Think Change Rewind at 50: highlights from our favourite episodes

This episode revisits some of our favourite conversations since the first Think Change podcast aired back in March 2022.

Since that time we have released over 50 episodes and been lucky to host some brilliant guests, who have shared their analysis and stories with us on a range of critical global issues – from MDB reform and the debt crisis in the Global South to the future of the Africa-China relationship and the latest concerning developments in Gaza.

The themes examined across all episodes are incredibly diverse, but they share a focus on reimagining a new vision for international cooperation in our polarised world – and a hope for building a more equal, peaceful and resilient planet.

Browse and listen back to all episodes of the Think Change podcast.

Guests

• Sara Pantuliano (host), Chief Executive, ODI
• Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator
• Ian Bremmer, President and Founder, Eurasia Group
• Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou, Director, Politics and Governance programme
• Alexis Akwagyiram, Managing Editor, Semafor Africa
• Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, Executive Vice President, African Center for Economic Transformation
• Arancha González, Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs
• Linda Calabrese, Research Fellow, ODI
• Yunnan Chen, Research Fellow, ODI
• Ronak Gopaldas, Director, Signal Risk
• Alex de Waal, Executive Director, World Peace Foundation
  
  

Related resources

• ODI in conversation with Achim Steiner
  
  
• Think Change episode 22: On borrowed time? The sovereign debt crisis in the Global South
  
  
• Think Change episode 25: Africa-China – where is the relationship heading?
  
  
• Think Change episode 37: what trends will shape 2024? Part 1
  
  
• Think Change episode 38: what trends will shape 2024? Part 2
  
  
• Think Change episode 31: what do borrowing countries think of MDB reform?
  
  
• Think Change episode 40: will the ICJ ruling change anything for Gaza?

Chapters

• 0:10 Introduction (Sara Pantuliano)
• 1:51 The UNDP and the future of development (Achim Steiner)
• 6:36 New structures for better international cooperation (Ian Bremmer, Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou, Alexis Akwagyriam)
• 14:30 The global economic outlook for 2024 (Arancha Gonzalez Laya)
• 16:23 The reform of multilateral development banks (Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, Annalisa Prizzon)
• 20:49 Where is China’s relationship with Africa headed? (Linda Calabrese, Yunnan Chen)
• 28:31 South Africa and the ICJ (Ronak Gopaldas)
• 31:39 Famine in Gaza and Sudan (Alex de Waal)

Transcript

Sara Pantuliano 

Welcome to Think Change, I’m Sara Pantuliano.  

Today, we are revisiting some of our favourite conversations since the very first episode of Think Change aired back in March 2022. We have been lucky to host some brilliant guests over the years who have shared their analysis, commentary, and stories with us. As we listened, what really struck us was the shared commitment of all our guests to reimagining a new vision for international cooperation in our polarised world, and the hope they hold for a planet that is more equal, resilient, peaceful, and stable.

We’ll start with a very recent conversation I had with Achim Steiner, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. Recorded in-front of a live audience at our ODI home in London, we asked Achim to reflect on the critical global challenges and trends that we all need to reckon with today.  

You just published a really interesting human development report that really talks about the need to reimagine international cooperation because of the polarised world, you know, that we are talking about. And we're seeing the differences that major powers are, you know, the economic pathways that they see for for the world. And the the report talks about how traditional modes of international cooperation are are moded and really need to the rethought and and and the stress that we see on the system and in many levels. How does the UN adapt to this new reality? 

Achim Steiner 

I think with difficulties in part because we are constantly drawn back into also a polarisation in the international community. I think what makes the Human Development report, the idea also that, you know, you can trace back to Mabu UL Haqen, Amatya Sen, you know, the the great intellectual godfathers. If you want all of the human development report and also the view of thinking about the future of human beings on planet Earth through the lens of human security. I think this year's report, Breaking the Gridlock, really does look much more deeply at what it is that's happening to us as societies because frankly, the problems of international cooperation, of tensions, are very often actually found in the domestic political context. 

