This video shows the conflicts that arise in the Eastern Congo over the minerals that make up our hi-tech cellphones and electronics. Conflicts have been going on for years, and recently the Rwanda-backed M23 militia has taken control of DRC’s city of Goma (Reuters).
Join us in watching and discussing the movie “War Don Don“, a documentary film on the aftermath of the 11 years long Civil War in Sierra Leone and the role of the International Criminal Justice in working towards sustainable peace and development.
Movie synopsis: With the declaration of “war don don” (the war is over) in Sierra Leone in 2002, the Special Court (SCSL) was established to try those who bore the greatest responsibility for violating international humanitarian and Sierra Leonean law since November 30th 1996. This documentary chronicles the indictment and trial of Revolutionary United Front interim leader Issey Sesse and how in the effort to account for the thousands of lives lost, one man ends up answering for the crimes of many. In selecting only the few to prosecute and expecting the post-war narrative that follows to be accurate and balanced, this documentary raises important questions about the functions of international criminal justice in working towards sustainable peace and development.
Join us for a rich interdisciplinary discussion over some coffee and tea! Everyone is welcome, from faculty, graduate students and practitioners. In this first Scholar’s Cafe, we will be engaging with the topic: Gender matters for environment and development: past, present and future tendencies.
More specifically, we will be discussing how the ideas around gender and its role in development have changed significantly since the 80s. We will be shedding light on some of these questions: What is gender about today? Is it about empowering women to gain access and control over natural resources? Is it about the need for a more systematic inclusion of gender analysis when we think about environment and development?
The Communication Initiative (CI) made a survey containing more than 1000 people coming from over 200 development agencies and spanning 121 different nationalities. The aim was to understand the Information Needs and Practices of International Development Professionals. Here is the email from Warren Feek, the director of CI describing the importance of this survey in our age of increasing digitalization”
WHERE DOES THE LOCAL, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY OBTAIN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT INFORMS ITS STRATEGIC DECISION-MAKING – AND WHAT ARE THE TRENDS IN THAT PROCESS?
See 2011 and 2012 survey results at http://www.comminit.com/en/
INTRODUCTION
As we all seek to progress our development goals, priorities and strategies it is important to be both well informed and to build partnerships and alliances. Crucial to those strategic imperatives is knowing the most recent knowledge in your field of work/interest and how other people involved in local, national and international development action obtain the knowledge that informs the pursuing of their goals and strategies.
Complicating the answers to these questions is the light-speed like change in the global communication environment. Just a few years ago twitter was what a bird did. Facebook was a non-existent phrase. Youtube made no sense at all. The net was used for fishing. A social network probably hosted a party. At local media level there have also been major changes. I was recently in Antioquia (Colombia). Every department in that province now has its own community TV station. Globally, newspapers are going out of business or trying completely virtual strategies. Development agencies are pondering the added value of print publications, travel costs and much else about their communication strategies. Change, change, change…
The Communication Initiative was supported by and worked with the UNICEF New York Division of Communication to help answer some of the questions about how local, national and international development “actors” obtained the knowledge that informs their work, and any trends we could identify.
There were two surveys: initially in 2011; and then to both update the knowledge (as communication patterns changed rapidly) and to double-check the 2011 results, the survey was repeated in 2012. The 2012 survey attracted submissions from 1,183 people, in over 200 different agencies, from 121 different nationalities, working in 115 different countries. We wish to thank you very very much if you were one of the respondents that provided such valuable knowledge and insight.
To review the 2011 survey results, the 2012 survey results and comparative tables for each of the major survey questions across both years please accesshttp://www.comminit.com/en/
As a preface to the presentation of the results you will also see some conclusions that we drew from the survey responses at http://www.comminit.com/en/
If you have comments, questions, observations then please submit them through the comments field at http://networks.comminit.com/
– thanks – we very much hope that this knowledge adds value to your important work. And we look forward to your critique, reflections and questions at the link above.
Warren
The African Land Grab has reached staggering proportions: where 203 million hectares are changing hands to foreign governments in around 2,000 mainly secretive land deals.
In this article, The Ecologist points to the fact that this rush for securing increasingly scarce land, has minimal positive if not damaging effects to the local societies: the food produced is re-sold at the more profitable world market so that food security may worsen for the local population, the jobs are scarce and low-paid, leases are often at low or zero rent so that local governments barely benefit.
The article shows that some efforts have been made to insure more fair investments that can ensure benefits to the original owners of the land. Interestingly, however, “it is the 500 million smallholder farmers who feed the great majority of the poorest 2 billion people on our planet.”
The University of Ottawa’s School of International Development and Global Studies is introducing a new PhD program in International Development. The program is now accepting applications for September 2013. Designed for students both from academic and professional backgrounds, this exciting program is unique in Canada and one of the few of its kind in the world.
The program features:
– An opportunity to undertake advanced studies in a truly interdisciplinary program
– Extensive research opportunities in one of the 4 major areas of specialization of the School,
– A faculty with practical experience in many developing and emerging countries
– A curriculum that integrates development theory and development policy and practice
– A location in the heart of Ottawa that facilitates strong linkages to government agencies and foreign embassies, but also with more than 200 non-governmental organizations and advocacy groups
Deadline for application is January 15th, 2013 for Canadian students and December 1st, 2012 for international students.
