GDP - The Global Development Primer

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away Atul Tandon was making it on Wall Street.  At 39, Tandon was running one of the world’s largest international banking efforts on Wall Street when he was faced with a serious health crisis. Questioning his purpose, Tandon walked away from a life of wealth and turned to the very poorest in the world, vowing to serve those he left behind. Tandon has made...

Access to higher education remains a challenge in sub-Saharan Africa.  Select scholarships and bursaries are available to some, but getting access to knowledge to many remains a challenge.   Germaine Tuyisenge, an Assistant Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is working to change that.  By expanding online learning to students in sub-Saharan Africa, and to hi...

Following from our last GDP podcast on the challenges of online learning, we're pleased to welcome the President of Neontrain , Rob Belliveau to the podcast to talk about how profs can work to overcome real challenges and presumed stereotypes of online education.  In this episode Rob & Dr. Bob make the case that online learning can, in some ways, be more connected, more personal and more...

Undergraduate students are now into their 5th virtual semester online.  Profs regularly complain about online learning, and so do students.  What has worked well with online learning, and what has not?  What are students really missing when it comes to campus life?  In this episode of GDP we hear from 3 global students in global health about the pros and cons of taking a degree mostly online.  How...

North Korea is used to sanctions by now.  When Pyongyang demonstrates its might with missile tests, or when reports surface of the bone crushing repression within prison camps, the West often responds with financial measures and sanctions.  But now, North Korea has a new plan to move money across borders despite sanctions - cryptocurrencies.  And from what we can tell, it looks like...

What do Truckers in Canada, Islamophobes in the U.S., Hindu supremacists and incels the world over have in common?  Distorted visions of a golden age when they ruled as they liked.  Selective histories of nationalist glories are on the front steps of Capitols and Parliaments around the world.  Fuelled by half-baked histories and disinformation online, the rise of anti-establishment...

Russia has just declared Dontesk & Luhansk in the Donbas region of Ukraine to be sovereign states.  Peacekeepers are on the ground.  NATO nations are applying sanctions.  The government in Kyiv has said for months that Russia is attempting to usurp democracy in the country.  Yet Moscow says that it is merely peacekeeping.  Is it peacekeeping?  Is it warmongering?...

On October 25, 2021 military officers in Sudan staged a coup and took the capital.  Sudan's coup follows coups in Chad, Guinea, and two in Mali.  Madagascar and the Central African Republic experienced a failed attempt each.  For the past twenty years coups were becoming rare in the African continent, and they were never condoned or encouraged by members of the African Union, or the...

"You can shove your climate crisis up your arse", said Greta Thunberg.  "How many more signs do we need?", asked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  "“And this is a chance, in my view, to make a generational investment in our economic resilience and in our workers and our communities throughout the world," said Joe Biden.  Another climate conference, and another year of incredi...

Governments can be slow to help those in need, yet they often act fast against real threats.  Social media platforms, like Facebook (Meta) have been long critiqued for being bigger than governments, both in terms of subscribers and revenue. But is Facebook a threat to governments, democracies and to populations themselves?  Despite the birthday reminders, cute cat photos, and ability to...

The Pandora Papers is the International Consortium of Investigative Journalist's largest investigation into off-shore finance to date.  Almost 3 terabytes of data piece together a shadow world of offshore financial.  World leaders  and at least 130 billionaires rely on an offshore financial system that keeps taxes low, money opaque and above all guards the privacy of its clients. &n...

COVID-19 is a global experience that conjoins us all.  But we live in very different realities of it.  Everyone on earth has been impacted by the virus and the public health measures that have responded to it.  Now with vaccines rolling out is the world coming together to move towards the post-pandemic era, or are we entrenching divisions in dangerous and untested ways?   It's...

The inconveniences from COVID-19 may pale in comparison as to what climate change may have in store for us all.  Rising temperatures, rising seas, burning forests, and drying rivers aren't just likely - they're guaranteed according to the 2021 IPCC report.  Clearly this will impact development both in terms of how projects are carried out, and how international development is taught and carried ou...

What are the police supposed to do?  If it is really about keeping the public safe, why are some members of the public specifically targeted and subjected to frequent surveillance, and why do black Americans continue to die at the hands of the police?  It's time to go beyond saying enough is enough, and to start putting policies in place so it happens never again.  Tari Ajadi is ded...

In Westminster parliaments the chamber is often divided.  The government on one side, and the opposition on the other.  They are spaced 2 sword lengths apart - an architectural innovation to prevent repeated bloodshed amid disagreement and misunderstandings arising from dialogue in the house.  In as much as modern media gives the sense of constant bickering, disagreement, and deep loathing amid el...

If all the world is a stage, then Theatre for Development is about dealing with some of the most troubling moments of that world.  Beyond the production of dramatic performance for audiences, the methods of role playing, acting, and diving into the perspective of others is an incredibly powerful tool to explore peace and reconciliation, trauma, and psychology.  On the front line of this...

The saying goes that countries will often export their strengths.  But when it comes to foreign assistance for democracy support, Canada does remarkably little compared to its neighbour to the South and partners in Europe.  Inclusive democracy is foundational pillar to Canadian society, and in an era when many countries are teetering towards populism and anti-democratic processes, where...

During pandemics our diets change.  Dan Dan Noodles and Sourdough bread were the staples of COVID-19.  In the 1918 influenza it was oysters.  The 17th century plague in Paris was held back by lemonade, and in ancient times, certain foods were reserved for health times, and others for illness.  Recipes and cravings aside, COVID-19 toppled the global culinary industry.  From...

For 13 years, Bradley J. Galloway was a fixture in the Canadian racist scene, initially with the Toronto skinhead movement and later in British Columbia as the national leader of Volksfront. But then he walked away.   Dr. Kathy Hogarth is a renowned expert in critical race and equity at the University of Waterloo who is interested in transformations that lead to justice.   In this double-length ep...

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, and has for 4 out of 5 households are food insecure after harvests, HIV/AIDS is with 10% of the population, less than half of students graduate grade 8, and now with climate change and turbulent post-pandemic economies, the country needs committed support from stakeholders that genuinely meet the needs of communities.  Will donors in the global...

The voices of North Korean refugees have the power to captivate audiences, inspire human rights activists, and challenge the very regime that brought them suffering.  The stories and testimonies of North Korean refugees provide an important view into the eerie reality of Kim Jung Un's regime.  At the same time, stories from North Korean refugees illuminate the human conviction to follow...

Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, many noticed that countries with women heads of state fared better against the virus.  New Zealand, Taiwan, and parts of Scandinavia, for example.  When it comes to gender, leadership and the pandemic, what matters more?  Who is in the top seat of power?  Or the political culture of the system itself?  Associate Professor Jennifer Piscopo suggests that we take a...

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq became missions to rebuild the governments and to promote democracy.  It led many to associate the terms of "Democracy support / democracy assistance" with regime change.   Dr. Tom Carothers suggests that this bad rap came from security interventions becoming political missions.  A better way to understand democracy support is by looking at how organ...

The Biden-Harris administration has a commitment to multi-lateral engagement, including the promotion of democracy. The concern in 2021 is that democracies are under threat - everywhere. What’s this threat? How do we address it? In this episode of GDP we look at the role of democracy assistance in international development.        The Parliamentary Centre in Ottawa is hosting the Global Democracy...

The COVID-19 pandemic forced billions of parents into paternity leave.  For billions of billions of children around the world their parents were at home with them while schools were shuttered.  It saw an increase in parental caregiving like no time before.  Women, who have always taken on the overwhelming majority of care giving duties, saw those duties increase.  But for hundr...