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Beyond Aid: The Political Economy of International Solidarity

Who Counts When Vulnerability Has No Strategic Value?

By Nadia Molenaers

The debate about the future of development cooperation has accelerated sharply. Aid budgets are shrinking in several donor countries. Geopolitical rivalry is reshaping international partnerships. New actors and new financing mechanisms are challenging long-standing assumptions about how international cooperation should be organised. For many observers, the central question is what comes after aid.

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Decolonising Development Studies: Why It Matters

By Devika Dutt

Calls to decolonise Development Studies have gained increasing visibility across universities, research institutes, and policy spaces. Yet despite its growing popularity, decolonisation is often treated as a loosely defined aspiration rather than a substantive intellectual and political project. In many cases, it is reduced to efforts to diversify reading lists or improve representation within existing frameworks. While such initiatives are important in their own right, they do not address the deeper structural and epistemic foundations of the field.

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Decolonial Journey: #RhodesMustFall and ‘Decolonising Development Studies’ in Ghana and Nigeria

By Luqman Muraina / part of our “Share your Decolonising Story” project

I completed my B.Sc. Sociology in Nigeria with little or no knowledge about alternative epistemologies, coloniality, and politics of knowledge. Like many young graduates fed by modernity’s shine, I was just determined to be successful and contribute positively to societal development and transformation.

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The Challenges of Decolonising Sustainability and the Environment in Development Studies

By Lyla Mehta

The colonial roots of sustainability 

Since the Brundtland Commission advanced the concept of sustainable development in 1987, a lively strand in Development Studies (DS) has engaged with the linkages between environment, sustainability and development. This remained fairly niche until the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) goals mainstreamed sustainable development.

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Transforming the International Development Cooperation System – Mission Impossible?

Interview with Aram Ziai, Chair of Development and Postcolonial Studies, University of Kassel, Germany / part of our “Share your Decolonising Story” project

Professor Aram Ziai is an academic who has been writing on Post-Development for over 20 years. His work is all centred around decolonising the sector – and on how colonial injustices are still effective in our day-to-day life. He is also Executive Director of the Global Partnership Network, which has been explicitly set up to try to decolonise international cooperation and knowledge production as far as the structures of the ‘development industry’ will allow.

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