MSc Global Development (Poverty and Inequality) / Course details

The unit aims to: introduce students to some of the biggest challenges facing the world in the 21st century. The course is complementary to the other core semester 1 course for all MSc Global Development students - Development Fundamentals - which examines 
history, theories and different actors in and of development. Global Development 
Challenges is focused on a series of contemporary mega challenges which are global in scope. They are global in the sense that they relate to both global North and South, albeit unevenly, and cannot be 'solved' by one part of the world alone, yet simultaneously involve major inequalities in their underlying causes and consequences.

The unit aims:  

*  to introduce students to some of the biggest challenges facing the world in the 21st century,  

*  to complement the other core semester 1 course for all MSc Global Development students – Development Fundamentals - which examines history, theories and different actors in and of development,

*  to focus on and explore a series of contemporary mega challenges which are global in scope. They are global in the sense that they relate to both global North and South, albeit unevenly, and cannot be ‘solved’ by one part of the world alone,yet simultaneously involve major inequalities in their underlying causes and consequences,

*  to support students to critically assess potential solutions to global challenges,

*  to explore the role of different actors in global challenges. 

Students should be able to discuss and debate current important development challenges with supporting evidence drawn from curated sources and skilfully analysed. Readings from the literature and from international development actors will be sourced and deployed using digital skills to extract, summarise, analyse and synthesise in the course of discussions and learning. Evidence, not limited to tables, charts and infographics should be produced to support debates and discussions by and among students. 

Syllabus (indicative curriculum content):

* Introduction to 21st century global development

* Global poverty and inequality

* From neoliberal to geostrategic globalization

* Technology, prosperity and inequality

* Life course shaping of world health

* Pandemic and global value chain

* Global carbon inequality

* Natural resource exploitation

* From ‘the end of development’ to a new politics of global development

* Global development roundtable

* Workshops on new industrial policy, digital transformation

* Workshops on social protection, migration, biodiversity, water, energy. 

Teaching and learning will occur mainly through weekly lecture sessions and three workshops, the latter of which will be based around a mixture of small group-work and class discussions and learning. The university VLE will be used to share key resources, including readings, lecture slides and recordings, podcasts and online resources as well as pre-recorded videos in some cases. 

• Explain a range of mega problems across the domains of prosperity, people and planet and how they unevenly relate to different parts of the world
• Critically reflect about the nature and extent of a series of contemporary challenges facing the world and the role of different actors in these, including systems of development cooperation
• Critically assess the relationship between major challenges facing the world, including the potential synergies and trade-offs involved

• Analyse how different theoretical approaches provide insights into specific global challenges and their policy applications

• Evaluate critically the causes of global development challenges, as well as the potential and limitations of proposed solutions

   

Apply  practical analysis skills to global problems, including critical reading, writing and argumentation and gain experience analysing and evaluating practices and policies against evidence used to achieve global development 

• Apply communication competence to transferable areas, including developing reasoned arguments, gathering, organising and using evidence and information from a wide variety of sources.
• Use digital tools to analyse and create visual representation of information

• Final exam, in person, invigilated (2 hours)
• Policy brief (1,000 words)

On the assessment form via VLE within 3 weeks of submission

Gonsior, V. and S. Klingebiel (2019). The Development Policy System under Pressure: Acknowledging Limitations, Sourcing Advantages and Moving towards a Broader Perspective. Discussion Paper 6/2019. Bonn, Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik. Available here: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/199558/1/die-dp-2019-06.pdf

Gore, C. (2015) The post-2015 moment: towards sustainable development goals and a new global development paradigm, Journal of International Development, 27 (6), 717-732.

Horner, R. (2020) Beyond the limits of international development? Towards a new paradigm of global development, Progress in Human Geography, 44 (3), 415-436.

Oldekop, J., R. Horner, D. Hulme, R. Adhikari, B. Agarwal, M. Alford, O. Bakewell, N. Banks, S. Barrientos, T. Bastia, A. Bebbington, U. Das, R. Dimova, R. Duncombe, C. Enns, D. Fielding, C. Foster, T. Foster, T. Frederiksen, P. Gao, T. Gillespie, R. Heeks, S. Hickey, M. Hess, N. Jepson, A. Karamchedu, U. Kothari, A. Krishnan, T. Lavers, A. Mamman, D. Mitlin, N.M. Tabrizi, T.R. Mueller, K. Nadvi, G. Pasquali, R. Pritchard, K. Pruce, C. Rees, J. Renken, A. Savoia, S. Schindler, A. Surmeier, G. Tampubolon, M. Tyce, V. Unnikrishnan and Y-F. Zhang (2020) COVID-19 and the case for global development, World Development, 134, 105044. DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105044.

Rosling, H., O. Rosling and A. Rosling Rönnlund (2018) Factfulness: Ten reasons we're wrong about the world—and why things are better than you think. London: Sceptre.

Sims, K., Banks, N., Engel, S., Hodge, P., Makuwira, J., Nakamura, N., Rigg, J., Salamanca, A., Yeophantong, P., Eds. (2022). The Routledge Handbook of Global Development, Routledge.

Steffen, W., et al (2015) Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347 (6223), 736-746.

Scholte, J.A. and F. Söderbaum (2017) A changing global development agenda? Forum for Development Studies, 44 (1), 1-12.