving balance between efforts to promote ecological modernization (“green growth”) and sufficiency-based challenges to the endless growth of production and consumption. He has written on efforts to promote "green growth" in Canada, Britain, and the European Union. His interest in the sufficiency approach has included examination of policies and initiatives to reduce hours of work as well as research on Bhutan, a country that has established Gross National Happiness, rather than Gross National Product, as its overriding goal. He is currently involved in research on the political and policy impacts of alternative measures of wellbeing and prosperity (“beyond GDP” measurement). He is the author of two books: When Green Growth Is Not Enough: Climate Change, Ecological Modernization, and Sufficiency (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014) and Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet: Work Time, Consumption & Ecology (Zed Books / Between the Lines, 1999), and co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Global Sustainability Governance (Routledge, 2020).

Follow his latest project about moving beyond GDP here:  www.beyondgdpindicators.com 

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Governments can be slow to help those in need, yet they often act fast against real threats.  Social media platforms, like Facebook (Meta) have been long critiqued for being bigger than governments, both in terms of subscribers and revenue. But is Facebook a threat to governments, democracies and to populations themselves?  Despite the birthday reminders, cute cat photos, and ability to sell goods locally, Facebook has enabled the spread of disinformation, intimidation, hatred and fear to the point where lives have been threatened.  In particular the patterns of disinformation show that women in politics are particularly targeted, and strategically so.  If social media is a potential threat to democracies, what can be done? Kristina Wilfore spells it all out in this 30 minute podcast. 

Kristina Wilfore is a seasoned international development professional having worked against authoritarian regimes around the world for the National Democratic Institute, International Foundation for Electoral Systems, and USAID-funded grantees - designing and implementing large-scale election integrity, political party, civil society and disinformation defense programs in post conflict and pre-revolutionary environments.

Through the 2020 general election in the US, Kristina managed the largest effort in US history to help civil society organizations and election stakeholders detect, respond to, and preempt orchestrated disinformation campaigns.

She has helped campaign professionals in Western Europe throughout Sweden, Spain, Finland and the Netherlands work against growing far-right populist movements, by improving message strategies and grassroots engagement with voters. In the 2019 EU election, she worked to expose online influence operations and pushback on disinformation, organizing digital forensic evidence for regulators on activities of malign actors. She has piloted public engagement campaigns to tackle disinformation head on in Kosovo, Serbia and Ukraine.

Kristina is originally from Montana where she began her journey in changemaking when at the age of 14 she organized a letter to the editor campaign to support Planned Parenthood after an abortion clinic in the state was bombed by anti-choice extremists.

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Check out the Parliamentary Centre's Democracy Dialogue Series Here. https://parlcent.org 

The Pandora Papers is the International Consortium of Investigative Journalist's largest investigation into off-shore finance to date.  Almost 3 terabytes of data piece together a shadow world of offshore financial.  World leaders  and at least 130 billionaires rely on an offshore financial system that keeps taxes low, money opaque and above all guards the privacy of its clients.  Beyond the shocking inequalities from the world's billionaires harbouring their wealth in tax-havens, what role does the offshore finance system have in facilitating shady business?  From real estate, to art trading all the way to illicit trade at sea, the world of off shore finance is mysterious to many, but day to day business for a global super elite.  In this episode of GDP, we chat with Delphine Reuter from the ICIJ, to help piece together the bigger meaning of the Pandora Papers.  

Delphine Reuter, Belgium, is ICIJ’s data journalist and researcher.

She started collaborating with ICIJ on the LuxLeaks project in 2014.

Prior to joining ICIJ's Data & Research Unit full time, she described her position as "brain for hire." She's no data witch, but somehow working for ICIJ has sparked a love for spreadsheets, everything that requires research, and cross-border investigations.

Previously she was a freelancer working on investigative cross-border projects. She has also been a researcher for environmental organizations. More recently, she was a coordinator of journalism training for professionals and a teacher at IHECS, a journalism school in Brussels.

