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Devex Podcasts
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News and analysis from Devex, the media platform for the global development community.
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Episodes
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Special episode: Rebuilding trust in the UN system
Sep 18, 202300:39:14Tap to summarizeIn this special sponsored episode of This Week in Global Development, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Natalie Samarasinghe, head of global advocacy at Open Society Foundations, and Richard Gowan, U.N. Director at Crisis Group, to discuss to what’s likely to come out of this year’s United Nations General Assembly, the trust deficit facing the multilateral system, and whether this global gathering is even fit for purpose anymore.They also delve into the results of Open Society Foundations’ new poll on global public opinion towards human rights and democracy.This episode of This Week in Global Development is sponsored by Open Society Foundations.
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Key issues to watch at the 78th UN General Assembly
Sep 15, 202300:29:05Tap to summarizeWith the high-level general debate of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly taking place next week, leaders from around the world will be gathering in New York City to talk through some of the biggest issues facing societies around the world, including how we can best meet the Sustainable Development Goals and tackle the climate crisis. For this week we have a special episode of the podcast, in which Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel sits down with our Global Reporter Colum Lynch. From whether Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit will overshadow other global issues to increasing poverty rates around the world, they discuss the key talking points ahead of the summit. Sign up to Devex Newswire and our other newsletters. You can also register to attend in person or online Devex @ UNGA 78, our very own summit taking place on the sidelines of the most important discussions.
Transcribe →The END Fund's new board chair, and the UK's potential ODA increase
Sep 8, 202300:28:28Tap to summarizeThis week The END Fund announced Tsitsi Masiyiwa as the organization’s new board chair, with the aim of ushering in more African voices into discussions about increasing funding for neglected tropical diseases. During our conversation, we explored the role played by boards in influencing the work of philanthropic organizations. In the United Kingdom, we reported that up to £2.68 billion ($3.37 billion) could be diverted back to aid programs overseas after the U.K. tightened its laws on refugees, which means it can no longer claim spending on asylum seekers as official development assistance.To dig into these stories and others, I sat down with Anera President and CEO Sean Carroll, as well as Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel, for the latest episode of the This Week in Global Development podcast. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.
Transcribe →USAID's staffing shortages, and country-owned strategies in development
Sep 1, 202300:31:49Tap to summarizeThis week Devex Climate Correspondent William Worley sat down with Meike van Ginneken, the Netherlands’ special envoy for water, who argued that we should be prioritizing investment to help overcome issues related to water shortages in the face of climate change rather than subsidizing fossil fuels. In addition to looking back at our Devex Pro event with former senior USAID official Chuck Pope and digging into the agency’s localization targets, we also discussed an opinion piece written by former deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury Department Nancy Lee, who outlines why country-owned strategies will be key to achieving development goals.To find out more about these stories, make sure to check out the latest episode of the podcast, where I sit down with Larry Cooley, president emeritus and senior adviser at Management Systems International, to discuss the past week's top stories from the global development sector. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.
Transcribe →Open Society Foundations' reorganization, and World Water Week
Aug 25, 202300:34:48Tap to summarizeFor the latest episode of the podcast, I am joined by global strategy and development leader Nasra Ismail and Devex Business Editor David Ainsworth to discuss the top stories in global development, including insights into Open Society Foundations’ reorganization. This week we learned that USAID’s NextGen global health supply chain contracts, which collectively are worth $16.8 billion over 10 years, are being delayed. We discuss the possible reasoning behind this, as well as its potential impact. We are also joined by Devex Climate Correspondent Will Worley live from Stockholm, who provided an update on the World Water Week conference happening in the Swedish capital. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.
