#UnwokeID

Ethical Issues of 21st Century International Development Policy & Practice

Empowered by global movements like the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Education for All (EFA), the field of international development has is ever-growing in size and scale as an industry striving to support furthering human rights, free trade, and human development particularly in low-income nations.

In the last 20 years, net official development assistance and aid doubled to nearly $170 billion US (World Bank, 2021). Most aid is provided by bilateral & multilateral donors, global foundations and private-public partnerships, to a variety of implementing stakeholders. Most stakeholders include international development agencies and international nonprofit organizations (INGOs) that work in global South nations, often in partnership with established national nonprofits, host-national government ministries, and civil society & grassroots organizations. Yet, the international development community needs to take a starkly truthful look at how we, especially in the global North, go about promoting international development in the global South.

Often what we do in the name of “good” is not reflected in our practices, and the art of authentic collaboration, sustainable change, and meaningful inclusion are left by the wayside. One of the most tragic errors that we make is our blindness to the way that we develop, implement, and evaluate the policies and programming that we support.

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Named in honor of recent protests worldwide for social justice, the inaugural #UnwokeID: Ethical Issues in 21st Century International Development (#UnwokeID) will bring researchers and professional practitioners together, with special focus on representation from the global South, to explore the topics of:

• Violent, coercive, or paternalistic policy and programming in international aid.
• Unethical practices in international development partnerships between international stakeholders and national partners.
• Unequitable representation- concerns of limited or ignored voices and perspectives by host-national and regional development experts, nonprofit workers, and beneficiaries.
• Struggle for transcultural and multicultural perspectives in the promotion of globalized human rights & a globalized economy.

The University of Texas at Dallas will host a series of in-person and virtual speakers that will elevate the quality of the conference, and improve UTD’s visibility in the international policy community. For a full week in late February, invited external speakers will share their research and expertise with both our academic community and virtually with a wider audience.

The Workshop Grant will provide funding support for external speakers from sectors across the international development field to attend in-person, and at the end of the conference, participate in a virtual/in-person moderated table-forum on how we can transform our policies and practices to better espouse the values of diversity, inclusion, and genuine collaboration, inspiring shared ideas and advanced dialogue about improving international development practice and theory.

Organizers’ Names, Affiliations, & Contact Information

Chair: Jessi Hanson-DeFusco, UT Dallas, EPPS – PPPE, jessica.hanson-defusco@utdallas.edu

Co-chair: Camila Morales, UT Dallas, EPPS – Economic Policy, camila.morales@utdallas.edu 

Organizer: Ana-Maria Karnes, University of Pittsburgh, African Studies Department

Organizer: Sakil Malik, Senior Global Leader of DAI, Former VP of Global Development for World Learning, & Professor at University of Maryland Department of International Education

Collaborators: Juan Gonzalez, UT Dallas, Associate Provost & Dean of Graduate Education, International Center, jgonzal@utdallas.edu; Meghna Sabharwal, UT Dallas, Professor & Program Head of Public & Nonprofit Management, meghan.sabharwal@utdallas.edu; Dohyeong Kim, Professor and Senior Associate Dean of Graduate Education-EPPS & Director, Geospatial Health Research Group, dohyeong.kim@utdallas.edu