GDP - The Global Development Primer

Deep poverty is increasing.  Since the COVID-19 pandemic is making more people poorer - especially those who are already experiencing poverty.  Some estimates suggest that COVID-19 wiped out the global gains on poverty alleviation in the three to four years before the pandemic.  Knowing this?  Now what?  How can development practitioners begin to address this challenge?  According to Kate Schecter, one of the key components may be more obvious than we think:  "saving money".  Check out this episode of GDP to learn more about her ideas and approach.  

Kate Schecter, Ph.D., joined World Neighbors as the President and CEO in June of 2014.  World Neighbors is a 71 year old international development organization that works with rural isolated communities to help find solutions to permanently lift these communities out of poverty.  Dr. Schecter is responsible for managing World Neighbors’ programs and operations in 14 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.  In her previous position, she worked for the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) for 14 years.  As a Senior Program Officer at AIHA, she had responsibility for managing health partnerships throughout Eurasia and Central and Eastern Europe.  She worked with over 35 partnerships addressing primary healthcare, chronic disease management, hospital management, maternal/child health, Tuberculosis, blood safety and HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Schecter holds a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and an M.A. in Soviet Studies from Harvard University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served on the Board of Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. from 2010 to 2018.

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If you thought that the COVID-19 pandemic knocked put the threat of terrorism to rest?  Think again.  Sondre Lindahl sees the threat of terrorism happening anywhere that there is political instability.  The form it takes?  Who perpetuates it, and how they carry out actions can vary widely, but rest assured, the threat of terror activities remains high.  So how should the world prepare and respond?  Sondre Lindahl suggests that the Global War on Terror was the wrong approach, and instead of using resources and political imaginations that way, can there be better global cooperation to work further upstream to prevent extremism?  Tune in to find out.

Sondre Lindahl is Associate Professor in Political Science at Østfold University College, Norway. He holds a PhD from the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand. His main research interest is counterterrorism, and he is the author of a A Critical Theory of Counterterrorism: Ontology, Epistemology and Normativity. He is a regular commentator on issues of security and terrorism in Norway.

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Humanitarian organizations do their jobs well in times of crisis.  Be it crisis born from conflict, famine, climate change, or natural disasters, the humanitarian sector knows how to respond to people's needs when they are in need.  Mark Lowcock suggests that despite this great work on the ground, it almost always takes shape as reactions to crisis, rather than prevention of crisis.  With 35 years of humanitarian experience, Mark Lowcock's forthcoming book "Relief Chief" makes the case that global humanitarian efforts need to work on preventing crisis.  It requires accepting the challenges of a new paradigm of humanitarian emergencies and by ensuring that the needs of those in crisis are heard and responded to with appropriate care and compassion.

Mark's new book is titled "Relief Chief: A Manifesto for Saving Lives in Dire Times.

Mark Lowcock was appointed United Nations Under‑Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator in May 2017 and served in that role until June 2021. He was previously Permanent Secretary of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development. As one of the most distinguished international public servants, Lowcock has spent more than 35 years leading and managing responses to humanitarian crises across the globe. He has authored opinion articles for The Washington Post, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, Le Monde, CNN, and others. He was twice awarded medals by Queen Elizabeth II for services to international development and public service, including Knighthood in 2017. He is a Visiting Professor of Practice in the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and a Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development.

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"We need global leadership in order to prevent starvation" wrote Masood Ahmed and former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the Financial Times.  COVID-19, and Russia's war in Ukraine have created massive disruptions to the world economy, and it will be world's poor who will pay the highest price.  As the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank commence, Masood Ahmed provides a clarion call to world leaders to say that quick fixes and piecemeal policy will not fix our current global challenges.  What is needed now, more than ever, is a commitment to building trust in global development be it between nations, among development partners, and with local communities.  

Masood Ahmed is president of the Center for Global Development. He joined the Center in January 2017, capping a 35-year career driving economic development policy initiatives relating to debt, aid effectiveness, trade, and global economic prospects at major international institutions including the IMF, World Bank, and DFID.

Ahmed joined CGD from the IMF, where he served for eight years as director, Middle East and Central Asia Department, earning praise from Managing Director Christine Lagarde as a “visionary leader.” In that role, he oversaw the Fund's operations in 32 countries, and managed relationships with key national and regional policy makers and stakeholders. In previous years, he also served as the IMF's director of External Relations, and deputy director of the Policy Development and Review Department.

From 2003-2006, Ahmed served as director general, Policy and International at the UK government's Department for International Development (DFID). In that role, he was responsible for advising UK ministers on development issues and overseeing the UK's relationship with international development institutions such as the World Bank.

Ahmed also worked at the World Bank from 1979-2000 in various managerial and economist positions, rising to become Vice President, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. In that role he led the HIPC (heavily indebted poor countries) debt relief initiative, which has to- date brought relief from debt burdens to 36 of the world's poorest nations.

Born and raised in Pakistan, Ahmed moved to London in 1971 to study at the LSE where he obtained a BSc Honors as well as an MSc Econ with distinction.

