Global Development Institute podcast

This is the second podcast about the Reciprocal Learning Exchange Project , a collective endeavour set up by the Muungano wa Wanavijiji Kisumu Federation and students from the Global Development Institute, supported by GDI’s Innovation Fund. Designed to better understand the benefits, challenges, and underexplored opportunities that come about when developing relationships between researchers and...

The Reciprocal Learning Exchange Project is a collective endeavour set up by the Muungano wa Wanavijiji Kisumu Federation and students from the Global Development Institute, supported by GDI’s Innovation Fund. Designed to better understand the benefits, challenges, and underexplored opportunities that come about when developing relationships between researchers and grassroots movements, the projec...

In this episode of the GDI podcast, David Fielding , Professor of Development Economics, interviews Farzana Munshi , Professorial Research Fellow, about her latest book, The Labour Market in Bangladesh: Emerging Challenges, Future of Work, and Policy Direction (Routledge). The pair discuss the fourth industrial revolution, potential upcoming transformations to the labour market in Bangladesh, some...

In this episode we hear GDI undergraduate students Evelyn Taylor, Olivia Thornburrow and Cheryl Loh in conversation with Cecilia Milesi.  Cecilia has over 25 years of experience advising multilateral organizations, United Nations agencies such as UNOSSC, and international NGOs including Amnesty International and Oxfam. She is the founder of the Global Change Center and the youth participation init...

The Oxford Handbook of Social Policies in the Global South has just been published, bringing together the latest research on social policies and institutions in place outside the advanced capitalist countries. In this episode of the GDI Podcast, one of the handbook's co-editors, Professor Armando Barrientos, discusses the rationale behind publishing the book and the contributions it makes to...

Three of our recently-graduated undergrad students - Amelia Campion, Alex Dannreuther and Niamh Keogan - speak with Chibwe Masabo Henry about the breakdown of aid structures and the ways we can shift our giving to a flexible, community-grounded model.  Chibwe Masabo Henry is Shifting the Power Programme Lead at Comic Relief, and is also Chief Steward of One World Together.    Find out more about t...

In this episode, GDI's Pritish Behuria discusses his new book, The Political Economy of Rwanda's Rise (Open Access, Cambridge University Press). Pritish explains how the country's economic and political prospects have changed since the genocide in 1994, as well as the development challenges Rwanda currently faces.   Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog...

In recent decades, conservation science has begun to pay greater attention to local people’s rights, livelihoods, and well-being. Yet the growing availability of data and advanced technologies raises new justice concerns for conservation science. This episode explores the justice dimensions of conservation in a data-driven world. This episode features Professor Dan Brockington from the Universitat...

In this episode, we chat with some of the authors of a recent intervention published in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers on 'Geographies of Responsibility, Care and Repair in Digital Worlds of AI'. We hear from Jessica McLean, Katarzyna Cieslik, Nikko Stevens, and Jack Gieseking about the threats posed by AI, the blurry definitions of AI, and the critical tools schola...

In her opening session for Research for Transformation Lab week in November 2025, GDI’s Diana Mitlin reflected on five academic personas and their possibilities for transformative research: the shining superstar, the convenor, the subversive persona, the collaborative co-producer, the shapeshifter. In this pod, we follow the recording of Diana’s reflections with a conversation between two of GDI’...

In this episode, Taio Gardey, GDI alumnus and Executive Director of Farming Out of Poverty (FOOP), discusses the realities of working on the ground in Sierra Leone. We discuss tricky decisions he's had to make throughout his career, the kinds of skills he's developed in recent years, and how development organisations can adapt and thrive in the current environment.    Find out more about...

In this episode, Dr Mohammed Ibrahim is joined by Dr Alex Moyem Kombat, Head of Research and Policy of the Ghana Revenue Authority and two GDI PGRs, Anifat Ibrahim and Mohammed Damba to discuss domestic revenue mobilisation in Ghana and in West Africa.  Taxation is crucial to development as it provides states with the necessary funding to provide citizens with public services, such as healthcare a...

In this episode, we chat with five recent graduates about their time with the SEED Changemakers programme. Participants include: Laura Acosta Ife Agboola Patrick Caskie Eddie Groves Thando Mathe As well as chatting about their reasons for becoming Changemakers, participants describe their reasons for supporting social enterprise One World Together, the skills they learned as students, and their ex...

