Launched in February 2022, the TWP CoP Global Webinar Series addresses leading global affairs and development questions and debates related to Thinking and Working Politically. The Series consists of online webinars organised in collaboration with key partners that span a range of themes including; resilient health systems in the age of COVID-19, revitalising democracy, what localisation means in practice, and TWP-ing about regional cooperation and integration. To find out more, please see below.
Upcoming Event:
Monday 29 April 2024, 08:30am BST: A Conversation on Politics, Development, and Change!
In partnership with the Thinking and Working Politically Community of Practice, The Asia Foundation and Global Partners Governance will bring together speakers from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Malawi, Australia, the UK and more in a conversation hosted by Bridi Rice, from the Development Intelligence Lab based in Australia.
Through a combination of short presentations, live polling and good-natured debate, we’ll explore:
- How well do development actors understand the interests and incentives of the elected officials we work with?
- What shapes politicians’ views of change and reform?
- What are their views on development actors and their goals?
- And ultimately, what does it look like to successfully collaborate with those in power to realise meaningful change
Previous Events in the Series:
Thursday 27 April 2023, 12:00 – 13:30pm BST: Southern Perspectives on international assistance to democracy and human rights: Is donor support fit for purpose?
This webinar starts from the perspective of democracy and human rights activists from the Global South, rather than aid agencies. It asks what they consider to be good practice in terms of the provision of external support to assist democracy and human rights, what has undermined their efforts, and what can be done differently.
Wednesday 15 March 2023, 15:00-16:30pm GMT: Roundtable: In conversation with Heather Marquette, Laure-Hélène Piron and Verena Fritz
To mark the 10th anniversary of the Thinking and Working Politically Community of Practice, this roundtable discussed what some of the most significant innovations around thinking in more politically aware ways and working differently as a result have been over the past decade, what insights and lessons have emerged along the way, where this agenda is getting traction and making a difference, and where it may head next.
Monday 5 December 2022, 14:00-16:00pm GMT: Political Economy Analysis and TWP: Learning from ten years of USAID experience
In collaboration with the TWP Washington DC Working Group
This webinar explores the experience of USAID and its partners with political economy analysis (PEA) and how it has been used to inform programmatic strategy, design and implementation. Drawing on a rich panel of development experts, the discussion examines field applications of PEA across sectors identify facilitating and constraining factors for TWP and look forward at how applied PEA can improve future programming.
Thursday 23 June 2022, 10-11:30am BST: Thinking and working politically about regional cooperation and integration
In collaboration with ECDPM
This online event, organised in collaboration with ECDPM, discussed the experience and challenges of thinking and working politically in regional approaches, focusing on economic integration and cooperation in Africa. Building on lessons from more of a decade of work that ECDPM has led on this, the event explored examples of innovative efforts at supporting regional integration in politically-informed ways to tease out insights about how what has worked well, less well and why, moving from policy to practice and impact.
Wednesday 30 March: Engaging with Politics: towards smarter international support to revitalise democracy
In collaboration with ODI
This webinar explored how democracy assistance can be reconceptualised to get greater traction and relevance on the ground. The discussion focussed on different efforts across themes and areas of engagement in democracy support in a variety of countries and regions. In doing so, it provided key insights about how democracy can deliver and rebuild trust, and deepened understanding of where pressures for democratic reform can inform more effective international development efforts to foster democracy.
This event has now finished. Please click on the button below to watch a recording and read a summary.
Monday 21/ Tuesday 22 March: Localisation and locally led development: An opportunity for thinking and working politically to deliver?
In collaboration with La Trobe University
The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated calls to “localise” aid, ushering much needed reflection about the nature of international development work and the need to ensure that development efforts are genuinely locally led, and that in-country partners have a leading voice in decisions that affect them. But what does localising aid mean in actual practice? This webinar discussed the key issues and debates on the localisation of aid and mapped out what some organisations are doing. Through using a TWP perspective highlighted the pressing questions, dilemmas, tensions, and debates which need to be addressed to keep the agenda moving forward.
This event has now ended. Please click below to read a write-up.
Thursday 17 February 2022: Thinking Politically about Health Systems Resilience in the Context of COVID-19
In collaboration with The Policy Practice, and DAI Global Health
This event examined how the resilience of health systems has been shaped by political and institutional processes, and how the national and international response to COVID-19 has itself affected resilience. The discussion highlighted which factors have mattered most in different contexts and helps to set the agenda for future research in this area, including in the run-up to the 7th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR 2022), whose theme this year is ‘health systems performance in the political agenda.’
The event has now ended. Please click below to watch a recording and read an event write-up.