From the time of the Marshall Plan onwards, international development has struggled with how to generate change in levels of inequality, and how to assess and build on changes that have occurred.
Development Bulletin Volume 77 presents work from some of the 150-plus practitioners and academics who took part in the ‘Evidence and Practice in an Age of Inequality’ conference held in Melbourne in 2015. Organised by the Australian Council for International Development University Network (an organisation now known as the Research for Development Impact Network, or RDI Network), the conference is widely recognised as one of Australasia’s important international development knowledge exchange events.
One of the key achievements of the conference is to highlight the productive nature of collaboration between NGOs and academia. Strong evidence of that collaboration can be found within the new Bulletin. The 23 papers presented come from representatives of Australian, American, New Zealand, Pacific Island and Vietnamese universities; major international non-governmental organisations; local non-governmental organisations; and advocacy groups. There are reports on research and practice from Aboriginal Australia, Cambodia, Cook Islands, India, Indonesia, Mozambique, New Zealand, Nigeria, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Uganda, Viet Nam and Vanuatu.
Together, they consider issues of evidence, practice and inequality from a range of perspectives: economic; access to basic resources and services; the ability to have a voice in community and government affairs; and the effects of climate change. As in earlier issues of the Development Bulletin, several papers also draw attention to issues of inequality as experienced by people with disability.
Development Bulletin 77 will be officially launched on Friday September 16 at 4.15pm at Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, Canberra. For more information, contact pamela.thomas@anu.edu.au.
