Jonathan Glennie – Have we outgrown aid?
Welcome to Episode 76 of Good Will Hunters from the Development Policy Centre. Today on the show I’m speaking with Jonathan Glennie.
Jonathan is the Director of the Ipsos Sustainable Development Centre. He is also a prominent writer and researcher on international development and cooperation, and has been a Visiting Fellow at the International Development Institute at King’s College London, as well as worked at the Overseas Development Institute, Save the Children UK and Christian Aid.
I interviewed Jonathan in February – pre Covid-19 – at the Australasian Aid Conference hosted by the Devpolicy Centre in partnership with the Asia Foundation. Jonathon gave a keynote address on ‘The Future of Aid in the 21st century – five paradigm shifts’. Jonathan spoke at the conference about global public investment in aid and the future of concessional international public finance, as we move from what he refers to as the ‘old fashioned aid mentality’.
In this interview, we take a deep dive into some of those points. We discuss the measurement of inequality versus poverty. We also discuss why development is a concern for all countries at all times, and why aid is permanent, not temporary, meaning we shouldn’t be concerned with exit strategies. We also discuss why all countries can contribute to aid, and be both donors and recipients. Lastly, we discuss why we need more accountability in governance of aid, and why private and public money are not the same, though both could be classed as investments. Jonathan is provocative and contentious in his arguments, and this conversation will certainly provoke some deeper reflections on how we do aid. A lot of the issues he raises have only become more not less relevant with the COVID19 pandemic.
The Australasian Aid Conference feels like a lifetime ago now, but many of the the insightful conversations that were had have been preserved through the Devpolicy blog and Good Will Hunters.
We’ve got one last conference episode to air with Graham and Glennys Romanes, which is a fascinating and inspirational story so stay tuned for that. But next week we’re looking at Covid-19 in Papua New Guinea with two local experts.
Enjoy,
The GWH Team