For more information on the program, please visit http://www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/dvm/phd
The winners of the 2012 Development Challenge, Nuheen and Sami, are making their concept into a reality! They are now applying for the Grand Challenges Canada to start it off and they need our support.
What is the project about? Their project for social development is aimed at the most marginalized people of Bangladesh: the waste collectors, also known as dalits or harijon, who live in inhuman conditions in direct contact with waste. In collaboration with the Grameen Shakti, the leading renewable energy institution in Bangladesh, the pilot phase of a social business project is being set up. This will test the feasibility of using agricultural and human waste to produce biogas and subsequently electricity. The profits will go towards changing the inhumane working conditions of the sweepers of Bangladesh.
How can we help? Your one vote will make this project from BANGLADESH win $100k to start a pilot program that can change the life of those people who keep our country clean!
TO VOTE :
1. Go to http://applications.grandchallenges.ca/en/viewVideo/28735E6AA7E936B0AF731DCD
2. Click “login” on top
3. Register (for institution, put your university or work place)
4. Check your email account for verification email
5. Once you are logged in, go back to the link in (1) and click “like this application”!
SOCIAL CHANGE @ THE EDGE
UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA. JUNE 4TH TO. 6TH, 2013
The Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID) graciously invites you to participate at its 2013 meeting, as part of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences Congress, at the University of Victoria. Academics (faculty and students), practitioners, the policy making community, NGOs, social movements and community groups are all welcome to attend and participate actively. We especially acknowledge and invite participation by the Salish peoples, upon whose
traditional territory our event will be held.
This conference, taking place at one edge of this continent and of this country, invites an awareness of place. At the same time, the Congress theme, @ the edge, invites other interpretations, as themes of global instability continue, even as the edge and impacts of new technologies are being felt the world over. Standing at the edge of social change invites deep reflections on what has passed and what is to come. With its
preoccupation with social change processes, and the various factors that impact and influence them, International Development Studies is a particularly well situated to discuss what it means to be @ the edge. Thus, this conference invites all who attend to connect with the many dimensions of our work, including, but not limited to, spatial, temporal, and topical points of connection. As such, we encourage you to submit paper and panel proposals relevant to the theme of this conference.
Please keep in mind that CASID attracts a wide audience and we thus encourage you to relate your specific research and development experiences to more general themes. How can discussions related to your specific research reach out to a broad audience and generate rich dialogue and debate? Papers on geographic areas (Asia, Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe) are also welcome and encouraged. Please link your proposed
paper/panel to one or more of this year’s themes:
*CONFERENCE THEMES*
Aid
Conflict & Fragile States
Development Theory
Economic Development
Environment
Foreign Policy
Gender
Health
Indigenous Perspectives on Development
Labour & livelihoods
Natural Resource extraction/exploitation
Natural Resource Management
NGOs
Post-2015, after MDGs what next?
Social movements and creative dissent
South-South Cooperation
Teaching Development Studies
The Impact of the Development Industry
Urban & Rural Development
For more information on the submission system, see the CFP Flyer.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact Jonathan Langdon, Ph.D (CASID 2013 Congress ChairAssistant Professor of Development Studies, Development Studies Program, St. Francis Xavier Universityemail): jlangdon@stfx.ca
Conference: 11-16 March 2013. Mainz, Germany. Abstracts: by Nov 5th.
In the upcoming joint session conference organized by the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) from 11 to 16 March 2013 in Mainz, Germany, Jörg Faust, Sebastian Dellepiane and Nadia Molenaers organized a workshop on Political Conditionalities and Foreign Aid.
There is room for about 20 original academic papers in this workshop for which we welcome proposals and abstracts. The deadline for sending abstracts is November 5th. More information can be found here Call for papers – Political conditionalities and in the document attached. The workshop will, in all probability, also contain a roundtable with policy makers and shapers from a number of donor agencies and think tanks. The goal of the latter roundtable is to organize an intensive exchange of ideas and experiences between academics and the ‘users’ of political conditionalities. Please feel free to share this information with people in your network who do research on the topic. The link to the programme of the conference with a full listing of accepted workshops can be found at http://new.ecprnet.eu/Events/PanelList.aspx?EventID=7 .
If you are involved in research or work in sustainable development as it is related to responding and adapting to Climate Change, this is for you!
The Centre for Research Planning and Development is hosting a National Seminar on ‘Climate Change and Sustainable Development: Issues and Challenges’ on January 23-24, 2o13.
For this conference, they are calling for papers that focus on Climate Change mitigation and adaptation measures in developing countries, those less resilient to the upcoming climate change risks. The key focus areas of the conference are: Agriculture and Food Security, Water, Energy, Trade, Infrastructure, Urban Planning and Transport system, Gender Issues and Employment. Papers are invited from the academicians, policy makers and technologists in Economics, Law, Political Science, Sociology, and Social Work, Civil engineering and Architecture.
The first deadline is the submission of the Abstract on Oct 30th, and the submission deadline for the full paper is Dec 15th.
For more information see the invitation file below:
NATIONAL SEMINAR Climate Change and Sust Devtelopment Jan 2013
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