Opinion Pieces – Debating Development Research

05/12/2024

Amidst Post-Colonial Continuities and Global Power Shifts: What Role for the IDOS Postgraduate Programme for Sustainability Cooperation?

By Simone Christ / part of our “Share your Decolonising Story” project

How can international cooperation ensure social, political, and economic transformations to shape sustainable futures in the context of geopolitical tensions? One crucial approach is to equip young professionals with competencies needed to become transformative change makers. The recent overhaul of the IDOS postgraduate programme reflects also broader efforts to decolonise knowledge.

03/12/2024

Trading with the ‘Jungle’: The European Union’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences

By Jan Orbie, Antonio Salvador Alcazar III and Tinus Sioen

The notions of ‘developing countries’ and ‘development cooperation’ have been waning in discourses by scholars, policymakers and civil society actors. At least rhetorically, the colonial and patronising nature of these notions has been recognised at the European Union (EU) level. For instance, the Development Commissioner has been rechristened as the ‘Commissioner of International Partnerships’ since 2019. In recent years, the EU has pursued plenty of ‘partnerships’ in areas such as climate, energy, trade and deforestation.

22/11/2024

Beyond COP29: Toward Reparative Justice, Not Corporate Climate Deals

By Gert Van Hecken, Vijay Kolinjivadi, Marcela Vecchione Gonçalves, Richard Toppo and Anwesha Dutta

As delegates gather in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the 29th Conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), we are once again reminded of how compromised these summits have become. Baku, a capital built on oil wealth, is yet another highly securitized backdrop for a conference hijacked by fossil fuel interests. From the UAE’s Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of Abu Dhabi’s National Oil Company, presiding over COP28 in 2023 to Azerbaijan’s fossil-fuel-driven regime hosting this year, the COPs have become increasingly directed by the very industries they claim to hold accountable. In a glaring example of this contradiction, COP29’s chief executive Elnur Soltanov – Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister and a board member of the state oil company Socar – was filmed discussing oil and gas investment opportunities with a fictitious energy investor. This stunt, orchestrated by Global Witness, underscores how blatantly these summits serve fossil fuel agendas, even as a new report reveals that there are no signs of promised fossil fuel transitions and emissions are set to reach a record high in 2024.

21/11/202421/11/2024

The Journey towards an Equitable, Diverse and Inclusive System Evaluation

By Yulye Jessica Romo Ramos / part of our “Share your Decolonising Story” project

Over the last couple of years, the evaluation sector has come under pressure to acknowledge the Euro-Western hegemony over knowledge, evaluation and learning practice[i]. Current structures, behaviours, mindsets and mental models have led to institutional and systemic racism and discrimination of non-white people and other minoritised groups[ii]. This perpetuates a system that places weak or no value in non-Euro-Western knowledge, values and voices and results in non-representative practitioners and evidence, which threatens the legitimacy of evaluation as such.

07/11/202407/11/2024

Trump’s Second Term and the Global South: Prospects and Perils

By Stephan Klingebiel, Max-Otto Baumann and Andy Sumner

Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January will have far-reaching implications, not only for the democratic system in the United States but also for global cooperation, particularly impacting the Global South. Here, we offer three reflections on what a Trump second term might mean for these countries.