We often underestimate how much a domestic political discourse, tension and schism begins to drive also a narrative where the neighbour becomes the problem, another country becomes the enemy. It is the outside world that threatens us when really the tensions are around sometimes issues of equity, inequality, injustice, unresolved issues, eroding trust in our governance, institutions and government. 

And we know how this works. Polarisation, radicalization essentially needs an enemy. The enemy is always easier to find outside and then leverage it inside domestic politics. So for us to think about the future of development at the moment is not an issue of development aid anymore. 

I often say this with great conviction. An organisation like UNDP, founded in 1965 in an era of the classic development, a technical corporation paradigm, is no longer an institution of that era. I have very much tried during my tenure in UNDP to make it visibly and understandably an institution of the future, because development is today the platform on which we are able to de risk the future. And that's when we very quickly move from a narrow development discourse to one about human security and International Security. And let me say here, I'm extremely worried right now because in our public policy paradigm, it is so easy today to argue that we have to spend 2%, three percent of our GNP on defence. 

And almost no one questions this. And yet as OECD nations, we are still in a world where we essentially are able to just for mobilise 0.37% of GNI. And with that we think we can solve everything from world poverty to climate change to the next pandemic, to digitalization, anti terrorism, refugees. I mean it's just a very strange view of of the world. 

But my main point is we need to de risk the future that is essentially premised on the ability of countries to work together. Just take the cyber sphere today, the weakest link in the chain, so to speak. A country without a cyber regulatory framework, without cyber security institutions, without the means to protect their national cyberspace is integral to a global cyber sphere. That country becomes the Achillos yield to a global cyber ecosystem. 

So even in something as technologically based, our interest to work with countries and help them quickly upgrade their institutions, their regulatory frameworks, their capacity is integral to being able to create greater cybersecurity. And so human security I think becomes a very interesting lens through which to look at the future of Development Corporation. It's about investing in one another in one's own interest, but also in the interest of the other, because that is a way in which we can achieve greater security. 

And so I think the development community needs to embrace far more actively this notion of how do we create security in our world of the 21st century. Yes, there will still be countries that will try to invade others. There will be wars. But frankly, the greatest security risks of the 21st century are not any more territorial disputes and armies fighting with each other on the ground. 

It's going to be the risks that emanate from climate change that is not addressed, the next pandemic for which we are not prepared, or indeed a digital world in which inequality becomes so extreme because a significant number of people in the world are totally left behind, while others are taking off into another universe. Almost. Inequality in a digital era is perhaps one of the greatest threats we have to social cohesion.

Sara Pantuliano 

On the show we've spoken many times on how international cooperation is essential to move forward in terms of, mitigating some of the, the structures that you've all spoken about, but clearly the reformat structures is long overdue.  

There's been many views on this show on how we can reset this structure, how we can help to Shape a stronger, more equitable global community.  

Is there anything that you think we can realistically do in 2024 to start really moving the dial?

I think we should ask ourselves, first of all, why it is that the institutions are inadequate? And then what can be done and what is being done to restructure them?

The reason they're inadequate is because the institutions that we have no longer reflect either the policy priorities of the world today, which have changed, or the balance of power, in the world today, which has changed. 

And those two things change a lot faster than sticky institutions, that are built to last but are not built to adapt because the countries that are in charge like to stay in charge, and they don't like to share very much.  

And they don't, they don't want to, to, to create institutions that have creative destruction inherent inside them. But we already see how that's changing. 

So for example, we, we just saw the end, witnessed the end of the COP 28 summit, in, in Dubai, now I mean, climate change now has a host of global institutions dedicated to biodiversity and reduction of plastics, protection of oceans, deforestation, and, of course, issues like carbon trade and reduction of carbon in the atmosphere, all of that has been structured over the past few decades. 

Slowly, not enough, not enough resources, not enough focus on the global south, not enough ability to redress to the people in the countries that are being hurt, but it still is happening. 

