GDP - The Global Development Primer

Many countries around the world are growing deeply concerned about the health and well being of their democracies.  China's foreign interference in elections is is a major concern at the moment for Canada, as it has been to New Zealand.  But foreign governments are not necessarily the greatest to the health of democracies.  In fact, one of the greatest threats to democratic well being may be a lack of feminism.  On this international women's day, Dr. Gabrielle Bardall takes us through the concerns and threats that arise when democracies shrug feminism.  She also makes the case the democracies are best prepared for foreign threats and interference when they embrace feminist principles.  Check out this episode of GDP to learn more.  

An educator, advisor and activist, Dr. Bardall has worked to advance democracy and human rights in over 60 countries worldwide over the past two decades. She has advised and trained diplomats, legislators and civil servants from Parliament Hill to Capitol Hill. Recognizing that "democracy" as we know it and support it around the world often replicates structures of oppression, she started her own consulting firm in 2019, Herizon Democracy, to bring feminist vision to international democracy assistance. She has advised the US National Security Council, State Department and NATO on feminist approaches to democracy support and offered testimony to Canada's Parliament. Bardall has worked with leading organizations in realizing this vison, including numerous UN agencies and international non-profits. A prolific author and public speaker, she holds degrees from McGill University (BA), Sciences-Po Paris (MA) and l’Université de Montreal (PhD). She received the American Political Science Association’s Congressional Fellowship and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Doctoral Scholarship for her work in comparative democratization. Dr. Bardall lives on the South Shore of Nova Scotia with her husband and toddler twins.

Visit Dr. Bardall at Herizon Democracy.

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"Permacrisis" was declared word of the year by Collins English Dictionary.  The idea is that state of crisis lingers on despite society's best efforts to wish it weren't there.  War, climate change, economic crisis, and global inequality are with us.  How do we begin to understand what we're up against?  Do we pursue learning in order to find solutions?  Do we attempt to learn new skills to adapt?  Or do approach these heavy topics with the intent to take care of our selves, especially our own emotional needs?  In this episode of GDP Solla Zophoniasdottir joins us to talk about ways to lean into the permacrisis, so that we can adapt, we can improve, and we can face challenges with bravery and compassion.  Check out this episode where Dr. Bob shares some of his stories handling crisis as a firefighter - even when calls come in during a podcast recording.  

Solla Zophoniasdottir is the Learning Services Orchestrator at EIT Climate-KIC where she is responsible for the strategic development of learning and capability building activities across the organization.

Over the past 15 years, Solla has worked to expand and facilitate the learning processes of organisations, with a focus on skill building and shifting mindsets to see transformation in the climate space. She is an expert in organizational change management, working to create change both within and across different cultures. She is passionate about systems change and innovation and working with practitioners who have the power to make transformational change on some of our world’s biggest challenges.

Solla holds a MSc in Strategic Leadership towards sustainability and a BA in in Leadership and process management. In addition, she has accreditation in Organization & Relationship systems coaching.

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We promise that this podcast write up is in fact written by a human being.  But we can't say the same about this episode of GDP itself.  In this episode we let ChatGpt do some of the work by scripting dialogue, and then we ask it to write an essay about climate change and climate justice.  With us this week is Dr. Becca Babcock and Dr. Anders Hayden both from Dalhousie University.  Dr. Babcock provides some reflection on the use of AI, and how she has managed to go as far as using it as a teaching tool in her classes.  Dr. Hayden evaluates a ChatGpt essay and even gives it a grade.  It's an episode for educators, students, and development practitioners who fear that AI may take their jobs.  Worry not, as our guests this week discuss, AI remains a tool rather than a certain path of cyborgs taking over the planet.

Dr. Becca Babcock is the Assistant Dean of Student Matters in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Dalhousie University, where she also teaches writing. She has published two books: a novel, One Who Has Been Here Before (Vagrant Press/Nimbus Publishing, 2021) and a short story cycle, Every Second Weekend (Blaurock Press, 2011). Her forthcoming novel, Some There Are Fearless (Vagrant Press/Nimbus Publishing) is due this April.

Dr. Anders Hayden is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie University, with an emphasis on environmental politics. He is particularly interested in the concept of sufficiency and related post-growth ideas and initiatives. This interest has led him to examine issues such as sustainable consumption, work-time reduction, and the political and policy impacts of alternative measures of wellbeing and prosperity (“beyond GDP” measurement) in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Bhutan. He is the author of When Green Growth Is Not Enough: Climate Change, Ecological Modernization, and Sufficiency (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014) and Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet: Work Time, Consumption & Ecology (Zed Books / Between the Lines, 1999). He is the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Global Sustainability Governance (Routledge, 2020) and Towards Sustainable Well-Being: Moving beyond GDP in Canada and the World (University of Toronto Press, 2022).

