Social Sciences Festival 2026: Turning Tides of Development: The New Landscape of International Cooperation
When:
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Venue:
Birkbeck Clore Management Centre
The development sector is undergoing a tsunami of its own. Commitments to overseas development assistance are dropping and a new rhetoric is emerging whereby development assistance is being seen as outdated. In some cases, there is even an indication that development finance will never go back to previous levels and that international cooperation will fundamentally change is the coming years. What does this mean in practice? And where will these changing tides take us. Building on the view of a practitioner with over two decades of experience on this sector, this lecture will look at concrete examples at how this is changing and will stress how this could potentially be a tide that 'lifts all boats'.
Guests that attend this lecture will gain a better understanding of the current dynamics in the development sector from the perspective of an activist who has played an insider and ousitder role for the past two decades. Guests will also have a better sense of what these discussions mean in practice and how this may affect real people and their daily lives. A discussion will be proposed at the end with a more hopeful understone as a way to flesh out how the fundamental changes in the development sector may actually produce better and more impactful outcomes.
Contact name: External Relations Events
Speakers-
Dr Jasmine Gideon
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Jasmine Gideon is Professor of Global Health and Development with a specific interest in the gendered political economy of health in Latin America and issues around health and migration. She has a PhD and an MSc in Development Studies and a BA (Hons) in History. Prior to working at Birkbeck she worked at the University of Manchester and the Nuffield Institute for Health, University of Leeds. She has also carried out consultancies for a range of development institutions including Pan American Health Organisation, Global Health 5050 and UN Women.
She is currently the Co-Investigator of an Academy of Medical Science funded network 'Understanding the inequality impacts of health PPPs in Middle Income Countries' with colleagues from Peru, Argentina, Brazil, India and Kenya. She has also led an ESRC GCRF network - Equalities in Public Private Partnerships (EQUIPPS) and was the Co-Investigator on a GCRF funded network Andean Network for Venezuelan Migrants.
She was previously the co-ordinating editor of the Bulletin for Latin American Research and is now the co-editor of the Agenda book series 'Women's Work'.
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Dr Marianna Leite
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Dr Marianna Leite (Brazil) is the Founder of Righting Society. Righting Society SRL is a consultancy group that was founded in Brussels in December 2024 with the aim to expand the work around a rights-based approach to development, cooperation, corporate learning and strategic management. Through Righting Society, Dr Leite has provided strategic advice to non-governmental organisations such as the Center for Economic and Social Rights, to the Financial Transparency Coalition and Religions for Peace.
Prior to that, Dr Leite was ACT Alliance’s Global Advocacy and Development Policy Manager. Dr Leite is a lawyer, researcher, and activist with over 20 years of professional experience across the legal, academic and development sectors. Marianna worked as a freelance consultant, inter alia for CONCORD Europe and for the ACT Alliance Gender Justice Programme. Prior to that, she was Christian Aid’s Strategic Adviser - Women’s Rights, Power and Poverty. Marianna holds a post-doctorate certificate in Human Rights and Democracy from the Faculty of Law of University of Coimbra, a PhD in Development Studies from Birkbeck, an LL.M. from Cornell Law School and a LL.B. from University Cândido Mendes.
Over the past few years, Dr Leite has been primarily concerned with economic and social rights, especially with regards to gender equality and public policy issues. During her post-doctorate, she investigated the impact of multinational corporations on the concept of gender equality using the literature on legal pluralism. Dr Leite co-edited a volume entitled ‘Righting the Economy: Towards People’s Recovery from Economic and Environmental Crisis’ launched by Agenda Publishing in January 2024.
LinkedIn handle: @DrMariannaLeite
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