Now the reason it's happening is in part because there is finally a global consensus that climate change is real, that it's you know, that the scientific community is measuring it accurately, so you can only manage things that you know how to effectively measure. 

And, of course, young people are increasingly getting pissed off about it, and and they matter, and and they're a big part of the driver internationally.

And so even though you don't have a lot of coordination, it's competition, but it's competition towards an understandable and same goal, which is we all kind of know that we have to get post carbon in energy. 

And we we all kind of know that we we have to we have to try to bend the curve downward in terms of how much, you know, actual climate change we're going to see. 

Now there are lots of other places where we desperately need that kind of new institutional framework, and it's not happening fast enough or at all. 

On global security, you're building new architecture in Asia, but what do you have in the Middle East? What do you have for Europe and Ukraine? 

What do you have for Africa? And the answer is inadequate, and the answer is poorly resourced, and it's certainly not consolidated. What about artificial intelligence? Well, I mean, no one was even talking about it a year ago.  

Everyone's talking about it now, but the technology is moving a lot faster the various governance efforts, and those governance efforts are themselves fragmented. There's one in Europe. There's one in the United States. There's one in China. 

There's some other efforts by the Brits, by the Japanese, but on balance, it's the tech and the tech companies that are driving the outcomes, which means that you're rolling the dice before you have a shot on getting essential governance for things like AI that would reflect the interests of the people that don't have it, and and it would reflect the, you know, the the value structures of those that aren't being the the don't that that don't have the datasets that are testing and and driving these foundational models. 

So it's a mixed message. It's not like nothing is happening, but it's not happening fast enough to avoid the geopolitics and the interim getting worse. 

We are in this interregnum between an old geopolitical order that was largely fit for purpose for the balance of power and the policy demands and and a new one that we hope will be able to do that once again, but we're not quite there yet.  

Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou

I'd like to bring perhaps the politics into this story as well because where we are on AI today, in terms of global governance is only a reflection of political resistance to building a a a collective global governance around it. 

The mere fact that we've got some consensus in Europe or in America or in the other, geographies, that we just cited is because there has been a collective appetite that has emerged to allow that to happen, we're not yet there at a global level. 

What I find really fascinating about what's been happening over the last year, particularly with respect to Africa is that Africa has made itself matter. 

It is because Africa matters to global security that Africa has been able to secure a seat at the G20, it is because, Africa's potential nuisance possibility after the abstention, on the vote relative to the the Russian war in Ukraine, it's because of that that Africa has started to matter. 

We've seen this play itself out also, in in the Middle East and the geopolitical reconfigurations that are being kind of consolidated as a result of that conflict. 

So, yes, it is, we are in an interregnum, but one in which, I believe that because Africa, is going to matter, as we move forward politically, demographically, we're going to see a reconfiguration of global institutions to reflect that.

And and and and I'm hopeful, that some of the challenges, particularly around resource sovereignty we will be able to see how, some positive, some positive shifts emerge, in that in that sphere.  

Sara Pantuliano

Where do you think some of the more positive trends, we can expect for 2024 will come from?

Alexis Akwagyriam

One thing that's occurred to me in terms of positive trends is just the growing soft power of Africa.

Now, we've mentioned that Africa matters increasingly, and that makes sense from a geopolitical perspective, because in a world, a multi-polar world, in a multi-polar world, then it makes sense that Africa will matter because there are more voices and it's not just about what the US says, for example.

However, in terms of soft power, I think in the last few years we have seen the growth of Afrobeats, we've seen the growth of African filmmaking, for example, the arts.

Now, this does matter, I mean it's not just fun that Burna Boy is a massive artist, Rema, Tems, it also changes people's perceptions of what it is to be African.

I remember when I was a child, it was never cool to be African, absolutely not, and yet now people perceive Africans differently.  

