In this episode, Noaman and Safa reflect on the emergence, spread, political economy and impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on development work.


---> Link to Noaman's podcast ( Introduction to Political Economy). 

Referring to Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang's article "Decolonization is Not a Metaphor", Safa and Noaman discuss  the overuse and misuse of the term “decolonization” in the development sector and how Frantz Fanon and Amílcar Cabral can be role models for development workers.

Links we mention:

Intro to Political Economy Podcast with Noaman Ali

Decolonization is not a Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang

For our Season 4 finale, we share a compilation of clips from our past 50+ episodes! 

Daniel Kobei is the Founder and Executive Director of the Ogiek Peoples' Development Program,  a Kenyan NGO working to secure human and land rights for the Indigenous Ogiek community as well as other Indigenous peoples across Kenya and Africa. Daniel represents Indigenous peoples under the umbrella of the International Indigenous Forum for Biodiversity and the Collaborative Partnership for Wildlife Management, set by the Convention of Biological Diversity. Daniel has been promoting the restoration of the Mau Forest Complex through Ogiek community involvement as a forest dwelling, hunter gathering community. Daniel helped lead the Ogiek to winning an eight year legal battle over land and human rights abuses at the African Court on Human and People's Rights in 2017. But four years later, the Ogiek community are still waiting for the implementation of that legal judgment. 

We speak about:

• the violation of the rights of the Ogiek community by the Kenyan state
• resisting forced evictions & dispossession of ancestral lands
• wining an 8 year long court case at the African Court on Human and People's Rights 
• the support of regional and international Indigenous rights groups 
• the undermining of Indigenous conservation knowledge 
• the impact of climate change in the Mau Forest complex - and much more!

Daniel joins us from Nairobi, Kenya.

Dr. Sabina Faiz Rashid is the Dean of the BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health at BRAC University in Bangladesh. Dr. Rashid specializes in ethnographic and qualitative research with a focus on urban slum communities and marginalized groups. She's particularly interested in examining the impact of structural and intersectional factors on the ability of those populations to realize their health rights and access to services. In 2008, she founded the Center for Gender, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, and in 2013, co-founded the Center for Urban Equity and Health. Both focus on research, capacity building and influencing program designs and policies in Bangladesh.  

We speak about:

• BRAC’s approach to development
• co-thinking and co-creating with communities 
• unpacking assumptions about the ‘Global South’ 
• solution-based thinking  
• competency based learning
• building a youth friendly research culture
• decolonizing global health - and much more!  

 She joins us from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Giorgos Kallis is an ecological economist, political ecologist, and Professor at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology in the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies. His research is motivated by a quest to cross conceptual divides between the social and the natural domains, with particular focus on the political-economic roots of environmental degradation and its uneven distribution along lines of power, income, and class. His current work explores the hypothesis of sustainable degrowth as a solution to the dual economic and ecological crisis. Giorgos is the author of the books 'Limits' and 'The Case for Degrowth'. 

We speak about:

• his intellectual journey and working across disciplines
• the history of the hegemony of growth  
• degrowth as one critique of capitalist economies 
• 3 layers of articulating degrowth 
• the climate crisis 
• degrowth in high income countries vs. low income countries 
• collective action and international solidarities
• engaging with a pluriverse of alternatives to capitalist growth - and much more!  

He joins us from Barcelona, Spain.  

Mahrukh 'Maya' Hasan is as a designer, researcher and strategic advisor who helps social impact organizations build joyful, equitable and innovative teams. She's the Founder and Director of Azura Labs, a social design and research studio that builds the capacity of international NGOs and UN agencies serving communities in Sub Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. Last March, Maya also founded the Fearless Project, a diversity, equity and inclusion firm, which aims to champion trust, belonging and joy in the social impact sector. 

We speak about:

• entry barriers in the sector
• research ethics and design justice 
• moving beyond the binary of quantitative and qualitative data 
• diversity, equity and inclusion work
• the culture of fear amongst leaders 
• emotional agility 
• learning from other sectors - and much more! 

Andrea Cornwall is currently Pro Director of Research and Enterprise and Professor of Global Development and Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. She is a political anthropologist and her research focuses on power, inclusion and rights. Some of her work has focused on reproductive and sexual health in Zimbabwe and Nigeria, citizen participation and accountability in health policy and governance in the UK and Brazil, and contestations over gender, empowerment, and rights in international development. She joins us from London, UK.  

We speak about:

• applying an anthropological lens to the development sector
• fashions, fads and buzzwords in development work 
• interrogating  participatory methods 
• analyzing power dynamics 
• decolonizing international development studies 
• social movements being the biggest catalysts for change 
• care, leisure and compassion as part of a wholistic approach to development - and much more!

Shanthini Naidoo is a South African writer and former Sunday Times journalist. She is the author of the book which in South Africa is entitled: "Women in Solitary: Inside the Female Resistance to Apartheid" and in North America is entitled: "Women Surviving Apartheid Prisons". The book uses rich interview material to share the stories of four anti apartheid women leaders and activists who were part of “Trial 22” in 1969. They were held in solitary confinement and subjected to brutal torture in a bit to force them to testify against their comrades. They refused to do so, which forced the trial effort to collapse. 

We speak about:

• how mainstream media depicts women’s stories
• the role of women leaders in the struggle against apartheid
• the context of the “Trial of 22’ that happened in 1969 South Africa
• the intergenerational legacy of trauma 
• storytelling as a tool for healing 
• the importance of remembering historical struggles for freedom - and much more!

Shanthini joins us from Johannesburg, South Africa. 

Marvi Rebueno-Trudeau is the Deputy-Executive Director of the Pilipinas Shell Foundation. She initially studied business management and founded a firm which represented foreign companies at the Asian Development Bank. Later she retired to Palawan, an island in the Philippines archipelago. Once there she was moved to come out of retirement in order to address various social issues in the community, namely malnutrition and high rates of malaria. She joined Pilipinas Shell Foundation, which funded a community-based province wide malaria program. The success of this malaria program enabled the foundation to be selected as a primary recipient of further grants from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. 

We speak about:

• a community based approach to malaria prevention, detection and treatment 
• the importance of fostering the buy-in of government partners 
• using the malaria program as a catalyst for system wide health strengthening  
• embodying transparency and accountability
• the role of the private sector in community development 
• ensuring sustainability in programming - and much more! 

She joins us from Palawan, Philippines. 

Professor Haroon Akram-Lodhi teaches agrarian political economy at Trent University. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Development Studies, an Associate Editor of Feminist Economics, as well as a member of the Advisory Board for the Woman's Rights program of the Open Society Foundations. He further provides extensive advisory services to various UN agencies, including UN Women and the United Nations Development Program. And recently he repackaged some of his university courses into a podcast entitled: "Peasants, Food and Agrarian Change". 

We speak about:

• the gender dimensions of rural political economy
• failings of dominant development discourses
• social movements and demanding rights
• the different interests and agendas of development stakeholders 
• facing ethical issues in his consultancies & choosing not to work with some organizations
• knowledge mobilization between academia and development agencies
• the human rights based approach /model 
• the farmers protests in India
• the impact of COVID-19 on development policies 

He joins us from Toronto, Canada.