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If you've studied global development, you probably didn't get too far into the curriculum before learning about how private partnerships in development have led to ruin more than once.  Oil companies, mining companies, water companies, chemical companies and others have all been called out on human rights abuses.  Yet, the private sector remains a major player in global development.  Gina Volynsky suggests that it is because the private sector has evolved into a broader ecosystem than in the past.  Now with more binding accountability for ecological and human impact, private sector partnerships continue to emerge in difficult circumstances, but with the ability to learn and improve?  Or is there a risk for repeated mistakes of the past? And what about the concept of the private sector in China's development model? Listen here, and you be the judge.

Gina Volynsky is a senior director of private sector practice with PACT.  She has over 25 years of experience in international development, including 14 years of living and working in emerging economies. She has dedicated much of her career to collaborating with the private sector to address development challenges, which included heading a team working for USAID on private-sector engagement, and designing and managing multi-country programs for the UNDP that created the infrastructure to partner with multinationals. While at the World Bank she served as country manager for MIGA, which provides political risk insurance to companies that invest in emerging economies. She set up and managed business development divisions for Crown Agents and CARANA. She has also worked directly in the private sector, running her own import-export company, and served as director of marketing for a U.S.-based financial services company.

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Journalists, it’s often said, write the first drafts of history because they are the first recorders and commentators of current events and social realities.  And the last couple of years have been a meaty first draft.  A global pandemic, a rise in authoritarianism, economic chaos, war in Europe, and now Artificial Intelligence that will write essays for you, and probably one day curate podcasts.  Has the world gone upside?  Will it right itself?  Instead of searching fro the prolific crystal ball, Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández suggests that we get the historians involved to understand how broader social processes connect these issues, and how crises have been handled in the past.  Can the perspective of history seriously work to guide societies out of crisis and chaos?  Tune in to find out.

In When the World Turned Upside Down: Politics, Culture and the Unimaginable Events of 2019-2022, award-winning historian and nationally syndicated columnist Luis Martínez-Fernández adeptly examines current U.S. and worldwide events from the intersection of opinion journalism, chronicling, and historical writing. This rare combination of methods and approaches offers readers unique insights on how history sheds light on contemporary matters and how our present preoccupations shape the way we look at and understand the past. The book, thus, invites readers into a dialogue between past and present, and at times, the near future.

Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández is a historian, university professor, author, consultant, and public speaker, whose fields of expertise include Latin America, the Caribbean, education, and Latino/Hispanic politics, culture, and society.

Born in Havana, Cuba and raised in Lima, Peru and San Juan, Puerto Rico, he holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in History from the University of Puerto Rico and a Ph.D. in History from Duke University.

Dr. Martínez-Fernández has vast experience as consultant in the areas of education, diversity, transcultural communications, outreach, media, and publishing.

A Pegasus Professor of History at the University of Central Florida since 2004, he is recognized as one of the most prolific and influential scholars in the field of Caribbean history. His publications include articles in Cuban Studies, Slavery and Abolition, Latin American Research Review, The Americas, Caribbean Studies, and in numerous edited volumes.

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The power of stories in global development cannot be under-estimated.  Chronicling experiences, encounters and adventures can inspire others to journey, engage and do the same.  Rich stories can build relations and understanding in rich and dynamic ways.  Telling stories comes with great power and responsibility.  Stereotypes can be forged, speaking on behalf of others leads to patriarchy, and sensationalism can create harmful representations of the land and life of peoples and cultures.  These issues matter to Nancy Edwards.  Having established an impressive career in global health and nursing, Dr. Edwards is now taking the time to explore the power and purpose of memoirs.  Check out this episode of GDP to hear her thoughts and the advice she offers others hoping to chronicle their journeys.

Nancy Edwards is a Distinguished Professor and Professor Emeritus, School of Nursing, University of Ottawa.  Dr. Edwards obtained her undergraduate nursing degree from the University of Windsor and completed graduate studies in epidemiology at McMaster University and McGill University. She is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

Dr. Edwards’ professional interests are in the fields of public and population health. She has worked in global health for most of her career focusing on capacity building, the delivery of maternal and child health programs, reducing health inequities, and implementation research.  She has mentored many colleagues, led global health program delivery and research initiatives on four continents, and shaped strategic directions for global health during her tenure as a Scientific Director with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

In both Canada and abroad, Nancy has drawn on her foundational global health learning roots in Sierra Leone, West Africa, where she worked as a community health nurse and program evaluator for five years.  Nancy captures these experiences in her book Not One, Not Even One: A Memoir of Life-altering Experiences in Sierra Leone, West Africa.  Her book was released by FriesenPress earlier this year (www.nancyedwards.ca).

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When a World Bank Development project gets rolling, people's lives will be impacted. Sometimes for the better?  Sometimes for the worse.  If you are a person living in a project impacted community, and you feel that your life will worsen, what can you do?  Protest? Standby and watch?  Leave your home?  These are all options, but another key option is to take your concerns to the highest levels of the World Bank.  Sometimes forgotten in many international development studies courses, the World Bank's Inspection Panel is an arm's length body that will hear complaints, look over the details, and take it to the top brass in the World Bank.  How do negatively impacted peoples get a hold of the panel?  Is there accountability?  Can the panel put the brakes on a potentially harmful project?  Listen to this episode of GDP where Ramanie Kunanayagam, the Panel Chair of the World Bank Inspection Panel, takes us through the details.  

