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Seven principles for making development policy fit for the 21st century

By Anna-Katharina Hornidge and Imme Scholz

The political and economic environment in which development policy operates has undergone radical changes since the emergence of this policy field in the 1950s and 1960s. Back then, newly independent nation states made their first steps in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Many of them are now politically and economically established states.  According to the World Bank classification the number of middle-income countries now exceeds the number of low-income countries. Continue reading “Seven principles for making development policy fit for the 21st century”

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Changing research practices in times of Covid – Insights from an international fishbowl

By Basile Boulay | EADI/ISS Blog Series

The closing plenary of the 2021 EADI ISS conference opened the floor to all participants, encouraging them to reflect on their changing research practices in times of Covid through a virtual fishbowl format. How has the pandemic changed our research practice? How do losses and gains balance out? What are the specific challenges faced by researchers in the Global South? Here is what our participants thought: Continue reading “Changing research practices in times of Covid – Insights from an international fishbowl”

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For the redistribution of water, framing matters!

By Lize Swartz | EADI/ISS Blog Series

In the face of increasing pressure on global water availability, a degree of inventiveness in finding just and sustainable ways to ensure access to water is required. The redistribution of water is one possible way in which this could be done. But ongoing research on elite responses to a recent water scarcity crisis in South Africa shows that the redistribution of water resources will not go uncontested by water elites and that existing narratives on the sharing of water are not creating the extent of solidarity needed. Continue reading “For the redistribution of water, framing matters!”

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A Canopy of Hope

By Tim Jackson

The slopes of Mount Kenya, in the district of Nyeri in Kenya, were once scattered with hundreds of wild fig trees called mugumos in the local (Kikuyu) language. Their tough bark was the colour of elephant skin. Their gnarled roots drilled deep channels through the rocky earth to drink thirstily from the groundwater below. The trees bore a small round fruit which ripened in the sun to a warm orange colour. And their branches were alive with the song of the tinkerbirds and turacos who feasted there. Continue reading “A Canopy of Hope”

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On Coloniality/Decoloniality in Knowledge Production and Societies

By Henning Melber

Social organisations tend to be based on asymmetric power relations – almost always, almost everywhere. Inequality characterises interaction both inside and in between societies. Class-based hierarchies, peppered by gender imbalances, sexism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia and many other forms of discrimination are the order of the day, both nationally as well as internationally. Continue reading “On Coloniality/Decoloniality in Knowledge Production and Societies”