International Development Research Network

Go Global International Service Learning (ISL) is issuing an open call to eligible UBC students to apply to participate in an internship leading a project in Uganda, with our community partner, The AIDS Support Organization (TASO). The overall objective for this project for TASO is to create a coherent strategy and approach to implementing, monitoring and evaluating sustainable livelihood programs for the purpose of improving overall health.

The Health Now Mahrajan Festival is a FREE event at UBC hosted by the Liu Institute for Global Issues’ Global Health Network, Green College, and People’s Health Movement – Canada. The event is designed to offer a fun learning exchange experience for the UBC community, as well as a chance to explore “Health Now” and enhance Global Health.

Featuring: Health Now Fair, Exhibitions, Films, Images, Games, Raffle, Banners, Parade, and more. For more details, you can find the Poster here and Full Schedule here.

Date: Tuesday March 27th, 10:30 am – 4:30 pm

Location: Liu Institute – First Floor, and Green College – Graham House

Please RSVP at: http://app.fluidsurveys.com/surveys/liuinstitute/register-health-now/

A message from the Go Global program at UBC:

Do you want to participate in meanginful projects led by community partners around the world? Are you interested in connecting your learning in classroom to international issues and perspectives? f you are, apply for UBC Go Global’s International Service Learning Program. With placements in Costa Rica to South Africa, and learning themes from food security and nutrition to ecological education, you can find a placement that suits your passion and interest. Applications are due Monday, January 16, 2012. Financial awards are available. For more information, visit us at www.students.ubc.ca/global or book a drop-in advising session with us online!

A new journal that may be of interest to  IDRN members accepting submissions for its first issue. Rethinking Development and Inequality: An International Journal for Critical Perspectives is published by the recently formed Academic Network for Development and Inequality Research (ANDIR), funded by the BIARI program at Brown University in the U.S.

According to the journal announcement, it seeks “original contributions, employing empirical or theoretical approaches, on analyzing the reproduction of inequalities in the Global South.” It looks to bring together social scientists from around the world on a variety of themes.

The submission deadline for manuscripts to be considered for the first issue is September 30, 2011. Submission guidelines and additional information about the journal and its scope can be found at: http://rdi.andir-south.org/

For the second installment of our Global Roots of Inequality series, we met up with Dr. Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid, Associate Director of the Mexican office of the United Nations’ CEPAL (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean–or ECLAC–in English), to discuss inequality and development policy in Mexico and the wider region.

Moreno-Brid has also just recently published a book, with colleague Jaime Ross, through Oxford University Press entitled “Development and Growth in the Mexican Economy: a historical perspective.” It’s now available in both English and Spanish.

In our interview, Moreno-Brid pins Mexico’s inequality ills largely on a lack of fiscal reform, which has been systematically blocked by elites. These established elites, who have an interest in resisting taxation, Moreno-Brid argues, assert that government spending is inefficient and ineffective. It’s a dynamic of control and distrust, he suggests, that can be traced back to Spanish colonization, and the 18th century Bourbon Reforms. Those reforms, while successful at increasing tax revenues, were aimed specifically at improving Spanish –not colonial– economic welfare and political life.

We’ve posted the edited transcript below.

***

Continue reading →

The latest IDRN event was the screening of the documentary “Milking the Rhino” by David E. Simpson. The film and resulting conversation by attendees at the event captured interesting themes about the benefits, challenges, and ethical concerns involved in wildlife-human conflict, and the conservation approaches embraced by local communities to balance demands for wildlife conservation and human well-being.

Human-wildlife conflict has resulted in the extirpation and extinction of many species, and has been credited with the decline of large wildlife in Africa. Large wildlife, especially carnivores, are often seen as a threat to human safety and development. One potential solution is community based conservation, where local communities set aside land for wildlife and ecotourism. Africa, after all, does have an international advantage when it comes to wildlife tourism. “Milking the Rhino” recounts how conservation interests and human development goals for Kenya`s Maasai and Namibia`s Himba people are co-existing: make wildlife pay for people. These two people are some of the oldest cattle cultures on Earth, and have developed some animosity towards wildlife since colonialists displaced them from their lands to conserve wild game. The growing popularity of wildlife tourism, coinciding with the new land rights bestowed on indigenous people now allows these cultures to “milk” wildlife in a similar way that they milk cattle to promote their livelihoods. On its face, community based conservation is an amazing success story. Wildlife populations are increasing, and indigenous African communities are generating income to pay for schools, hospitals, and other community development. It also helps local people take control over local resources and break the historic chains of imperialism in Africa. But there still are issues to grapple with.

Kenyans and Namibian indigenous cultures have a strong basis in cattle herding, and the switch from managing cattle to catering to tourists is not always an easy transition. The value of the cattle herding is strongly held by some people in both countries. The reliance on wildlife tourism also sets up a fragile economy that is totally dependent on international travel. Situations like the recent political tension in Tanzania can stop the flow of tourists and the resulting flow of income. More insidious is what this effect has on the cultural development of the local people. When your livelihood depends on the happiness of other people, you do what you can to make sure they’re happy. You are a thrall to their pleasures. When tourists expect to see a certain ideal aboriginal way of life, there is pressure to conform to that view. When a paying foreigner want to see a society of “noble savages”, there is no immediate incentive to develop more modern conveniences and ways of life.

For societies that define themselves by their cultural traditions, any change will be met with some suspicion. As the effects of globalization increase in global influence, change will be inevitable. The challenge then, seems to be to meet the multiple values of people and minimize the harm caused in the process. Community based conservation has potential to do this, and the cases in Kenya and Namibia demonstrate some significant successes, but recognizing where hardships persist is needed for a nuanced understanding and appreciation for these inevitable changes.