Professor Erik Kuhonta of ISID has written an oped piece in the Globe and Mail on the recent unrest in Myanmar. Read it here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-myanmars-military-is-tak...

On 8 November 2020, Myanmar will hold its second election since the country’s gradual liberalization began. Despite presenting itself as a force for liberal democracy five years ago, the National League for Democracy (NLD) has demonstrated its unwillingness to commit itself to the protection of civil freedoms and the expansion of federal governance.
Alec Regino, a graduate student in ISID's DSO (Development Studies Option) program, has penned an op/ed piece in the Washington Post on COVID-19 and the Duterte regime in the Philippines. The article is available online at the following link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/08/another-nail-coffin-philippines-waning-democracy/
The Institute for the Study of International Development congratulates Ms Émilie Vaillancourt, this year's winner of one of two Norman Prentice awards. Émilie was a joint honours student in the International Development Studies program. The Norman Prentice awards are given annually to two students graduating in the Faculty of Arts with excellent academic records who have also made distinguished contributions to the Faculty and/or the University.

ISID congratulates Barbara Clark -- winner of the 2020 Albert O. Hirschman Prize for Best Undergraduate Research Essay in International Development Studies for her paper on “Water Sanitation Security: The Implementation of Autonomous Desalination in the Gaza Strip."

The challenge of water security is growing globally. Achieving and sustaining water security, in both developed and developing countries, is likely to increase in complexity and priority as climate change intensifies, but also as the demands of economic growth increase. For most MENA countries that were already facing water security and major social, health and economic challenges before COVID-19, this additional pressure is particularly excruciating. Like COVID-19 and climate change, water scarcity in MENA is a global problem that requires collective action.

ISID congratulates its faculty member and Associate Director, Professor Megan Bradley, for receiving the 2020 Principal's Prize for Outstanding Emerging Researchers! Professor Bradley was also recently named a William Dawson Scholar. McGill’s William Dawson Scholar Award recognizes scholars poised to become leaders in their fields and are awarded for a five-year term, similar to that of a CRC Tier 2 Chair. The Principal’s Prize for Outstanding Emerging Researchers was created in 2013 to encourage and celebrate McGill’s most outstanding early-career researchers.

ISID's Jamal Saghir has produced, in coordiation with the Payne Institute for Public Policy, a commentary paper entitled "Post COVID-19 New World Configuration and Climate Change Actions: Two Urgent Priorities". The full paper is available online at the Payne Institute for Public Policy.

More than ever now, Africa is being studied, watched, admired, criticized and exported. In this continual movement of creating new understandings, dismantling biased thought systems and valuing native culture, the creators of this journal, UHURU 2020, give life to the conceptualization of new issues facing Africa in this edition. We hope that you will enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed putting it together with the contributions of students tackling issues across the whole continent! Again, thank you and, we can't say this enough, stay home, stay safe. - Uhuru Team 2020

The Institite for the Study of International Development and the McGill Southeast Asia Research Program (SEARP) are glad to announce that Myanmar based gender expert, May Sabe Phyu, has recently won an N-Peace Award from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). We were lucky to interview May when she visited the International Development Research Center (IDRC) headquarters in Ottawa in May 2019 to give a talk on female political participation in Myanmar.

ISID congratulates Nhu Truong who has just been awarded a Shorenstein postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. As a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia, Dr Truong will pursue research on why some authoritarian regimes are more responsive than others.
Nhu won a graduate field research award from the Institute in 2017 in order to pursue her research in Vietnam and China.

ISID is pleased to acknowledge the recent publication of Legacies of the Left Turn in Latin America: the Promise of Inclusive Citizenship. Co-edited by Professor Manuel Balán of ISID and Professor Françoise Montambeault of the Université de Montréal and published by the University of Notre-Dame Press, the book will have a formal local launch on February 21 at 4 pm at Bar A, 213, rue Rachel est.

A continuously educated workforce is essential for achieving sustainable development. Recognizing the importance and status of education, the United Nations General Assembly included education among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Unfortunately, the education systems in developing countries continue to struggle to achieve the necessary progress. This is especially the case in the lower-middle-income countries (LMICs), where nearly half of the world’s 1.4 billion school-age children live.

McGill-ISID's Professor of Practice Christian Novak participated last week at the OECD's 2020 conference on Private Finance for Sustainable Development.

Why is access to water a crucial issue in the Middle East and North Africa? Because water matters for people, water matters for the economy, water matters for the environment, and water matters for equality. In ISID's most recent policy brief, Professor of Practice Jamal Saghir discusses this issue from a water-security perspective. Read it online now!