Devex Podcasts

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We're the world’s leading independent news organization covering global development.

  1. 9h ago

    AI in practice: Bridging the implementation gap

    Across the global development landscape, artificial intelligence promises to redefine how health, education, and social protection services are delivered. However, moving past small-scale piloting to deliver measurable, population-level impact amid tightening budgets is rarely a pure tech challenge — it is an organizational and human one. In this special edition episode of the This Week in Global Development podcast, sponsored by Boston Consulting Group, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Renee Laverdiere, managing director and partner at BCG. Together, they unpack why pacesetting organizations follow the 10-20-70 rule — 10% and 20% of AI value coming from data and algorithms, and the remaining 70% from people, process, and change management — how leadership can overcome workforce scaling bottlenecks, and how to structure vendor partnerships that build lasting internal capability rather than permanent dependency.

    AI in practice: Bridging the implementation gap

  2. 4d ago

    Special edition: Reimagining financing for development and growth

    The fundamental question of how development and growth are financed is undergoing a profound transformation. Over the course of a series of original essays and op-eds, The Next Frontier (https://pages.devex.com/thenextfrontier.html) – a Devex series in partnership with the Children's Investment Fund Foundation – has mapped a rapidly changing, pluralistic financing ecosystem shaped by philanthropy, private capital, and domestic resources. To truly synthesize the perspectives spotlighted in series content, this conversation with Kate Hampton, CIFF CEO, Angeline (Angie) Murimirwa, CEO of CAMFED, and Dr. Sam Mugume Koojo, Assistant commissioner in the Macroeconomic Policy Department, Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development of Uganda serves as a retrospective. Together, the series authors look back at that collective body of work to evaluate how all parts of the development ecosystem can transition toward true shared responsibility and country-led paths to growth.

    Special edition: Reimagining financing for development and growth

  3. 5d ago

    #164: This Week in Global Dev: Inside the US global health overhaul and Buffett's philanthropic strategy

    The United States is set to implement one of the biggest overhauls of its global health assistance in decades. The new strategy will reshape how billions of dollars flow to 35 countries, shifting greater responsibility onto their governments through bilateral agreements that encapsulate the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy. In this episode, we discuss what we know of the ins and outs of these health deals, what they mean for the wider foreign aid architecture, and why their known components are already proving controversial despite being largely shrouded in secrecy. The conversation then turns to our event with Howard G. Buffett, who criticized the West’s approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He urged greater support for Ukraine, while also calling out philanthropic organizations to step up. At our event, Howard also offered a closer look at Warren Buffett’s philanthropic strategy, revealing how his father’s charitable trust could deploy up to $23 billion annually as it works to spend down his fortune by 2034. To dig into these stories, David Ainsworth sits down with Anna Gawel and Andrew Green for the latest episode of our weekly podcast series. When most of us think of pensions, we think of a tool that provides retirement security. But what if pensions could achieve different goals beyond old-age poverty? In this segment of This Week in Global Development, sponsored by Coller Pensions Institute, David Pinkus, the institute’s executive director, challenges us to think about pensions differently. Speaking to Kate Warren, executive editor and executive vice president at Devex, Pinkus points to their new SDG report to explain how, under the right conditions, well-designed pension systems can significantly contribute to the broader development agenda. To read the new report, The Contribution of Well-Designed Pension Systems to Progressing the Sustainable Development Goals, visit: collerpensionsinstitute.org/our-research/whitepapers

    #164: This Week in Global Dev: Inside the US global health overhaul and Buffett's philanthropic strategy

  4. 6d ago

    Special Episode: The Power to Decide: Reclaiming Sovereignty in a Digital Era

    In this special edition episode of This Week in Global Development, sponsored by Public Digital, Devex's Alan Robbins sits down with Public Digital's Lauren Kahn and Mike Bracken CBE. Recorded at Devex Impact House during UNGA, they unpack the urgent need for emerging economies to transition from passive "tech-takers" to active "tech-makers" by reclaiming digital sovereignty. The conversation explores how developing nations can avoid the developmental risks of vendor lock-in, shape local digital ecosystems, and build resilient digital public infrastructure (DPI). Kahn and Bracken highlight practical steps for governments to move from traditional aid to strategic agency, leveraging open standards and investing in internal civil service capabilities to ensure critical systems can survive future crises. Dive deeper into these frameworks in Public Digital's newly released book, Digital Sovereignty: The Power to Decide: https://public.digital/pd-books/digital-sovereignty-the-power-to-decide

    Special Episode: The Power to Decide: Reclaiming Sovereignty in a Digital Era

  5. Sep 29

    Theory of Change: #16: Live from UNGA with Buddy Shah

    In a live episode of the Theory of Change podcast, Buddy Shah, CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and chair of the Anthropic Long Term Benefit Trust, shared an inside look at the intersection of global health, market-shaping agreements, and artificial intelligence. "The mistake that many of us are making ... is looking for an AI point solution. What's a cool use case where you can develop an AI tool and slot it into an existing system? And I think the much more important question is: If you could redesign the system for a world where you have very powerful AI tools, what would that look like?" Shah said during the podcast, which was recorded last week at the Devex Impact House in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Shah pulled back the curtain on CHAI’s landmark deal to secure generic manufacturing of lenacapavir — a twice-yearly injectable drug offering 99% effectiveness against HIV infection. By negotiating the price down from $28,000 per year in the U.S. to $40 per patient per year in lower-income countries, Shah explained how CHAI, Gilead, generic manufacturers, and global health partners believe they are creating a path that could spell the end of HIV over the next decade. Addressing his dual role managing corporate governance at Anthropic, Shah previewed how artificial intelligence could fundamentally reshape health delivery in low- and middle-income countries through mobile diagnostics and AI clinical assistants. He emphasized that LMICs may leapfrog high-income nations in adopting these technologies, while highlighting how incoming philanthropic capital from the AI sector could help fund major systemic solutions.

    Theory of Change: #16: Live from UNGA with Buddy Shah

  6. Sep 25

    Global Progress in the AI era: As Anthropic urges caution on AI, its ‘beneficial deployments’ work grows

    Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei made headlines recently by calling for slowing the development of increasingly powerful AI models to give safety measures time to catch up. That only increased the urgency of another effort within the company, which is expanding: An initiative to help governments and nonprofits use the models available today. Elizabeth Kelly leads that effort as Anthropic’s head of “beneficial deployments,” which works with governments and nonprofits to put Claude, the company’s AI model, to use. Before joining Anthropic, she led the U.S. AI Safety Institute, which worked to evaluate risk and develop safety standards for frontier AI systems. In a live recording of the Global Progress in the AI Era podcast at Devex Impact House on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly, she argued that her past and present roles are connected. “Safety and access are two sides of the same coin,” Kelly said. “We are not going to see any of the benefits from AI unless we really invest in safety.” Anthropic used speaking engagements this week at UNGA81 to showcase organizations working with its technology. At its own event on Tuesday, titled The Briefing, speakers included Meenakshi Ramesh, CEO of Pratham Education Foundation, Rwanda’s Minister of Information and Communications Technology and Innovation Paula Ingabire, and Rania Dagash-Kamara from the U.N.’s World Food Programme. In the podcast interview, Kelly expanded on Anthropic’s partnership with Rwanda, its first multisector government partnership in Africa, which was announced earlier this year. She also pointed to Anthropic’s work with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI, on producing situation reports during the recent Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Other examples she cited included the International Rescue Committee’s work on child malnutrition in Nigeria and maternal care in Burkina Faso.

    Global Progress in the AI era: As Anthropic urges caution on AI, its ‘beneficial deployments’ work grows

  7. Sep 24

    This Week in Global Dev: #163: Live from UNGA: Navigating the new era of multilateralism

    This week we are closely tracking the conversations at the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly and what they mean for the global development sector. From U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech rejecting international governance frameworks and championing national sovereignty to questions around AI regulation, we break down what the discussions at the U.N.’s headquarters in New York mean for this new era of global policy. Beyond reflecting on outgoing U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ legacy, we unpack the latest developments in the secretary-general race. Amid the leadership discussions, we analyze whether traditional development priorities are increasingly taking a back seat to broader geopolitical tensions and global security issues. To dig into these topics, Adva Saldinger sits down with Colum Lynch for a live recording of our weekly podcast series.

    This Week in Global Dev: #163: Live from UNGA: Navigating the new era of multilateralism

  8. Sep 24

    Theory of Change: #15: Live from UNGA with David Beasley

    In a live episode of the Theory of Change podcast recorded at the Devex Impact House in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, David Beasley, the former World Food Programme executive director and former governor of South Carolina, laid out his playbook for navigating today’s increasingly hostile political climate — while leaving the door at least somewhat open for his own return to the political arena. Beasley — who led the U.N.’s food security agency when it won the Nobel Peace Prize — shared his journey from working in South Carolina tobacco fields to negotiating with the Taliban to feed starving children to battling with billionaire Elon Musk on Twitter. He described the culture shock of a United Nations outsider confronted with bureaucracy and jargon, and offered his diagnosis for why the development sector keeps getting its pitch wrong. Beasley offered a bleak assessment of current humanitarian aid cuts, calling the domestic political environment “horrific” and warning that Western nations are actively undermining their own geopolitical stability. “America is great because America is good, and if we ever cease to be good, we cease to be great. And right now, we're not being good,” he said.

    Theory of Change: #15: Live from UNGA with David Beasley
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We're the world’s leading independent news organization covering global development.

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  • Creator
    Devex
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    367
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