GDP - The Global Development Primer

The theme is #choosetochallenge for International Women's Day 2021.For Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins, the CEO of PAI, universal access to health services is part of this challenge.  In the time of a pandemic, she joins us on GDP to discuss why good health is at the heart of women's rights.

Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins serves as president and CEO of PAI. Nabeeha brings 25 years of movement building, advocacy, fundraising and international development experience in public health, food and nutrition security and human rights. She has dedicated her career to driving equitable health, social and development outcomes for women, youth and vulnerable communities around the world.

Born in Pakistan and raised in Mexico, Nabeeha has worked on development programs in more than 20 countries worldwide. She has collaborated with and advised heads of state, national and local leaders, CEOs and senior executives from across sectors, and worked side by side with community partners who are driving frontline change. Nabeeha holds bachelor’s degrees in political science and journalism and mass communications from Kansas State University and dual master’s degrees in international affairs and public health from Columbia University.

Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter: @ProfessorHuish

The data available on traumatic incidents is profound.  Car accidents, wounding workplaces, bicycle mishaps, and home injuries can all be studied and analyzed for frequency, severity, demography and even geography.  Cities in the the global North increasingly rely on data from trauma registries to make informed policy for urban planning and work safety.  So too is it possible to improve global health outcomes in low and middle income countries through similar methods.  However, the collection, storage and analysis of the data is a problem.  There are so few registries for so many places, which leaves health policy makers in the lurch across the global South.  Leah Rosenkrantz is working on making this system better.

Leah Rosenkrantz is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at Simon Fraser University. Her research involves exploring issues of global public health through both a spatial and ‘platial’ lens. Since beginning her PhD, Leah has worked on projects related to trauma registries in low- and middle-income countries, antimicrobial resistance, and most recently, COVID-19.

Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter:  @ProfessorHuish

In early 2021, after declaring the 2020 election a fraud, armed men rolled into the capital with the intent of capturing members of the government.  No, we're not referring to the United States, but to Myanmar.  On February 1, the military in Myanmar staged a coup d'état.  Why?  The associated Union Solidarity & Development Party took a thumping in the 2020 elections.  The military quickly called the election a fraud, challenged it in court, and then staged a coup.  But the very nature of democracy in Myanmar was meant to serve the interests of the military.  Why a coup?  Why now? And what's next?

In this episode of GDP we're joined by Patrick Balazo, who was a Killam Scholar, and recipient of the Canada Graduate Scholarship in honour of Nelson Mandela.  Patrick worked for a Burmese human rights organization in Thailand, and is an expert on statelessness and conflict.  

Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter:  @ProfessorHuish

You can't even cut the irony on this one.  A week after Donald Trump encouraged, and then joyfully watched a violent mob storm the U.S. Capitol building, his administration placed Cuba on the List of State Sponsors of Terrorism.  That mob posed a greater risk to U.S. democracy than Cuba ever has.  As the Trump administration mocked public health advice, Cuba stood out as a world leader in the COVID-19 pandemic, sending its own health care workers abroad, and receiving foreign patients for treatment.  Why in the world would Donald Trump and then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which imposes serious sanctions towards Havana?  Was this another chapter out of Trump's conspiracy playbook?  Was it meant to create added headaches for the Biden administration?  

To help us understand this better, we are pleased to have Dr. Isaac Saney join us on this episode.  Dr. Saney takes us through the absurdity of the Trump administration policy, and discusses what will be in store for Joe Biden's policy towards Cuba.

Dr. Isaac Saney is a historian focusing on Cuba, issues of race and racism, and Black and African diaspora studies.  He is  the director of the transition year program at Dalhousie University which is the vanguard program for addressing historical injustice and inequities for indigenous and African Nova Scotian students.

Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter:  @ProfessorHuish

There was no one way to handle the COVID-19 pandemic.  Jurisdictions around the world came up with their own unique approaches to balancing economic crisis amid public safety concerns.  In Canada each province developed their own public health guidelines.  Some worked well, others not so much.  In Saskatchewan, COVID-19 crept in slowly, with only a few dozen cases reported.  But in the second wave hundreds of cases were reported each day.  What could the government have done better to handle the 2nd wave?

Speaking from her experience as a Case Investigator, Helen Tang suggests that more focus on upstream determinants of health could have made a world of difference for Saskatchewan's 2nd wave.  Not just mask wearing and good hand washing, but housing and investment in public education matters when handling a pandemic.  Ms. Tang provides some excellent insight and policy suggestions based on her work during the pandemic.

Helen Tang is a fourth year medical student from the University of Saskatchewan, and COVID-19 case investigator.  She hopes to practice rural family medicine when she graduates.  When she is not immersed in medicine, she loves to rock climb, ski, paint and do yoga.

Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter:  @ProfessorHuish

Profs in International Development Studies hear the following question a lot: "What can I do with an IDS degree?"  As important as this question is, a better question to ask is "What CAN'T I do with an IDS degree?"  IDS graduates wind up all over the world and in all sorts of careers.  It's not a degree that will keyhole students into a particular profession, but it will build the confidence, skills, and global knowledge needed to help students take their passion to the workplace.  

Dalhousie IDS Alumni Molly O'Ray is a case in point.  Six years out the gate, and Molly has worked with organizations around the world on issues she cares deeply about.  Recognizing her passion fo emergency preparedness, Molly is currently working with the Canadian Red Cross.  It was no straight path to get here.  Tune in to hear how this IDS graduate charted her own incredible path.

Molly works with the Canadian Red Cross to support community organizations across Canada in their relief, recovery, and resilience-building efforts, following emergencies and disasters. This work follows her role as the program manager with Swim Drink Fish in BC, a national organization which advocates for the protection and restoration of our waters.    After completing her Bachelor of Arts in Environment, Sustainability, & Society and International Development Studies at Dalhousie University, Molly worked internationally on community-led conservation projects in Borneo, Indonesia and Southeast Alaska. Molly also worked as a researcher and educator in tropical forest conservation at two off-grid field institutes in Panama. It was the remote nature of these positions which prompted her passion for emergency preparedness—a passion she carries into her current role.

Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter: @ProfessorHuish

Cruise ships were left adrift in the Caribbean when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. Ports were closed, airliners were grounded, and the medical tourism industry found itself short on patients.  Medical tourism can be understood as the coordination of travel with the receipt of medical care for patients who elect to seek coverage abroad.  The World Bank, and other development organizations, have encouraged medical tourism as means for greater economic diversification.   Dr. Valorie Crooks chats with Dr. Bob Huish about why that diversification may be limited at best, and how the COVID-19 not only ground the medical tourism to a halt, but called the whole thing into question.  Medical tourism may have promised better health care to a global community, but the COVID-19 pandemic  showed the true limits of the industry.

Dr. Valorie Crooks completed her PhD at McMaster University in 2005.  The following year she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at York University.  Since 2006 she has been a faculty member in the Department of Geography  at Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Crooks currently hold the Canada Research Chair in Health Service Geographies and she also holds a Scholar Award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. Dr. Crooks is a health geographer by training.  As such, she is interested in the spatial and place-based dimensions of health and health care.  She broadly conceives of herself as a health services researcher, and have an ongoing interest in understanding lived experiences of accessing needed/wanted health and social care services.  Because of this experiential focus, she primarily engages in non-hypothesis-testing qualitative research, or lead qualitative components of mixed-methods studies.  Her research interests are best characterized by four areas of inquiry: (1) disability and chronic illness; (2) primary health care; (3) palliative health and social care; and (4) medical tourism.  She has received funding from numerous agencies, and especially the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, to pursue collaborative projects in each of these areas.

Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter:  @ProfessorHuish

Psychoanalysis has an important place in the journey of decolonizing international development studies.  In subconcious ways the teaching, the learning and the practice of international development gives in to our desires.  The thrill of helping others, the enjoyment of feeling superior to others.  This all comes to the surface through the performative behaviour and automatic reactions in International Development Studies.  How can psychoanalysis help to better understand the embedded desires, phobias and complexes that exist within International Development Studies? Prof. Ilan Kapoor's new book provides a way forward on this discussion.

Ilan Kapoor is a Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University. His teaching and research focus on critical development studies, postcolonial studies, participatory development, democracy, celebrity studies, and psychoanalytic theory. His geographic areas of interest include South Asia (especially India and Pakistan). He is the author of The Postcolonial Politics of Development (Routledge, 2008) and Celebrity Humanitarianism: The Ideology of Global Charity (Routledge, 2013). His new book is Confronting Desire: Psychoanalysis and International Development.

Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter: @ Professorhuish

The co-edited book titled "Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala" was peer reviewed, and on its way to bookstore shelves until a surprise legal review came forward against the book.  Springer Nature, the publisher, then informed the authors that they were canceling the publication contract, and returned the manuscript to the editors.  What happened?  Why would a well-researched book prepared by two highly accredited writers be suddenly quashed?  What is in this book that is so worrisome to publish?  Is the mining industry trying to hide something?  Could this research hold abusers of human rights to account?  And what is the message to other academics who are pursuing research on human rights abuse?  Tune in to this episode of GDP to get the whole scoop.

Catherine Nolin is a Professor of Geography and Chair of the Geography Program at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) in Prince George, BC. Catherine was recently made a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) and, since July 2020, is also Chair of the Conference of Latin American Geography (CLAG). CLAG is the premier organization for geographers engaging in research in Latin America and the Caribbean and works to foster research, education, and service related to Latin American geographical studies. Catherine is a long-time insurgent researcher and social justice advocate, including more than 25 years grappling with the afterlives of the Guatemalan genocides.

Grahame Russell is a non-practicing Canadian lawyer and, since 1995, Director of Rights Action – an organization that works in Honduras and Guatemala in support of community / environmental / human rights / territory defenders resisting widespread harms and (often deadly) violence caused by different sectors of the global economy, including mining, hydro-electric dams, African palm, sugar-cane, bananas, coffee, tourism, the garment industry. Rights Action carries out education and activism work in the US and Canada focusing on how our governments and companies (and the US military) often contribute directly to and benefit from human rights violations (including repression), environmental harms, exploitation, corruption and impunity in these countries. Grahame is also an adjunct professor in the Geography Program at UNBC and, since 2004, worked with Catherine to co-lead delegations and field schools to Guatemala for Canadian university students.

Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter: @ProfessorHuish

Viruses don't have a plan.  They don't care who they infect, or how they get the job done.  They only seek a host to reproduce copies of themselves and to help with transport to the next host.  Dirty hands, uncovered mouths, and close contact can give viruses an advantage, but, as we discuss in this kick off episode of season 6, so too can our global food system. 

Haroon Akram-Lodhi presents a compelling case as to why a global capitalist food system triggered COVID-19 and why it will likely trigger the next pandemic from a virus that crosses the species barrier.

Haroon Akram-Lodhi teaches agrarian political economy. He is Professor of Economics and International Development Studies in the Department of International Development Studies at Trent University, Peterborough, Canada, where he is also a Fellow of Champlain College.

Haroon Akram-Lodhi is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Development Studies and an Associate Editor of Feminist Economics.

Trained as an economist, the focus of Haroon Akram-Lodhi's research interest is in the political economy of agrarian change in developing countries, on the economic dimensions of gender relations, and on the political ecology of sustainable rural livelihoods and communities in contemporary poor countries.

He currently acts as a Gender and Poverty Adviser to the United Nations Development Programme's Gender Team, working on gender-responsive economic policy in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. He also is a Poverty and Gender Analyst for the United Nations Environment Programme's Poverty - Environment Action and a Gender and Women's Empowerment Adviser to UN Women.

Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter: @ProfessorHuish