And then also just financially, there are whole industries, financial institutes built around this because you need the infrastructure, you do need the lawyers that underpin these transactions, you need the accountants, and I think all of these things are good because it just changes people's perceptions, not just of, Africa as a continent, but then the idea that there are 54 different countries within Africa, and then the Global South more generally, just the way in which we view emerging economies is changing, and I think that's something we'll see more of in the coming year, and I think that's a great thing, that's a great product to this this increasingly splintered world in which we live.

Sara Pantuliano
 
We kicked off 2024 with an interview with Ian Bremmer, President and Founder of the Eurasia Group, Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou, Director of Programme, Politics and Governance at ODI and Alexis Akwagyriam, Managing Editor, Semafor Africa. Ian, Kathryn and Alexis shared their views on global security, how we can reset structures for better international cooperation and why Africa matters.

On the show we've spoken many times on how international cooperation is essential to move forward in terms of, mitigating some of the, the structures that you've all spoken about, but clearly the reformat structures is long overdue. 

There's been many views on this show on how we can reset this structure, how we can help to Shape a stronger, more equitable global community. 

Is there anything that you think we can realistically do in 2024 to start really moving the dial?

Ian Bremmer

I think we should ask ourselves, first of all, why it is that the institutions are inadequate? And then what can be done and what is being done to restructure them? 

The reason they're inadequate is because the institutions that we have no longer reflect either the policy priorities of the world today, which have changed, or the balance of power, in the world today, which has changed.

And those two things change a lot faster than sticky institutions, that are built to last but are not built to adapt because the countries that are in charge like to stay in charge, and they don't like to share very much. 

And they don't, they don't want to, to, to create institutions that have creative destruction inherent inside them. But we already see how that's changing.

So for example, we, we just saw the end, witnessed the end of the COP 28 summit, in, in Dubai, now I mean, climate change now has a host of global institutions dedicated to biodiversity and reduction of plastics, protection of oceans, deforestation, and, of course, issues like carbon trade and reduction of carbon in the atmosphere, all of that has been structured over the past few decades.

Slowly, not enough, not enough resources, not enough focus on the global south, not enough ability to redress to the people in the countries that are being hurt, but it still is happening. 

Now the reason it's happening is in part because there is finally a global consensus that climate change is real, that it's you know, that the scientific community is measuring it accurately, so you can only manage things that you know how to effectively measure. 

And, of course, young people are increasingly getting pissed off about it, and and they matter, and and they're a big part of the driver internationally. 

And so even though you don't have a lot of coordination, it's competition, but it's competition towards an understandable and same goal, which is we all kind of know that we have to get post carbon in energy. 

And we we all kind of know that we we have to we have to try to bend the curve downward in terms of how much, you know, actual climate change we're going to see. 

Now there are lots of other places where we desperately need that kind of new institutional framework, and it's not happening fast enough or at all.

On global security, you're building new architecture in Asia, but what do you have in the Middle East? What do you have for Europe and Ukraine? 

What do you have for Africa? And the answer is inadequate, and the answer is poorly resourced, and it's certainly not consolidated. What about artificial intelligence? Well, I mean, no one was even talking about it a year ago. 

Everyone's talking about it now, but the technology is moving a lot faster the various governance efforts, and those governance efforts are themselves fragmented. There's one in Europe. There's one in the United States. There's one in China.

There's some other efforts by the Brits, by the Japanese, but on balance, it's the tech and the tech companies that are driving the outcomes, which means that you're rolling the dice before you have a shot on getting essential governance for things like AI that would reflect the interests of the people that don't have it, and and it would reflect the, you know, the the value structures of those that aren't being the the don't that that don't have the datasets that are testing and and driving these foundational models.

So it's a mixed message. It's not like nothing is happening, but it's not happening fast enough to avoid the geopolitics and the interim getting worse.

We are in this interregnum between an old geopolitical order that was largely fit for purpose for the balance of power and the policy demands and and a new one that we hope will be able to do that once again, but we're not quite there yet. 

Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou

I'd like to bring perhaps the politics into this story as well because where we are on AI today, in terms of global governance is only a reflection of political resistance to building a a a collective global governance around it. 

The mere fact that we've got some consensus in Europe or in America or in the other, geographies, that we just cited is because there has been a collective appetite that has emerged to allow that to happen, we're not yet there at a global level. 

What I find really fascinating about what's been happening over the last year, particularly with respect to Africa is that Africa has made itself matter.

It is because Africa matters to global security that Africa has been able to secure a seat at the G20, it is because, Africa's potential nuisance possibility after the abstention, on the vote relative to the the Russian war in Ukraine, it's because of that that Africa has started to matter.

We've seen this play itself out also, in in the Middle East and the geopolitical reconfigurations that are being kind of consolidated as a result of that conflict. 

So, yes, it is, we are in an interregnum, but one in which, I believe that because Africa, is going to matter, as we move forward politically, demographically, we're going to see a reconfiguration of global institutions to reflect that.

And and and and I'm hopeful, that some of the challenges, particularly around resource sovereignty we will be able to see how, some positive, some positive shifts emerge, in that in that sphere. 

Sara Pantuliano

Where do you think some of the more positive trends, we can expect for 2024 will come from?

Alexis Akwagyriam

One thing that's occurred to me in terms of positive trends is just the growing soft power of Africa.

Now, we've mentioned that Africa matters increasingly, and that makes sense from a geopolitical perspective, because in a world, a multi-polar world, in a multi-polar world, then it makes sense that Africa will matter because there are more voices and it's not just about what the US says, for example.

However, in terms of soft power, I think in the last few years we have seen the growth of Afrobeats, we've seen the growth of African filmmaking, for example, the arts.

Now, this does matter, I mean it's not just fun that Burna Boy is a massive artist, Rema, Tems, it also changes people's perceptions of what it is to be African.

I remember when I was a child, it was never cool to be African, absolutely not, and yet now people perceive Africans differently. 

And then also just financially, there are whole industries, financial institutes built around this because you need the infrastructure, you do need the lawyers that underpin these transactions, you need the accountants, and I think all of these things are good because it just changes people's perceptions, not just of, Africa as a continent, but then the idea that there are 54 different countries within Africa, and then the Global South more generally, just the way in which we view emerging economies is changing, and I think that's something we'll see more of in the coming year, and I think that's a great thing, that's a great product to this this increasingly splintered world in which we live.

Sara Pantuliano

2023 was a bumpy year for the global economy, with sluggish growth, high inflation, tightened monetary policy and instability in the financial sector. We asked our guests to examine the global economic outlook for 2024 and importantly, we set a challenge to our guests to give our listeners some reasons to be optimistic. Arancha Gonzalez Laya, Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs joined us on this episode with an important message on what exactly needs to change if we want to move the dial on inequality. 

Arancha Gonzalez

I think that, if I look at the world, trying to divide the world into the north and the south and the east and the west does not work any longer.  

The world of tomorrow requires, essentially cross-coalitions, countries that are capable of building those bridges between the north and the south, the east and the west.  

So, if we are stuck in yesterday's world, we are not going to be able to address the three big challenges that require a cross cooperation. It's debt and finance, its climate action, and it's international trade. 

And this is maybe why we are not moving fast enough to address the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals because we are not fast enough in creating those coalitions. 

Instead, we are spending enormous amounts of time and efforts into re-dividing the world into categories. So, my wish for 2024 is coalitions across regions, across geographies, across the globe. Otherwise, we will not succeed.

Sara Pantuliano

The reform of Multilateral Development Banks was top of the agenda at the 2023 Annual Meetings in Marrakech, and we were delighted to be joined by Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, Executive Vice President of the African Center for Economic Transformation. Marvis has worked for several governments across Africa, so we were interested in her insights on how multilateral development banks can adapt and evolve to better serve the continent.  

Mavis, you've been working with several governments across Africa. If MDBs and their shareholders don't step up to the challenge, what might be the consequences for sustainable development in the continent?  

