A year after Elon Musk and Donald Trump destroyed USAID, where is development today? The US took $68 billion dollars out of the global development budget last year. Other countries are slashing their budgets too. Now what?

If global development was about positioning the US as a strategic ally across the globe, it is now toast. But if development can continue to be more than political positioning, and return to its purpose of alleviating poverty, building secure environments and promoting democracy, then we may still be in business. To get a sense of how this can work, we invite Dr. Kate Schecter to join us this week.

Kate Schecter has witnessed and participated in international development for decades. For the past decade, Kate has served as CEO of World Neighbors, an international NGO with projects in 14 low-income countries. These include Guatemala, Bolivia, Haiti, Tanzania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Kenya, India and Nepal. Next April World Neighbors, which has always received near all its funding from private sources, will celebrate its 75th anniversary. The Oklahoma City-based organization and its community-based savings and credit and climate resilience model have survived many changes in national and international policies.

Kate recently returned from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh India, where she visited thriving economic development projects based on the needs and skills of local communities.

If you're tuning in from Texas, keep listening. We're going to talk about what they don't want you to hear.

In this episode of GDP, we're talking about academic censorship, in particular the case of Texas A&M banning Plato's Symposium. We bring in Platonic expert Eli Diamond to tell us exactly what is being banned: an erotic booze fuled drama of debauchery and perverse behaviour that also serves as a foundational text in understanding the nature of love, beauty and desire while providing a foundation of Western philosophy, ethics, and human psychology. So what makes studying this so dangerous? Tune in to find out.

Dr. Eli Diamond teaches at Dalhousie University and King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is considered by many to be the GOAT of classics. His first book, Mortal Imitations of Divine Life: The Nature of the Soul in Aristotle’s De Anima, was published in 2015 by Northwestern University Press in the series “Rereading Ancient Philosophy”. Details about the book can be found here. The focus of his current research is Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy.

Is there a future in Global Development? Will the U.S. be at the forefront of it? When it comes to the life saving services provided by USAID around the world, who will pick up the pieces? The answer is not clear, but Dennis Vega has seen this transformative moment in global development from the front lines. He joins us today to discuss what's going on, how deep the impact is, and to remember the moral good of development will continue...but maybe not how it has occurred in the past.

Dennis Vega is President & CEO of Pact. He has nearly two decades of experience in international development and nonprofit management. Most recently, Dennis served as the Acting Deputy Administrator for Management and Resources at USAID, overseeing operations for its 13,000-person workforce across more than 100 countries. Prior to that, he was Chief of Staff of USAID. Previously, Dennis served as Interim President and CEO as well as Chief Operating Officer of America’s Promise Alliance - a youth development coalition founded by General Colin Powell, leading the organization’s engagement with America’s young people, particularly through the Covid-19 crisis. Throughout his career, Dennis also held a number of positions at the U.S. Department of State and USAID during the Administrations of Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. He is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis School of Law and the University of Texas at Austin. Dennis joined Pact in 2024.

Could honey bees best explain how sanctions are supposed to work? To prevent bloodshed, sanctions are meant to to take down an opponent by a collective effort. That's how bees do it? How do we do it? In this episode we learn a lot about bees and draw some sticky connections and analogies to current global politics.

Alex Pedersen is the past president of the Limestone Beekeepers’ Guild and currently a beekeeper in the Kingston Ontario area. Alex got her start in beekeeping as an undergrad through apiculture classes at the University of Guelph. She spends her spare time in the garden tending to the bees, supporting local beekeepers, and providing education about pollinators to local community groups and schools. In 2022, Alex was named a national “Volunteer of the Year” for her dedication to Science Rendezvous, a national organization encouraging children and their families to engage with and enjoy science, for her beekeeping displays with the Limestone Beekeepers’ Guild.

"If I say you're a friend of mine, that means you're connected. If I say you're a friend of ours, that means you're a made guy. If I introduce you, I'm responsible for you. Anything wrong with you, I go down".

That's how Lefty Ruggiero (Al Pacino) explains to Donnie Brasco (Johnny Depp) what it means to be a wise guy in a gang. Turn this dialogue into academiceze and it might sound like:

“Lemme tell ya somethin’. You’re a limited-term professor, right? Means you teach a coupla classes, you get paid peanuts, no security, nuttin’. Now, if I say you’re tenure-track, you’re one of ours, that means you’re in for good. Permanent. Nobody can touch ya. But if I bring you on with tenure? Now that’s on me. You screw up, you embarrass the family, I go down with ya. You understand? That’s the life.”

Like a drug gang there many "made guys" or limited term professors take on heavy, high risk jobs with little compensation and no job security. They're outsiders. The tenured crew are in the club and often well protected compared to their outsider counterparts. Then the bosses, or administrators. They rarely see the front-line work, but are tasked with running the organization. Amid the hierarchy of the university, much like the drug gang, there is a dualization of labour that might seem invisible from outside, but creates a high-risk, rigid environment that ultimately impacts students and taxpayers in the end. To get to the bottom of this, Alexandre Afonso joins GDP for this episode.

