The Day Development Died

GDP - The Global Development Primer

A long, long time ago, I can still remember how foreign aid used to make me smile, and I knew if there was a chance that it could make those people dance, and maybe they’d be happy for a while. But February made me shiver, with every paper I’d deliver, bad news on the doorstep, I couldn’t take one more step. I can’t remember if I cried when I read about the widowed brides, but something touched me deep inside…the day development died.

January 20, 2025. Donald Trump orders a freeze on USAID. Health, food, and education programs that impacted billions of people were defunded and effectively destroyed. Aid workers were suddenly unemployed. Locally engaged workers and NGOs shut out and shut down. Is this a natural death? An accident, or "murder 1"?

In the last 25 years, development has helped humanity through poverty alleviation, global health interventions, and work to mitigate climate change acts and conflict impacts. With a stroke of a Sharpie, the progress made is at risk of disappearing. How bad is it? Tune in to this expert panel to understand how deep this development crisis goes and whether development may survive in the future, or is it really bye bye, Miss American Pie?

This week, we have:

Adam Sneyd is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Guelph. Adam has conducted research on trade and the prospects for sustainable development in Tanzania, Senegal, and Cameroon. Back when times were normal, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization invited him to moderate a high-level plenary of trade ministers and heads of international organizations on US trade policy in Africa. Adam is the author of Hidden Politics in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Fernwood Publishing, 2024),

Professor Marc Froese is a scholar of global political economy with degrees from the University of Toronto and York University in Canada. He has written books on the politics of trade dispute settlement and the fragmentation of international economic law. Most recently, Dr. Froese co-authored Has Populism Won? The War on Liberal Democracy (ECW 2022). He and Professor Drache identify the rhetorical tactics and electoral strategies deployed by 35 right-wing populist governments and oppositions around the world.

Blayne Haggart is an associate professor of Political Science at Brock University, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and a BSIA Fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, both in Waterloo.. He is the author most recently of The New Knowledge: Information, Data and the Remaking of Global Power, co-written with Natasha Tusikov and published in 2023 with Bloomsbury Press

Get ahold of Dr. Bob here.