Podcasts on international development topics

I am an avid podcast listener and finally decided to compile a list of episodes that have presented topics in international development. One of my favourite things about podcasts is that they can be used as a storytelling platform to get listeners interested in new topics.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, simply podcasts I subscribe to that have shared an interesting story with themes related to development. If you read this and have a podcast episode in mind, please feel free to share a link in the comments!

Radiolab
Mau Mau –  a very interesting story on the hidden history of colonialism in Kenya in the 1950s right before Kenya’s independence. As it turns out, the British government has just admitted they have several thousand documents from different colonies that were previously considered top secret. The impact of these documents may be enormous in the near future and will be interesting to follow if any other court decisions are made with regards to acknowledgement and monetary or land distribution from the British government and/or post-colonial governments.
Rhino Hunter – is game hunting for conservation purposes wrong? Radiolab did an excellent job navigating the murky waters on eco-tourism, endangered species, and  big game hunting.
Birthstory – this is a story on issues that surround international surrogacy, focused on a special group of Indian women who were working as surrogates in Nepal for Israeli gay couples.

Freakonomics ( a podcast by the authors of the book of the same name):
Failure is your friend 
Fixing the world, bang-for-buck edition
Is migration a basic human right?
Why do people keep having children?

Similarly to podcasts, TED talks are another great platform for people to share new ideas through storytelling. There are presently 47 TED talks available using the keyword “development” which are listed here. These talks range from architecture to technology to microfinancing. My favourite include:
The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Don’t Misrepresent Africa by Leslie Dodson- on photography in Africa
The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier

More to come as I find more podcasts, especially from This American Life archives as I dive deeper into the vault.

 

 

last updated February 27, 2016.