On Wednesday, November 18th , SAIS Perspectives held its annual launch event, introducing the 2020-2021 theme of “Resilience in International Development.” The event, opened by Editor-in- Chief Markus Specht and moderated by IDEV Program Director Tanvi Nagpal, focused on this year’s theme with inputs from an expert panel of scholars and practitioners. Bringing together a range of voices from international development and related disciplines, the editorial team of SAIS Perspectives thus began an important discussion on how the resilience of systems and communities can be increased in order to take on the world’s inter-connected economic, climate, public health, and social crises in the development field. Throughout the academic year, SAIS Perspectives wants to encourage constructive debate on this issue and aims to gather submissions from across disciplines and concentrations, providing an impetus for policy discussion as well as further research.
Maureen Shauket, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning, spoke on how government agencies can play a role in ensuring that development initiatives are nimble enough to adapt to project- altering events, such as COVID-19 or natural disasters. Ms. Shauket contributed many valuable insights about her experience as a development professional in planning collaborative projects focused on strengthening a project’s or country’s resilience and self-reliance in the face of adversity.
Professor Ian Goldin, Director of the Oxford Martin Program on Technological and Economic Change and Professor of Globalization and Development at the University of Oxford, elaborated on the international development community’s definition of the term resilience. His many experiences in the field, for instance as Director of Development Policy at the World Bank, have shaped his view of resilience as both focused on response mechanisms as well the mitigation of potential triggers for such responses. His call to action also addressed the increasing need for solidarity in combating global issues in order to strengthen the resilience of communities.
Dr. Arunabha Gosh, a public policy professional and co-founder of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, also raised the importance of multilateralism for increasing resilience and mitigating the impacts of adverse shocks. He clearly delineated the global community’s shared aversions and risks, stressing that building multilateralism around these themes can lead to risk pooling, transparency, and ultimately more resilient communities.
Dr. Bridget Welsh, Honorary Research Associate with the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute Malaysia, elaborated on how the COVID-19 pandemic will reshape democracy and governance in developing countries. A former professor for the Southeast Asia Studies program at SAIS, Dr. Welsh touched upon the strain put on social safety nets and the failure of democratic systems more broadly in light of the pandemic. She cautioned that the pandemic will especially alter how areas of state-society relations and local empowerment, such as health care and infrastructure, are addressed in developing countries.
Dr. Jessica Fanzo, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food Policy and Ethics at both the Bloomberg School of Public Health and SAIS, discussed how previous global health crises have impacted the food sector and specifically addressed the supply-chain shocks brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Her remarks furthermore dove into the intricate nature of food systems as both victims and instigators of climate change and health shocks, while also discussing the issue of insufficient diets and nutrition affecting vulnerable communities.
Professor Nagpal asked each panelist to share how their definition of resilience has changed since those fateful days in early 2020 when it became clear that the COVID-19 pandemic would leave no area of international development policy-making and scholarship untouched. A common theme in the panelists’ responses was their surprise not at the fact that such a major crisis occurred, but how leaders around the world responded to it—both positively and negatively.
The launch event concluded with the announcement of the winners of the annual Perspectives Photo Contest, with junior editor Yulia Buynova presenting the finalists. To view the winning photos, please click here.
As always, the launch event also served as a call for submissions on this year’s theme. We warmly invited all SAIS students, faculty, alumni, and members of the broader development community to share their work with us by submitting either an article or a short blog post on the theme of resilience. Please find all necessary guidelines on our website or get in touch with one of our editors directly via email at sais.perspectives@gmail.com.