There is never enough time to make it to all the panels you want to get to so we have rounded up some highlights from LinkedIn with links to connect more with the presenters and delegates. If you would like to write a blog, bring attention to your LinkedIn post or raise the profile of your presentation at DSA2026, get in touch with Rowena.

Jessie Ola -Morris, journalist and human right advocate: “This conversation made me think about both the opportunities and challenges that come with this shift. While innovation and enterprise can contribute to addressing development challenges, I found myself asking how we ensure that development remains centred on people, dignity, and equity, especially when market-based approaches can also be influenced by profit-driven interests.”

Cecilia Milesi, Founder of the Global Change Center, said: “Across universities, movements, think tanks and organisations, new ideas and practices are emerging from those who are still not present in many of these Northern-dominated and power-laden spaces. The so-called “intermediaries” will never be able to convey our anger, power, knowledge and insights. Our collective efforts must go towards building, in solidarity, transcultural and cross-regional networks where the “new” — fragile, contested, and still emerging — is being created. Partnerships shaped by top-down conditionalities, alongside narrow technocratic narratives, risk reproducing the very power structures that fuel exclusion and strengthen the far right.” 

Luqman Muraina, Ifeoma Odinye and Cyrine Kortas convened a panel that brought together scholars working across feminist studies, urban development, and reparatory justice to examine how academia can function not merely as a site of knowledge production but also as a space of resistance, solidarity, and social transformation. “I was pleased to see a rich discussion demonstrating that activist scholarship takes many forms, yet shares a common commitment to challenging unequal knowledge systems and expanding possibilities for epistemic justice.“ said PhD candidate Luqman. 

Alice Franchini presented research on how the global NGO crisis is reshaping civil society adaptations in autocracies, building on interviews with activists from Egypt and Syria. “I find it is always a pleasure to exchange research insights with colleagues from Development Studies, and perhaps we political science researchers could learn much from this study area’s capacity to be both reflexive and grounded in the materiality of present day struggles and conflicts. For once, I did not feel like some weird Cassandra discussing the global crisis of the NGO model, and learning from DS colleagues’ perspectives on this issue was truly enriching.” 

Scholar Practitioner Irma Nugrahanti reflected after the conference: “When I began my PhD research on climate finance through a gender lens, I quickly realised how complex climate finance mechanisms are. In academic dialogues that I participated in, I recognised the need for more diverse evidence and perspectives from the Global South to inform international climate finance policies and practices. That motivated me to bring together scholars working on climate finance contexts.” Find out more about how this led to her panel on Financing Climate for a Just Transition: Governing Climate Funds and Measuring Impacts.”

Nigatu Wolkanto challenged us to think differently. “Is the dominant Global North-South framing of climate justice sufficient to address climate injustice? While the call for climate finance, grounded in the principle of historical responsibility for emissions and disproportionate vulnerability, is essential, does it sufficiently address the structural and political-economic processes that produce and reproduce climate injustices? Many of these drivers extend beyond national boundaries and cannot be fully understood through a simple North-South binary. Perhaps it is also time to critically scrutinise the notion of “sustainable development” that underpins much of the global climate agenda. What exactly is being sustained? Whose priorities are being advanced? At whose expense? And what alternative visions of justice emerge when these questions are placed at the centre of climate governance? Moving beyond familiar binaries may be essential if climate justice is to address not only the consequences of climate change, but also the structural conditions that produce climate injustice.

Matthew Remedios presented for the first time at a professional-level academic conference, alongside Vithushan Fernando. “Together, we shared insights from my MPhil fieldwork, demonstrating the chronic marginalization of Tamil youth in northern Sri Lanka’s post-war economy. Vithushan and I hope to later translate these findings into publications accessible to Sri Lankan students and civil society.”

Botswana Society for Human Development presented on Centering wellbeing in climate action: A disability, development, and social justice nexus. The study was motivated by how climate change intensifies existing inequalities for people with disabilities, yet their well-being remains marginal in climate and development debates. Their study examined how centring wellbeing in climate policy and adaptation can advance disability-inclusive development and social justice. “The paper panel we presented explored the potential for centring the global challenge of promoting wellbeing to help us reimagine and offer alternative paradigms for development and social justice. “

Mark Malata from the African Centre of Excellence in Agricultural Policy Analysis  presented:  “Who Benefits from Digital Agriculture: Power, Inequality, and Welfare Effects among Smallholder and Commercial Farmers in Malawi,” which examined whether digital tools empower smallholder farmers or mainly benefit large-scale commercial interests. The study found that while access to digital agriculture information remains unequal, it significantly boosts household welfare and is linked to lower inequality among those with access. Households excluded from digital agriculture show the greatest unrealized welfare potential, pointing to the high cost of exclusion. The findings suggest that smallholder farmers, who often face the greatest information constraints, stand to benefit most from digital inclusion, provided policy prioritizes equitable access.