Thinking on Development

Persons with disabilities are more likely to be badly affected by disasters and be left behind in their wake. Mainstreaming inclusive responses is crucial to ensuring that disaster preparedness and responses ensure safety, security and rights for all. In this episode, David Sanderson is joined by Rosemary Kayess (UNSW), Michelle Villeneuve (USYD) and Jackie Leach Scully (UNSW) to explore how we can create disability inclusive responses.

About the Guests

Rosemary Kayess is a human rights lawyer in the Faculty of Law UNSW. Rosemary is Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and was awarded the Human Rights Medal for her lifetime of work advocating for disability rights.

Jackie Leach Scully is an internationally recognised bioethicist specialising in disability and feminist bioethics. She is currently Professor of Bioethics and Director of the UNSW Disability Innovation Institute at UNSW.

Michelle Villeneuve leads the Disability-Inclusive Community Development research workstream at the Centre for Disability Research and Policy at The University of Sydney, and is an Activity Lead at the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Strengthening Rehabilitation Capacity in Health Systems.

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About our Partner

This episode is produced in partnership with the UNSW Disability Innovation Institute.

The UNSW Disability Innovation Institute are a world-first initiative, harnessing inclusive and interdisciplinary research with people with disability to seek innovative solutions. Their vision is to produce sustainable change in the lives of people with disability creating and sharing knowledge that is interdisciplinary, innovative and inclusive through research and education. Find out more: https://www.disabilityinnovation.unsw.edu.au/

In this episode, David Sanderson is joined by Dr Patrick Kilby (ANU), Dr Joyce Wu (UNSW) and Dr Rochelle Spencer (Murdoch University) to discuss the role that research can have in development practice. As part of the new editorial board for Development in Practice, our guests discuss how important it is for development research to inform development practice, reflective writing and how publishing for impact can have benefits both for the researcher and development practice at large.

About the Guests

Patrick Kilby is a Senior Lecturer at the Australian National University and convenor of the Masters of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development Program. He is also Adjunct Associate Professor in the HADRI initiative at Western Sydney University.

Joyce Wu is a Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at UNSW. She is also a Fulbright Senior Fellow and Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University. Joyce has a diverse history of interdisciplinary research and practitioner experiences.

Rochelle Spencer is a Senior Lecturer at Murdoch University and found co-director of the Centre for Responsible Citizenship and Sustainability. Rochelle is also a founding executive committee member of the Development Studies Association of Australia and University Chair for the Research for Development Impact Network.

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About our Partners

This episode is produced in partnership with the chief editorial team from Development in Practice, the Development Studies Association of Australia (DSAA) and the Research for Development Impact (RDI) Network.

Edited by the Development Studies Association of Australia, Development in Practice publishes research from around the world that promotes critical inquiry, reflection, research, teaching and the value of Development Studies. More here: www.tandfonline.com/toc/cdip20/current

The Development Studies Association of Australia (DSAA) represents researchers, scholars and practitioners engaged in research, teaching, and training in the field of development studies. More here: www.developmentstudies.asn.au/

The RDI Network is a network of practitioners, researchers and evaluators working in international development, supporting collaborative partnerships to improve the uptake and use of evidence in policy and practice. More here: rdinetwork.org.au/

As we rebuild from fires, floods and COVID-19, a narrative of resilience is emerging. A process of adapting, moving forward, renewing after a disaster, there is more room to focus on what resilience could mean in the Anthropocene and how policy can keep up. In this episode, David Sanderson is joined by Sam Kernaghan (Committee for Sydney), Alison Morgan (Resilience NSW), Dr Paul Barnes (UNSW) to discuss how we plan better for constant change.

About the Guests

Alison Morgan is a Director with Resilience NSW. Since January 2020 she has been leading bushfire, and now, flood recovery across the Greater Sydney region. Alison has over 25 years experience in the NSW public sector and has worked in metropolitan, regional and rural communities leading service delivery and place based development.  Over the past 10 years she has worked on projects where the three levels of government have jointly developed and implemented services to support communities. 

Sam Kernaghan is the Director of Resilience Programs at the Committee for Sydney. Over the past 20 years Sam has worked with more than 50 cities across Asia, Oceania and the US, to build community, infrastructure and institutional resilience to shocks and stresses – risks that are being intensified by climate change, urbanization and globalization. Sam has led the development and implementation of climate and disaster resilience programs with the Rockefeller Foundations’ 100 Resilient Cities and the Asian Development Bank, and was instrumental in creating the city resilience index with the Rockefeller Foundation and characteristics of safe and resilient communities with the International Red Cross.

Dr Paul Barnes is a Research Fellow in urbanisation & Disaster Resilience at the University of New South Wales.  He also serves as a visiting Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute where he established the Risk and Resilience Program in 2015. He has experience in specialist roles in emergency and risk management at both State and Federal government levels and as a tenured academic. In addition to national activities, he is a Council Member of the International Military Council on Climate & Security (Washington DC), a (Non-Resident) Associate Fellow of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, and a Member of the World Economic Forum Expert Network on Risk & Resilience.

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The Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called vaccine equity the challenge of our time. Calls for sharing resources to encourage equity in administering the COVID-19 vaccines with more vaccines being distributed to high and middle income countries globally. In this episode of Thinking on Development, David Sanderson is joined by Anshu Sharma (SEEDS India), Raina MacIntyre (UNSW) and Ronak Patel (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative) to discuss the equity challenges of vaccine rollout.

About the Guests

Anshu Sharma is co-founder and chief mentor of SEEDS India, one of India’s most important NGOs that, for 26 years now, has combined thought leadership and practical action in disaster recovery, including COVID-19.

Raina MacIntyre heads the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute, which among other things conducts research in epidemiology, vaccinology and leads clinical trials in infectious diseases. Raina is well known in Australia as an expert commentator on infectious disease. 

Ronak Patel is a medical doctor based in the USA. On the west coast he’s an emergency room Physician, dealing with COVID-19, and on the east coast is Director of the urban resilience program at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Ronak is currently a member of the WHO Global Health Cluster COVID-19 Task Team.

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Who funds development projects and how do development donors interact with local organisations? In the first episode of 'Thinking on Development', David Sanderson chats to Patrick Kilby (ANU), George Varughese (Niti Foundation) and Pichamon Yeophantong (UNSW Canberra) about the influence of donors, aid and local agency in development programming.

About the Guests

Patrick Kilby is a Senior Lecturer at the Australian National University. He is also Adjunct Associate Professor in the HADRI initiative at Western Sydney University. His book ‘Philanthropic Foundations in International Development’ (2021) focuses on the influence of philanthropic foundations in global development, and on how the global south has engaged with them. More information is available here.

George Varughese is Senior Strategic Adviser at the Niti Foundation, a not-for-profit public interest organisation that accompanies Nepali-led public policy reform. He also currently leads an IGD project on ‘reimagining development’. He previously worked at The Asia Foundation and the United Nations Development Program.

Pichamon Yeophantong is an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at UNSW Canberra. A China specialist and political scientist by training, she leads the Responsible Business Lab and also convenes the Asia-Pacific Development and Security Research Group.

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