She holds a degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism (NY) and IHECS.

Check out the ICIJ here.

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COVID-19 is a global experience that conjoins us all.  But we live in very different realities of it.  Everyone on earth has been impacted by the virus and the public health measures that have responded to it.  Now with vaccines rolling out is the world coming together to move towards the post-pandemic era, or are we entrenching divisions in dangerous and untested ways?  

It's not just the vaccinated who will enjoy more liberties going forward, but rather those who receive a certain type of vaccine.  Double vaccinations of Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, allow for free entry into North America, Europe and beyond.  For those vaccinated in Russia, China, Cuba and India, the borders may stay shut.  And for the 87.7% of people in low income countries who are awaiting a first dose?  Borders and opportunities will remain closed.  All the while some places like the U.S. and Quebec are preparing to give out 3rd doses.   

Dr. Bob is joined by his old friend and brother in arms in global health, Dr. Ryan Hoskins, to talk about why the preference of types of vaccine are among the reasons why the world is setting itself up to divide in dangerous ways.  

Dr Hoskins works as an emergency room physician, health policy researcher, and teacher, based at the University of British Columbia. He has worked, and continues to work, in a number of rural and remote communities across Canada, and has worked in parts of Latin America and Africa. He is interested in the cost-effectiveness of health in low-income settings, building a case for non-communicable disease treatment. He has a special interest in strep throat and rheumatic heart disease, a condition that is vastly overtreated in high income countries and under treated in low-income countries. He wishes our healthcare resource decisions were made with more transparency and more evidence.

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What are the police supposed to do?  If it is really about keeping the public safe, why are some members of the public specifically targeted and subjected to frequent surveillance, and why do black Americans continue to die at the hands of the police?  It's time to go beyond saying enough is enough, and to start putting policies in place so it happens never again.  Tari Ajadi is dedicated, through research and activism, to seeing policing change.  Approaching the nature of policing through a public health approach, Mr. Ajadi offers an approach to public safety that is, at its heart, is about building safe communities, especially for those who have been the very targets of police.  

Tari Ajadi is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Dalhousie University. His dissertation research compares how Black activists in municipalities in Nova Scotia and Ontario strategize to prompt change in policing and in health policy. A British-Nigerian immigrant to Canada, Tari aims to produce research that supports and engages with Black communities across the country. He has published articles in The Globe and Mail, The Chronicle-Herald, University Affairs, Canadian Government Executive, Canadian Diversity and The Tyee. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Health Association of African Canadians. He is a Junior Fellow at the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance. He holds a MA in Political Science from Dalhousie University.

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If all the world is a stage, then Theatre for Development is about dealing with some of the most troubling moments of that world.  Beyond the production of dramatic performance for audiences, the methods of role playing, acting, and diving into the perspective of others is an incredibly powerful tool to explore peace and reconciliation, trauma, and psychology.  On the front line of this research is Ph.D. Candidate Telisa Courtney from the University of Alberta.  Telisa join's GDP to discuss the ins and outs of theatre for development, and to offer straight up advice for graduate students seeking to do research abroad. 

Telisa is a 2nd year Political Science PhD student at the University of Alberta. They hold a Master of Arts degree in International Development Studies from Dalhousie University, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Alberta with a double major in Political Science and Psychology. Their research focuses on applied theatre as a mechanism for community building, peacebuilding, and conflict resolution in East Africa. In their personal life, they are a music teacher, yoga practitioner, cross-country runner, and cat mom.

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The saying goes that countries will often export their strengths.  But when it comes to foreign assistance for democracy support, Canada does remarkably little compared to its neighbour to the South and partners in Europe.  Inclusive democracy is foundational pillar to Canadian society, and in an era when many countries are teetering towards populism and anti-democratic processes, where is Canada's voice and support in the conversation?  

To offer her expertise and insight into the place of Canada in the world of democracy support, GDP is happy to have Monika Le Roy join this episode.

