GDI is hosting a conference asking ‘What is the future for global development?’, which will take place on 13-14 April 2026 in Manchester. Learn more about the conference and the agenda below.
Tickets are free but are currently sold out. Add your name to the waitlist here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/global-development-institute-conference-tickets-1980100057575?aff=oddtdtcreator
Fresh assaults on overseas aid, trade relationships and the liberal international order during 2025 have led some commentators to proclaim ‘The End of Development’. This dismantling of development cooperation, and wider rules of international engagement, has generated new urgency around global dynamics that were already re-shaping global development. These stretch well-beyond declining levels of aid to include increased levels of superpower rivalry and geopolitical fragmentation; new patterns of globalisation; collective action failures around the climate emergency, as well as health and migration; the rise of authoritarian politics; and heightened levels of conflict between as well as within states. All carry profound implications for the future of global development, for how development should be conceptualised and for how social and environmental justice can be promoted at the current juncture. Recent debates around global development futures have tended to adopt the language of ‘poly-crisis’ and ‘catastrophe’, unsurprisingly given the destabilising nature of recent events and rising levels of human suffering. However, such framings tend to obscure the systemic nature of some current dynamics, the problematic nature of the world order that is currently being displaced and the opportunities to rethink development that the current moment offers.
Conference Agenda
Monday 13 April
9.30-11.30am: PGR Masterclass/es
10-12pm: GDI International Advisory Board meeting
11.30-12.30pm: arrival with lunch
12.30-2pm: First Plenary: The New Geopolitics of Development: What Future is there for Development Studies?
Lee Jones, Queen Mary University London – The new geopolitics of development
Yuen Yuen Ang, Johns Hopkins University – From polycrisis to polytunity
2-3.30pm: Parallel One
3.30-4pm: tea/coffee
4-5.30pm: Parallel Two
5.30-7pm: Second Plenary/Public Talk
Daniela Gabor, SOAS – From Wall Street Consensus to developmentalism for climate and social justice
7-7.30pm: drinks at Christies Bistro/posters in the Whitworth Hall
7.30-9pm: dinner/displays/posters in the Whitworth Hall
Tuesday 14 April
9.30-11am: Third Plenary – What is the future for Development Cooperation?
Len Ishmael, Policy Centre for the New South – The new geopolitics of development cooperation – towards ‘like-minded internationalism’
Ken Opalo, Georgetown University – Are international actors behaving differently in/towards Africa? What opportunities does the current moment present to African rulers and how should they respond?
11-11.30am: tea/coffee
11.30-1pm: Parallel Three
1-2pm: lunch
2-3.30pm: Fourth Plenary: where have we got to and where next?
Amani Abou-Zeid, Former African Union Commissioner
Tony Bebbington, Ford Foundation
Imran Matin, BRAC-University
Emma Mawdsley, University of Cambridge
3.30-4pm: tea/coffee
4-5.30pm: Public Talk/Final Plenary
Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS – Inequality and the case for global public investment
