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Accessibility statement
Qualification dates
StartEnd
03 Oct 2026Jun 2027
This module will equip you with the skills to ask and explore critical questions about global development. You’ll learn about approaches, methods and sources used to investigate development, empowering you to assess claims made in academic research and in policy and practice. Through the lenses of crisis, complexity, and change, you’ll examine key development issues, including conflict, education, environmental sustainability, health, migration, and poverty. This will encourage and enable you to question established arguments about development, and identify issues you’d like to investigate with increasing independence, building your own understanding of the global challenges we face.
Block 1 introduces the module themes of crisis, complexity, and change, and explains how they can be used to better understand global development. You’ll learn how events such as the resurgence of China and the growing urgency of the ‘climate crisis’ are calling into question established ways of thinking about and practising development.  By focusing on debt, you’ll explore how historical and contemporary dynamics shape processes of development across scales, from within the household to the international level. You’ll start building skills to investigate global development, and you’ll apply these to understanding more about an aspect of debt that interests you.
Block 2 examines ideas of crisis, which are increasingly used to frame development challenges. You’ll consider why this is happening, what it tells us about the different actors and interests that shape development, and who benefits and who loses out as a result. You’ll explore three key development issues often framed as crises: migration, conflict, and climate change. You’ll look at how different forms of media, including news reporting and social media, shape how such issues are understood and can be used as sources for investigating development.
Block 3 employs the idea of ‘complexity’ to consider why development challenges are difficult to resolve. Processes of development do not occur in predictable, linear ways and are not easily controlled. When development interventions ignore complexity, they often fail to achieve their goals and can produce harmful unintended consequences. However, the block outlines ways to work with complexity to better pursue positive change. You’ll develop skills in using grey literature to investigate complex development challenges related to humanitarian emergencies, energy provision, and sustainable livelihoods.
Block 4 explores ideas of ‘change’, which are central to most definitions of development. You’ll consider debates about what kind of change is desirable, how change happens, and how we know about and measure change. The block explores important contemporary issues in development scholarship and practice, including: geopolitical change and the growing power of China; how we know whether development interventions have worked; and the relationship between technological innovation and social change. You’ll use academic sources and different types of qualitative and quantitative evidence to investigate how these issues are implicated in processes of transformation.
In Block 5, you’ll consolidate and build on the independent exploration you have conducted throughout the module. For the end-of-module assessment, you’ll apply your investigation skills to understanding an issue of your choice.
This is an OU level 3 module. OU level 3 modules build on study skills and subject knowledge acquired from previous studies at OU levels 1 and 2. They are intended for students who have recent experience of higher education in a related subject.
The OU level 2 module, Introducing global development: poverty, inequality, sustainability (D229), would be a useful prior module.
If you have any doubt about the suitability of the module, please contact an adviser.
You’ll get help and support from an assigned tutor throughout your module.
They’ll help by:
Online tutorials run throughout the module. While they’re not compulsory, we strongly encourage you to participate. Where possible, we’ll make recordings available.
Course work includes:
You’ll be provided with two printed module books and have access to the module website, which includes:
The OU strives to make all aspects of study accessible to everyone, and this Accessibility Statement outlines what studying D329 involves. You should use this information to inform your study preparations and any discussions with us about how we can meet your needs.
To find out more about what kind of support and adjustments might be available, contact us or visit our Disability support website.
Investigating global development: crisis, complexity, change starts once a year – in October.
This page describes the module that will start in October 2026.
We expect it to start for the last time in October 2037.
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