July 2020 – Debating Development Research

28/07/202015/07/2020

Learning from the grassroots: “Together we are much more than two”

Impressions from the Third Bridge 47 Iberian Knowledge Exchange Partnership Meeting

By Talia Vela-Eiden

“…
y en la calle codo a codo
somos mucho más que dos.”
(and in the street side by side
we are much more than two)
Te quiero, Mario Benedetti

It was not to be, meeting in Lisbon. However, coming together online to save the day, members of the Iberian Partnership in the Bridge 47 Project on Global Citizenship Education (GCE) sat down to learn about how to implement SDG4 in practice at the local level, drawing from the experience of the city of Valencia. Continue reading “Learning from the grassroots: “Together we are much more than two””

14/07/2020

Disaster response: why democracy matters

By Isabelle Desportes

It is inherent to times of crises, and we can witness it in the way the COVID-19 pandemic is being handled too: strong leadership emerges, many decisions and emergency legislative mechanisms are enforced, and some key issues move to the background. While such centralistic measures are often necessary, they also bear the risk of infringing on an effective and socially just handling of crises, and shape our societies on the long term. Continue reading “Disaster response: why democracy matters”

07/07/202009/07/2020

Overcoming Developmentalism

By Henning Melber

It might be a platitude but is a reminder for all we say and do: solidarity in its true meaning cannot be confined to words only. Unless these are also reflected in what we do and how we do it, solidarity remains a rather meaningless tokenism or lip service. Declarations are not enough. Continue reading “Overcoming Developmentalism”

03/07/2020

Inheriting Extreme Poverty

By Owasim Akram

After working for more than ten years as a development practitioner in Bangladesh with a tremendous opportunity to observe the lives of the extreme poor while living very closely to them, one simple question kept chasing me all the time: why do millions of them remain still poor despite huge progress in the economy, policy changes and many development interventions both from the Government and other development partners? Is it because such efforts fail to bring the intended benefits across to their lives, or is there something that we are missing and therefore never considered while planning, designing, programming or making our decisions? Continue reading “Inheriting Extreme Poverty”