Thank you very much, Sara. I'd like to build on what Amadou and Iyabo said, which is the importance right now of African countries gaining access to timely concessional financing and also technical assistance to support the polycrisis ahead, because there is so much at stake for the continent right now. We are already beginning to see the consequences of limited access to this finance and a lack of economic transformation across the continent. So, firstly, we are seeing that a number of our countries are facing severe debt distress. You know this mortgages the future of our young people without their consent. My own country, ghana, has just had its 17th IMF bailout and the poorest people in the country are feeling the worst pinch and businesses, as part of the debt deal, are now struggling to rebuild, to generate the much-needed jobs to rebuild our economy. Secondly, our young people are getting desperate and turning to solutions that might not be constructive in the short to medium term. 

So recently we have seen a series of coups in West and Central Africa backed by young people, and you know a number of us are wondering which country will be next. And you know a number of us are wondering which country will be next. A number of our young men and women are turning to extremist religious groups as a solution to their economic problems, and others still are embarking on progress and stagnation in some areas in fundamental human well-being. You know issues like maternal and child mortality. Where we were seeing progress is starting to stagnate and regress in some countries. We know that over 2 million lives will be lost if we don't act now. Decades of progress on poverty reduction are being erased. We are seeing increases in food insecurity and young girls are dropping out of school. Basically, without that reform that will release concessional finance and will help countries deal with the poly crisis quickly, there are basically short and long-term consequences. We are on track for a world that is less dynamic, less green, less safe and less innovative if we don't make progress.

Sara Pantuliano

Annalisa, you led a survey of client country perspectives of 2021. What were the key takeaways we were hearing back then?

Annalisa Prizzon

The views and perspectives of client countries should be at the heart of the reform agenda of multilateral development banks. For this particular reason, a couple of years ago ODI designed and coordinated a large-scale survey targeting nearly 500 government officials and MDB staff in more than 70 countries. That's half the number of countries that receive finance from multilateral development banks.

As in any survey, findings are highly stylised. But several of them corroborate why a reform agenda for MDBs matters, and where MDBs should transform themselves to meet their clients' demands.

Sara Pantuliano

2023 marked 10 years of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a decade in which we've seen China's engagement with African countries grow with close economic ties established on trade, investment, technology and infrastructure. This growth has generated a big debate in Western countries. With China being one of the biggest lenders to low- and middle-income countries, the problem of debt, and debt sustainability, is one of the most urgent issues facing many of these countries, including on the African continent. We were curious to speak with experts on where China’s relationship with Africa is heading. We spoke with ODI Research Fellow and Doctoral Fellow at the Lau China Institute at King’s College London, Linda Calabrese, and ODI Research Fellow Yunnan Chen.  

When we talk about China and Africa, many refer to Chinese companies as supporting cheap Chinese goods to the continent, or they talk about extracting Africa's natural resources with a poor environmental or social sustainability record. Does that really reflect what's happening? 

Linda Calabrese

I think this is a kind of an maybe old-school view, or a bit of a naive view, of what is actually happening, and a lot of it is very much focused on China, right? What is China doing? What is happening there?  

But we'll need to look at a bigger picture for Africa. So it's true that China is now the largest trading partner with the African continent, both imports and exports. The second one is the EU, but the EU as a bloc, so 27 countries, so it's of course as a single bilateral trading partner. China is by far the biggest one, and it's true that these trade flows are very unbalanced. So Africa imports a lot more than it exports to China.

The unbalance is also seen in terms of the quality of these flows. Africa exports a lot of natural resources oil and gas and these sort of things and imports all sorts of goods, but the same can actually be said for other regions of the world. So it's the same for the trade flows between Africa and Europe, or North America and Europe, even though maybe in a less marked manner, but we still see these imbalances. Is it true that Chinese are exporting cheap goods to Africa? Yes, and we've seen a lot of these as cause deindustrialization, especially in countries that were already industrialized in Africa or that were on the path to industrialization. But we also see that importing machinery from China has enabled industrial development in certain countries in Africa. China, is actually not the largest investor on the continent.