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When it comes to addressing global health challenges, handling stigma is essential.  In Eswatini 27% of the population lives with HIV.  Organizations like pact have worked within communities to help achieve the 95 - 95 - 95 goal in Eswatini.  This is to say that 95% of persons with HIV are aware of it, and 95% of them have regular access to medication, and 95% of them are experiencing viral suppression.  Getting to this state requires openness, communication, and trust between public health officials and their communities.  Nosipho Gwebu Storer's work in this building that trust is impressive and a lesson for the world to listen to...especially now with vaccine hesitancy against COVID-19.  The story of public health in Eswatini is one the world needs to hear.

Nosipho Gwebu Storer is Pact's Eswatini Country Director. Nosipho Gwebu Storer has more than 17 years of experience in public health and community development, including in HIV care and treatment programs, psychosocial programming and policy and planning. In addition to serving as Pact's Country Director in Eswatini, Nosipho is also the Chief of Party for the Insika ya Kusasahas project and supporting the Eswatini Ministry of Health with technical assistance, messaging dissemination and deployment of the Covid-19 vaccine in the country. Prior to Pact, Nosipho served as a social worker, leading social work support interventions for community prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV programs. She also worked for the Eswatini Baylor Children’s Clinical Centre of Excellence and ICAP with Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. She began her development career working in food security and response programs for areas experiencing severe drought in Eswatini.

Check out the work of Pactworld:https://www.pactworld.org

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away Atul Tandon was making it on Wall Street.  At 39, Tandon was running one of the world’s largest international banking efforts on Wall Street when he was faced with a serious health crisis. Questioning his purpose, Tandon walked away from a life of wealth and turned to the very poorest in the world, vowing to serve those he left behind.

Tandon has made good on that promise by expanding Opportunity International’s microfinance and digital banking services – and at the height of the pandemic, serving more than 19 million people in 30 countries, developing a partner network of 100+ microfinance institutions in some of the most remote corners of the world - dubbed one of the “best kept nonprofit secrets” by Freakonomics’ Steven Levitt.

Atul Tandon is a global leader known for building, growing, and turning around some of the world’s best-known for-profit and non-profit enterprises. Tandon currently serves as CEO of Opportunity International, a non-profit organization that designs, delivers, and scales innovative financial solutions to help families living in poverty build sustainable livelihoods and access quality education for their children.

Prior to Opportunity International, Tandon founded and served as CEO of the Tandon Institute, which provides strategy, solutions, and staffing to enable social sector enterprises. Before that, Tandon served as the leader of United Way Worldwide’s 41-country International Network, helping build and shape the world’s largest network of community-based charities. Additionally, he oversaw the network’s worldwide corporate relationships and fundraising functions.

Check out Opportunity International:  https://opportunity.org

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Access to higher education remains a challenge in sub-Saharan Africa.  Select scholarships and bursaries are available to some, but getting access to knowledge to many remains a challenge.  Germaine Tuyisenge, an Assistant Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is working to change that.  By expanding online learning to students in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlight African scholar research on her new podcast "The African Scholar Podcast", Germaine is working to break barriers of knowledge access and knowledge translation in global development.  Check out how she's doing it.

Germaine Tuyisenge is an assistant professor of sexual and reproductive health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London, UK, where she is also a program director for the online masters, Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy and Programming in Low and Middle Income Countries that the school is developing with the University of Ghana and that will start this September.

Germaine’s research focuses on equitable access to sexual and reproductive health services among resource-limited settings

Her PhD research looked at the role of community health workers in promoting access to maternal health services in Rwanda. For her post-doctoral research, Germaine worked with the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity from the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University to explore the dynamics of access to sexual and reproductive health services among immigrant women in Vancouver, Canada.

Germaine has worked with government and non-government institutions in Rwanda, Kenya, the Netherlands and Canada on community-based programs to improve SRH.

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Following from our last GDP podcast on the challenges of online learning, we're pleased to welcome the President of Neontrain, Rob Belliveau to the podcast to talk about how profs can work to overcome real challenges and presumed stereotypes of online education.  In this episode Rob & Dr. Bob make the case that online learning can, in some ways, be more connected, more personal and more attentive to students needs than the traditional classroom setting.  Check it out:

Leading NeonTrain down the track is Founder and NeonTrain President Rob Belliveau. With a background in human resources, Rob has experience working on all aspects of business and process improvement with a specialty in training and communications.

Rob is a former Training Officer with Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency, where he led the project to bring online learning to the Halifax Regional Municipality. Rob understands the challenges with large organizational change and put those lessons to work when he was able to quickly upscale Halifax's learning management system and provide COVID workplace training to over 4000 employees. He is now using these years of experience to help organizations just like yours implement online learning solutions.

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North Korea is used to sanctions by now.  When Pyongyang demonstrates its might with missile tests, or when reports surface of the bone crushing repression within prison camps, the West often responds with financial measures and sanctions.  But now, North Korea has a new plan to move money across borders despite sanctions - cryptocurrencies.  And from what we can tell, it looks like they are using digital coins to evade sanctions to great effect.  On this episode of GDP Ethan Jewell joins us to talk about North Korea's cryptocurrency plans.

Ethan Jewell is a Seoul-based correspondent for NK News and NK Pro focused on sanctions, trade and maritime issues. He previously worked as an investigations and intelligence contractor for Facebook and as a research intern for the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He also worked as a personal research assistant for Evan Osnos of the New Yorker Magazine, where he researched a range of topics from Chinese economics to American domestic politics. Ethan graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 2019 with a bachelors in International Security with a focus on China and the Korean Peninsula.

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