In Pursuit of Development

Rwanda is often described as one of Africa’s most remarkable development success stories: a country that rebuilt itself after the 1994 genocide, delivered impressive improvements in health and education, reduced its dependence on coffee, attracted global attention, and turned Kigali into a symbol of order, ambition, and state effectiveness.

But is Rwanda’s rise as durable as it appears?

Dan Banik speaks with Pritish Behuria (Associate Professor in Politics, Governance and Development at the University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute) about his new book The Political Economy of Rwanda’s Rise. Drawing on more than a decade of research, Behuria offers a nuanced account of Rwanda’s services-led development model — from tourism, finance, conferences, and nation branding to agriculture, mining, foreign investment, and the politics of structural transformation.

The conversation explores why Rwanda has become such a powerful reference point for policymakers across Africa, but also why its model raises difficult questions about underemployment, inequality, domestic firms, foreign dependence, political control, and the limits of branding as a development strategy.

Rather than treating Rwanda as either a miracle or a mirage, this episode asks what the country’s experience reveals about the future of development in Africa. And whether a small, landlocked country can build lasting prosperity through a services-first path in an increasingly competitive global economy.

Host:
Professor Dan Banik,
Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo
Subscribe:
Apple Spotify YouTube
https://globaldevpod.substack.com/

In this solo episode, Dan Banik reflects on a series of recent conversations across Pretoria, Addis Ababa, Blantyre, and Mauritius, where African scholars, policymakers, civil society leaders, NGO directors, administrators, and practitioners debated the future of development in a rapidly changing world.

Against a backdrop of dramatic aid cuts, geopolitical fragmentation, climate pressures, and growing interest in artificial intelligence, the episode asks what African agency really means in practice. Rather than treating the current moment simply as a crisis, many participants described it as a wake-up call: an opportunity to rethink aid dependency, strengthen domestic institutions, mobilize local resources, and move beyond donor-driven agendas.

The discussion explores several recurring themes: who defines development, whose knowledge counts, what makes a just energy transition genuinely just, why “homegrown solutions” can be both powerful and problematic, and how African countries can shape the use of AI without accepting new forms of technological dependency. From Malawi’s debates on aid and production to Ethiopia’s reflections on a changing international order, from South Africa’s energy transition to Mauritius’s AI ambitions, the episode highlights the urgency of moving from rhetoric to bargaining power.

At its core, this is an episode about voice, power, and direction. The crossroads may indeed be the best road. But only if Africans choose the path, set the terms, and ensure that development delivers what citizens actually want: decent jobs, reliable electricity, functioning schools and clinics, and governments that are accountable to the people they serve.

Host:
Professor Dan Banik,
Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo
Subscribe:
Apple Spotify YouTube
https://globaldevpod.substack.com/

Corruption is often imagined as a bribe paid to speed up a permit, avoid a fine, or gain access to a public service. But some of the most damaging forms of corruption operate at a much higher level, where powerful political and business actors reshape the rules of the game itself. This is the world of state capture: a process through which public institutions are bent away from the public interest and made to serve narrow networks of power, privilege, and private gain.

Dan Banik speaks with Elizabeth Dávid-Barrett, Professor of Governance and Integrity and Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex, about why state capture is one of the most serious threats to democracy, development, and public trust today. Drawing on cases from all around the world, they discuss how corruption can move from isolated transactions to systemic control over laws, public procurement, courts, banks, media, tax authorities, and accountability institutions.

The conversation explores how state capture differs from petty corruption, why democracies are vulnerable to being hollowed out from within, and how powerful actors use strategically divisive narratives to consolidate support. Liz explains why captured systems reward loyalty over merit, connections over competence, and impunity over accountability — with severe consequences for economic growth, inequality, public services, and citizen confidence.

Resources

State Capture and Inequality

State Capture and Development: A conceptual framework

State capture: how democracy can be systematically corrupted

Madagascar at a crossroads: breaking the cycle of state capture

Does state capture facilitate strategic corruption?

The political economy of open contracting reforms in low- and middle-income countries

The GI ACE program (with policy-relevant evidence on what works in fighting corruption).

Host:
Professor Dan Banik,
Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo
Subscribe:
Apple Spotify YouTube
https://globaldevpod.substack.com/

In this episode of In Pursuit of Development, Dan Banik speaks with Alanna O’Malley, Professor and Chair of Global Governance & Wealth and Head of Department of History at Erasmus University, about the hidden history of the United Nations and the decisive role of the Global South in shaping global governance. Drawing on her forthcoming book, Decolonising Global Order, The Invisible History of the United Nations and the Global South, she explains how actors from Africa, Asia, and Latin America helped transform debates on decolonisation, development, human rights, sovereignty, and economic justice — even as their contributions were often written out of mainstream histories.

Dan and Alanna explore why the UN looks very different when viewed from the Global South, why the institution cannot be understood only through the lens of Security Council politics, and why international law and multilateralism still matter deeply to many countries despite growing frustration with double standards and inequality. This is a wide-ranging conversation on the United Nations, global development, the crisis of multilateralism, and the long struggle to build a more representative and just international order.

Read a short article based on this episode at: https://globaldevpod.substack.com/  

Host:
Professor Dan Banik,
Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo
Subscribe:
Apple Spotify YouTube
https://globaldevpod.substack.com/

Why does tuberculosis remain one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases even though it is preventable and curable? In this episode of In Pursuit of Development, Dan Banik speaks with Madhukar Pai of the Department of Global and Public Health at the McGill School of Population and Global Health about why TB continues to thrive in conditions of poverty, undernutrition, overcrowding, and weak primary healthcare.
The conversation explores why the global burden of TB remains so heavily concentrated in a small number of countries, what makes early diagnosis and treatment so difficult in fragmented health systems, and why social protection may be just as important as medicine in reducing illness and death. Dan and Madhu also discuss the limits of donor-driven global health, the meaning of decolonizing global health, and the power asymmetries that still shape who sets priorities, who controls resources, and who bears the consequences when systems fail.
The episode also includes a reflection on the enduring legacy of Paul Farmer — physician, anthropologist, Harvard professor, and co-founder of Partners In Health — whose moral clarity and insistence on dignity in care continue to inspire global health practitioners around the world.
Topics covered: tuberculosis, TB, global health, poverty, undernutrition, social protection, India, primary healthcare, health systems, decolonizing global health, donor dependence, Paul Farmer, Partners In Health, development, public policy.

Host:
Professor Dan Banik,
Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo
Subscribe:
Apple Spotify YouTube
https://globaldevpod.substack.com/