Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice, 2024-2025


The Cutting Edge Issues in Development series is back, and this year we have another fantastic line up of guest speakers from around the world working in the field of International Development. 

The new academic year has just started, and this means we are back with our exciting lecture series ‘Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking and Practice’! This visiting lecture series, which is hosted by the International Development Department, provides students and guests with invaluable insights into the practical world of international development.

This year, we move the series back to in-person for our students and staff, but we will continue to offer our online audience the chance to watch the lectures back via our YouTube channel, listen via the podcast series and read student reflections on our blog

The series is convened by Dr Laura Mann

 Cutting Edge Lecture Poster

View the full schedule below (Fridays from 4pm-6pm)

Week/Date

Speaker + Discussant

Title

Week 1; 4 October


Clare Short
 is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to 2003

Kevin Watkins is a former CEO of Save the Children UK and is a visiting professor at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa

 

British Aid in a Changing World

Week 2; 11 October

 
Marsha Henry is the Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women, Peace, Security and Justice at the Mitchell Institute

Discussant: Myfanwy James, LSE ID

 

The Crisis of Peace-keeping

Week 3; 18 October

 
Michael Mann is Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology, UCLA and the author of The Sources of Social Power which covers the history of power in human societies from prehistory to the present.

Discussant: James Putzel, LSE ID

Re-examining the History of the Industrial Revolution

Week 4; 25 October

 
Elizabeth Ingleson is Assistant Professor Department of International History and is the author of Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade

Yeling Tan is Professor of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government. She is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Discussant: Robert Wade, LSE ID

What's at stake in the US-China Trade War?

Week 5; 1 November


Rahmane Idrissa 
teaches international cooperation at the University of Niamey. His research focuses on the political economy of democratization, political Islam and the problems of the integration processes in the West African region

Discussant: Aoife McCullough, LSE ID

 

The Sahelian Question: The ultra-periphery in a changing world

Week 7; 15 November

 
Simon Roberts is Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Johannesburg and Director of the Centre for Competition Economics, as well as Visiting Associate Professor at Wits University

Discussant: David Lewis, LSE ID

Competition, trade, and sustainability in agri-food markets in East & Southern Africa: a comparison of citrus and soy

Week 8; 22 November


Annalisa Prizzon is a Principal Research Fellow at ODI. Her research interests are primarily focused on the reform of the architecture of development cooperation, as well as the policies and strategies of multilateral development banks

Amir Lebdioui is an Associate Professor of the Political Economy of Development at the University of Oxford. His research has focused on industrial policy, export diversification, natural resource management, green economic transformation and biodiversity-based innovation models

Discussant: Parth Bhatia, IGC 

A very light shade of green? Is the green transition perpetuating inequality?

Week 9; 29 November


Shamel Azmeh is a senior lecturer at the Global Development Institute (GDI) at the University of Manchester. His research focuses on the international trade and production regimes and the position of developing countries in those regimes

John Minnich is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program at Columbia University and a Research Fellow with the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China.

Discussant: David Luke, LSE


80 years on from Bretton Woods, is Multilateralism collapsing?

Week 10; 6 Dec


Sheba Tejani is Senior Lecturer in International Development at KCL. Her work is centred on the distributional consequences of international trade and structural transformation in developing countries

Discussant: TBC

Corporate majoritarian development in India

Week 11; 13 Dec


Alexander Betts
 is Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, and Senior Fellow in Politics at Brasenose College, at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on the political economy of refugee protection, with a focus on East Africa

Discussant: Arbie Baguios, LSE ID

Authoritarian Sanctuaries: Refugee Politics in East Africa

 

 For any questions related to the event series, please email d.patel20@lse.ac.uk.