Monika Le Roy is an Advisor to the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) on political affairs, democracy and human rights, leading programs to address rising authoritarianism, atrocity prevention, and threats to international peace and security in the region. She directs OAS efforts to document crimes against humanity in Venezuela and is the first OAS focal point on the Responsibility to Protect. A senior public policy and development expert, Monika has served as Senior Policy Advisor to two Canadian Foreign Ministers and has deep experience in global politics, government and the not-for-profit sector. She has worked in the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and the MENA regions. Monika’s career has focused on supporting peaceful democratic transitions, strengthening democratic governance and women’s empowerment, and has led global advocacy campaigns to end child, early and forced marriage and the fight to end sexual violence in conflict. She holds an HBA from Carleton University and an LLM in International Law with International Relations from the University of Kent.

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During pandemics our diets change.  Dan Dan Noodles and Sourdough bread were the staples of COVID-19.  In the 1918 influenza it was oysters.  The 17th century plague in Paris was held back by lemonade, and in ancient times, certain foods were reserved for health times, and others for illness.  Recipes and cravings aside, COVID-19 toppled the global culinary industry.  From small-time restaurants to airlines, the pandemic has forced the restaurant industry to pause and think.  And in that thinking, what is being considered?  Environmental impacts?  Gender dynamics? Exploitive labour conditions?  

Here to offer his expertise and foresight on the lingering impacts of COVID on the restaurant industry, is Chef Ben Kelly.

Benjamin Kelly is a Red Seal Chef, blogger, and cookbook author from Nova Scotia, Canada. For over twenty years he has worked in a wide variety of restaurants from Canada’s east coast to it’s far north.  Ben’s love of food first developed cooking corn chowder and Shepherd’s pie alongside his mother as a young child. That love grew as Ben was guided through his culinary journey by numerous chefs and teachers. Ben’s passion now extends to teaching anyone who wants to learn about food and how to cook.  Today Ben owns and operates a personal chef service and catering company as well as a successful food blog called chefsnotes.com. You can find him on social media @chefbenkelly. And you can find his books, The 5-Ingredient Cookbook For Men, and The How-To Cookbook For Men wherever fine books are sold.

Check out Chef Ben at https://www.chefsnotes.com/

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The voices of North Korean refugees have the power to captivate audiences, inspire human rights activists, and challenge the very regime that brought them suffering.  The stories and testimonies of North Korean refugees provide an important view into the eerie reality of Kim Jung Un's regime.  At the same time, stories from North Korean refugees illuminate the human conviction to follow their dreams and desires despite a regime that tells them otherwise.  But story telling is tough.  Relieving trauma is painful.  Communing with the public to find purpose and to heal hearts takes skill.  Casey Lartigue has been working with North Korean Refugees for 10 years to provide the platform to build those skills.  His organization, Freedom Speakers International is a one of a kind organization that helps North Korean refugees find their voice through education, advocacy and support.

Casey Lartigue is an advocate and activist for educational freedom who has gained recognition in both South Korea and the United States. He is now based in South Korea where he is co-founder and co-president of Freedom Speakers International (formerly the Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center) along with South Korean researcher Lee Eunkoo. He is president of TNKR’s US office.

He is the 2017 winner of the Special Contribution” Award presented by the Hansarang Rural Cultural Foundation, the 2018 winner of the Challenge Korea (Global) Award, and the 2019 winner of Challenge Korea’s “Challenge Maker” Award. He is executive director of Giving Tuesday Korea, co-chair of the “Bring My Father Home” coalition, and a lecturer in public speaking at the Seoul University of Foreign Studies.

For more about Freedom Speakers International, visit their website:  http://fsi21.org

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The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq became missions to rebuild the governments and to promote democracy.  It led many to associate the terms of "Democracy support / democracy assistance" with regime change.  Dr. Tom Carothers suggests that this bad rap came from security interventions becoming political missions.  A better way to understand democracy support is by looking at how organizations respond to political crises such as what is unfolding in Myanmar.  In this episode of GDP Tom Carothers explains how democracy support works, where it has worked, and how it could work better.  In cooperation with the Parliamentary Centre in Ottawa, we're happy to present this conversation about democracy assistance in international development.

