This event was part of our online programme and took place on our Crowdcast channel. You can watch it HERE.

In recent times, economics has been seriously challenged about its Eurocentric nature and colonial roots. In this event, the panellists question the extent to which the project of economic development has its basis in colonial power structures. It considers the current technical aspects of this project; the dichotomy contrast between the public and private spheres in development policy-making and how this has varied across time and region; and finally, the political economy of the contemporary development agenda, with a specific focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The panel includes Fadekemi Abiru (economist and writer), Surbhi Kesar (Azim Premji University – India), Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven (University of York) and Farwa Sial (University of Manchester) with Romesh Vaitilingam as chair.

This event is part of our ninth Festival of Economics and is curated by Dr Carolina Alves (University of Cambridge) who is on the steering group of D-Econ.

It’s important to us that ideas and debate are affordable to everyone. It’s also important that our commentators, artists, writers, poets and thinkers are paid. This is a Pay What You Can event. You are invited to choose your own contribution to the event, from £0 to £8. All proceeds go towards supporting our speakers and sustaining Festival of Ideas. The option to attend for free is available for all online events.

In association with/

Panel

Fadekemi Abiru is an economist in the UK Civil Service and a writer, with a background in Economics and African Development Her research focus lies in institutional reform for development projects, with a particular interest in topics that challenge neoliberal approaches to development.

Surbhi Kesar is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the School of Arts and Sciences at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. Her research areas include political economy, development economics, labour economics, particularly informality, exclusion, and structural transformation and capitalist transition in labour surplus economies. She received her PhD in Economics from South Asian University, New Delhi and has been a Fulbright Fellow at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is a coordinator for the Economic Development Working Group of the Young Scholars Initiative of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and is a Steering Group member for the Diversifying and Decolonising Economics initiative.

Dr Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven is a Lecturer in International Development at the University of York, UK. Her research focuses on the political economy of development, finance in development, history of economic thought, and decolonizing economics. She founded the blog Developing Economics, co-founded the initiative Diversifying and Decolonising Economics (D-Econ) and is the coordinator of the Association for Heterodox Economics. She holds a PhD in Economics from The New School.

Dr Farwa Sial is a Post-Doc Research Associate bas​ed at the Global Development Institute (GDI), University of Manchester. Her research interests include comparative development, Industrial policy, the evolving role of corporations, late-capitalism, and the changing landscape of development assistance especially in relation to the private sector. She is the co-convenor of D-Econ, DSA Business and Development Group and co-editor of Developing Economics.

Romesh Vaitilingam is an economics writer, communications consultant and editor-in-chief of the Economics Observatory. He is the author of several books and reports on economics, finance, business and public policy, including the Financial Times Guide to Using the Financial Pages, which has sold over a quarter of a million copies since 1993. Romesh also works with the economic research and policy-making community, including the Centre for Economic Policy Research and VoxEU, the European Economic Association, the IGM Forum’s Economic Experts Panels and the Royal Economic Society. In 2003, he was awarded an MBE for services to economic and social science. Follow him on Twitter @econromesh