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The 2030 turn in German Development Policy – An Opportunity to Fundamentally Challenge Global Inequalities?

By Tanja Verena Matheis and Adrian Schlegel

Amidst the ongoing pandemic, the reorientation of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development with regard to international development policy and cooperation has gone almost unnoticed in the media. In the context of their “reform concept 2030”, the policy-makers identify five “megatrends” – demographic change, the shortage of natural resources, climate change, digitalization and interdependencies, and migration, based on which they suggest courses of action. The reform has attracted criticism, especially because of the cancellation of partnerships with countries with material precarity. Is the proposed strategy anywhere near allowing to address persistent socio-economic inequalities that the system of development cooperation claims to alleviate? Continue reading “The 2030 turn in German Development Policy – An Opportunity to Fundamentally Challenge Global Inequalities?”

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Trade Reproduces International Inequalities

By Christian Dorninger, Anke Schaffartzik, and Hanspeter Wieland

Through international trade, richer countries do not merely generate a monetary trade surplus, but also appropriate international resources and labour from poorer countries. While this allows high consumption standards, economic growth, and the simultaneous protection of domestic natural resources in some countries, more land for mining and agriculture for exports is being extracted from the local economies in others. As a result, this makes a socially-ecologically sustainable development impossible. Our research team was now able to prove that ecologically unequal exchange was a persistent feature of the global economy from 1990 to 2015. Using environmentally-extended multi-regional input-output modelling, we investigated these structural inequalities in international trade. Continue reading “Trade Reproduces International Inequalities”

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Towards a Non-Extractive and Care-Driven Academia

by Vijay Kolinjivadi, Gert Van Hecken, Jennifer Casolo, Shazma Abdulla and Rut Elliot Blomqvist

The white gaze permeates many aspects of even the most critical disciplines. In this piece, we offer some thoughts on how we might reclaim what the university could be  – a place that equips people with the knowledge they need to unlearn/unmake/dismantle the knowledge framings and worldviews that lend themselves to white supremacy and other forms of oppression more broadly.  Continue reading “Towards a Non-Extractive and Care-Driven Academia”

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Surging or Subsiding? How Mining Sector Booms Impact Female Empowerment

By Audrey Au Yong Lyn

Mexico experienced a major mining boom as a result of the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, which produced sharp increases in the prices of precious metals mined in Mexico such as gold and silver. Mining is a male-dominated profession, so what happened to female welfare during the boom? This think piece discusses the results of a study of data from mining communities in Mexico before and during the boom on two significant determinants of female empowerment, namely intra-household decision making and intimate partner violence (IPV). Continue reading “Surging or Subsiding? How Mining Sector Booms Impact Female Empowerment”

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Economics (really) needs to change: Introducing ‘Wellbeing Economics’ by Nicky Pouw

By Nicky Pouw

Beneath the surface of neoclassical economics lies unwavering faith in the pursuit of big numbers: more is always better. More growth means more income, more supply and production, more employment, more demand, more investment, more growth, and so forth. Big numbers give people a certain sense of security; everything is ‘going well’ and the economy is ‘healthy’. Only when a crisis hits, such as the current COVID-19 virus, people seem to become aware of the danger that lurks in big numbers; namely, they always involve tipping points and introduce risk into other areas, such as public health or international security. By ‘tipping point’, I mean that a certain equilibrium is upset, such as the equilibrium in economic growth or the balance between supply and demand. Continue reading “Economics (really) needs to change: Introducing ‘Wellbeing Economics’ by Nicky Pouw”