Conversations in Development

The Development sector often forgets about the importance of cultural values and how these can make a difference for NGOs. In this episode, we speak with Deborah Rhodes about her journey to include cultural contexts in development programs.

Before the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, our host Peter Mason speaks with Cory Steinhauer, an expert in areas of conflict about his experiences in Afghanistan and South Sudan.

Before the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, our host Peter Mason speaks with Cory Steinhauer, an expert in areas of conflict about his experiences in Afghanistan and South Sudan.

As this year has taken a heavy toll on global migration due to the pandemic, development has also come to a stall. In this series finale, we speak with Loksan Harley about the many aspects of migration, as well as its effects in the development sector.

Laos, unlike many of its neighbouring countries, remains one of the more challenging places for NGOs. In this episode, Colette McInerney, former director of World Education in Laos, shares her experience working in the country and the challenges she faced during her time in Laos.

As companies are being driven towards equality, board meetings and leadership roles still represent a challenge for females and indigenous people who wish to raise their concerns. We speak with Amanda Young, former CEO of First Nations Foundation, and Chris Franks, Chair of Women in Aid and Development about their experiences in leadership roles and the importance of gender and cultural representation.

Cambodia is a developing country with a growing economy, whose newest generations have the opportunity to thrive. We speak with Rithy Thul about his personal growth and experiences to become a successful entrepreneur, and his ambition to encourage young Cambodians to advance through the use of technology and reforestation.

As one of our closest neighbours, Indonesia has often been seen as a holiday destination rather than a strong economic partner. We speak with former DFAT Officer Jeff Bost about DFAT’s long-term investment in Indonesia and how Australia must adapt its economy to new trade opportunities with its neighbours.

Since the 1960s , Colombia has been the victim of armed conflict, taking the lives of thousands and internally displacing millions. In this episode, we speak with Manuel Renteria about his experience working in the Magdalena Medio region and the impacts in his country.

Developing countries often struggle to provide basic health and education. As they now focus their efforts to contain the pandemic, funding for other sectors are at risk, undermining years of efforts to tackle poverty through education. In this episode, former CEO of Child fund Nigel Spence discusses some of the consequences of maintaining schools closed in the long-term, particularly in developing countries.

As Covid keeps on devastating all countries around the globe, its impact can be felt in all economic sectors including education. In this episode we speak with Dr. Michael Spann, lecturer at the University of Queensland and founding director of Square Circle about the impacts of Covid in universities, as well as the abrupt political and economic changes occurring in the Asia-Pacific.

On the 12th of march, when the covid-19 disease was detected in almost all states around the globe, the disease was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This rushed many countries, including Australia to shut its borders from the world. We spoke with Nicole Stanmore, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Australia about the greater impact this pandemic has left in developing countries, as well as the perception of local governments in response to funding areas of development.

Redundancy is a word with negative connotations, but not according to Weh Yeoh who says all charities should be aiming to make themselves redundant. If charities focused more on solving problems rather than addressing symptoms, they would create a space for local people to create solutions to their own problems. Weh and Dr Peter Mason, CEO Cufa, discuss whether it is practical to have a clear exit plan from the outset of a charitable enterprise in a country, and whether it is always possible to completely solve a problem and move on.Weh Yeoh is the founder of OIC Cambodia, established for the 600,000 Cambodians with communication and swallowing disabilities. According to Weh, OIC is one of a handful of charities in the world working towards its own exit. OIC will exit Cambodia in 2030, when there are 100 Cambodian speech therapists integrated into the public sector.Weh is also the co-founder of Umbo, an initiative to improve access to services for children in rural and remote communities. He has been featured on TEDx, The Huffington Post and The Sydney Morning Herald. Find out more about Weh’s work at wehyeoh.com.