Thomas Carothers is interim president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an independent global think tank based in Washington DC, where he oversees all of the Endowment’s research programs and directs the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program.

He is the founder and director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Program, which analyzes the state of democracy in the world and the efforts by the United States and other countries to promote democracy.

Dr. Carothers is a leading authority on democracy promotion and democratization worldwide as well as an expert on U.S. foreign policy generally. He has worked on democracy-assistance projects for many public and private organizations and carried out extensive field research on democracy-building efforts around the world. In addition, he has broad experience in matters dealing with development aid, human rights, rule of law, and civil society development.

He is the author or editor of eight critically acclaimed books on democracy promotion as well as many articles in prominent journals and newspapers.

His most recent book is Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization(co-edited with Andrew O’Donohue).

He previously worked as a lawyer at the U.S. Department of State and the law firm of Arnold & Porter.  He has been a visiting faculty member at Oxford University, the Central European University, and Johns Hopkins SAIS.  He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the London School of Economics, and Harvard College.

"To learn more from Dr. Carothers and other expert speakers, you can attend the Parliamentary Centre's Global Democracy Dialogue's first eventon May 12, 1-2:30pm EST. Check out@ParlCenton Twitter for details on how to attend"

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The COVID-19 pandemic forced billions of parents into paternity leave.  For billions of billions of children around the world their parents were at home with them while schools were shuttered.  It saw an increase in parental caregiving like no time before.  Women, who have always taken on the overwhelming majority of care giving duties, saw those duties increase.  But for hundreds of millions of families with fathers it also involved those fathers contributing more to care giving as well.  Pre-pandemic, the expectations of men to work and provide for their families, and often in work that put their bodies and mental health a risk, was standard.  But in this pandemic pause, what can be learned from the value of fatherhood and caregiving?  Gary Barker, the CEO of Promundo, suggests that this is the moment to embrace paternity as a means to improving caregiving, but also gender equality. As Dr. Barker suggests, smart policies are needed to embrace fatherhood as valuable "care", rather than policies that encourage men to risk their bodies, minds and well being to "provide" for their families.  

Gary Barker, PhD, is a leading global voice in engaging men and boys in advancing gender equality and positive masculinities. He is the CEO and founder of Promundo, which has worked for 20 years in more than 40 countries. Promundo’s approaches have been incorporated into ministries of health and education around the world. Promundo is a Global Consortium with members in Brazil, the US, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Portugal.

Gary is co-founder of MenCare, a global campaign working in 45 countries to promote men’s involvement as caregivers, and co-founder of MenEngage, a global alliance of more than 700 NGOs. He created and leads the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES), the largestever survey of men’s attitudes and behaviors related to violence, fatherhood, and gender equality. He is a co-author of the 2015 and 2017 State of the World's Fathersreports. 

He has advised the UN, the World Bank, numerous national governments, and key international foundations and corporations on strategies to engage men and boys in promoting gender equality. In 2017 he was named by Apolitical as one of the 20 most influential people in gender policy around the world. He is an Ashoka Fellow and received the Voices of Solidarity Award from Vital Voices for his work to engage men for gender equality. He holds a PhD. in Developmental Psychology.

Learn more about Promundo here. (https://promundoglobal.org)

Learn more about MenCare here.  (https://men-care.org)

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The theme is #choosetochallenge for International Women's Day 2021.For Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins, the CEO of PAI, universal access to health services is part of this challenge.  In the time of a pandemic, she joins us on GDP to discuss why good health is at the heart of women's rights.

Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins serves as president and CEO of PAI. Nabeeha brings 25 years of movement building, advocacy, fundraising and international development experience in public health, food and nutrition security and human rights. She has dedicated her career to driving equitable health, social and development outcomes for women, youth and vulnerable communities around the world.

Born in Pakistan and raised in Mexico, Nabeeha has worked on development programs in more than 20 countries worldwide. She has collaborated with and advised heads of state, national and local leaders, CEOs and senior executives from across sectors, and worked side by side with community partners who are driving frontline change. Nabeeha holds bachelor’s degrees in political science and journalism and mass communications from Kansas State University and dual master’s degrees in international affairs and public health from Columbia University.

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The data available on traumatic incidents is profound.  Car accidents, wounding workplaces, bicycle mishaps, and home injuries can all be studied and analyzed for frequency, severity, demography and even geography.  Cities in the the global North increasingly rely on data from trauma registries to make informed policy for urban planning and work safety.  So too is it possible to improve global health outcomes in low and middle income countries through similar methods.  However, the collection, storage and analysis of the data is a problem.  There are so few registries for so many places, which leaves health policy makers in the lurch across the global South.  Leah Rosenkrantz is working on making this system better.

Leah Rosenkrantzis a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at Simon Fraser University. Her research involves exploring issues of global public health through both a spatial and ‘platial’ lens. Since beginning her PhD, Leah has worked on projects related to trauma registries in low- and middle-income countries, antimicrobial resistance, and most recently, COVID-19.

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In early 2021, after declaring the 2020 election a fraud, armed men rolled into the capital with the intent of capturing members of the government.  No, we're not referring to the United States, but to Myanmar.  On February 1, the military in Myanmar staged a coup d'état.  Why?  The associated Union Solidarity & Development Party took a thumping in the 2020 elections.  The military quickly called the election a fraud, challenged it in court, and then staged a coup.  But the very nature of democracy in Myanmar was meant to serve the interests of the military.  Why a coup?  Why now? And what's next?

In this episode of GDP we're joined by Patrick Balazo, who was a Killam Scholar, and recipient of the Canada Graduate Scholarship in honour of Nelson Mandela.  Patrick worked for a Burmese human rights organization in Thailand, and is an expert on statelessness and conflict.  

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You can't even cut the irony on this one.  A week after Donald Trump encouraged, and then joyfully watched a violent mob storm the U.S. Capitol building, his administration placed Cuba on the List of State Sponsors of Terrorism.  That mob posed a greater risk to U.S. democracy than Cuba ever has.  As the Trump administration mocked public health advice, Cuba stood out as a world leader in the COVID-19 pandemic, sending its own health care workers abroad, and receiving foreign patients for treatment.  Why in the world would Donald Trump and then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which imposes serious sanctions towards Havana?  Was this another chapter out of Trump's conspiracy playbook?  Was it meant to create added headaches for the Biden administration?  

To help us understand this better, we are pleased to have Dr. Isaac Saney join us on this episode.  Dr. Saney takes us through the absurdity of the Trump administration policy, and discusses what will be in store for Joe Biden's policy towards Cuba.

Dr. Isaac Saney is a historian focusing on Cuba, issues of race and racism, and Black and African diaspora studies.  He is  the director of the transition year program at Dalhousie University which is the vanguard program for addressing historical injustice and inequities for indigenous and African Nova Scotian students.

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There was no one way to handle the COVID-19 pandemic.  Jurisdictions around the world came up with their own unique approaches to balancing economic crisis amid public safety concerns.  In Canada each province developed their own public health guidelines.  Some worked well, others not so much.  In Saskatchewan, COVID-19 crept in slowly, with only a few dozen cases reported.  But in the second wave hundreds of cases were reported each day.  What could the government have done better to handle the 2nd wave?

Speaking from her experience as a Case Investigator, Helen Tang suggests that more focus on upstream determinants of health could have made a world of difference for Saskatchewan's 2nd wave.  Not just mask wearing and good hand washing, but housing and investment in public education matters when handling a pandemic.  Ms. Tang provides some excellent insight and policy suggestions based on her work during the pandemic.

