Global Development Institute podcast

What kind of politics help to secure inclusive development? After 9 years of research across 26 countries, summing up ESID findings hasn’t been simple. But Three Cs kept cropping up: Context, Capacity, Coalitions. Watch the first in the ESID webinar series on the Three C’s with ESID’s Research Director Professor Sam Hickey

In this special podcast we sat down for a chat with Chrissie Wellington OBE, who was the 2020 recipient of The University of Manchester Outstanding Alumni Award. The four-time World Ironman Champion and current Global Head of Health and Wellbeing at Parkrun, talked about her time at Manchester, what attracted her to International Development, her remarkable sporting career and why her current work is, even more so since Covid-19, so important. Chrissie Wellington graduated in 2001 with an MA...

Mark Anner will share findings from his survey data on the impact of March 2020 order cancellations by major apparel brands and retailers with global supplier factories (USD 40 billion), which left millions of low-income workers (mostly young women) without income. A subsequent campaign to pressure these corporations to ‘#payup” was largely successful. Dr. Anner will then draw on his October 2020 research report to examine how, in the context of new lockdowns, current orders are drying up,...

Wind power has expanded quickly in Brazil, while solar power lags there and both wind and solar power have struggled to take off in South Africa. Professor Kathryn Hochstetler argues that four different political economies - climate change, industrial policy, consumption and distribution, and siting - help account for energy transition. However, coalitions are being built on each of these at the same time, potentially interlocking to reinforce or counter-balance each other. Professor Kathryn...

Dr Amani Abou-Zeid of the African Union discusses Africa: 75 years after the Manchester Pan-African Congress. Her talk was part of a symposium to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the 5th Pan-African Congress which was held in Manchester. Dr Amani Abou-Zeid is currently the African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure, Energy, ICT and Tourism. She is an international development expert with more than 30 years’ experience and has a held roles at the United Nations Development Programme and...

The Covid-19 pandemic created a major shock to the global economy. The ramifications of this shock are reverberating through global value chains to reach workers and sites of production throughout the world. These ramifications are both short and long term. In the short term, the crisis was a major shock for developing economies particularly those who rely on exports through GVCs as global lead firms cancelled orders and workers were terminated often with very little protection. This webinar...

Charity Mumbi and Jack Makau work for Muungano wa Wanavijiji, a social movement of 'slum' residents and urban poor people in Kenya, affiliated to SDI International. In this podcast they describe the last few months of working through the initial outbreak of Covid-19, outlining how communities and their organisations have been responding. Their agile initial approaches, alongside a longstanding ability to accurately map dense informal settlements has led to new partnerships with the Kenyan...

In this special podcast, we are lucky to be joined by the editors of the newly published Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development, Tanja Bastia and Ronald Skeldon. In this episode they talk about their long-term collaboration in the fields of migration and development and their wish to build on long-standing research by bringing together established thinkers and new areas of research – an approach which has culminated in this handbook. In addition to their own explanation of why this...

In the latest episode of our ‘In Conversation’ podcast we caught up with Shamima and Alicya; two Manchester Alumni whose fashion business was recently highly commended for social innovation at the Manchester Making A Difference Awards 2020. Listen here to find out how they came up with the idea, what empowerment and sustainability means to them, their goals for the future and how studying at the GDI, in particular the Poverty, Inequality and Development pathway, helped to shape their...

Seth Schindler & Tom Gillespie discuss their new research on deindustrialisation in the Global South. Seth and Tom have recently published an article on 'Deindustrialization in cities of the Global South' with Nicola Banks, Mustafa Kemal Bayırbağ, Himanshu Burte, J. Miguel Kanai & Neha Sami.

In this episode Dr Rory Horner talked to Dr Siobhán McGrath about her research into forced labour and the marketising anti-slavery. Siobhán McGrath is Assistant Professor in Human Geography at Durham University Rory Horner, Senior Lecturer in Globalisation and Political Economy in the Global Development Institute.

In this episode, GDI's Nicola Banks talks to Jelmer Kamstra and Zoe Abrahamson about the political role of NGOs and how donor funding can support those. Jelmer Kamstra has been Senior Policy Officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands in the Civil Society Division since 2015. Starting January 2020, Jelmer has taken up a new position as Senior Researcher at the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Zoe Abrahamson is Bond’s...

In this episode, Nicholas Jepson talks to Seth Schindler about his new book ‘In China’s wake: how the commodity boom transformed development strategies in the global south. In China’s Wake reveals the surprising connections among these three phenomena. Nicholas Jepson shows how Chinese demand not only transformed commodity markets but also provided resource-rich states with the financial leeway to set their own policy agendas, insulated from the constraints and pressures of capital markets...

Luis Eduardo Perez Murcia, University of Trento, recently visited the GDI to give a talk entitled 'I am afraid of dying without seeing my daughter again': Looking at the Aging-Home-Migration Nexus Scholarly research exploring the aging-migration nexus has significantly increased in the last decade. The role of home in this nexus, however, has received considerably less academic attention. Against this background, this paper explores whether and how migration shapes the experiences of home of...

Kaxton Siu recently visited the Global Development Institute to discuss his new forthcoming book 'Chinese Migrant Workers and Employer Domination: Comparisons with Hong Kong and Vietnam’. Kaxton Siu is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. This talk explores three major changes in the circumstances of the migrant working class in south China over the past three decades, from historical and comparative perspectives....

Kate Pruce on Social Protection by Global Development Institute

In this talk, Dr Glennerster discusses how technology has driven improvements in income and health in poor countries, why there is too little innovation designed to meet the needs of the poor, and the promise of the data revolution.

In this episode, Raquel Rolnik talked to Tom Gillespie and Isaac Rose about the financialisation of housing and her new book 'Urban Warfare: housing under the empire of finance'. Raquel Rolnik is a professor of Urban Planning at the University of São Paulo. She was National Secretary for Urban Programmes of the Brazilian Ministry of Cities (2003–2007). From 2008 to 2014, she held the mandate of UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing. Tom Gillespie is Lecturer in International Development...

Professor Rhys Jenkins talks to GDI Researcher Dr Nick Jepson about China’s growing economic involvement in Africa and Latin America and his book 'How China is Reshaping the Global Economy: Development Impacts in Africa and Latin America'

Professor Stephanie Barrientos discusses her new book 'Gender and Work: Capturing the Gains in Global Value Chains' Building on years of detailed empirical research across different industries and in several countries, Barrientos examines how global values chains are reshaping the gender profile of work across many middle- and low-income countries. Gendered patterns of work in these global value chains can both relegate women workers to poorly paid and unrecognised labour or lead to economic...