Development Studies (M.A.)

An interdisciplinary approach to understanding and confronting the impacts of global capitalist development on agrarian structures and environmental systems. Can we feed the world and achieve economic development while conserving ecosystems and improving the livelihoods of peasants and the rural poor? How do we understand and tackle the interlinked agrarian and environmental crises? What types of policies create sustainable development that guarantees justice, equality and autonomy for poor and marginalized communities? The AFES Major focuses on the social, political and economic dynamics of rural and agrarian change and environmental degradation.

Learn to tackle many of the key issues countries face in respect of economic development and economic policy. Many developing countries suffer from slow economic growth, unequal distribution of income and ineffective government services. This major brings out the fundamental linkages between economic growth and human development.

Get insights on how to understand and influence governance processes at local and national levels. Globalization, decentralization and new forms of public-private sector cooperation have changed the ways in which people, organisations and territories are governed. This major addresses the processes and problems of governance, policy and local economic development, and how these work out in the everyday realities of people, with a bias towards the poor and vulnerable.