Transcribe →U.S. and allies block key UN agreement and Germany's aid cuts
Aug 11, 202300:33:41Tap to summarizeThis week we broke an exclusive story on the United States, the United Kingdom, and a handful of allied powers blocking an agreement on a draft declaration that advocates the need to accelerate progress on a set of critical development goals, throwing a spanner into high-level negotiations ahead of the United Nations General Assembly taking place next month. In the United Kingdom, an inquiry has been told that development assistance rules are denying “vulnerable” small island developing states, or SIDS, the help they need to combat the climate emergency as they are classified as “too rich” to receive funding. The U.K. government also received strong criticism for its aid being used to fund the training of soccer referees and coaches across China, even as spending reductions are predicted to lead to thousands of deaths this year across Africa and Yemen.However, the U.K. is not the only country planning aid cuts. Germany’s ruling coalition has proposed to reduce its aid budget by proposing a 5% cut for 2024, setting off alarm bells in development circles.For the latest episode of the podcast, I was joined by University of Oxford professor Stefan Dercon and Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel to discuss the past week’s important stories from global development.Please note that we will not be recording an episode next week due to the Devex Summer Break. We will be back in two weeks’ time to continue bringing you the top stories from the sector. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.
Transcribe →USAID’s record breaking localization push and the impact of UK aid cuts
Aug 4, 202300:35:45Tap to summarizeThis week Devex reported that the U.S. Agency for International Development saw a record-breaking obligation to local contractors in 2022, up 169.8% in real terms from the previous year. While this is promising, it will be vital to ensure that initiatives are not tokenistic and that localization efforts are indeed meeting the needs of the communities they are aiming to serve rather than ticking development boxes. In the United Kingdom, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office admitted that thousands of people “in acute humanitarian need” will die unnecessarily from hunger, poor health care, and during pregnancy because of ongoing aid cuts.At the World Bank, Ajay Banga received some backlash from employees as he announced that while he would like to maintain a flexible workplace, he wants staff in the office more than three days a week. The institution’s staff association argued that the announcement was rushed, with no guidance on how to apply this new “flexibility” and that managers were not consulted.Are localization efforts heading in the right direction? Will having staff back at the office benefit the World Bank? To answer these questions and others from the past week, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar is joined by George Ingram, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, as well as Spark MicroGrants CEO and co-founder Sasha Fisher for the latest episode of the This Week in Global Development podcast. Sign up to Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.
Transcribe →The UK's refugee bill and a call to fight HIV and AIDS
Jul 28, 202300:35:38Tap to summarizeWhile we usually expect the summer months to be slower than usual, it has certainly not been the case over the past week. In an exclusive Devex story, we found out that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will most likely declare that the United Kingdom cannot legally spend its overseas development assistance on domestic refugee costs because of a new law cracking down on arrivals. In 2022 the country spent £3.7 billion — 29% of its ODA budget — domestically, exploiting OECD rules that allow the allocation of refugees’ hotel and other bills as ODA for 12 months. On the other side of the pond, the United States’ bipartisan foreign affairs budget is set to be tangled up in debates around the country’s domestic cultural wars and its competition abroad with China. To make sense of these stories, as well as UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Angeli Achrekar’s call to keep the fight against HIV and AIDS on the political agenda, I sat down with Global Nation co-founder Jonathan Glennie and Harvard Center for International Development Executive Director Fatema Sumar for this week’s podcast episode.Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.
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David Sengeh on Radical Inclusion: Seven Steps to Help You Create a More Just Workplace, Home, and World
Jul 25, 202300:32:15Tap to summarizeCan you imagine a world where everyone belongs? For David Sengeh, Sierra Leone's Minister of Education and Chief Innovation Officer, the answer is "yes." And by the time you finish his book, "Radical Inclusion: Seven Steps to Help You Create a More Just Workplace, Home, and World,” you'll likely agree. For more information on upcoming episodes and to sign up for our mailing list, visit the Devex Book Club here: https://pages.devex.com/devex-book-club.html
Transcribe →The latest from Women Deliver, WHO rotation, and BRAC localization
Jul 21, 202300:31:56Tap to summarizeThis week we’re closely following the conversations that took place at the Women Deliver conference in Kigali, Rwanda, which brought together thousands of people from diverse fields to help elevate women’s voices and accelerate the drive toward achieving gender equality. We also delve into whether hosting conferences and headquartering development organizations in the global south is an effective tool to drive the localization agenda, and we touch on the World Health Organization’s postponement of its plan to require staff to rotate to different duty stations every several years. To dig into these topics and get the latest on our coverage of Women Deliver, for episode nine of the This Week in Global Development podcast series I talk to Devex Senior Reporter Sara Jerving and Larry Cooley, president emeritus and senior adviser at Management Systems International.Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters.
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