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The End of Development Aid?

By Aram Ziai

In the last few months, our object of research has seen some dramatic changes. I am referring to the de-facto dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) after the inauguration of President trump in January 2025. The USA has been by far the largest donor of Official Development Assistance (ODA) during the past decades (although in relation to its GDP it has been among the less generous). In February 2025, the Trump administration has announced to eliminate more than 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and 60 billion US-$ in assistance.

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“Vulnerable Research” in a Time of Climate Change and Coloniality

By Charlotte Weatherill

It must be by its death

The role of the academy in empire and colonial violence is the main theme of Babel: An Arcane History, a book by R. F. Kuang. Having wrestled with his own complicity in a system that also provides him with comforts his child-self couldn’t have imagined, the book’s protagonist Robin ends the novel by sacrificing himself to blow up Oxford University’s ivory tower of Babel.

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The EU Deforestation Regulation: Chances for Inclusive Sustainable Forest and Agricultural Commodity Chains?

By Marcelo Inacio da Cunha and George T. Mudimu

It is undisputable that addressing deforestation, biodiversity loss, and climate change requires a collectively effort globally. Although the private sector – as a key element of forest and agricultural value chains – is far from doing enough reduce its share in deforestation, it could serve as a paramount lever if pushed towards effectively halting the expansion of the agricultural frontier into forests.

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Feeling the Colonial: Affective Decolonisation in Development Studies Classrooms

By Carla Maria Friederike Diem / part of our “Share your Decolonising Story” project

“I hope for a world where International Development Studies cease to exist.” was the first line of my motivation letter to the University of Amsterdam (UvA). A provocation, yes – but also a belief. A way to signal that I saw the contradictions at the heart of the discipline – that a field born out of colonial legacies, and sustained by the hierarchies it claims to dismantle, cannot be reformed without eventually ceasing to exist. I thought this was an idealistic position. What I did not realise was just how intimately I would come to feel the weight of those contradictions – in my emotions, in my learning, and in my hope.

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Global AND International Development against all Inequalities

By Alessandra Mezzadri

Development: Contested Categories

Since its inception after World War II, Development Studies has been deeply intertwined with the socio-economic transformation of formerly colonized countries. Initially, the discipline was tasked with addressing the question of how these newly independent nations could be integrated into the world system. This integration was closely linked to the process of modernization, a goal shared by many of these nascent governments. However, the object and subjects of development have always been contested.

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