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International Development Events

Join the global debate

The department is involved in hosting an extensive series of events, ranging from research seminars to public lectures.

Our department has hosted a number of high profile speakers including: Winnie Byanyima, Professor Amartya Sen, Dr Ha-Joon Chang, Kate Raworth, Mark Lowcock and Alcinda Honwana.

Upcoming events

Balancing economic reform and stability: Paraguayan lessons for policymakers

Tuesday 17 February 2026 6.30pm - 8pm. In-person public event (LSE campus, venue tbc to ticketholders)

Join us as we welcome Carlos Gustavo Fernández Valdovinos, Paraguay’s Minister of Economy and Finance, for a lecture on the country’s economic transformation from crisis management to achieving investment grade.

Valdovinos will share lessons on balancing stability with reform, fostering inclusion, and building resilient institutions.

Speaker: Carlos Gustavo Fernández Valdovinos is Paraguay’s Minister of Economy and Finance and former Central Bank Governor of the country. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago and has served as a Senior Economist at the IMF and Country Economist at the World Bank. His leadership has been recognised with numerous awards, including “Finance Minister of the Year – Americas” (The Banker, 2025). He has been selected to chair the IMF–World Bank Annual Meetings in 2026.

Chair: Jean-Paul Faguet is Professor of Political Economy of Development at LSE and Chair of the Decentralization Task Force at Columbia University’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue. His research bridges economics and political science, using mixed methods to study institutions and organisational forms that drive development. He has published widely, including Governance from Below: Decentralization and Popular Democracy in Bolivia, winner of the W.J.M. Mackenzie Prize for best political science book of 2012.

Professor Larry Kramer, the President and Vice Chancellor of LSE, will give welcoming remarks at the event.

Lecture - Data and Digital Innovation for Humanitarian Assistance: Lessons from UNRWA

Thursday 19 February 2026 5pm - 7pm. In-person, CLM.4.02, LSE Campus

This lecture will explain how data and digital innovation enhance the effectiveness, efficiency and accountability of humanitarian assistance, drawing on the experience of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It will cover humanitarian access and all phases of the assistance delivery chain, from outreach and registration to assessment of needs and conditions, determination of eligibility, enrolment in benefits and services, and ongoing monitoring and adjustments. Participants will gain practical insights into leveraging technology and analytics across each of these phases, as well as lessons learned in balancing innovation with ethical, operational and community considerations.

Speaker: Valeria Cetorelli | Deputy Director, Relief and Social Services | the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)

Chair: Tiziana Leone | Professor in Health and International Development | Deputy Head of Department, LSE Department of International Development

Hosted by the Department of International Development

Register here to attend.

Book Launch - Capitalist Value Chains: Labour Exploitation, Nature Destruction, Geopolitics

Wednesday 18 March 2026 3.45pm - 6.15pm. In-person, MAR.2.08, Marshall Building, LSE Campus

Is it true that Global Value Chains (GVCs) 'boost incomes, create better jobs, and reduce poverty', as commonly claimed? In this compelling book, Benjamin Selwyn and Christin Bernhold show how the mainstream notion of Global Value Chains (GVCs) obscures their capitalist character. To transcend this shortcoming, the authors introduce the concept of Capitalist Value Chains (CVCs). They explore how and why CVCs generate many highly exploitative jobs, new forms of poverty, are stunting real human development, and are destroying the world's environment.

Speaker: Benjamin Selwyn, professor of international relations and international development at the University of Sussex.

Chair: James Putzel is Professor of Development Studies in the Department of International Development at LSE.

Hosted by the Department of International Development

Cutting Edge Lecture Series WT - Alternate Fridays 4pm-6pm, Old Theatre

Lives Counted: Measuring Mortality Through Revolution, Epidemic and War in Sudan
Date: Friday 23 January 2026 
Speaker: Maysoon Dahab, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Discussants: Rosanna Le Voir, PhD candidate in Demography, LSE

Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men 
Date: Friday 06 February 2026 
Speaker: Patricia Owens, University of Oxford
Discussant: Aoife McCullough, PhD candidate at LSE and Associate Researcher at ODI

The Parent Trap: School Choice and Majoritarian Politics in India 
Date: Friday 20 February 2026 
Speaker: Ritika Arora, PhD candidate, LSE
Discussants: TBC

The expansion of Global Security Agendas in Times of Crisis
Date: Friday 06 March 2026 
Speaker: Ruben Andersson, University of Oxford
Discussant: Myfanwy James, Assistant Professor in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies, LSE

Trade Development Environment: The More Things Change, the More they Stay the Same
Date: Friday 20 March 2026 
Speaker: Silke Trommer, University of Manchester
Discussant: Kathy Hochstetler, Professor of International Development at LSE

Past events

Book Launch - Worlding Home An Urban Ethnography of Peacekeeping Camps in Goma, DRC

Wednesday 28 January 2026, 4pm - 6pm. In-person, MAR.2.10, Marshall Building, LSE Campus

Worlding Home interrogates the social, spatial, and architectural lifeworlds of United Nations (UN) peacekeepers accommodated in contingent camps throughout Goma, the capital of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Pushing against readings of Goma's peacekeeping camps as either more privileged enclaves or as outliers in camp studies when compared to refugee camps, Larsen argues for an understanding of "camp" as a process and practice. Between dwelling and journeying and "here" and "there," the everyday lives and embodied practices of Goma's peacekeepers and Congolese civilians co-construct a "city as elsewhere" in which camping is a vital urban practice.

Speaker: Maren Larsen is a Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Basel. She coordinates the Masters program in Critical Urbanisms, chairs its Pedagogy Committee, and convenes core courses on interdisciplinary methods in urban research, theory in urban studies, emergency urbanism, and the settlement typology of the camp as an urban space.

Chair: Myfanwy James is an Assistant Professor in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies at LSE.

Hosted by the Department of International Development

Celebrating 35 years of LSE ID: Alumni Reflections and the Future of International Development

Tuesday 9 Dec 2025 6.30pm - 8pm, In-person and online public event (LSE campus, venue tbc ticketholders)

Marking 35 years of International Development at LSE, this special alumni panel brings together graduates who are shaping change across sectors and continents.

Speakers: 
Noble Kofi Nazzah, Founding Editor, The Gourd Magazine (MSc African Development, 2019)
Indranil Chakrabarti, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (MSc Development Studies, 1997)
Mia Fraser, Philanthropy Executive at Amnesty International UK (MSc Health and International Development, 2022)
Lisa Al Banyahyatiis, Assistant Vice President, Structuring & Origination, KfW IPEX-Bank (MSc Development Management, 2019)
Arbie Baguios, ESRC-funded PhD International Development researcher studying refugee economies (MSc International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies, 2018)
Chair: James Putzel is Professor of Development Studies in the Department of International Development at LSE

Hosted by the Department of International Development

You can download the entire list of past events from 2012 - 2014 here.