Andy Sumner’s paper on the future of development studies was accepted in the European Journal of Development Research. The paper reflects on development studies in the mid 2020s and the half century anniversaries of journals, institutes, and scholarly associations. The central argument of this paper is that contemporary development studies faces some fundamental questions over the framing of, and universality of development. Together with Pritish Behuria of GDI, University of Manchester, Andy is co-organising a workshop for the 50th anniversary of EADI on ‘the future of Development Studies’ to consider these questions further.

Andy Sumner wrote a blog on the future of UK development policy, 2025-2030 and considered what a change of government could mean in terms if there will be a ‘DFID 2.0’ or a return to the 0.7 spend on aid.

Andy Sumner spoke on a panel on economic development in Southeast Asia at a FCDO Southeast Asia conference, on global cooperation at the Korean Development Studies association (KAIDEC) conference, Seoul, on global poverty at the European Academy of Arts and Social Sciences Conference, Slovenia and was a discussant at the Development Days conference, Finish Society for Development Research.

On March 11-15, Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez from the Dept Int Dev, KCL participated, in his role of UNDP senior economic research advisor, at an internal panel to define a UNDP Programmatic Offer for Innovative Poverty Measures, Adaptive Social Protection, the Future of Work, and Redistributive Justice measures. This event was held in New York City at UNDP Headquarters.