It's actually the fifth largest, so the first one being UK, and then we have France, netherlands, the US and then the fifth in terms of capital invested in Africa is China. So China is by far not the largest investor. We see problems with the environmental impact of Chinese investment, problems with the social impact of Chinese investment, but we see the same with investment from other countries. There's actually very few studies that do a comparative examination of Chinese and other foreign investment in Africa, but the ones that do that actually find that there's not that much of a difference, and why does that matter I don't want to. It's not whataboutism. I'm not saying, oh, china does that, everyone else does that, so it doesn't matter. What I'm saying is actually this matters for the solution. If the problem is with China, then you target the solution of China but, if the problem is across the board, as it seems to be emerging, then the policy solution must be a lot broader and cover a lot more aspects.
 
Sara Pantuliano 

Is China likely to remain such a key trading and economic partner for Africa? What's the investment endgame, linda? 

Linda Calabrese 

This is the million dollar question, right Like what's going to happen in the future. I think the relationship is definitely evolving and changing. We see China being a lot more cautious and we also see trade and investment flows plateauing a little bit, so there's not the massive boom that used to be a few years back or a decade ago. But what remains important is that China remains an economic partner for Africa and it has shown that African countries are credible business partners. So Africa is not just the place where you go and provide aid. It's's also a viable trade partner. It's also a viable investment partner. It's a big market that has a lot of opportunities, also for people who are interested in doing business.

Sara Pantuliano 

A key difference from previous debt crisis is that there is a very different creditor mix today compared to 30 years ago. China has become one of the biggest bilateral lenders to low and middle income countries, and much more of the debt is now also owed to power sector creditors and fragmented bondholders. There has been a lot of finger pointing at China, particularly from Washington, and accusations around China's role in indebting low- and middle-income countries with unsustainable loans. How does China fit into this picture and why has it been so recalcitrant in providing that forgiveness?  

Yunnan Chen 

As we've all noticed, over the last two decades, china has become one of the biggest financiers and creditors to low and middle countries, very prominently in Africa, but also elsewhere, and a lot of this comes from China's own domestic economic restructuring. So a lot of this, you know, comes from China's own domestic economic restructuring. So a lot of this lending, this splurge of overseas capital that we saw was primarily around the early 2010s, just after the global financial crisis and after China's own domestic economic stimulus. So this is what became the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. But the BRI, as it's called, was mostly a label on what were existing trends and the kinds of projects that Chinese official finance supported were those that reflected the commercial and export interests of Chinese companies, of Chinese manufacturers and exporters.

So there's been some, let's say, perverse incentives as well that have fed into the type of lending that we've seen, and this is what's raised a lot of the criticism and finger pointing towards China. There's been accusations of a debt trap flown around quite often in the last of due diligence and the proper feasibility analysis that were warranted. They were pushed by the interests of Chinese companies that wanted to sell their services and equipment and creditors were pulled into that. There's been a tendency in recent years to sort of push the problem down the road by using refinancing or rescheduling to support borrowers. But there are very, very strong institutional constraints on offering any kind of debt forgiveness, which means the bank has to take a loss. And all of this has meant that, you know, in an already very prolonged and difficult process, the nature of how Chinese banks operate has made this an even more challenging situation for borrowers.

Sara Pantuliano

In November 2023, South Africa approached the International Court of Justice to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and to consider whether Israel is committing genocide. Back in February, all eyes were on the Hague as the International Court of Justice made its interim ruling, calling for Israel to “take all measures within its powers” to prevent civilian deaths in Gaza. We spoke with Ronak Gopaldas, Director, Signal Risk to highlight what this interim ruling meant for the so-called western-led order.

What do you think are the implications of, you know, emerging powers like South Africa pushing for peace and justice, you know, globally, and clearly challenging the status quo?