In the APAC region life for the majority in the paid workforce is hand-to-mouth, people earn wages that don't feed a family. Dr Mason speaks with Union Aid Abroad's (APHEDA) Executive Officer, Kate Lee about the major issues that workers face on a daily basis, including low wages; lack of workplace safety; and workplace and sexual harassment. We explore these key issues and discuss action Government and consumers globally need to take to support and demand liveable and living wages in every country.Kate Lee works for Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA, the global justice organisation of the Australian union movement, where she has been the Executive Officer since 2013.Prior to Union Aid Abroad, Kate worked for Australian trade unions for 12 years, and before that, worked in women’s health, community health and social justice organisations in campaigning, organising, advocacy, policy and management roles.In August 1988, following the crackdown on student activists by the Burmese military and the shooting of thousands of young people, Kate joined with others to spur on an Australian solidarity movement supporting Burmese democracy. She’s been campaigning for human rights and equality since.Kate has a Master of Policy and Applied Social Research from Macquarie University. In 2002, she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to investigate union and community organising in the US, Canada, UK and Europe.This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

The regions surrounding Somalia and Lebanon have some of the lowest rates of gender equality in the world. We speak with Clare Brown, an international human rights lawyer and currently the Legal Program Manager at Legal Action Worldwide (LAW), about her experiences working in the region. We discuss the lived experience, many of the issues that women face and triggers of sexual based violence, as well as exploring the current climate for legal advocacy work and progress that has been made in these countries.Clare Brown is an international human rights lawyer and currently works as the Legal Program Manager at Legal Action Worldwide (LAW). Clare has been in this position for almost six years after working as a legal intern at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her work sees her based between Kenya and Somalia with travel to South Sudan and Lebanon developing and implementing creative legal interventions to address human rights violations with a focus on sexual violence and violations committed by security forces.This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

Advocacy has the capacity to have an impact on a massive scale and in the field of health it can save millions of lives. We speak with Amelia Christie, CEO of RESULTS, an advocacy organisation about the power of a grassroots approach and dealing with everyone from volunteers to politicians. We also delve into foreign aid and the growing focus on the Pacific and Amelia teaches a thing or two about tuberculosis and its growing prevalence in our closest neighbour Papua New Guinea.Amelia Christie is the CEO of RESULTS, an advocacy organisation that informs political decisions by empowering everyday voices to bring an end to poverty. RESULTS trains, supports and inspires volunteers to become skilled advocates and is a partner of ACTION, a global partnership of advocacy organisations working to influence policy and mobilise resources to fight diseases of poverty and achieve equitable access to health. Amelia has also worked with Ministers of Parliament and for both small and large NGOs. She is passionate about human rights and using people power to bring about positive change.This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

Understanding the drivers behind development issues is imperative to organisations engaging in the field of work. In this episode we speak with Veronica Nou, a migrant entrepreneur and refugee advocate who came to Australia after her family fled the Cambodian Genocide and following Vietnamese occupation. Veronica shares her experiences fleeing the country and arriving in Australia, living in abject poverty through her childhood and becoming a business owner. Now in her spare time Veronica has set her sights on advocacy work and is a National Convener of the group Mums 4 Refugees, fighting for humane treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.Veronica Nou is a pharmacist and proprietor of two pharmacies in Western Sydney. Veronica was born in Cambodia during the time of the Khmer Rouge and her family fled the country, arriving in Australia in 1991 by way of refugee camps. After earning a scholarship at a private girl’s school, Veronica overcame a tough start in Australia to complete a Bachelor of Pharmacy at the University of Sydney. She now dedicates her spare time to speaking out about refugee advocacy as a national convener for the group Mums 4 Refugees.This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

Urbanisation refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the gradual increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas and the ways in which society adapts to this change. We speak with Dr Paul Jones who has over 30 years of professional experience working in urban development in places like Kiribati in the Pacific to Bandung in Indonesia. Paul delves into our understanding of the contemporary city, how our education system can adapt to teach the minds of tomorrow and what we can learn from our region in building Australian cities.Paul Jones is an associate professor at the University of Sydney. Paul has 30 years of professional experience in developing sustainable urban management, development and planning solutions in Australia and overseas. Within this experience, he has worked across Asia and the Pacific and spent over 8 years living in Kiribati as their first urban development planner. Along with his position at the University of Sydney where he teaches a range of subjects he also runs overseas workshops, providing field experience and works with development agencies such as UN Habitat, ADB, UNESCAP and formerly AusAID.This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

