Sem02 (2025-2026) International Development*

Course details

• Practical information

  Academic year
  2025-2026

  Semester
  2

  Period
  5

  Participation
  Also open for 1st year students

  Day(s)
  Tuesday and Thursday

  Time
  18:00 – 20:30

  Number of meetings
  12

  Dates of all meetings
  31 March
  2, 7, 9, 14, 16, 21, 23 April
  12, 19, 21 May
  2 June

  Location
  Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam

  Room
  To be announced

  Credits
  6

  Course coordinator(s)

  • Dr. Oleksandr Khyzhniak
  • Dr. Prosper Simba Maguchu

  Guest lecturers

  • Dr. Pius Mosima
  • Dr. Denyse J. Snelder
  • Dr. Anna Bon
  • Dr. Marina de Recht
  • Dr. Iryna Frankova
  • Drs. Wendelien Tuijp
  • Jorn Dormans

• Learning objectives

  • Students will evaluate and articulate their perspectives on the multifaceted concept of development, engaging in critical discourse regarding their roles within international and global development practices.
  • Students will critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), exploring their effectiveness and limitations in addressing global challenges.
  • Students will identify various forms of power and critically describe their relationships to inequality, analyzing how these dynamics influence processes of exclusion and inclusion in development contexts.
  • Students will understand the significance of local perspectives in international development, applying insights from these perspectives to enrich their analytical frameworks and approaches.
  • Students will develop skills to systematically select, critically review, and synthesize relevant literature, effectively extracting key insights from diverse learning materials and articulating their reflections through peer blogs.

• Working formats & structure

  The course consists of specific topical lectures (economy, human rights, food security, etc.) and lectures on cross-cutting themes related to global development (e.g., gender themes). Meetings are planned on campus. In groups, students prepare and present a case study. Participants will do a debate during meetings. As final individual assignment students will write a blog on chosen topic.

• Assessment methods

  This course is designed so that each of the learning goals listed is achieved through active participation in the course activities and self-study.

  Group assessment, 30%:

  Group assessments would be implemented both during contact hours in class and after class. Students take one of the topics of the course and prepare a presentation on listed variants. They will receive the assignment in advance as well as the assessment form for the presentation. Groups will need to submit a one or two-pager on their chosen topic and idea for a go-ahead. Students also need to reflect on the workload and designated tasks within their group as part of the final assessment. This final group presentation and discussion follows will take place during the last meetings and will serve as final assessment.

  Debates, 30%:

  Participants will do a debate during the course. Each participant will be assigned a role. There will be an in-class individual assessment on the debate. Students will receive the criteria for this debate in advance.

  Blog assignment (individual), 40%:

  Each student should write a blog about 1 of the topics/lectures. A blog will be shared with all participants digitally. A table and schedule will be provided on the first day who will write a blog on which day:

  • encourage students to discover an innovative, captivating, and concise way to convey the central concepts of the lecture to an external audience
  • to invite them to critically reflect and contribute to debates.

  Blogs will not be presented during class unless requested/required. A brief introduction and background are given by the creators and there will be a brief moment for Q&A and feedback.

• Fraud and Plagiarism

  With regard to fraud and plagiarism, the VU Student Charter (Chapter 10) and the rules and regulations of the Examination Board of the faculty that offers the course, apply. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board will be informed.

• Attendance expectations

  • Be present at all lectures and work groups. Make sure to inform your teacher as soon as possible if you cannot attend a class due to special circumstances. If you are absent for two lectures and/or work groups, or over 15 % of all meetings, the teacher can assign an additional task or deny further participation.
  • Active participation in the seminars and class discussions plays a crucial role in student learning in the course, and in the student’s ability to reach the course objectives: attendance, preparation, and active in-class participation will therefore form part of the course assessment.

• Study material 

  Provisional reading list

  • Otzelberger, A. (2018, January 24). Five questions you need to ask yourself if you (want to) work in international development. Medium; The Good Jungle. https://medium.com/the-good-jungle/five-questions-you-need-to-ask-yourself-if-you-want-to-work-in-international-development-79b32b8c8f6d
  • Jan, N. P. (2001). Development Theory: Deconstructions/Reconstructions. Progress in Development Studies, 246-248.
  • Easterly, W. (2015). The SDGs should stand for senseless, dreamy, garbled. Foreign Policy, 28, 1-5.
  • Webb, S., Holford, J., Hodge, S., Milana, M., & Waller, R. (2017). Lifelong learning for quality education: exploring the neglected aspect of sustainable development goal 4. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 36(5), 509-511.
  • Etana Dula, Denyse J. Snelder, Cornelia F.A. van Wesenbeeck, Tjard de Cock Buning (2020). Climate Change, In-situ Adaptation, and Migration Decisions of Smallholder Farmers in Central Ethiopia, Migration and Development, DOI: 10.1080/21632324.2020.1827538. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/21632324.2020.1827538
  • Angeles, L., & Gurstein, P. (2000). Planning for participatory capacity development: The challenges of participation and North-South partnership in capacity building projects. Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d'études du développement, 21(sup1), 447-478.
  • Pavletic, I. (2009). The Political Economy of Asset Recovery Processes. International Centre for Asset Recovery, 5570284-1257172052492.
  • Gebresenbet, F., & Tariku, Yo. (2023). “The Pretoria Agreement: mere cessation of hostilities or heralding a new era in Ethiopia?” Review of African Political Economy, 20 VOL. 50, NO. 175, 96– 106. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2023.2196714
  • Roape. (2023, June 15). A response to “The Pretoria Agreement: Mere cessation of hostilities or heralding a new era in Ethiopia?” - ROAPE. ROAPE. https://roape.net/2023/06/15/a-response-to-the-pretoria-agreement-mere-cessation-of-hostilities-or-heralding-a-new-era-in-ethiopia/
  • Nehrey, M., Kostenko, I., Kravchenko, Y. (2023). Digital Transformation in Ukraine During Wartime: Challenges and Prospects. In: Hu, Z., Wang, Y., He, M. (eds) Advances in Intelligent Systems, Computer Science and Digital Economics IV. CSDEIS 2022. Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies, vol 158. Springer, Cham, 380-391. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24475-9_33
  • Ibhawoh, Bonny. “The Right to Development: The Politics and Polemics of Power and Resistance.” Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 1, 2011, pp. 76–104