Registration details at the bottom of the page

We are delighted to invite IDS alumni in and around Nairobi to join the event: Rethinking Disasters and Development – From Control to Care.

This panel event challenges traditional development models built on prediction, control, and linear planning, instead advocating for approaches rooted in adaptability, care, inclusion, learning, and the embrace of uncertainty.

In the post-independence era of the 1960s — when the Institute of Development Studies and the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Nairobi were established — development was widely understood as a technocratic, expert-led process of modernization. Today, in a far more interconnected and uncertain world, that framing is increasingly inadequate. A different approach is required — one centred on flexibility, adaptation, and care.

The discussion draws on Navigating Uncertainty: Radical Rethinking for a Turbulent World (Polity, 2024) by Prof. Ian Scoones, IDS Sussex, using disaster risk reduction as a focal case. It explores how resilience can be built from below through networks of “high reliability professionals” and embedded, relational systems rooted in local solidarities and moral economies — recognizing disasters not as isolated events, but as unfolding conditions shaped by deep uncertainty.

? Download the book as you join us in celebrating the 60th anniversary of both IDS Sussex and IDS Nairobi:
https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=navigating-uncertainty-radical-rethinking-for-a-turbulent-world--9781509560073

The panel will take place from 2:00-4:00pm EAT, and will be followed by networking from 4:00-5:00pm EAT.