Center for Values in International Development

02/01/2025

DUE TO INADEQUATE FINANCIAL SUPPORT, PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CENTER FOR VALUES IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (C4V) HAS NOW BEEN CLOSED, AND IS NO LONGER OPERATIONAL.

THIS C4V FACEBOOK SITE WILL BE TAKEN DOWN AT THE END OF FEBRUARY 2025.

01/28/2025

We regret to inform you that the Center for Values in International Development has ceased all operations and is permanently closed. This Facebook site and our website (https://centerforvalues.international) will remain open until February 15th, 2025, for any who wish to see or copy any of the site's resources.

07/04/2024

A request to all my international development colleagues - please consider helping out this initiative by agreeing to an interview!

University of Maryland has partnered with the Center for Values in International Development (C4V), along with NSF I-Corp, to conduct exploratory research related to Development Ethics. We are looking to interview development practitioners and academics in the field of International Development. Learn more: https://buff.ly/3xM5w37

02/02/2024

As noted by my friends Fabrice Houdartin his excellent weekly newsletter:
"the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has announced in a letter from Deputy Executive Director Dave Kerner, a conservative “democrat,” that transgender people are no longer permitted to update the gender marker on their driver's licenses, with gender now being defined as "biological s*x." This policy asserts that any "misrepresentation" of gender on licenses could be considered fraudulent, carrying potential civil and criminal consequences, including revocation of licensure. This policy could also criminalize transgender individuals for using licenses that reflect their gender identity, significantly impacting their daily lives and freedom of movement within the state".

S*x is s*x, gender is gender. When will Florida just learn to let us be whomever we know ourselves to be?

06/29/2023

Pride Month is winding to a close, but we have so much work to do in the months and years ahead to safeguard dignity and hope for LGBTQI+ people everywhere.
I had the honor and opportunity to speak at several Pride events. This week alone, I spoke on a panel with USAID LGBTQI+ Senior Coordinator Jay Gilliam and Save the Children LGBTQI+ champion extraordinaire Andrew Gleason on Wednesday at the very well-attended SID-US/Chemonics half day workshop on LGBTQI+ Solutions, and yesterday on an Organization of American States hosted panel at the Colombian Ambassador's Residence that kicked off a q***r cinema festival featuring films from North, Central, and South America. At the OAS event, I was joined by my friend and indefatigable inters*x activist, Kimberly Zeisleman!

06/28/2023

On July 5th, I am pleased to share that our president, Chloe Schwenke, will be joining a panel at Abt Associates to discuss the dynamic topic of transformational leadership (a core sub-discipline of applied ethics)!

06/19/2023

Pride Month this year feels different. It's clear that the deeper significance of the marginalization of LGBTQI+ people, in the US and globally, must receive far more attention as the anti-LGBTQI+ pushback intensifies.
For those of us working in humanitarian response and international development, this must start now.
See our latest blog at:

A fundamental question of hopePosted on June 19, 2023 | Chloe Schwenke, PhD (President) | Once again, it’s Pride Month around the world. Unlike most such commemorative Pride Months in the recent past, however, the joyful celebrations of identity, expression, rights, and dignity that Pride signifie...

05/31/2023

Last week's annual conference of the Society for International Development - US was such a wonderful post-pandemic opportunity to bring the humanitarian response & development community back together. These are rare opportunities to rise above competitiveness and to celebrate why we all do what we do - because we care about the dignity and wellbeing of people globally!

I took the opportunity at the lunchtime panel Q&A session to pose a question about AI and whether we as a community are giving any thought to incorporating moral values of dignity, rights, opportunities, caring, gender equality and freedoms into the rapidly evolving AI place in our work.

What I fear is that - probably unintentionally - we are largely passively watching AI do its own "machine ethics" learning. The result will be AI applications for relief and development that have minimal alignment with human rights or human dignity, defaulting instead to utilitarian principles that prioritize “efficiency and effectiveness” above all else.

05/19/2023

What's the buzz? Artificial Intelligence! So much excitement, with just a few people feeling a bit unsettled...

When it comes to the already immense gap in access to and control of technology between the Global North and the Global South, AI raises many profound moral questions.

Artificial Intelligence, and Ian’s schoolPosted on May 19, 2023 | Chloe Schwenke, PhD (President) | In 2018, I had the remarkable opportunity to visit my son while he was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, West Africa. Ian taught at a public secondary school in the Ouesse commune in the ...

05/18/2023

Women and Girls Empowered (WAGE) is a global consortium to advance the status of women and girls. On March 30th, Chloe Schwenke served as the lead speaker at a WAGE event exploring male engagement in gender equality, within the larger context of power imbalances.
This blog posted by Muthoni Kamuyu-Ojuolo, the Program Director of WAGE, describes the key takeaways from this excellent event.

The engagement of men in women’s empowerment and gender equality programs is critical to the long-term success of these efforts. Historically, initiatives towards gender empowerment have often been...