Ramanie Kunanayagam, is a Sri Lankan-born Australian citizen, was appointed to the Inspection Panel on December 16, 2018, and became Panel Chair on January 1, 2022. She brings to the Panel three decades of experience across diverse geopolitical and multicultural environments in the private and public sectors.

Ms. Kunanayagam spent more than 10 years doing fieldwork in a remote part of East Kalimantan, Indonesia. She has held leadership positions in sustainability in both the private sector (working for two FTSE 10 companies) and the nonprofit sector. Most recently before joining the Panel she was the Global Head for Social Performance and Human Rights for BG Group. She has been a member of the boards of two international non-profit development organizations—RESOLVE and the Institute of Human Rights and Business.

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Frederico Fellini films are a mix of "memory, dreams, fantasy and desire" that create idiosyncratic interpretations of society.  If you're have any ties to, or interests in, Cuba, it might feel like you're in a Fellini script.  Cuba entered the pandemic on the front foot.  Sending its own health care workers around the world to assist with COVID-19 care, and then exporting its domestically engineered vaccines abroad, it seemed like Cuba was THE GLOBAL HEALTH POWER.  Now at the beginning of 2023, roughly 300,000 people have left the island (many between the ages of 26 - 42).  The domestic supply chain is in chaos, with everything from foods to medicines in short supply.  And COVID-19 made its way into the island claiming thousands of lives, while the country continues to wrestle with the challenges of one of the longest embargoes in history.  Protests have been common in Cuba during the pandemic, and more recently Cuba has reaffirmed its loyalty to Vladimir Putin.

What in the world is going on in Cuba?  Helping us look into the cloudy crystal ball is Joseph Scarpaci, a seasoned scholar and analyst of Cuban politics, culture and society.  In this season premiere episode, we take a deep dive into Cuba's current turmoil.

Dr. Joseph L. Scarpaci, Executive Director, Center for the Study of Cuban Culture and Economy, has been involved with cultural and educational travel to Cuba since 1991. Since then, he introduced more than 500 students, faculty, alumni, and interested travelers to the island. He aims to show travelers the many nuances of Cuban culture and economy. He is the author of three books and dozens of articles about Cuba. These include Cuban Landscapes: Heritage, Memory and Place (with Cuban geographer Dr. Armando Portela, New York: Guilford, 2009); Plazas & Barrios: Heritage Tourism and Globalization in the Latin American Centro Histórico(University of Arizona Press, 2005)

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Health and human needs only intensify during a conflict.  Persons relying on disability-inclusive spaces and services face enormous challenges when attempting to flee their homes because of the threat of invasion or attack.  Moldova continues to receive refugees from Ukraine, many of whom are in great need of disability inclusive care.  But Who Cares?  Where does the responsibility to provide care and services lie in such crises?  One organization is stepping in to answer the call. Based on in its long-term work in Moldova, Keystone Human Services made a Commitment to Action at the Clinton Global Initiative to provide spaces of care for those fleeing the war in Ukraine.  Recorded live at the Clinton Global Initiative in Manhattan, we are joined with Charlie Hooker, Charles Sweeder, and Nicolae Ciocan to talk about the important work that they are doing in Moldova today.

Keystone Human Services (KHS) announced a new Commitment to Action at this year’s Clinton Global Initiative in New York. Through this Commitment, entitled “Inclusive Crisis Response and Recovery – Rebuilding Forward – Moldova/Ukraine,” KHS will coordinate a national-level disability-inclusive relief and response effort within Moldova to support refugees from Ukraine, as well as Moldovan communities providing support, addressing both immediate basic and longer-term targeted needs.

Learn more about Keystone Human Services Here.

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The Guatemalan genocide was the systematic murder of Maya civilians during the government rule in the 1970s and 1980s.  Some 200,000 lives were taken by military and paramilitary operations during this era, all the while the government denied it was occurring. Governments are notoriously lousy at hiding secrets forever, and the military dictatorship in Guatemala was no exception.  In 2005 an abandoned room was discovered by Guatemala's human rights office.  In it was a vast collection of police records, reports and other documents that revealed the systemic implementation of murder and violence against Maya people by the government. A "staggering discovery" of records that proudly documented abuse and murder, this collection of documents was one of the most revealing collections of documents from Guatemala's dirty war.  

The police archive revealed that not only was genocide carefully planned and systemically executed, but it was proudly recorded!  Dr. Catherine Nolin's research and teaching focuses on learning from the afterlife of those who were targeted during the genocide.  Her research digs into the deeper significance of the genocide and how it was recorded.  And, she even takes her students and colleagues on field trips to Guatemala to engage in this historic landscape of violence first hand.  In this conversation, she outlines her work.

Catherine Nolin is a Professor of Geography and Chair of the Department of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at UNBC (newly re-named in April 2021). In July 2020, she was honoured to Chair the Conference of Latin American Geography (CLAG)organization. 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. She considers herself a long-time insurgent researcher and social justice advocate, including more than 25 years grappling with the afterlives of the Guatemalan genocides.

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