Helen Tang is a fourth year medical student from the University of Saskatchewan, and COVID-19 case investigator.  She hopes to practice rural family medicine when she graduates.  When she is not immersed in medicine, she loves to rock climb, ski, paint and do yoga.

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Profs in International Development Studies hear the following question a lot: "What can I do with an IDS degree?"  As important as this question is, a better question to ask is "What CAN'T I do with an IDS degree?"  IDS graduates wind up all over the world and in all sorts of careers.  It's not a degree that will keyhole students into a particular profession, but it will build the confidence, skills, and global knowledge needed to help students take their passion to the workplace.  

Dalhousie IDS Alumni Molly O'Ray is a case in point.  Six years out the gate, and Molly has worked with organizations around the world on issues she cares deeply about.  Recognizing her passion fo emergency preparedness, Molly is currently working with the Canadian Red Cross.  It was no straight path to get here.  Tune in to hear how this IDS graduate charted her own incredible path.

Molly works with the Canadian Red Cross to support community organizations across Canada in their relief, recovery, and resilience-building efforts, following emergencies and disasters. This work follows her role as the program manager with Swim Drink Fish in BC, a national organization which advocates for the protection and restoration of our waters.    After completing her Bachelor of Arts in Environment, Sustainability, & Society and International Development Studies at Dalhousie University, Molly worked internationally on community-led conservation projects in Borneo, Indonesia and Southeast Alaska. Molly also worked as a researcher and educator in tropical forest conservation at two off-grid field institutes in Panama. It was the remote nature of these positions which prompted her passion for emergency preparedness—a passion she carries into her current role.

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Cruise ships were left adrift in the Caribbean when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. Ports were closed, airliners were grounded, and the medical tourism industry found itself short on patients.  Medical tourism can be understood as the coordination of travel with the receipt of medical care for patients who elect to seek coverage abroad.  The World Bank, and other development organizations, have encouraged medical tourism as means for greater economic diversification.   Dr. Valorie Crooks chats with Dr. Bob Huish about why that diversification may be limited at best, and how the COVID-19 not only ground the medical tourism to a halt, but called the whole thing into question.  Medical tourism may have promised better health care to a global community, but the COVID-19 pandemic  showed the true limits of the industry.

Dr. Valorie Crooks completed her PhD at McMaster University in 2005.  The following year she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at York University.  Since 2006 she has been a faculty member in the Department of Geography  at Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Crooks currently hold the Canada Research Chair in Health Service Geographies and she also holds a Scholar Award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. Dr. Crooks is a health geographer by training.  As such, she is interested in the spatial and place-based dimensions of health and health care.  She broadly conceives of herself as a health services researcher, and have an ongoing interest in understanding lived experiences of accessing needed/wanted health and social care services.  Because of this experiential focus, she primarily engages in non-hypothesis-testing qualitative research, or lead qualitative components of mixed-methods studies.  Her research interests are best characterized by four areas of inquiry: (1) disability and chronic illness; (2) primary health care; (3) palliative health and social care; and (4) medical tourism.  She has received funding from numerous agencies, and especially the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, to pursue collaborative projects in each of these areas.

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Psychoanalysis has an important place in the journey of decolonizing international development studies.  In subconcious ways the teaching, the learning and the practice of international development gives in to our desires.  The thrill of helping others, the enjoyment of feeling superior to others.  This all comes to the surface through the performative behaviour and automatic reactions in International Development Studies.  How can psychoanalysis help to better understand the embedded desires, phobias and complexes that exist within International Development Studies? Prof. Ilan Kapoor's new book provides a way forward on this discussion.

Ilan Kapoor is a Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University. His teaching and research focus on critical development studies, postcolonial studies, participatory development, democracy, celebrity studies, and psychoanalytic theory. His geographic areas of interest include South Asia (especially India and Pakistan). He is the author of The Postcolonial Politics of Development (Routledge, 2008) and Celebrity Humanitarianism: The Ideology of Global Charity (Routledge, 2013). His new book is Confronting Desire: Psychoanalysis and International Development.

