Dr Nicholas Bernards has been awarded an Early Career Small Research Grant by the British International Studies Association (BISA), for a project on 'The Colonial Origins of Policy Failures in Global Development Governance'.

The grant for GBP 2,950 will fund preliminary research at the National Archives on the development of financial systems in colonial Africa, focusing in particular on debates between 1930 and 1960 about access to credit for African borrowers in British African colonies. The project examines the particular geographies and institutional forms that regional and territorial financial systems took on in British Africa. It emphasises the ways in which the uneven development of financial systems in the colonial era have posed distinct limits on contemporary global policy frameworks, particularly efforts to promote 'financial inclusion'.

Dr Bernards will present on this research in progress at the BISA 44th annual conference in London on June 12.