Supporting higher education in unstable states: Can foreign contributions ever deliver?

Social convulsions around the world bring into perspective longstanding efforts for higher education reform in emergency or post-conflict settings. These efforts are often funded by international development agencies in Global North and high-income countries, or by international organisations.

Universities and academics frequently carry out or advise these development projects, inviting introspection about the ethics of engaging on such foreign initiatives. At a superficial level, the question is whether or not to engage, but in an increasingly global field of higher education, a more nuanced set of questions involves how to engage with higher education systems in unstable states.

While Afghanistan looms large in current conversations about the limits of higher education and development, the crisis in Myanmar, along with dramatic government transitions in multiple regions over the last several decades serve as reminders that these are recurrent issues. This webinar focuses on the role of universities, primarily in the Global North, in promoting higher education reforms in unstable states and the ethical choices that academics within these institutions may consider.

This webinar is part of the free public seminar programme hosted by the Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE).