Time to gamble...on development?

Can leaders choose a development path? Who decides and how? What conditions lead to a pro-development agenda and what’s the role of external agencies in all of this?

We ask leading economist and former policy advisor to the UK Foreign Secretary, Stefan Dercon, these questions and more in our latest podcast: International Development, Where Now?

Chatting about his revealing book, ‘Gambling on Development’, Dercon draws on his long and far-reaching experience as a senior civil servant within the UK’s Department for International Development, to explain why some countries - like China and Indonesia - seem to opt for a growth-based future while others, like Malawi, remain poor.

Stefan Dercon is the Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford, former Chief Economist at the UK Department for International Development and former Development Policy Advisor at the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. He chats to Stevan Lee, Chief Economist at Oxford Policy Management.

International Development, Where Now? is the new name of the development podcast series formerly known as Policy in Pandemics. While the effects of Covid remain widespread and far-reaching, ‘…Where Now’ takes a broader look at issues in international development, through the lens of those living and working in diverse contexts.