In Pursuit of Development

Host:

Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo

Subscribe:

Africa’s youth in the race for climate action — Hilda Flavia Nakabuye Mar 18, 2023

Show notes

Fridays For Future is a youth-led movement that began in August 2018. This movement was inspired by 15-year-old Greta Thunberg and other young activists, who sat in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks, to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis. While Greta has become a household name, there are many other young activists around the world who are also making a vital contribution by pressuring their governments to undertake climate action.

Our guest – Hilda Flavia Nakabuye – is one of these inspiring young African leaders. While pursuing her university studies in Kampala, Hilda began to acquire a nuanced understanding of the causes of unpredictable rainy seasons, frequent heatwaves, droughts and floods that she had witnessed growing up in southern Uganda. Indeed, she began connecting the dots and realized that much of what she and her family had experienced (and what her country continues to experience) was and is caused by climate disruption. She therefore decided to become a climate and environmental rights activist and founded Uganda’s Fridays for Future movement in 2019. Twitter: @NakabuyeHildaF @Fridays4FutureU

Resources

Key highlights:

Introduction - 00:38
How to promote both development and protect the environment - 04:00
Growing climate activismamong Africa’s youth- 08:56
The menace of air pollution - 24:30
Uganda’s oil and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline - 35:40

Host:

Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

Host:

Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo

Subscribe:

Poverty and the new threat to prosperity — Indermit Gill Mar 15, 2023

Show notes

The onset of the pandemic in 2020 marked a turning point in the 30-year pursuit of successful global poverty reduction. According to recent World Bank estimates, the incomes of the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population likely fell by 4 percent in 2020. And as a result, the number of people living in extreme poverty likely increased by 11 percent in 2020—i.e. it increased from 648 million to 719 million. The pandemic also increased global inequality. In terms of lost income, the world’s poor paid the highest price for the pandemic; Indeed, the percentage income losses of the poorest are estimated to have been double those of the richest. The rise in extreme poverty and decline of shared prosperity caused by inflation, currency depreciations, and broader overlapping crises facing development, pose numerous challenges for global development.

Indermit Gill is Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Senior Vice President for Development Economics. Before starting this position on September 1, 2022, he served as the World Bank’s Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions, where he played a key role in shaping the Bank’s response to the extraordinary series of shocks that have hit developing economies since 2020. Between 2016 and 2021, he was a professor of public policy at Duke University and non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Global Economy and Development program. Indermit has published extensively on policy issues facing developing countries, sovereign debt, green growth, labor markets, poverty and inequality, and managing natural resource wealth. His pioneering work includes introducing the concept of the “middle income trap” to describe how developing countries stagnate after reaching a certain level of income. Indermit also spearheaded the influential World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography. Twitter: @IndermitGill

Resources:

The New Threat to Prosperity Everywhere (Indermit Gill, 13 March 2022, Project Syndicate)
Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022 (World Bank report)

Key highlights:

Introduction - 00:52
How "development" has changed over the years - 03:22
The current status of the World Bank's twin goals - 08:56
Growing global poverty and how to best measure poverty - 13:38
The "middle income trap" and natural resource curse thesis - 21:00
Sustainable development, renewal energy, and climate change- 29:50
Addressing the debt crisis - 40:15

Host:

Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

Host:

Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo

Subscribe:

Rethinking "evidence" — Eivind Engebretsen and Mona Baker Mar 11, 2023

Show notes

In the past few decades, we have witnessed the rise and consolidation of “evidence-based medicine” among health professionals. This refers to a systematic approach to medicine in which doctors and other health care professionals use the best available scientific evidence from clinical research to help make decisions about the care of individual patients. But the COVID-19 pandemic has managed to transform what constitutes reliable medical evidence into a topic of public concern and debate. These debates have taken place within and beyond the medical establishment, such as in news reports and social media posts. And suddenly everyone began offering an opinion on the efficacy of measures such as quarantines, lock downs, school closures, and mandatory face masks. How then should we understand “evidence”? Does evidence mean the same thing in different contexts and constituencies?