In this latest episode from the Sustainable Forest Transition Project , Prof Johan Oldekop (GDI) speaks to Sarah Castle (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Matt Fagan (University of Maryland Baltimore County).  Johan, Sarah and Matt talk about their research and how data can shape forest landscapes and the way we interact with them.  More from Sarah:  Article in One Earth Bringing Satellites Dow...

Welcome to a new mini-pod series from the Global Development Institute’s Research for Transformation Lab. Based at the University of Manchester, the Lab is an initiative where we explore all things research impact.  This episode was recorded in November 2025 during Transformation Lab week, a series of face to face sessions designed to initiate a critically engaged conversation around research impa...

In this episode, we catch up with two of GDI's second-year PhD students, Blanche de Moidrey and Kalani Foster , to discuss how their research projects relate to the broad themes of indigeneity and knowledge production. We touch on topics including how to grapple with one's positionality as a researcher, the complex political dimensions of indigeneity as a concept, and the ways in which t...

Listen to a discussion between Dr Osman Ouattara and two of our current PhD researchers, Mahtab Uddin and Matilda Kabutey-Ongor . In this episode they discuss their own research and the new pathway for development economics at GDI. Learn more here: https://blog.gdi.manchester.ac.uk/gdi... Or here: https://www.gdi.manchester.ac.uk/stud...  Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Websi...

In this episode, Dr Natalie Cunningham , Senior Lecturer in Leadership for Development at GDI, speaks to three UoM alumni about their experiences navigating the contemporary development and humanitarian landscape. Contributors include Stephanie Lord (Head of Global Emergency at the Danish Refugee Council), Shamilah Perumal (Minister for Economic Affairs in the High Commission of Malaysia in New De...

A conversation with Gindo Tampubolon , GDI's Reader in Global Health, to discuss his research on global healthy ageing and his work as a lead expert for the World Health Organization's Life Course & Healthy Ageing expert group as part of the UN's Decade of Healthy Ageing Initiative .  Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog BlueSky   LinkedIn  Facebook...

In this episode, we speak to GDI alumnus and research fellow Luis Eduardo Pérez Murcia about his recent open access book, A Long Journey Home: Losing and Remaking Home Following Conflict and Displacement . The book examines the experiences of those whose sense of home has been disrupted by decades of conflict and violence, highlighting the profound feelings of loss and the enduring struggle of liv...

In this episode, Rory Horner speaks with Elisa Gambino about her latest paper 'Flexible embeddedness: how Chinese lead firms internationalise in Africa' with Costanza Franceschini . The ‘rise of the South’, and particularly that of China, has promoted lively debates around the centrality of Southern firms in shaping the contours of twenty first century economic globalisation. This paper...

Dr Elisa Gambino (GDI) interviews Dr Fidèle Beletchei Ebia , a postdoctoral researcher with Duke Africa Initiative, about her recent paper analysing how the rise of South-South value chains disrupts the trade of African print textiles.  Find out more about the Global Development Institute: Website Blog BlueSky   LinkedIn  Facebook Instagram  Newsletter   Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters

In this episode, we speak to PhD researcher Anuradha Ganapathy about her recent think piece 'Beyond Digital Platforms: Unpacking Disinformation Through a Feminist Commodity Chain Approach'. Anuradha discusses alternative approaches to analysing disinformation, moving away from platform centricity and toward an understanding of gendered commodity chains and unpaid labour.   Find out more...

In this episode, Sophie Van Huellen (Senior Lecturer in Development Economics at GDI) and Fuad Mohammed Abubakar (Head of Ghana Cocoa Marketing Company UK LTD and Simon Industrial Fellow) talk to Caroline Cornier (PhD Candidate at GDI) about their recent work on the political economy of the Ghanaian cocoa sector. They discuss the implications of poor harvests, changes to the sector's financin...

In this episode, visiting postdoctoral scholar Monika Verma (Palacký University Olomouc) sits down with GDI's Ibrahim Efe to discuss her research on the securitization of migration in India, focusing specifically on the case of the Rohingya community. Monika discusses the background to her research, the meaning of securitization in a migration context, and how it affects the daily lives of Ro...