International Development

International Development: Global Trends via Local Case Perspectives

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Upon completing this course, participants will have a comprehensive understanding of international development in various development domains. As the world changes and becomes more interconnected, there is an increasing need for experts who know how to tackle global challenges. In this course we focus on the Global South, i.e. the economically disadvantaged regions, and how people can empower themselves to improve their well-being and tackle the inequalities and global challenges we are facing. From a global perspective we will discuss the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Students will emerge with new knowledge and skills for critical reflection and analysis within the field of international and global development practices.

Course description

The traditional North-South divide in international development is losing relevance as global challenges such as resource scarcity, newly emerged inequalities, food security threats, global warming, migration issues, and armed conflicts now affect both developed and developing regions.

Furthermore, globalisation has given rise to complex societal issues that require collaboration among diverse actors, leading to multi-stakeholder cooperation. However, this approach assumes that assembling the right stakeholders will automatically yield solutions, neglecting power imbalances and diverse interests that can lead to exclusion or domination of less powerful actors. Despite increasing collaboration, many development actors still view social change as a linear, controllable process. Organisations are now assessed based on their performance and value for money rather than good intentions. However, the intricate and unpredictable nature of development challenges calls for new and innovative ways to understand, manage, and evaluate development processes and outcomes.

We will zoom in on cross-cutting phenomenon like migration, conflicts, digitalization and newly emerging inequalities as key challenges that shapes current state and present the situation through local cases of Kenya, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Ukraine, Indonesia, etc.

The Centre for International Cooperation at VU Amsterdam emphasizes an integrated, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approach to global challenges, collaborating closely with VU faculties and international partners since 1955. It draws on the expertise of various experts engaged in coordinating and executing capacity-building, education, research, and outreach programs with partners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Continue reading below for course topics and more.

Summer courses

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Fees and scholarships

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How to apply

Application and admission details

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Course level

Advanced

Credits

3 ECTS

Contact hours

Language

English

Tuition fee

€735 - €1310

Forms of tuition and assessment
Forms of tuition
Onsite interactive lectures on campus in class, with guest lecturers, group work based on videos, real-life experience sharing, excursion and case study discussions. Language of instruction: English
Forms of assessment
Students will choose one of the topics and prepare a group presentation. This final group presentation and discussion will take place during the last meetings and will serve as final assessment.
This course is designed so that each of the learning goals listed is achieved through active participation in the course activities.
1. Group assessment: group assessments would be implemented during contact hours in the class. Students take one of the topic 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 work load and designated tasks within their group as part of the final assessment;
2. Blog assignment in pairs (depending on the amount of participants): each pair 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.
  
  Goal:
  - 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
  Blog requirements:
  - Should serve as a platform for you to express creativity or provoke thoughts regarding the main message of the lecture. There's no strict requirement to write; you may choose any format you prefer. Feel free to create a cartoon, craft a photo story, record a spoken column, or produce a video if that suits your style!
  - Your blog should establish a connection between the lecture's content and something beyond the program, such as ongoing debates, personal anecdotes, multimedia content, exhibitions, or parliamentary discussions.
  - Whenever possible, include website links as references. Keep your content concise and engaging.
  - Additionally, ensure your blog includes an accompanying picture (at least 800x500 px) with a clear label for reuse and a relevant title.
  - Submit your blog via email no later than the next day’s lecture. Blogs will not be presented during class unless requested/required. A brief introduction and background is given by the creators and there will be a brief moment for Q&A and feedback.
3. Participants will do a debate during the first week. 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.
The group assignment and presentation are 50%, the Blog is 30%, the debate is 20% .
To achieve a passing grade for the course, students will need to have the total average 5.5 or higher (according to the Dutch grading system).
Attendance is mandatory.
Learning objectives

At the end of the course:
• Participants understand the complexities and key trends and debates that have historically shaped the sector of international development cooperation;
• Participants can recognize and critically reflect upon the concept of development and debate their position in international and global development practices;
• Participants are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the SDGs;
• Participants can identify different forms of power and describe how power relates to inequality and shapes processes of exclusion and inclusion;
• Participants understand the importance and can apply insights of local perspectives in thinking about international development;
• Participants can understand how to select and critically review the literature, extract key messages of different learning material (lecturers, literature) and share their insights via a blog with their peers.
Furthermore, participants will learn and sharpen their skills regarding:
- Writing blogs;
- Debating;
- Public speaking;
- Teamwork;
- Literature review / contextualising.
Preliminary syllabus

Here you can download the preliminary course syllabus for summer 2024.
^{*Please note that it is a preliminary syllabus and that it might be subject to some change before the course starts.}
About the course coordinators

The course will be taught by the team of professionals lecturers and experts that worked on international projects in different countries with strong ties to presented case studies all over the world (focus on Global South countries). Each invited lecturer has academic (PhD and/or higher) and practical background, presenting concrete domain of her/his expertise.
Dr Oleksandr Khyzhniak is a project manager at the Centre for International Cooperation (CIS-VU), has broad experience in international collaboration, management project education, and research, focusing on post-Soviet countries, China and Africa. He prefers to use interdisciplinary approaches and is open to international relations that grounds on his two MA degrees in Sociology and International Economics at Karazin University (Ukraine). During his academic research career, he did his internships in 2009 at Warszawa University (Poland) for the PhD devoted to tolerance issues and at Ariel University (Israel) in 2016-2017 for the post-doc project devoted to collective actions and its determination. During his work experience, he combined educational, research, and management activities. As a project manager at CIS-VU, now he focuses on the implementation of international projects in Global South countries and developing new fields and opportunities in Central Asia and East Neighbourhood countries.
Jorn Dormans is working as a project manager at CIS-VU for nearly 6 years. He has a background in social and cultural anthropology and teaching. In the field of international cooperation, he is mostly working in the MENA region focusing on Education and SRHR related capacity sharing (building) projects. He has expertise in diversity issues, SRHR, Gender awareness, tailor-made training and teaching practices. He graduated at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) for his master in Social and Cultural Anthropology. His research followed the discourses and experiences of (cultural) diversity within the VU. After that he continued with a second Master through the Advanced Master Programme in International Development (AMID) at Radboud University in Nijmegen. Jorn has a passion for education and taught for several years both in primary, secondary and special education and is currently focusing on Train the Trainer Approaches in various CIS-projects. Most of his working experience is in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Jordan and Lebanon. His projects often pay specific attention to refugees and host communities. At CIS his daily activities involve: project management, coordination and project reporting; acquisition and developing project proposals, providing training workshops M&E and policy development. In addition, Jorn is an advocate of using more inclusive and appropriate critical language with regards to ‘Development Cooperation’, gender, race, power, decolonisation, identity and disabilities and migration.

Guest lecturers:
Dr. Denyse J. Snelder,
Dr. Henk van den Heuvel,
Dr. Prosper S. Maguchu,
Dr. Halyna Kravchenkova,
Dr. Lilian Omondi