The Trump administration is taking an axe to the world’s biggest foreign aid program, dismantling its US Agency for International Development and freezing billions of dollars in foreign assistance. The Lowy Institute’s Lead Economist Roland Rajah is joined by Deputy Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre, Alexandre Dayant, and Research Associate, Grace Stanhope, to dive into what’s happening, the rationale, and the implications for American soft power and the rest of the world.

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The Trump administration’s recent dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and freeze on most US foreign aid has created havoc within the international aid and development sectors. Prior to these major announcements, the Lowy Institute’s Lead Economist Roland Rajah spoke with Masood Ahmed, President Emeritus of the Center for Global Development, in December last year. They discussed the effectiveness and future of aid and the factors reshaping international development cooperation including climate change, pandemic risks, migration, and domestic politics in donor countries.

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As part of the Lowy Institute Re-Cast series, we are republishing the best podcasts of 2024. In case you missed them the first time around or if you want revisit these engaging conversations, the Re-Cast series has you covered.

As we usher in the new year, the global economy is at a turning point. From confronting an economic development crisis and addressing the good-jobs dilemma, to navigating the climate transition and charting a course towards a more sustainable and equitable form of globalisation, 2024 promises to be an interesting year.

In this episode of Development Futures, Alexandre Dayant, the Deputy Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre, talks with Harvard professor and economist Dani Rodrik about the challenges of globalisation and the intensification of geopolitics on the global economy.

They discuss the role of redistributive domestic policies, the impact of US–China competition on the delivery of global public goods, and the risk of breakdown of the multilateral trade system. These are just a few of the topics covered in this wide-ranging conversation.

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As part of the Lowy Institute Re-Cast series, we are republishing the best podcasts of 2024. In case you missed them the first time around or if you want revisit these engaging conversations, the Re-Cast series has you covered.

China is facing many economic problems, at home and abroad. The two are connected. Weak demand at home has contributed to a sharp rise in Chinese manufacturing exports, especially in green technologies such as electric vehicles. Surging Chinese exports have in turn prompted a backlash from the United States, Europe, and others who accuse China of exporting overcapacity and damaging their own green industrial ambitions.

In this episode, Roland Rajah, Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre (IPDC), talks with Dr Bert Hofman, one of the leading international experts on China’s economy and a widely respected development economist and practitioner. They discuss China’s development model, the idea of “Peak China”, whether China is exporting overcapacity, what this all means for developing countries, and Bert’s ideas for what the world should be doing in response.

Dr Hofman is currently an adjunct professor at the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore and before that was with the World Bank for almost three decades, most recently as director of the World Bank’s country office in China.

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Trillions of dollars are needed to meet the world’s climate and development goals. Joan Larrea, CEO of Convergence, a global blended finance network, speaks with the Lowy Institute’s Roland Rajah about how blended finance, which uses government and philanthropic money to increase private investment, could be the answer. Joan shares her insights on what blended finance can realistically achieve, what’s needed to increase its impact, and how it can help in low income and small island developing countries.  

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Each year, the Lowy Institute updates is Pacific Aid Map – the most comprehensive database tracking aid and development flows to the Pacific Islands region ever assembled. In this episode of Development Futures, lead authors Alexandre Dayant and Riley Duke join Dr Jessica Collins to unpack the key insights from this year’s report and explore key questions.  How is the international community supporting the Pacific as it recovers from the pandemic? What role is China playing in the region?  And how is geopolitics shaping the allocation of development finance? These questions and more are explored in this episode.

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In this episode, we explore what might happen at COP29, the upcoming UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. With global emissions at record highs and climate impacts intensifying, this year’s conference will focus on setting a new climate finance goal to drive global climate action. The Lowy Institute’s Alexandre Dayant is joined by Indo-Pacific Development Centre climate experts Dr Melanie Pill and Georgia Hammersley, who will be hosting side events at the Pacific and Australian pavilions at COP29, as well as Ryan Neelam, Director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program at the Institute. Together, they dive into key issues on the agenda, potential sticking points, the global context, and what COP29 might mean for the future of global climate action.

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Eighty years ago, the Bretton Woods agreement shaped the global financial system to build a better world. While its institutions remain vital, they are struggling to meet today’s challenges — climate change, economic insecurity, and a multi-trillion-dollar development financing gap. In this podcast, Lowy Institute researchers Alexandre Dayant, Michelle Lyons and Roland Rajah explore the proposal for an Indo-Pacific Economic Resilience Bank (IERB) — a bank that will aim to diversify critical supply chains, reduce China’s dominance in clean energy, and mobilise new capital for the clean energy transition in the Indo-Pacific.

Read and download the Lowy Institute Analysis The case for an Indo-Pacific Economic Resilience Bank by Michelle Lyons, Roland Rajah and Grace Stanhope.

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In this episode, we delve into the United Nations Loss and Damage Fund, the most concrete effort to address restitution for those impacted by climate change. As the recently appointed board begins crafting a global fund to financially support climate victims, much remains unresolved, including complex questions about who is eligible for money and how they can access it, how to quantify intangible impacts such as the loss of traditional knowledge, and how the Fund itself can raise enough resources to cover escalating costs. To explore these questions, Alexandre Dayant, Deputy Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre, talks with IPDC climate experts Dr Melanie Pill and Georgia Hammersley, who recently authored a Lowy Institute Policy Brief outlining recommendations for the Fund’s structure.

You can access the Policy Brief here: A climate loss and damage fund that works

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Can we measure national success beyond economic growth? Professor Robert Costanza speaks with the Lowy Institute’s Alexandre Dayant about why countries need to move away from gross domestic product as the measure of economic prosperity and factor in other complementary gauges of success. In a time of high inflation, increased cost of living, and growing environmental degradation, Professor Constanza argues that moving “beyond growth” is essential to achieving sustainable prosperity.

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