MDG Lecture series at Green College: “Aiding” Development? The Millennium Development Goals, Foreign Assistance and Poverty Alleviation, January 30, 2012.

Please forgive the quick change of circumstances. This event has been postponed due to an unforeseen situation. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused due to the last-minute nature of the postponement. Please check back for further details regarding the rescheduling of the panel discussion, and consider attending another upcoming event in the Millennium Development Goals series, listed below.

Best,
IDRN Steering Committee

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For other lectures in this thematic series, please see below, or download the poster here.

Global health: Prospects and challenges beyond the Millennium Development Goals
Majid Ezzati, Chair in Global Environmental Health, Imperial College London
5-6:30 pm, Thursday, February 16, 2012

New goals for a new millennium?
The politics of gender, environment and biodiversity
Ferida Akhter, Executive Director, UBINIG, Bangladesh
5-6:30 pm, Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Off track, onside? Realising the water and sanitation MDG may be possible, but what will it achieve?
Lyla Mehta, Research Fellow, Institute for Development Studies, Brighton, England
5-6:30 pm, Wednesday, March 28 2012

All events are at the Green College Coach House (6201 Cecil Green Park Road, UBC) and open to the public without charge.

Complimentary tea and coffee are available in the Piano Lounge of Graham House at Green College from 4:30 pm onwards. Those attending talks at Green College are warmly invited to stay for dinner. For information on obtaining dinner tickets and making reservations, see www.greencollege.ubc.ca/join_us_for_dinner/index.php.

This Green College Thematic Series is co-sponsored by the Liu Institute for Global Issues and the International Development Research Network.

Over the past two decades, the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs—eight guiding objectives to reduce global poverty and improve the standard of living of the world’s poor—have became the foundation of the United Nation’s international development framework. As the suggested timeline for these targets is soon coming to an end (2015), there is a need for discussion and evaluation of what progress has been made towards meeting these goals, what obstacles remain, and what the effects of the MDGs as a policy instrument and set of guiding principles have been. This series engages with the set of goals on the whole, as well as several specific mandates, to improve understanding of issues related to poverty alleviation in the developing world, and also to address key governance issues and outstanding concerns.

IDRN, the Liu Institute for Global Issues and Green College are partnering to bring to the UBC community a series of lectures and student roundtables with experts in areas ranging from hunger and poverty to gender and health. The upcoming 2012 events include:

Jan 30th:

“AIDING” DEVELOPMENT? THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS, FOREIGN ASSISTANCE AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION.
Ashok Kotwal, Department of Economics, UBC John Hariss, School for International Studies, SFU Philippe Le Billon, Department of Geography, UBC Patrick Francois (Moderator), Department of Economics, UBC

Feb 16th:

GLOBAL HEALTH: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES BEYOND THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS.
Majid Ezzati, Chair in Global Environmental Health, Imperial College London

Feb 29th:

NEW GOALS FOR A NEW MILLENIUM? THE POLITICS OF GENDER, ENVIRONMENT AND BIODIVERSITY
Ferida Akhter, Executive Director, UBINIG, Bangladesh

Mar 28th:

OFF TRACK, ONSIDE? REALISING THE WATER AND SANITATION MDG MAY BE POSSIBLE BUT WHAT WILL IT ACHIEVE?
Lyla Mehta, Research Fellow, Institute for Development Studies, Brighton, England

Full poster with additional information is available here. 

Where: Green College Coach House, 6201 Cecil Green Park Road

Presented By: Arnold Timmer
Senior Advisor, Micronutrients, UNICEF

Over the past two decades, the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs—eight guiding objectives to reduce global poverty and improve the standard of living of the world’s poor—have became the foundation of the United Nation’s international development framework. As the suggested timeline for these targets is soon coming to an end (2015), there is a need for discussion and evaluation of what progress has been made towards meeting these goals, what obstacles remain, and what the effects of the MDGs as a policy instrument and set of guiding principles have been. This series engages with the set of goals on the whole, as well as several specifi c mandates, to improve understanding of issues related to poverty alleviation in the developing world, and also to address key governance issues and outstanding concerns.

Part of the Thematic Series, “The United Nations Millenium Development Goals: Progress and Prospects”, co-sponsored by Green College, the Liu Institute for Global Issues and the International Development Research Network (IDRN).

Open to the public without charge.

Complimentary tea and coffee are available in the Piano Lounge of Graham House at Green College from 4:30 pm onwards. Those attending talks at Green College are warmly invited to stay for dinner. For information on obtaining dinner tickets and making reservations, see www.greencollege.ubc.ca/join_us_for_dinner/index.php.

Full presentation slides are available here.

For more information on the full thematic series, please see the poster here.