In their new book, Rethinking Evidence in the Time of Pandemics: Scientific Vs Narrative Rationality, and Medical Knowledge Practices, Eivind Engebretsen and Mona Baker argue that we ought to adopt a more nuanced and socially responsive approach to medical expertise that incorporates scientific and lay processes of making sense of the world and how we decide to act in it. Using the narrative framework, they offer a model of analysis that sheds greater light on why different people arrive at different decisions based on the same sources of evidence and why we must acknowledge their reasons for doing so as rooted in different types of rationality rather than dismissing them as irrational.

Eivind Engebretsen is a Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, where he is also the Executive Chairman of the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education.

Mona Baker is Director of the Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies at Shanghai International Studies University. She is also affiliated with the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education at the University of Oslo.

Host:

Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

Host:

Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo

Subscribe:

Locally led development and the future of aid — Håvard Mokleiv Nygård Mar 08, 2023

Show notes

The global development domain currently faces huge challenges. Apart from trying to stimulate economic growth and ensuring a fair distribution of the benefits of that growth, national governments and their international partners must also tackle complex conflicts, provide humanitarian assistance, and not least address the harmful impacts of climate disruption. What then should the role of external actors be? How can good intentions be best mobilized into effective actions on the ground?

Håvard Mokleiv Nygård is a Deputy Director-General of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Norad, where he directs the Department of Knowledge. Until a few years ago, he was Research Director at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), where his research focused on armed conflict and political violence, peace building, and patterns of democratic development. Twitter: @havardmn

Resources:

Key highlights

Introduction - 00:49
Foreign aid vs. development cooperation - 04:52
Locally led development - 13:10
The aid effectiveness debate - 24:15
What works in global development and how to measure success - 43:49
Bridging the gap between research and policy and the future of aid - 52:45

Host:

Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

Host:

Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo

Subscribe:

The Wild World of WhatsApp — Jamie Hitchen Mar 01, 2023

Show notes

The role of social media in spreading political misinformation has received considerable attention. But various forms of social media also facilitate and enable participatory democracy across boundaries. They help to hold leaders to account as well as provide channels for airing the needs and demands of marginalised communities and vulnerable groups. These demands can sometimes even be propelled to the centre of public debates. While there has been considerable focus on Twitter and Facebook, the private messaging application WhatsApp has emerged as a especially popular medium for inter-personal communication. But WhatsApp has not received the attention it deserves. What is so special about WhatsApp and how and why has it emerged as the main form of communication for a wide range of actors on the African continent?

Jamie Hitchen is an independent research analyst and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. He has written extensively on social media in West Africa and recently co-edited a volume with Idayat Hassan entitled WhatsApp and Everyday Life in West Africa: Beyond Fake News.

Twitter: @jchitchen

Resources

Social Media Disruption: Nigeria’s WhatsApp Politics, Journal of Democracy (2020)
If blackouts don’t work, what might? Tackling fake news in West Africa, African Arguments (2022)

Host:

Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

Host:

Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo

Subscribe:

Christmas special – The acronisation game Dec 26, 2022

Show notes

While much of the success of the show is due to my fabulous guests, I am also lucky to have a wonderful team to assist me at the University of Oslo. I wish to in particular thank Kristoffer Ring, our IT guru, and Oda Fagerland, Bella Reid, and Eliska Sottova for research assistance and transcripts.

My colleague Desmond McNeill, who was on the show earlier this year discussing the power of ideas and metaphors in international development policy, has invented a game which he calls “acronisation”.

The game is designed to test your knowledge about international organizations and bilateral aid agencies.

If you can identity 10 acronyms or more, Desmond would be delighted to receive an e-mail from you latest by the 11th of January.

Please write to Desmond at: desmond.mcneill@sum.uio.no

Happy holidays!

Host:

Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

Host:

Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo

Subscribe:

Just copy us! Why can’t the rest of the world be more like Scandinavia? — Harald Eia Dec 21, 2022

Show notes

Scandinavian countries are well-known for high standards of living and many people wonder about the origins of the welfare state model in Scandinavia and why it has worked so well. The features of the welfare state in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden typically include high state spending, strong universal public services, and relatively high equality in gender roles.

But what explains the success of this model of development and how did these countries get to where they are today? These are some of the questions my guest – Harald Eia – tries to answer in a recent book co-authored with Ole-Martin Ihle. The book – The Mystery of Norway – discusses how Norway became one of the most prosperous countries in the world. It focuses on the relationship between wealth and happiness, and the power of civil society and trade unions in negotiating wages and a range of benefits. The book also highlights the important role played by The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration – popularly known in Norway by its acronym – NAV, which administers a third of the national budget through schemes such as unemployment benefit, work assessment allowance, sickness benefit, pensions, child benefit and cash-for-care benefit.

Harald Eia is a sociologist and became a household name in Norway in the mid-1990s having starred in several hit comedy shows. He has since then been one of the country's most popular and well-known comedians.

Key highlights

Introduction - 00:52
Is there a Norwegian model of development? - 03:18
Origins and functions of the welfare state in Norway: 06:22
Can money make you happy? 20:20
Relative poverty in one of the world's wealthiest countries: 28:30
Immigration: 35:13

Host:

Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

Host:

Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo

Subscribe:

Contemporary state building and elite taxation in Latin America — Gustavo Flores-Macías Dec 14, 2022

Show notes

While many Latin American states have experienced severe public-safety crises in the context of fiscal duress, elite engagement in state building has taken place in some countries but not in others. Why is that the case?

In explaining the adoption of elite taxes for public safety, Gustavo Flores-Macías argues that the conventional crisis-centered explanations are insufficient. Whereas economic elites are generally reluctant to shoulder a greater tax burden, public-safety crises can soften this opposition – when they affect elites directly – and thereby open the door to negotiations with the government. However, the deterioration of public-safety conditions is not enough to elicit elite taxation. Rather, the resulting tax arrangement will depend on the strength of business–government linkages in the form of formal and informal collaboration mechanisms. When linkages are weak, elite taxation is likely to fail, if attempted at all. Stronger linkages will make elite taxation more likely.

Gustavo Flores-Macías is a Professor of Government and Public Policy and Associate Vice Provost for International Affairs at Cornell University. His latest book is Contemporary State Building: Elite Taxation and Public Safety in Latin America. Twitter @Gustavo_F_M

Key highlights

Introduction - 00:52
Contemporary state building in Latin America - 04.00
Economic elites in Latin America – 12.34
Elites as an obstacle to state building - 19.04
Determinants of fiscal reforms and elite taxation - 25.46
Differentiation of public safety from other public goods - 34.50
Taxing elites, the El Salvador case - 46.50
How to mobilise security tax for development and welfare – 52.26

Host:

Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

Host:

Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo

Subscribe:

The power of the Chinese state: Examination, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology — Yasheng Huang Dec 07, 2022

Show notes

Ever wondered why the state in China is so powerful? Yasheng argues that Keju — the Imperial civil service examination — has historically maximized a specific type of knowledge in the minds of the population such as memorization. It also reduced the scope of, or eliminated, alternative ideas. Keju made the state all powerful. The state was able to monopolize the very best of human capital. And in doing so, the state deprived society access to talent and pre-empted organized religion, commerce, and intelligentsia. While it is China’s blessing, Keju is also a curse as it decimated society.

Yasheng Huang is a Professor of International Management and Faculty Director of Action Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His forthcoming book, which will be published by Yale University Press, is The Rise and the Fall of the EAST: Examination, Autocracy, Stability and Technology in Chinese History and Today. Twitter: @YashengHuang

Key highlights

Introduction – 00:52

Recent protests in China – 03:15

Protest strategies and logistical capacity – 13:25

Why is the Chinese state so powerful? – 19:35

The role of the civil service exam in China – 35:00

Meritocracy and the Chinese bureaucracy – 47:15

Host:

Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod