History of Global Development Lee Allen

The lecture takes up the 1972 UN Human Environment conference: the first example of the attempted global governance of environmental issues and climate change that foundered on the challenges of development and North-South antagonisms. That history connects Delos, the ancient capital of the Athenian League, with the Club of Rome, and the New International Economic Order.
The talk's specific aim is to recover the importance of business and intellectual networks, in all their problematic historical messiness and stir them back into our understanding of the changing character of ‘global’ imaginaries. This is a history that reconnects debates about the environment and development, as well as the interdisciplinary not always visible connections between scientists, humanists, women activists, and businessmen. It evokes the longer history of the international governance of economic problems, and of economic actors in international politics.

George Bob-Milliar is Senior Lecturer at the Department of History and Political Studies and Director of the Centre for Cultural and African Studies (CeCASt) at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on democratization in Africa, electoral politics in Ghana, informal economies, African Diaspora, and chieftaincy. He has been visiting fellow at various international universities currently edits the Journal of African Political Economy and Development (JAPED) and is member of the editorial board of African Affairs.
In the last two-half decades party democracy has taken roots in many corners of Sub-Saharan Africa. Liberal democracy tends to favour capitalist forms of development and market practices over statist policies. One can trace the liberalization of the African economies to the sustained role of the IMF, World Bank, and western capitalist countries in pushing for structural adjustment changes in Africa. The purpose of this talk is to question whether liberal democracy as practiced in Africa has any bearing on the promotion of capitalist forms of development and market practices. Using Ghana as a case study, this talk tries to answer the question: what is the link between party politics, capitalist development and the growth of the private sector? There has been the recognition of the efficacy of market developments in some African states, including Ghana.

How did colonial development evolve and are their continuities with post colonial development? Do development doctrines influence work? How do development priorities change over time? Marc Frey, professor of international history at the Bundeswehr University, draws lessons on development from the Office du Niger, a large irrigation system in the river Niger. As one of the oldest developmental projects, the Office Du Niger is a prism through which larger shifts in development theories and practices can be analyzed over a long period of time. The podcast was recorded on April 22nd, 2021 as part of the Center’s lecture series.

The following episode is a recording from April 1st 2021. Achieving multiple sustainable goals is particularly challenging as meeting one goal can make achieving others more difficult. Linnerud and Holden have created a model of sustainable development consisting of six indicators and assign thresholds that define a sustainable development space. Through this model they are able to show which countries are better at reconciliation conflicting goals. Thank you for your interest in the Center for the History of Global Development. You may follow the center on Twitter: @HistGlobalDevel Instagram: @historyglobaldevelopment

Nikita Gryazin is reading for MPhil in International Relations at the University of Oxford. His main research ares is British foreign policy. He is an ELN Officer at ELN and deputy editor for the UK politics section in the Oxford Political Review. In this lecture, Nikita will discuss the UK negotiation strategy for Brexit, factors affecting this strategy, and potential outcomes. This podcast was recorded on September 10th, 2020.