Are our current approaches to development cooperation fit for purpose to address contemporary challenges? How should development practice evolve to reflect 21st century priorities and knowledge? And how can it bridge the traditional donor-recipient divide? Can aid donors and recipients meaningfully engage with the private sector, private philanthropy, and other new sources of financing?

In the 2017 Mitchell Oration, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala draws on more than 30 years of development and financial expertise to reflect on the need for a new way forward.

A development economist and former Finance Minister of Nigeria, Dr Okonjo-Iweala is uniquely placed to provide perspectives on these crucial questions. She has served as Board Chair of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, since January 2016. She has twice served as Nigeria’s Finance Minister, most recently between 2011 and 2015 – a role that encompassed the expanded portfolio of Coordinating Minister for the Economy. In 2006 she served as Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, and has also held several key positions at the World Bank, including as Managing Director.

The Mitchell Oration series, of which this is the fifth, has been created to provide a forum at which the most pressing development issues can be addressed by the best minds and most influential practitioners of our time. This podcast of Dr Okonjo-Iweala's lecture is presented by the Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy, with generous support from the Harold Mitchell Foundation.

Devpolicy Talks is the podcast of the Australian National University's Development Policy Centre. 

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