Thanks. I mean, I think I debate that notion that South Africa is explicitly challenging the Western-led order. I think I would frame it slightly differently and say that South Africa, legally, as a contracting party to the Genocide Convention, is within its rights to approach the ICJ if it believes the convention has been violated, has the right to do that. And I think that's why we have these institutional mechanisms to ensure accountability and that each country is held to a consistent standard. And I think from that perspective, if you look at South Africa's case at the ICJ, you know it should be applauded for looking to test the legitimacy and the consistency of the international justice system. And that's what makes the Western reaction, which kind of has kind of discredited the South African position, somewhat curious, because these are the same countries that have established, set up and stewarded the institutions that have kind of underpinned the global multilateral system since the end of the World War. So I think that's the first point.

I think the second point to note is that the global south benefits disproportionately from the checks and balances which the multilateral rules-based order offers.

It's designed to temper the abuses of powerful nations and in that regard there's a vested interest in the global south in making sure that these instruments work effectively and that multilateralism is strengthened.

But at the moment, we have a trust deficit in these institutions. There are these perceptions of bias, perceptions that they're not fit for purpose, and that's quite problematic, and I think in large part that's because Western capitals have divested a lot of their political capital from these institutions. And now, I think, with the fact that the global liberal order is no longer the only show in town, the global South has really found their voice and it's pushing and using these mechanisms to push for issues that it deems important, and I think that's a good thing, because it can only enhance the legitimacy of these institutions. So, despite the fact that they have flaws and they are imperfect, I think it's important that we don't throw the baby out of the bathwater, and I think the South African case could actually have the effect of strengthening the international justice system by showing that the instruments of international justice serve all nations, not just the powerful ones. Nations, not just the powerful ones.  

Sara Pantuliano 

Still on the topic of Gaza, in April I spoke to Alex de Waal, the Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation, about man-made famine and its use as a weapon of war in contexts like Gaza and Sudan, in open defiance of basic tenets of IHL. One thing that normally is left to governments or authorities on the ground is the declaration of famine. Who should declare famine in Gaza and in Sudan if the parties are clearly not interested to do so?  

Alex de Waal 

So the current system for declaring famine is a little bit obscure. The way it works up to now is that the IPC has a technical working group and when it thinks there's a risk of famine, it brings in the Famine Review Committee, which can advise on whether famine is occurring or may be happening they're not quite sure etc. And then really it's up to the United Nations. And I think this is where the system is breaking down. There are international legal obligations for responding when there is a food emergency, especially one caused by armed conflict resolution 2417. But that's not being used, that's not being utilised in these circumstances. So and I think this is a failure of leadership at the highest level I think it would be appropriate, therefore, for international agencies to elevate the role of some sort of committee of respected elders to say either this is famine, based on our best judgment, regardless of the minutiae of the evidence, regardless of what political authorities are trying to conceal or deny, or famine is actually inevitable under these circumstances, under the current trajectory.  

Sara Pantuliano 

How do we hold those responsible to account?  

 Alex de Waal 

There's several elements to accountability. The one that lawyers will get excited about is criminal accountability, putting perpetrators in the dock. Now, this will be slow, we'll only ever get a few of them, but nonetheless should be supported. I think what is more important in the longer term are two related things. One is political accountability, making sure that the perpetrating starvation is so morally toxic, so utterly reprehensible, that those who commit this crime can never have any type of social or political respect. And then the final point here is that the experience of starvation is like the experience of torture, something that is deeply humiliating, deeply traumatic, a profound loss of dignity, and a process of accountability is, perhaps more than anything else, a process of restoring the dignity, recognizing the humanity of survivors and victims.  

Sara Pantuliano 

Thank you so much for listening and for continuing to tune into Think Change. It's been such a fantastic experience to welcome so many guests on the podcast and to listen to their insights. I've been personally stimulated and we've reflected on many of the things we've heard here at ODI. I hope you've enjoyed the journey as much as I have, and I look forward to having you with us for the next 50.