Global development policy, heard in the room.
ODI live events podcast turns public ODI Global events into structured audio for people tracking international development and humanitarian policy. Its episodes move from careful institutional framing into expert panels, audience questions, and applied debates about power, funding, rights, and implementation.
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ODI live events podcast is the audio record of ODI Global's public conversations on development, humanitarian policy, and international affairs. The format is usually a live room or webinar, with moderators guiding speakers through an agenda rather than shaping the material into a studio interview. That gives the show a distinctive patience. It often spends its opening minutes naming the institution, the audience, the purpose of the event, and the policy moment that makes the discussion necessary. Once established, episodes give substantial time to panelists, researchers, fellows, and invited speakers. The subjects are weighty and practical. Recent sessions examine AI in the Commonwealth, including capacity building, data infrastructure, AI Academy, incubator, entrepreneurship, and the barriers created by energy, hardware, and digital infrastructure. Gender-focused episodes place EU foreign policy in a wider global context of underfunded equality goals, anti-gender movements, ODA cuts, and democratic backlash. Humanitarian episodes are more urgent, moving through civil society restrictions, shrinking humanitarian space, impunity, international humanitarian law, and the human impact of violence in Gaza and Palestine, Syria, and Myanmar. Other events concentrate on inclusive and sustainable economic transformation, with attention to manufacturing, climate finance, textiles and clothing, free trade zones, inclusion, and implementation. The ODI Fellowship Scheme episodes are more service-oriented, answering applicant questions about placements, adaptation, government work, culture, and the long-term future of the scheme. The decolonising leadership discussion turns toward representation, decision-making, and the gap between sector language and operational change. Across the feed, the recurring tension is between policy ambition and the systems that make action difficult. Speakers return to funding, institutions, political space, implementation capacity, and the unequal distribution of risk. The tone is measured, sometimes grave, and rarely casual. It assumes listeners can stay with complexity. It also takes care to define terms, recap themes, and translate global context into consequences for governments, organisations, and communities. The show is best understood as an event archive with editorial value: it lets listeners hear how development professionals frame problems in public, where they agree, where they qualify, and where the hard questions remain open.
Made for: For listeners who follow humanitarian policy, development, international affairs, gender equality, climate, AI, and institutional reform. It suits people who prefer full-context expert discussion over short opinion segments.
What sets it apart: The show keeps the architecture of live policy events intact: moderator framing, panel transitions, audience context, and extended answers. That makes it useful as a record of how development debates are presented inside institutional rooms.
Live recordings of the Overseas Development Institute events, covering everything from climate change to migration, gender to the Sustainable Development Goals. Join our global discussion of international development and humanitarian issues here.Find out more about ODI events: www.odi.org/events
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Policy debates become concrete through research, country perspectives and candid discussion of the institutions responsible for turning principles into practice.
ODI live events podcast turns public policy convenings into substantial listening, with moderators setting out the stakes before researchers, officials and other speakers work through evidence and competing priorities.
A physically hefty roadmap runs into the implementation problem; you get to hear the room work through it.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A Commonwealth policy webinar links AI ambition to the capacity, infrastructure, and hardware needed for real adoption.
AI for a Thriving Commonwealth treats artificial intelligence as a development question for a voluntary association of 56 countries with sharply different economic realities.
A candid applicant briefing on the work, relationships and uncertainty surrounding an ODI fellowship.
The ODI Fellowship Scheme is examined through the questions prospective applicants are likely to have: how competitive selection works, what the job involves and how fellows earn trust inside government institutions.
A measured Brussels discussion connects global gender-equality setbacks with Mexico's proposed equality reforms.
The episode looks at gender equality as a test of EU foreign policy, beginning at a Brussels Gender Talks event shaped by concerns over stalled progress, weak funding for SDG 5, ODA cuts, and a wider anti-gender and democratic backlash.
A measured ODI Global event connects economic transformation with the implementation work behind inclusion and environmental sustainability.
ODI Global's launch event puts inclusive, sustainable economic transformation under real-world pressure, especially for low- and middle-income countries facing severe food insecurity and rising greenhouse-gas emissions.
A serious live policy discussion on the pressure created when aid access and human rights are pulled apart.
Humanitarian work is treated here as something deeply exposed to politics, not a neutral lane running beside it. In this live ODI discussion, the panel looks at how governments can narrow civil society space, pressure human rights defenders, and split organizations by permitting…
A measured global-south assessment of the BRI's infrastructure record and next phase.
This single-episode review frames China's Belt and Road Initiative through a ten-year policy reckoning, using a live ODI Europe hybrid event to focus on development cooperation and countries of the global south.
A live policy discussion on Gaza, impunity, and the work of renewing international law.
Impunity gives this episode its charge. In a live ODI Global conversation, Sara Pantriano, ODI Global's chief executive, guides a discussion of what humanitarian principles can still mean amid the rise in violations of international humanitarian law and atrocity crimes in Gaza…
National security through consequences, not noise.
Connecticut talk with sharp civic instincts.
Books, media, memory, and public evidence.
ODI hosts a panel with UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, Amnesty's Agnes Callamard, and scholar Nimer Sultany on upholding humanitarian principles amid impunity.
ODI Europe hosts a hybrid event marking the Belt and Road Initiative's 10-year anniversary.
A live recording of an ODI event discussing global development and humanitarian issues with a panel of experts.
Jodie Keane opens ODI Global's webinar on "Artificial Intelligence for a Thriving Commonwealth," and Radhika Kumar positions the Commonwealth AI Consortium around development, not just technology.
Sasha Kapati frames the ODI Fellowship Scheme as a Q&A for new candidates, with 1,400 applications last year for about 35 fellowship spots.
ODI Europe and UN Women hosted the first 2025 Gender Talks in Brussels on the EU's foreign policies, and Dora Meredith said no country is on track for gender equality.
ODI Global launched "Driving Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Transformation" with Sarah Kollenbrander chairing and Mavis Owusu-Girau of ASET giving the keynote.
["ODI\u2019s \"Revolution and rupture\" panel pairs Syria\u2019s post-regime transition with Myanmar\u2019s war and a new ODI study on human rights versus humanitarian relief.", "Zeynep Moelen says the research found a \"multi-mandate conundrum,\" deep disagreement over neutrality, and pressure that turns grassroots civil society into NGOized service delivery.", "Sana Hikiyah says Syria has shifted from a \"frozen conflict\" to talk of rewriting institutions and elections, but warns that post-regime aid needs a Syrian-led strategy or it can become another humanitarian trap.", "Zoya Pan says Myanmar\u2019s military is chasing legitimacy through an election while ethnic revolutionary groups regain territory, and Kwebe Debarre argues donors should treat neutrality as operational rather than political."]
A live event discussing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, focusing on violations of international law and civilian casualties.
A panel discussion on decolonizing leadership in the humanitarian and development sector, featuring experts sharing obstacles and actionable tips.
A discussion with UNDP Administrator Hakim on global development challenges in a multipolar world.
A live discussion with Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti reflecting on 25 years since Kosovo's liberation and the country's future aspirations.
An interview with Lord Mark Mulder-Brown discussing his reflections on philanthropy, global challenges, and the future of the development sector.
A panel discussion at ODI about Greg Makoff's book on Argentina's debt crisis and sovereign debt restructuring.
Opening remarks at an ODI event introducing the think tank's work and a panel discussion on global development issues.