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The co-edited book titled "Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala" was peer reviewed, and on its way to bookstore shelves until a surprise legal review came forward against the book.  Springer Nature, the publisher, then informed the authors that they were canceling the publication contract, and returned the manuscript to the editors.  What happened?  Why would a well-researched book prepared by two highly accredited writers be suddenly quashed?  What is in this book that is so worrisome to publish?  Is the mining industry trying to hide something?  Could this research hold abusers of human rights to account?  And what is the message to other academics who are pursuing research on human rights abuse?  Tune in to this episode of GDP to get the whole scoop.

Catherine Nolinis a Professor of Geography and Chair of the Geography Program at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) in Prince George, BC. Catherine was recently made a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) and, since July 2020, is also Chair of the Conference of Latin American Geography (CLAG). CLAG is the premier organization for geographers engaging in research in Latin America and the Caribbean and works to foster research, education, and service related to Latin American geographical studies. Catherine is a long-time insurgent researcher and social justice advocate, including more than 25 years grappling with the afterlives of the Guatemalan genocides.

Grahame Russell is a non-practicing Canadian lawyer and, since 1995, Director of Rights Action – an organization that works in Honduras and Guatemala in support of community / environmental / human rights / territory defenders resisting widespread harms and (often deadly) violence caused by different sectors of the global economy, including mining, hydro-electric dams, African palm, sugar-cane, bananas, coffee, tourism, the garment industry. Rights Action carries out education and activism work in the US and Canada focusing on how our governments and companies (and the US military) often contribute directly to and benefit from human rights violations (including repression), environmental harms, exploitation, corruption and impunity in these countries. Grahame is also an adjunct professor in the Geography Program at UNBC and, since 2004, worked with Catherine to co-lead delegations and field schools to Guatemala for Canadian university students.

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Viruses don't have a plan.  They don't care who they infect, or how they get the job done.  They only seek a host to reproduce copies of themselves and to help with transport to the next host.  Dirty hands, uncovered mouths, and close contact can give viruses an advantage, but, as we discuss in this kick off episode of season 6, so too can our global food system. 

Haroon Akram-Lodhi presents a compelling case as to why a global capitalist food system triggered COVID-19 and why it will likely trigger the next pandemic from a virus that crosses the species barrier.

Haroon Akram-Lodhi teaches agrarian political economy. He is Professor of Economics and International Development Studies in the Department of International Development Studies at Trent University, Peterborough, Canada, where he is also a Fellow of Champlain College.

Haroon Akram-Lodhi is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Development Studiesand an Associate Editor of Feminist Economics.

Trained as an economist, the focus of Haroon Akram-Lodhi's research interest is in the political economy of agrarian change in developing countries, on the economic dimensions of gender relations, and on the political ecology of sustainable rural livelihoods and communities in contemporary poor countries.

He currently acts as a Gender and Poverty Adviser to the United Nations Development Programme's Gender Team, working on gender-responsive economic policy in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. He also is a Poverty and Gender Analyst for the United Nations Environment Programme's Poverty - Environment Action and a Gender and Women's Empowerment Adviser to UN Women.

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The year 2020 and the word "unprecedented" go together like peanut butter and jam.  No doubt a lot of firsts occurred in the past 12 months, and a lot of them were pretty awful.  Australian wildfires, passenger planes shot down, racial violence, war in Yemen, civil unrest in Algeria, harsh sanctions against Cuba, and of course, murder hornets, and of course, the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many people have foolishly associated these challenges to the calendar year itself.  In this season of GDP, we're taking back 2020.  This season will serve as a sound reminder that wildfires occur because of climate change, food systems make us vulnerable to pandemics, sanctions cause hardship because of short-sighted policy, and racial inequalities need to be overcome by restructuring the institutions that produce racism.  None of this is because of a calendar date, but all of it is because of a global system of development that has become wildly inequitable.  

