Whose Future? Global Visions in a Contested World
A panel discussion organized by Global Visions ry and the Finnish Society for Development Research (FSDR)
Date: 25.2.2026
Time: 17:00-19:00
Place: Think Corner (Tiedekulma), Yliopistonkatu 4, 00100 Helsinki
Whose Future? Global Visions in a Contested World invites you to explore the state of the world in 2026 and to reflect on what today’s shifting power dynamics mean for societies most affected by global inequality. As geopolitical tensions escalate, development priorities are reconfigured, and global governance faces new contestations, we ask: where does power truly lie, and whose lives and futures are prioritized?
A central theme of the event is the practical meaning of the idea of a “multipolar world.” Who gets to define global“problems” and legitimate “solutions” in such a world? Does multipolarity create considerable space for countries and communities outside the traditional centers of power, or does it merely reshuffle old hierarchies under newguises?
Our distinguished panelists bring expertise from different academic and professional backgrounds, combining scholarship with long-standing engagement in public debate, policy, and advocacy. They offer grounded regional perspectives from Latin America, Africa, and Asia, connecting big-picture dynamics—such as deglobalization, autocratization, colonialism, neoliberalism, and populism—to everyday realities: livelihoods, public services,migration, active citizenship, and the struggle to meet basic needs.
The discussion will also consider what is silenced or missing from mainstream narratives, and where there may be room for agency, solidarity, and new visions. We conclude by turning toward the future: what viable forms of resistance, alternatives, and hope are being forged in turbulent times, and what might a better world look like decades from now?
In this forum, we use the term “Global South” to signify unequal power relations in the global order and to name shared struggles, while recognizing the diversity within and across regions.
The event is part of the pre-conference programme of Development Days 2026, celebrating FSDR’s 40th anniversary. It is free and open to the public. The discussion will be filmed and available via livestream and on the Global Visions YouTube channel.
Guests
Walden Bello is a world-renowned scholar and activist. He is currently an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the State University of New York at Binghamton and a retired professor at the University of the Philippines. He is also the co-founder of Focus on the Global South, a leading progressive think tank in Southeast Asia based in Bangkok that is affiliated with Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University. He received the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize) in 2003 for his work in exposing the negative impacts of corporate-driven globalization and was named Outstanding Public Scholar by the International Studies Association in 2008. He served in the Philippine House of Representatives from 2009 to 2015 and ran for vice president in the Philippine elections of 2022. In 2023, Amnesty International Philippines honored him as the “Most Distinguished Human Rights Defender.” The latest of his 25 books is Global Battlefields: Memoir of a Legendary Public Intellectual from the Global South.
Robtel Neajai Pailey is Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). A Liberian scholar-activist working at the intersection of Critical Development, African, and Race Studies, she centres her research on how structural transformation is conceived and contested by local, national and transnational actors from crisis-affected regions of the so-called Global South. Hermonograph, Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa: The Political Economy of Belonging to Liberia has won the 2022 African Politics Conference Group Best Book Award, the 2023 African Studies Association of Africa Pius Adesanmi Memorial Award for Excellence in African Writing, and the LSE inaugural Rising Star Impact Prize in 2025. Previously a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford and an Ibrahim Leadership Fellow at the African Development Bank Group, she also served as the 177th Independence Day National Orator of the Republic of Liberia and was inducted into the Order of the Star of Africa, one of the country’s highest civilian honours, for her distinguished service.
Alfredo Saad-Filho is Professor in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen’s University Belfast. He has worked in universities and research institutions based in Brazil, Belgium, Canada, China, Japan, Italy, Mozambique, Switzerland, and the UK, and was a senior economic affairs officer at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). His research publications include the political economy of development, industrial policy, neoliberalism, alternative economic policies, Latin American political and economic development, inflation and stabilisation, and the labour theory of value and its applications. He previously held senior academic leadership roles at King’s College London and SOAS University of London. A recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Medal of the Federal University of Goiás, his recent books include Progressive Policies for Economic Development and The Age of Crisis: Neoliberalism, the Collapse of Democracy, and the Pandemic.
Moderators: Max Tallberg and Astrid Aminoff
The event is free and open to the public.
