Dear FSDR Members, As we close the chapter on 2025, the Board sincerely thanks you for your continued membership and steadfast support. We also want to congratulate each of you for simply getting through another challenging year for the development research community, surviving and overcoming every hurdle, as we fulfill our professional responsibilities and continue …
#DevDays2026 | FSDR@40 Development in Ruins, Hope in the Cracks: A Time for Reckoning, Reclaiming, and Reawakening University of Helsinki, Finland | 26–27 February 2026 Concept Note We live in a ruined and ruining world. The postwar program and edifice of “development” as we know it—built on the assumptions of linear progress, donor-driven aid, and international cooperation—is crumbling. …
Call for Papers and Participation: Development Days Conference 2026 Read More »
Concept Note We live in a ruined and ruining world. The postwar program and edifice of “development” as we know it—built on the assumptions of linear progress, donor-driven aid, and international cooperation—is crumbling. Development’s failures, rooted in the colonial and capitalist world-system, are manifest: in the stark precarity and inequalities sharpening under economic neoliberalism; in …
Bonn Juego Senior Lecturer in International Development Studies, University of Jyväskylä [This think piece was originally published in Just Ecological Political Economy: The HELSUS Global South Blog.] What’s in a name? For nations on the frontlines of the climate emergency—where coastlines drown and forests burn—the answer may mean the difference between survival and extinction. During …
Marja-Liisa (Aro) Swantz died peacefully in her sleep on a May night at the age of 99. Professor emerita Swantz was the first director of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Helsinki. She taught in the Departments of Ethnology, Religious Studies, Social Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, and Development Studies at the University of …
Authors: Ayonghe Nebasifu, Edmund Asare, Geethanjali Mariaselvam, Enrique Aliste-Almuna, Ida Herdieckerhoff, Anna Mustonen, Violeta Gutiérrez-Zamora, Anna-Emilia Haapakoski, Salla Jutila, & Aina Guinart Written based on insights from a working group (WG4) at the Development Days 2025 conference. The working group was organised by collaboration of the International Forest Policy Research Group and the Helsinki …
Policy Brief: “Forestopias — For what, whom, and why?” Read More »
By Eija Ranta. Originally published by the KIOS Foundation on 28 February 2025. Note: The blog post was changed to its original Finnish language on 30 March due to issues with translation. Presidentti Donald Trumpin päätös jäädyttää Yhdysvaltain kehitysyhteistyöviraston (USAID) toiminta oli shokeeraava. Jo Trumpin ensimmäisellä presidenttikaudella kävi selväksi, ettei hän usko kehitysyhteistyön kaltaiseen pehmeään …
USAIDin alasajo ja sen maailmanlaajuiset seuraukset Read More »
Bonn Juego Chair of the Finnish Society for Development Research, Co-Chair of Development Days 2025, and Senior Lecturer in International Development Studies at the University of Jyväskylä [Opening remarks to the Development Days conference with the theme “Development Transitions: Amidst Waste, Wars, and Maldevelopment”, 27 February 2025, Helsinki] Good morning, everyone! And to international participants …
Hope for Development in the Time of Monsters Trump and Musk Read More »
Dear FSDR Members, As we wrap up 2024, let’s take a moment to celebrate the resilience and achievements of our community. This year has tested us with global and domestic political challenges, but it has also been a time of remarkable events and accomplishments for the FSDR, as highlighted in previous newsletters. Most importantly, the …
Bonn Juego Chair of the Finnish Society for Development Research [A commentary on the UEF Global Development Report 2024, presented to the University of Eastern Finland during the UEF Global Development Day, 18 November 2024] Hello and congratulations from Jyväskylä! Thank you for the invitation to be part of this occasion to celebrate past accomplishments …
Internationalization with a View to the Global South Read More »