Alexandre Afonso is an Associate Professor in Public Policy at Leiden University, Netherlands, specializing in public policy and comparative political economy. A native of Switzerland, his research focuses on welfare state and labour market reforms, labour migration, and the role of political parties and organized interests in the economy. His work has appeared in leading academic journals and media outlets.

Check out his article How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang

Dr. Bob is an Adjunct Professor in the Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative at Western Sydney University, in Sydney Australia. GDP is recorded in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

US-based international development organizations will now need to heavily rely on private funding to grow—and even maintain—their operations around the world. Can that work? If so, what kind of programs are well-suited to private funding?

World Neighbors, a nearly 75-year-old development organization based in Oklahoma City, OK, has relied overwhelmingly on private funding for nearly all of its existence.

The private funding model is suited to a different methodology than those of most development organizations that rely on government funds. The corporate world provides an analogy Public companies tend to get very focused on quarterly results. Private companies, freed from that pressure, usually have more room to focus on long-term results.

In a similar way, World Neighbors’s methodology is built on long-term, comprehensive development that results in community self-reliance. Its programs, which always include a savings and credit mechanism to generate capital, usually last a minimum of 8 years. They are run with and through local partners and coordinated with government bodies so communities can obtain long-term funding and other support that drive—and sustain—economic and social development. World Neighbors has a handful of headquarters staff. Nearly all paid staff live in the communities in which the work. They, in turn, rely heavily on community volunteers on health, clean water, nutrition and other dimensions of the comprehensive community development programs.

The key to this long-term approach are World Neighbors’s private funders.

Kate Schecter, Ph.D., joined World Neighbors as the President and CEO in June of 2014. World Neighbors is a 71 year old international development organization that works with rural isolated communities to help find solutions to permanently lift these communities out of poverty. Dr. Schecter is responsible for managing World Neighbors’ programs and operations in 14 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. In her previous position, she worked for the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) for 14 years. As a Senior Program Officer at AIHA, she had responsibility for managing health partnerships throughout Eurasia and Central and Eastern Europe. She worked with over 35 partnerships addressing primary healthcare, chronic disease management, hospital management, maternal/child health, Tuberculosis, blood safety and HIV/AIDS.

"Do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war? He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought"

That's one of the best lines from by General Jack Ripper, from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, a comedy, horror, and documentary film all rolled into one.

Today, the bomber fleets are active, and the targets are nuclear, and they're in Iran. With U.S. and Israeli planes bombing Iran, are we seeing a long-planned conflict play out? Or is this one of the most dangerous moments in world history?

To help us understand what is at stake, and maybe how to calm it all down, GDP welcomes Richard Nephew to the podcast.

Richard Nephew was the inaugural U.S. Coordinator on Global Anti-Corruption at the Department of State (2022-2024). He was also elected as the President of the Conference of the States Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption. During his government career, he has also served as the Deputy Special Envoy for Iran (2021), Principal Deputy Coordinator for Sanctions Policy at the Department of State (2013-2015), and Director for Iran at the National Security Council (2011-2013), among other senior civil service staff roles from 2003-2011.

While a senior research scholar at SIPA since 2015, Nephew has written dozens of reports and articles for various publications focused on geopolitics and their intersection with energy markets, economic statecraft, nuclear topics, and sanctions. He is also the author of The Art of Sanctions: A View from the Field, published by Columbia University Press in 2018.

In addition to his primary appointment at CGEP, he is an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and operates his own consulting LLC, “Go Beyond Compliance.” In the latter capacity, he acts as a nonproliferation consultant to Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

"Today I Saw a Revolution" captures the remarkable life of Professor Badiul Majumdar, a visionary leader whose groundbreaking efforts have mobilized millions to end hunger in Bangladesh. This insightful biography offers a compelling look at the man behind the movement—his humble beginnings, innovative ideas, and unwavering commitment to justice and empowerment.
Badiul’s story also reveals broader themes of leadership, resilience, and the vision required to confront the world’s most pressing challenges. His life is a testament to the power of individual and collective action to bring about lasting, transformative change.
For readers seeking inspiration and hope, Today I Saw a Revolution is a must-read—an intimate and powerful exploration of leadership, humanity, and the enduring impact of a revolutionary spirit.

Cathy Burke is a global leadership expert, author, and former CEO who spent two decades with

The Hunger Project, helping develop leadership at scale in communities across Africa, South Asia,

and Latin America. Her new book, Today I Saw a Revolution, tells the story of a transformative

grassroots movement in Bangladesh, and challenges how we think about leadership, power, and

change. Cathy now helps people and organizations build the mindset and capacity needed to lead

effectively in complex times.