the University of Manchester has been at the forefront of development studies for
the last 60 years today the global Development Institute believes
Manchester's teaching research and impact on development what's now
Europe's largest teaching and research institute focused on poverty and
inequality has taken very different forms over the years
GDI started as a small unit on the edge of the university we were not even a
formal part of the university academics at the University of Manchester were
researching on international development before Development Studies was
recognized as an academic discipline at the University of Manchester Arthur
Lewis was made britain's first black professor in the late 1940s indeed his
research helped to establish the field of development economics and it led to
him being awarded the Nobel Prize for economics
The Economist's the sociologists and the political scientists at Manchester were
looking at the changes in the former colonies the foreign office approached
Arthur Livingstone who is a senior lecturer in Social Policy here - about
training programs for civil servants from South East Asia
in 1958 the department of overseas administration was established and began
to run short training courses in public administration for civil servants from
former colonies the department was largely run by former British colonial
administrators in its first 10 years students from 47 different countries
studied in the department these courses were immensely popular
however they provided no formal qualifications and so in the mid-1970s a
post graduate diploma in development administration was first offered
development studies began to emerge as a specific discipline the development
studies association was set up in 1978 and that created an annual forum at
which people came together to share their findings and to select the
priority questions for the future
throughout the 1980s successive governments cut funding for university
short courses and development and some very well established centers seized
operating as a result however the University of Manchester was able to
adapt by expanding its masters courses in international development and this
included the flagship master's program in development administration and
management in 1986 the department of administrative studies was renamed the
institute for development policy and management or IDP M establishing a ph.d
program alongside its masters courses when the British Council moved to
Manchester there was a new influx of people concerned with development issues
and with whom we established strong connections the department expanded our
academics at Manchester got involved in working on the design and management of
projects in developing countries staff began to increasingly work with donors
with NGOs and with development agencies and this helped to make the work more
practical and applied as well as being theoretical throughout the sector
development was becoming increasingly professionalized with a huge expansion
in NGO activity the creation of the government department for international
development and the Millennium Development Goals this shift was
murdered in universities by a move away from short course training primarily for
development practitioners towards more formal academic qualifications and
research
during the 1990s the academic profile of my DPM grows rapidly a staff produced
groundbreaking research on structural adjustment microfinance and the rise of
NGOs at the start of the 21st century the government's Department for
International Development began to fund large research centers and the chronic
poverty Research Center was established at Manchester in 2001 IV p.m.
increasingly shifted rather than simply responding to the AIDS agenda and
reacting to external development priorities researchers actively
critiqued influence and shape them at the same time a focus on practical ways
to reduce poverty was retained with the Brooks world poverty Institute B WPI
established in 2005 with the support of the Rory and Elizabeth Brooks foundation
there's an enormous satisfaction to be derived from supporting poverty research
my wife and I have been to a number of local communities in distant countries
where policies that are being implemented there are improving the
outcomes of people's lives those policies have been derived from the
research and knowledge that have been generated at the University of
Manchester
vwp I pushed forward thinking and practice on chronic poverty social
assistance supply chains and the politics of development with Nobel Prize
winner Joseph Stiglitz chairing the new Institute Development Studies at
Manchester became increasingly influential on the international stage
the Brooks world poverty Institute retained close links with IDP M through
a complementary research agenda and both Institute's were located here within the
new Arthur Lewis building in 2016 IDP m and B WPI joined forces to become the
global Development Institute GDI that acknowledged the rapidly shifting
landscape of development distinctions between rich and poor global North and
global South were becoming increasingly blurred GDI wanted to reflect new
dynamics and patterns of inequality trade and migration the global
Development Institute now has a critical mass of over forty five academic staff
nearly a hundred PhD candidates and over 400 masters students we are now central
to the university's ambition to be relevant to beyond the UK beyond the
global north from being a small training unit on the edge of the university the
global Development Institute now leads one of its major research beacons on
global inequalities over the last 60 years development
studies and the broader field the global development has shifted and the
University of Manchester has been central in shaping these changes I've
been working the Development Studies Institute's and now the global
development Institute at Manchester for just over 30 years and it's certainly
been something that I've been very proud of I'm pleased with child mortality has
dropped maternal mortality has dropped incomes have gone up people get much
better education than they did it's quite good to look back and realize that
although there are many problems the scale of those problems is not on the
scale it was 40 or 50 years ago we're now really excited about further
developing our teaching and our research agenda and working towards ensuring
greater equity and social justice into the future
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