Last updated on August 21, 2011
The Internet has brought us a number of innovations, but my favorite such innovations is the podcast — defined here as “a program (as of music or talk) made available in digital format for automatic download over the Internet.” I like to think of podcasts as a more personalized talk radio station. I can find podcasts that speak directly to my interests, and I can get my favorite radio shows as podcasts.
For the first time this year, I am making podcasts an integral part of the reading list in my development seminar, which means that I have been on the lookout for development-related podcasts. This has led me to the following two podcasts on the current famine in the Horn of Africa.
The first is a Center for Global Development’s (CGD) podcast with Owen Barder, who is a senior fellow at the CGD. The audio is not very good, but it is well worth bearing with. Owen does address many of the aspects of the current famine, from the very different outcomes one can observe on different sides of the Kenya-Somalia border to the lack of coverage of development issues in the US media relative to the UK media.
The second is a Guardian Focus podcast with Samir Elhawary of the Overseas Development Institute, David Bull of UNICEF, and Jamal Osman, a Somalian who works in the UK as a journalist. Among other things, they discuss how Kenya is responding to influx of Somalian refugees, the various conflicts in Somalia, and on the difficulty of aid delivery in such a context.