In conversation: Dr Judith-Ann Walker

A work-life balance like no other

After finishing, she and her family moved to Nigeria, where Judith-Ann and her husband started the development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC), a non-profit focused on uplifting and enabling the capacities of civil society organizations on the ground. When they started dRPC in the 1990s, there were very few civil society organizations around. Today, it is one of the most well-established organizations in Nigeria, and one of the top think tanks in Africa. dRPC focuses on providing analysis, research and guidance on programming decisions or country strategy, but always with a focus on the vulnerable and the effects that high-level programming can have on the ground.

With her PhD in development administration with a sub-focus on education and industrial administration, Judith-Ann has also been working on developing master’s programmes in Nigerian and Dutch universities, drawing heavily on her international, multidisciplinary experiences during her ISS MA and PhD. With her own PhD straddling the line between social and economic development, she firmly believes that ISS is one of the few institutes that would have allowed for that form of cross-over. Indeed, she chuckles when recalling a conversation with a reviewer looking to publish her PhD who puzzled over where to place her research within the field.

Cross-disciplinary freedom within and outside ISS

It was a combination of this freedom and creativity that ISS allowed her to have, and the international exposure she received simply by being in the institute, that Judith-Ann values most about her time here. This comfort was useful in helping round out her experience and understanding of what development should be. As she puts it:

'From the beginning, coming from the small island of Trinidad and Tobago, I was exposed to understanding development from many different terms, across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe. But it was the synergy that we’re addressing the same issues - inequality, underdevelopment, policy being developed and implemented but not delivering what one wants to deliver – that synergistic experience of trying to combine all these perspectives from colleagues and friends that cemented my experience. I carried that drive forward into my PhD, of what development is, and what it shouldn’t be.'

Moving to the next stages in the development field, while unsaid, it is clear from her post-ISS work with universities, governments, the UN and dRPC, that this synergy went beyond her education. When asked what she thinks ISS could be doing more of, she points to the tension both in the institute and in the field around activism versus academics: to this day she sees this tension between academic-centric researchers focusing on theoretical understandings of development, while activist-centric researchers look to develop solutions that can be applied practically. As she notes, both are necessary in order to round out the field.

She goes further, pointing out that ISS is one of the places in which cross-disciplinary integration is becoming more mainstream. When she was studying, disciplines were siloed: economics, agrarian, public policy and so forth, all working in their own spaces. Over time she has seen a change towards cross-functional, cross-disciplinary collaboration, especially in the areas of gender and climate change. This is a positive step she hopes to see more of from both ISS and the development field in general.

Having now worked in it for several decades, our conversation turns to how the field itself has changed. Judith-Ann refers to the role of young people, especially in Africa. There has been a drastic shift in recent years towards the role of youth, the voice they have, the exclusion they face and where they fit within society. Conversations around including women through more active participation in development have also started happening more regularly, where the possibility of bringing in more voices in a direct, honest manner is being tackled. Not fast enough for Judith-Ann, but it’s a start.