In the global aid system, money is both a solution and a problem. A solution because the flow of resources from high income to low-income countries can help pay for crucial goods (food in hunger crises, infrastructure, support for civil society – the list is endless). But also a problem, in that it introduces a basic power imbalance between donor and recipient that no amount of good intentions to localise, decolonise etc. seems able to shift.
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In addition, current pressures on richer government budgets, from the debt hangover from Covid to the Ukraine response, casts a long shadow over aid from the northern hemisphere.
In developing countries, growth and the rise of domestic middle classes means that the possibilities for funding social altruism are changing – ‘domestic resource mobilization’ does not just have to mean taxation, it can cover social giving too.
So what would a global solidarity system look like if aid was off the table? This lecture will explore possible futures, beyond money transfers, including shared agendas, global collective action problems, community linking and more. Once the dead hand of money is absent, the panorama is actually quite exciting!
Speaker
Duncan Green, Head of Research, Oxfam GB
Chair
Matias Ramirez, Senior Lecturer in Management (SPRU – Science Policy Research Unit), University of Sussex