When: Wed., Nov. 23, 2011, 12:30-1:30pm

Where: Liu Institute for Global Issues, 3rd Floor Boardroom

For four days in early December 2010, the worst forest fire in the history of the modern Middle East raged across Mount Carmel, in what is today northern Israel. Over 40 people died, and over 15,000 hectares of national parks and nature reserves were burned. Widespread anger threatened to topple the acting government and ethnic tensions between Jewish and Arab citizens flared.

In the following months, UBC PhD student Jordan Levine conducted cognitive anthropological fieldwork on the Carmel region, interviewing local Druze Arab residents—who have since been blamed for the fire—as well as key Israeli Nature and Parks Authority employees. In this presentation, Jordan will talk about his somewhat surprising findings (including voiceless goats), as well as the challenges of doing such work in the Middle East.

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Please RSVP if you plan to attend: http://app.fluidsurveys.com/s/field-debrief-levine/
attendance is free

The deadline to apply has been extended to November 15th. For full details, please see the posting on the Liu Institute website.

When: November 8, 2011 – 12:30pm-1:30pm

Where: Liu Institute for Global Issues, 3^rdFloor Boardroom

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a market based tool under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which allows for generation of tradable certified credits through investment in emission reduction projects. In June 2011, a local Indian NGO, Samuha, received the country’s first CDM approval for a cook stove program. Samuha plans to distribute 40,000 improved cook stoves in villages in Karnataka State with an aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and improving health and livelihoods in rural villages.

In summer 2011, UBC researchers, Andy Grieshop*, Conor Reynolds and Ther Aung, together with researchers from University Minnesota traveled to India to set up a randomized control trial to evaluate the health, climate and livelihood impacts of Samuha’s first cook stove change-out program. Conor and Ther will share their experiences of working in rural India and the technical, logistical, and cultural challenges associated with implementing a complex, technical, and multi-disciplinary study.

*Formerly a UBC Postdoc

Field Debriefs are a recurring event brought to you by the Liu Institute for Global Issues and the International Development Research Network. To inquire about delivering a future debrief, please contact IDRN.

Jean Lebel, Director, Agriculture and Environment, International Development Research Centre

5-6:30pm, Wednesday, October 26, 2011

A free lecture at Green College Coach House, UBC

This is the first lecture in the Green College Thematic Series entitled The United Nations Millennium Development Goals: Progress and Prospects, co-sponsored by the Liu Institute for Global Issues and IDRN. Over the past two decades, the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs—eight guiding objectives to reduce global poverty and improve the standard of living of the world’s poor—have became the foundation of the UN’s international development framework. As the suggested timeline for these targets is soon coming to an end (2015), there is a need for discussion and evaluation of what progress we have made towards meeting these goals, what obstacles remain, and what the effects of the MDGs as a policy instrument and set of guiding principles have been. This series engages with the set of goals on the whole, as well as several specific mandates, to improve understanding of issues related to poverty alleviation in the developing world and also to address key governance issues and outstanding concerns. Specific lectures will likely include focus on poverty and hunger; gender equality, environmental sustainability, water quality and access, and education.

For more information on the Green College Interdisciplinary Lecture Series, please see the Green College website.

The Earth System Governance conference in 2012 in Lund, Sweden, will be a major event to address issues of climate change justice and fairness!

The Lund Conference on Earth System Governance: Towards Just and Legitimate Earth System Governance – Addressing Inequalities

Lund University, 18-20 April 2012

www.lund2012.earthsystemgovernance.org

We invite you to the Lund Conference on Earth System Governance to be held 18-20 April 2012 in Lund, Sweden. This conference is part of a global series organized by the Earth System Governance Project. The first Earth System Governance conference was held in Amsterdam in December 2009 and the second in Fort Collins in May 2011. The 2012 Lund Conference on Earth System Governance is hosted by Lund University and jointly organized by the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) and the Department of Political Science at Lund University, on behalf of the Earth System Governance Project.

* Key Dates

- Deadline for paper abstracts: 5 November 2011

- Notification of acceptance: 5 December 2011

- Full papers due: 15 March 2012

* Background

The Earth System Governance Project, a ten-year research programme under the auspices of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), was launched in 2009 to address the problems of environmental governance. In this project earth system governance is defined as the interrelated system of formal and informal rules, rule-making mechanisms, and actor-networks at all levels of human society (from local to global) that are set up to steer societies towards preventing, mitigating, and adapting to global and local environmental change and earth system transformation, within the normative context of sustainable development.

