The Fletcher Forum Podcast

The Self-Help Group movement that began in South Asia has now proliferated across developing countries of the world. Seen as a means of women's financial and social empowerment, SHGs have been a popular development intervention. In this conversation with Dr. Michael Woolcock, Lead Social Scientist at the World Bank and Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, we delve into the history of SHGs, their desired and sometimes undesired outcomes and their relevance today.

This podcast features Jordan Strouse, a 3rd year Fulbright grantee in Taiwan who joins the forum to comment on the intersections of linguistic interplay and exchange in Taiwan. The conversation also includes his commentary on Taiwan's bilingual 2030 policy and the challenges of teaching English in an environment where students might speak any of 5 languages natively

A podcast with Ian Lesser, Vice President of the German Marshall Fund of the United States discussing the future of European Security from an American perspective. If the Helsinki Accords have been abandoned with the war in Ukraine, can Europe replace them with something new? Throughout European history, the neutral countries have played a large role in this, by tying great powers together or holding them accountable. What could this new role for neutral European states look like, and which European states can be counted upon to take up the mantle of neutrality in the future? All this and more on this episode of the Fletcher Forum Podcast!

The 2022 Fifa World Cup was significant in many ways. As Lionel Messi lifted the long elusive trophy, controversy was not far. One of the many discussions around the Cup was on the role of Qatar as the host. We try to go deeper into the many international relations controversies from the view of those in the Global South.

We discuss how the US has historically dominated the production and dissemination of knowledge and how this has had a disproportionate impact on people from developing countries. We also explore the ways in which international students are often forced to assimilate into US academic norms, which can lead to the loss of their own cultural and intellectual traditions.

Resources on the topic

Resources shared by Rohini Roy:

• Anumol, Dipali, and Rohini Roy. "The Racism of Being Tolerated: The Experience of Being Brown Women in 'International Relations.'" Tufts Observer, 12 Dec. 2022, tuftsobserver.org/the-racism-of-being-tolerated-the-experience-of-being-brown-women-in-international-relations/.
• Tracking Epistemic Violence: Tracking Practices of Silencing. By Moya Bailey. Hypatia, vol. 35, no. 4, 2020, pp. 878–899. doi:10.1111/hypa.12813.
• Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Duke University Press, 2006.

Resources shared by Maria Carolina Sintura:

• Ferguson, Roderick A. "The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference." Chapter 6 in The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference, by Roderick A. Ferguson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.
• Ferguson, Roderick A. 2012. The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference. Difference Incorporated. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press. Chapter 5: Immigration and the Drama of Affirmation.
• Christian, Barbara. "Diminishing Returns: Can Black Feminism(s) Survive the Academy?" New Black Feminist Criticism, 1985-2000, edited by Gloria Bowles et al., University of Illinois Press, 2007, pp. 204–15.
• Hong, Grace Kyungwon. "The Future of Our Worlds: Black Feminism and the Politics of Post-Diaspora." Social Text, no. 26, 2008, pp. 1–24. doi:10.1215/01642472-2008-004.

In this episode, Maria Paola Silva dive into a conversation with Maria Luisa Moreira* about the four pillars of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda. How does is look today? What is happening in Ukraine? Why is it so necessary?

Listen to the episode and find the answer to many of these questions.

*Maria Luisa Moreira is an Advisor and Programme Manager at PCS, a Lisbon-based think tank, and the Secretary General of WIIS Portugal. She has an MSc in Women, Peace, and Security from the LSE and a BA in International Relations from the University of Essex. Maria Luisa won the first edition of the DGPDN Award in 2021 with an original policy position paper on the implementation of the WPS Agenda in the Portuguese MFA and MoD mandates. In 2022, she was a presenter at the NATO Committee on Gender Perspective Annual Conference and a guest speaker at the NATO Youth Summit. Maria Luisa was previously selected for the OSCE-UNODA Peace and Security Fellowship and has worked at the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security, the Council of the European Union in Brussels, and the British Embassy in Lisbon. Her current research projects address the future of the WPS Agenda within foreign policy and international diplomacy, and she was a guest speaker at the Portuguese Navy's International Women's Day conference in 2023, where she presented perspectives and guidelines for a feminist national defense policy.

In this first episode, Sarthak talks to David about the concept of digital public infrastructures, its role in the digital economy, and how is it different from the traditional digital development approaches. Our guest for the episode is David Eaves, who's a thought leader in the DPI and DPG space.

David Eaves is an Associate Professor and Deputy Co-Director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London. At UCL he teaches and writes on the intersection of digital transformation, digital public infrastructure, and the opportunities technology presents to re-imagine public value. David also serves as the Senior Vice President of investments for Co-Develop Fund.

He previously served as a Lecturer of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Was co-founder and CEO of ReCollect - a successful civic tech start up that grew to serve over 400 governments across North America. He advises numerous governments on their digital transformation and open data strategies and open source projects like Mozilla and OpenMRS on governance.

David has also had the privilege of working with public interest technologists worldwide, doing seminars with many of the Code for America fellows, White House Presidential Innovation Fellows, and Code for Canada fellows.

Reading Recommendations -

The Narrow Corridor and the Future of Digital Government Best Practices for the Governance of Digital Public Goods

How to End Global Poverty?

In this engaging fireside chat, Scott MacMillan, author of Hope Over Fate: Sire Fazle Hasan Abed and the Science of Ending Global Poverty, and Dr Alnoor Ebrahim, Professor of Management at the Fletcher School, talk about the story of BRAC, the world's largest NGO, and its founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed. Through a detailed discussion on his journey, motivations and leadership style they share insights on the how the quality of leadership directly shaped the success of BRAC, and the critical role leadership can play in solving complex problems like poverty.

The podcast covers the role media plays in raising public awareness of key issues while also discussing the risks of conspiracy theories and misinformation. It tries to understand the different ways media can be used as a platform in climate change discussion. Thereby, we look at the need for understanding the criticality and methods of engaging in climate communication, especially in the global south, which is necessary for equitable response. About the Author- Prof. Deepti Ganapathy, is an author, educator, and a former award-winning journalist. Prof. Ganapathy is currently Chair, Centre of Management Communication, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and was formerly my professor for a course on journalism, during my undergraduate education. Her book, Media and Climate Change- Making Sense of Press Narratives covers the triggers of a debate about development over biodiversity loss and environmental risks in India.

In this episode, we explore Artificial Intelligence (AI) and what gender has to do with it. Our staff editor, Paola talks to Kelly Chen, who shares her work and perspectives with us and gives us a complete introduction to Gender and AI.

Kelly Chen is an interdisciplinary artist working and living in Boston, Massachusetts. She works in moving images, sonic installations, and software to reveal the intersecting histories of computation and early cinema as they relate to authority and resistance in social, political, and economic systems. Her work critically addresses invisibility and traceability in processing physical and digital artifacts, the authority given to archives, and biases in history-making with critical code. She is a student in Media Arts and Data Science at Northeastern University.