How is international development cooperation being reinvented in an era of geopolitical tension, shrinking aid budgets, and rapidly evolving global challenges? This course takes participants on a journey from the historical foundations of development cooperation, through today’s cutting-edge academic debates, to the emerging futures of international collaboration.
Combining state-of-the-art scholarly insights with perspectives from policy and practice, the course bridges theory and real-world experience. Guest speakers from Dutch-based governmental agencies, NGOs, and international organizations share firsthand reflections on how development cooperation is designed, negotiated, and implemented in practice.
By connecting historical understanding, contemporary academic analysis, and practitioner experience, participants will critically explore the changing rationales, actors, and modalities of development cooperation — and gain the tools to engage with the future of international cooperation with both analytical depth and practical awareness.
Learning objectives
After completing this course, participants will be able to:
Knowledge & understanding
- Explain the historical evolution of international development cooperation and identify key turning points over the past seventy years.
- Describe contemporary academic debates on development cooperation, including shifts in geopolitics, aid architectures, and digital innovation.
- Recognize the roles and interactions of different actors in development cooperation, including states, NGOs, international organizations, and private-sector actors.
Application & analysis
- Analyze how global political and economic trends reshape development cooperation policies and practices.
- Critically assess policy and practice perspectives on development cooperation, drawing on insights from guest speakers and case examples.
- Apply theoretical frameworks to evaluate current and emerging models of international cooperation.
Reflection & future orientation
- Reflect on possible futures of international cooperation and formulate informed perspectives on the changing rationales, modalities, and actors in the field.