The Earth System Governance Project’s Science Plan (available atwww.earthsystemgovernance.org) is organized around five analytical problems. Architecture relates to the emergence, design and effectiveness of governance arrangements. Agency addresses questions of who governs the earth system and how. Adaptiveness explores the ability of governance systems to change in the face of new knowledge and challenges as well as to enhance adaptiveness of social-ecological systems in the face of major disturbances. Accountability refers to the democratic quality of environmental governance arrangements. Finally, the theme of Allocation & Access addresses questions of justice, equity, and fairness. The Lund Conference on Earth System Governance will address all of these five analytical problems. The conference will particularly focus on research on accountability and legitimacy, and on allocation and access and will critically examine questions of justice, democracy, legitimacy and accountability in research and practice.

The 2012 Lund Conference will be organised in four thematic streams:

1. TOWARD JUST, FAIR AND EQUITABLE EARTH SYSTEM GOVERNANCE:

First, we invite paper submissions that analyse questions of justice and fairness in earth system governance. These papers may address various dimensions of justice and fairness, such as justice between nation states (e.g. North/South); between present and future generations; between groups in society such as the ones based on gender, religion, ethnicity, rural/urban; and even between human and non-human species. Justice and fairness are key components of a legitimate governance system. Conflicts on these issues abound, for example when it comes to international and national burden-sharing, the historical responsibility for past emissions, or the access to, and ownership of, resources and knowledge. The principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, reiterated in many global environmental agreements, is one compromise reached in international negotiations, yet its very meaning in concrete cases remains often unresolved. A major challenge is the gross inequality in access to material and immaterial resources as well as the unequal distribution of vulnerability and adaptive capacity between groups and sectors of society and between nation-states. Importantly, poor people are often more susceptible and vulnerable to the impacts of environmental change and pollution. Policies are rarely made by poor and marginalised people, yet usually for poor people by others who believe they understand and/or represent poor people’s preferences and aspirations. This is particularly problematic, because both reasons and remedies of poverty are highly contested in the social sciences, as is the role of power in this context.

2. TOWARDS LEGITIMATE, DEMOCRATIC AND ACCOUNTABLE EARTH SYSTEM GOVERNANCE:

Secondly, we invite paper submissions that analyse questions of accountability, legitimacy, and the democratic quality of earth system governance. This can be, for example, about input legitimacy that relates to the participatory quality of decision-making in terms of deliberative quality, participation and accountability. The representation of UN major groups and multi-stakeholder approaches has become increasingly common practice and signifies efforts to shape more legitimate governance. Papers under this conference stream may also address questions of accountability, like the emergence and effects of rules and procedures that identify who takes part in decision-making, who holds whom responsible for what action, and what the consequences are when standards are breached, or on how to decrease the ‘democratic deficit’. A precondition for holding actors responsible and accountable is here transparency, access to information, and the availability of monitoring mechanisms. The transparency and accountability of various public, private, and hybrid governance mechanisms have increasingly been brought to the fore. Examples include legitimacy, transparency, access and information disclosure of state-led environmental multilateral agreements and private agreements as well the accountability of transnational governance and of public-private partnerships.

3. LINKING THE 5 “A” OF EARTH SYSTEM GOVERNANCE:

Third, we invite papers that study the interconnections among the five analytical problems identified in the Earth System Governance Project’s Science and Implementation Plan (www.earthsystemgovernance.org/publications/science-plan). We invite papers that explore these linkages and interactions, and in particular those that are relevant for the questions of allocation and access, and accountability.

4. TRANSFORMING THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT:

Fourth, we invite papers that provide policy-relevant information and analysis on the reform, or transformation, of the institutional framework for sustainable development. The 2012 Lund Conference will be held just two months before the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (“Rio+20″). For this reason, the Lund Conference will provide ample opportunities for dialogue with the policy-making community on key issues of justice and legitimacy. The two overarching themes of the Rio+20 Conference – green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication; and institutional framework for sustainable development – strongly relate to the analytical themes of accountability and legitimacy of multilateral institutions as well as allocation and access in the intersection of multilateral environmental diplomacy and the global economic system. This conference stream will hence critically assess how issues of justice and democratic legitimacy have been incorporated in earth system governance in the forty years since the 1972 Stockholm Conference.

* Abstract Submission:

We invite abstracts on these four conference themes. Abstracts must be submitted electronically through the conference website (www.lund2012.earthsystemgovernance.org) by 5 November 2011 and may not exceed 250 words. All abstracts will be evaluated in a double-blind peer-review process by 4-5 members of the conference review panel. For additional information on the Earth System Governance Project, go to www.earthsystemgovernance.org. Proposals for special sessions are also welcome. Please read the instructions for session proposals at www.lund2012.earthsystemgovernance.org

We look forward to welcoming you to Lund!

Karin Bäckstrand and Lennart Olsson

Co-Chairs, 2012 Lund Conference on Earth System Governance

For full details, please see the posting on the Liu Institute website.