Tune in to GDP to learn more, and in the mean time, be kind to each other as we wrap up 2020.  Celebrate birthdays, weddings, new horizons and each other.  We all deserve better than blaming a calendar date for our hardships.  We deserve the chance to ask hard questions about the systems that cause these problems in the first place.

Thanks as always to TAS and the Semi-Superheroes for cutting the music to GDP.  And remember, these podcasts are available as a course offered in the Department of International Development Studies  at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. 

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Every country has a tale of COVID-19.  But none like Cuba.  The country has a long-standing policy of medical assistance to other countries while maintaining good health at home.  When the pandemic struck Cuba kept its borders open and even received cruise ships with patients suffering from COVID-19. On top of it, Cuba has been sending its own medical experts to crisis situations around the world in the fight against COVID-19.  From Anguilla to Andorra, from Haiti to Italy, Cuban doctors are providing COVID-19 relief well beyond their borders in a time when most nations have closed their doors altogether.  

John Kirk is Professor of Latin American Studies at Dalhousie University, where he has taught since 1978. He is the author / co-editor of 16 books on Cuba, including “health care without borders.” He is currently working on a new book analyzing Canada-Cuba relations. 

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It's a sticky wicket to lock down the world's 2nd largest nation, and the world's largest democracy for the COVID-19 pandemic.   How could a government tell 1.3 billion people in India, where day to day conditions of poverty create serious health concerns, to stay home?  Who suffered the hardest during this time? Why was there a fatal military scrimmage with China?  And what are the surprisingly positive outcomes health outcomes that some communities experienced during the pandemic, notably in the state of Kerala?  

Professor Mannathukkaren’s main research interests are focused on left/communist movements, development and democracy, modernity, the politics of popular culture (esp., the politics of mass cultural forms like the media, cinema and sport), and Marxist and postcolonial theories. The thrust of his research has been to develop a theoretical and empirical critique of postcolonial theory and postmodern thought.

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In 1993 the Canadian Broadcast Corporation ran a brief clip about how something called "The Internet" was connecting millions to talk about sports scores, recipes, philosophy and gossip.  In the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, almost everyone depended upon the internet in order to get through it.  The deep dependency on cyber technology and connectivity raises security concerns.  As Mark Raymond shares with GDP, these concerns are far more concerning than the idea of sinister hackers and henchmen unleashing the next virus.

Mark Raymond (@MRaymondonIR) is the Wick Cary Assistant Professor of International Security and the Director of the Cyber Governance and Policy Center at the University of Oklahoma.

He is the author of Social Practices of Rule-Making in World Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). His work appears in various academic journals including International Theory, the Journal of Global Security Studies, Strategic Studies Quarterly, The Cyber Defense Review, the UC Davis Law Review, and the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.

He was a Senior Advisor with the United States Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and has testified before the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development, and participated in the Internet Governance Forum.

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During the COIVID-19 pandemic, it is telling to see who is faring well, and who is suffering greatly.  Like most matters in health, social justice, structural violence and colonial legacies matter enormously in determining health outcomes.  For over 30 years, Partners In Health has put social justice at the forefront of health, arguing that good health can be a reality for all regardless of wealth.  National Director of PIH in Canada, Mark Brender, offers some thoughts about Social Justice matters in times of a pandemic, and for global health more broadly. 

Mark Brender is National Director of Partners In Health Canada, a global health NGO striving to make health care a human right for all people. Starting from a one-room clinic in Haiti more than 30 years ago, Partners In Health serves millions of patients annually across 11 countries, working to deliver high quality health care, address the root causes of illness, train service providers, advance research, and advocate for global policy change. Mark opened the PIH Canada office in 2011 and is passionate about raising awareness and funds for this effort. He previously held leadership positions with national and international charitable organizations.

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