The values of giving are deeply rooted in the texts, traditions and practices of many faiths, and many of the world’s biggest aid organisations are faith-based. In this episodes we look at how faith-based aid differs from secular aid, and how much those differences matter. Australia is becoming more and more secular, but the majority of the country’s biggest charities are faith-based. We ask what happens when faith conflicts with what is best for poor or developing communities and we’ll consider if faith-based aid take the pressure off the governments in developed countries to contribute to ODA.Tim Costello is Chief Advocate at World Vision Australia and is one of Australia’s most sought-after voices on social justice issues, leadership and ethics. He has spearheaded public debates on gambling, urban poverty, homelessness, reconciliation and substance abuse. He has been instrumental in ensuring that the issues surrounding global poverty are on the national agenda. Tim was ordained as a Baptist Minister in 1984 and he established a vibrant and socially active ministry at St Kilda Baptist Church. He has served as Mayor of St Kilda, Minister at the Collins Street Baptist Church and as Executive Director of Urban Seed, a Christian not-for-profit outreach service for the urban poor.This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

‘Sport and development’ refers to the use of sport as a tool for development and peace. It is now being increasingly used throughout the Pacific as a method to drive outcomes in areas such as health, social cohesion, gender equality and disability inclusion. We speak with Aaron Kearney, ABC journalist, broadcaster and member of the International Development team about the programs he has worked on throughout the Pacific and how they are delivering social change.Aaron Kearney is a multi-award winning broadcaster, journalist and sports commentator with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. As a member of the ABC’s International Development team, he has led the communications support for the Pacific Sports Partnership, an Australian Aid program that promotes gender equality, disability inclusion and a variety of health benefits. Aaron has also worked as a commentary lead, training and mentoring female journalists across the Pacific in the Women In News and Sport (WINS) initiative.This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

Gender inequality becomes lethal in natural disasters where women die in far greater numbers than men. Patriarchal systems often leave women responsible for children and elderly people in a disaster and exclude women from accessing information that could save their lives. We speak to Melissa Bungcaras, Gender and Resilience Advisor for ActionAid Australia, about how and why women should take a leading role in disaster preparedness planning and how aid agencies and governments both have a role to play in reducing the gender gap. ​Melissa Bungcaras is the Gender and Resilience Advisor for ActionAid Australia. She is currently managing a portfolio of programs across the Asia-Pacific focused on women’s resilience to climate change and disasters, and drives policy advocacy on climate justice and women’s leadership in emergencies. Melissa has over 10 years’ experience in international development and environmental management, primarily in the Asia Pacific region. This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

Releasing 26 November, this episode invites Melissa Bungcaras, the Gender and Resilience Manager for ActionAid Australia, to explore how patriarchal systems often leave women responsible for children and elderly people in a disaster and exclude women from accessing information that could save their lives. With the hosts, Melissa explores how and why women should take a leading role in disaster preparedness planning.Make sure you've subscribed to Conversations in Development to catch all our open and honest conversations with industry experts about issues in foreign aid and the development sector.

This episode is a departure from the Conversations in Development schedule to discuss the life of Guy Winship, a man who dedicated his life to the development sector.Guy Winship was the founder and CEO of Good Return, an organisation that provides microfinance across the Asia-Pacific region. Good Return delivers programs to those who are financially and socially excluded, empowering through financial inclusion. Guy is a development expert who has worked in Africa, Asia and the Pacific for 30 years. He has consulted and advised governments and NGOs on microfinance, public policy and vocational training. This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific.

Volunteer tourism is a multi-billion dollar industry that is increasingly run by for-profit organisations sending millions of volunteers to poor communities around the world. The industry is rarely researched and empirical data is scarce, so what are we missing? We speak with Stephen Wearing about how the industry is changing, how it could be regulated and how the media plays a role in popular perceptions of volunteer tourists.Stephen Wearing is a conjoint professor at the University of Newcastle whose research focuses on sustainable tourism and the importance of community based approaches in the tourism and volunteering sector. For 22 years he ran VOICE Volunteers in Community Engagement (previously known as Youth Challenge Australia), a not-for-profit organisation sending volunteers on grassroots, community-identified development projects since 1992. This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

Releasing 27 September, this episode invites Stephen Wearing, an academic and expert in the field, to explore the multi-billion dollar industry of volunteer tourism. With the hosts, Stephen explores what the industry is missing, how it is changing and how it could be regulated. Make sure you've subscribed to Conversations in Development to catch all our open and honest conversations with industry experts about issues in foreign aid and the development sector.

