Ideas in Development: VoxDev’s New Podcast
VoxDev is launching a second podcast. Here's why, and what we have planned.
You will be able to watch this podcast on YouTube.
Economics has answers to important questions
The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better.
I love Max Roser’s framing that these three statements, rather than being contradictory, are all true.
Progress is real, but fragile, and the decisions we make today can accelerate or stall it. If you haven’t, you should definitely read the full article on Our World in Data.
My view is that economics is the key to understanding all three statements. Why so many still live in poverty around the world; how hundreds of millions have escaped it over the last few decades, and how we can speed up this process moving forwards.
I’m Oliver Hanney, the Managing Editor here at VoxDev, and we are launching a new podcast called Ideas in Development. In the first episode, I took a couple of minutes to explain our thought process, and preview some of the upcoming series we’ve been working on. You can listen to that wherever you get your podcasts, watch on YouTube (all episodes will have a video option), or read this post that also contains everything you need to know.
Does the world really need another podcast?
It’s certainly fair to question whether we need another podcast. Our starting point for making this decision was looking at the current podcast landscape.
The economics podcasts that reach the widest audiences are missing many of the most important ideas, questions, and conversations. Low- and middle-income countries are over 80% of the global population, yet the ideas most relevant to this global majority, where there also happens to be the most potential to improve people’s lives, are underdiscussed.
And these are not just important stories to tell because of the impact they could have, but they are fascinating ones. Our goal is to cover as many of them as possible.
My job as host
My job as host isn’t to be the expert, it’s to make sure you actually hear from them. So for this podcast, we are going to structure things slightly differently. We are going to take some of the biggest topics in development, and instead of trying to cover them in a single episode, we’ll spend an entire series delving deep into each, to break them down into a series of conversations. Hopefully, this will ensure that adequate time is given to the big issues, and that we hear from a range of key perspectives.
Our first three series will cover three of the big forces reshaping opportunity in the 21st century - growth policy, AI, and cities.
For the entirety of each series, I am going to be joined by a co-host that’s an expert on the topic (from left to right, Deena Mousa on AI, Kurtis Lockhart on cities, and Kartik Akileswaran on growth policy).
And in each episode of each series, myself and the co-host will cover the big issues through conversations with a range of guests, ranging from politicians, to researchers, to practitioners.
Whoever we speak to, we will start with their background, and how they ended up where they are. When speaking to politicians, we will ask how they actually got stuff done. From researchers, we want to know what the best new work tells us about the world.
So, if you’re someone who cares about how economies change, and how they could change faster, for the better, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. You can expect an episode in your inbox every Tuesday morning (UK time).
Our first two episodes come out next Tuesday, one previewing our series on growth, and a second, our first interview, which covers how Costa Rica became a global powerhouse in trade.
We want to hear from you
Making something that people want to listen to is the entire reason for starting this. That means I want to hear back from you, and please be honest. What can I do better as host, what stories should we cover, are we adding value to what’s out there?