Microfinance is a market-driven approach to development, alleviating poverty through the creation of local economies and sustainable livelihoods. But it’s also associated with negative perceptions such as profiting off poverty and creating cycles of debt. We spoke with Mahir Momand, a microfinance expert who pioneered the field in Afghanistan, about how his work reduced poverty, addressed gender inequality and ultimately threatened the basis of the Taliban insurgency. Mahir Momand is a microfinance expert and the CEO of Thrive Refugee Enterprise, an organisation that provides micro-finance and business support to refugees and asylum seekers in Australia. Previously, Mahir served as CEO of the National Association of Credit Unions in Afghanistan, worked for the World Bank, UNHCR and was Financial Adviser to the Federal Ministry of Labour in Afghanistan. The microfinance programs run by Mahir have helped establish a total of 165,000 small and medium business enterprises in Afghanistan that provided a livelihood for nearly 1 million people.This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

Releasing 13 August, this episode invites Mahir Momand, CEO of Thrive Refugee Enterprise, to teach us about a market-driven approach to development - microfinance. He explores both the positive and negative approaches and tells us how he reduced poverty, addressed gender inequality and ultimately threatened the basis of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.Make sure you've subscribed to Conversations in Development to catch all our open and honest conversations with industry experts about issues in foreign aid and the development sector.

168 million children are in child labour around the world, with almost half engaged in hazardous work. The forces driving child labour are complex and wide-ranging, from criminal intent, to economic necessity, to cultural norms. So how realistic is SDG Target 8.7 that aims to end child labour in all its forms by 2025? We speak with international lawyer Brynn O’Brien about the difficulties involved with regulating child labour and how it fits into structural problems in the global economic system.Brynn O’Brien is an international lawyer and researcher in the area of business and human rights. She started her career as a corporate lawyer and then went on to practise human rights law, representing refugees in Australia’s detention centres and people who had suffered human trafficking and severe exploitation in Australia. Now as Executive Director of the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, she holds Australia’s largest companies to account for their impacts on people and the environment.This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

Releasing 26 June, this episode invites Brynn O'Brien, Executive Director at the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, to dive into the complex world of child labour. She explores the link between big business and exploitation, consumer behaviour and the possibility of eliminating child labour by 2025.Make sure you've subscribed to Conversations in Development to catch all our open and honest conversations with industry experts about issues in foreign aid and the development sector.

Aid flows in when conflict erupts but could aid play a bigger role before conflict turns violent? We speak with Aimé Saba from the University of Sydney’s Department of Peace and Conflict Studies about how aid operates in war zones, why the example of Africa offers a case for increasing aid and whether conflict is necessary.Aimé Saba has worked in the field of international development, humanitarian assistance, peacebuilding and peacekeeping for over 10 years. He recently returned to Sydney after serving as a civilian peacekeeper with the UN Mission in Liberia in Monrovia. He has also served on the Iraq desk of the Department of Political Affairs at the UN Secretariat HQ in New York as has worked for the Australian Government’s overseas aid program (AusAID) on humanitarian programmes in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, North Korea, and the Philippines. Aimé is an accredited Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist and is currently part of the Australian Civilian Corps Cadre with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

Releasing 25 May, this episode sees guest Aime Saba discuss the relationship between aid and conflict, drawing from examples in Myanmar, Syria and multiple countries in Africa. He uses his experience working for DFAT and the UN to investigate and discusses what an aid response to stop conflicts escalating to violence would look like. Can aid prevent conflict escalating? How prepared are we for the conflicts climate change may bring?Make sure you've subscribed to Conversations in Development to catch all our open and honest conversations with industry experts about issues in foreign aid and the development sector.

Government aid programs are increasingly associated with business interests, blurring the line between philanthropy and financial gain. How does this impact developing countries - both in the short and long term? We speak with journalist Antony Loewenstein who has spent years documenting what he calls ‘disaster capitalism’ in Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea and Haiti. Antony Loewenstein is an independent freelance journalist, author, documentarian and blogger. Antony’s best-selling books include My Israel Question, on the Israel/Palestine conflict, The Blogging Revolution, on the internet in repressive regimes, Profits of Doom, about privatisation. His latest book is Disaster Capitalism: Making A Killing Out Of Catastrophe, about fortunes made from disaster, poverty and catastrophe. His first film is Disaster Capitalism. He’s currently working on a book about the global “war on drugs”.This podcast is brought to you by Cufa, an international development agency alleviating poverty across the Asia Pacific .

Coming April 30, our first episode features journalist, author and documentarian, Antony Loewenstein, in conversation about how aid fails and the murky world where politics and aid meets business.Make sure you've subscribed to Conversations in Development to catch all our open and honest conversations with industry experts about issues in foreign aid and the development sector.