24.06. 2008 Conference: Global Governance for Sustainable Development Wann: 24.-26. Juni 2008 Wo: Uni Dufour, Rue du Général-Dufour 24, 1204 Geneva Details: http://eadi.org/gc2008/ Registrierung: http://eadi.org/gc2008 Kontakt: Diese E-Mail Adresse ist gegen Spam Bots geschützt, Sie müssen Javascript aktivieren, damit Sie es sehen können Blog extern: http://www.gc2008.net/blog/ Blog intern: Kommentare von Birgit Habermann weiter unten auf dieser Seite!
Rapides Anwachsen der Weltbevölkerung in Kombination mit steigendem Lebensstandard droht die Kapazitäten der Erde, sowohl was den Verbrauch von Energie, als auch den Ausstoß von CO2 betrifft, zu überfordern. Die Folgen des Klimawandels treffen Arm und Reich gleichermaßen, aber nur die Industrienationen haben die Mittel sich effektiv schützen zu können. Die Länder des Südens werden mehr Hilfe zur Bewältigung dieser globalen Herausforderungen benötigen. Daraus ergeben sich vielfältige Fragestellungen: Wie können die Industrienationen dazu bewegt werden ihre Verantwortung zum Schutz globaler Güter (wie dem Klima) ernster zu nehmen? Wie kann das Recht auf Entwicklung gewahrt bleiben, ohne das Klima zu gefährden? Wie können die ärmsten Länder vor den schlimmsten Auswirkungen des Klimawandels beschützt werden? All diesen und noch weiteren Fragen will sich diese Veranstaltung widmen. Zur Teilnahme an der gesamten Konferenz ist eine (kostenpflichtige) Registrierung erforderlich, es findet jedoch täglich ein öffentlicher Vortrag statt (siehe Programm).

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Submitted by Birgit Habermann at Freitag, 27. Juni 2008 07:29

Day 4: Birgit's Blog
Finally I manage to put the blog online. And I definitely no longer like football, after listening to people in the streets until 2 in the morning...
There was some really interesting stuff going on in the parallel sessions as well, particularly in the roundtable on assymetries in N-S partnerships. All in all I feel that EADI is in some areas not taking leadership. We had a very good session on cooperation and training, but as in some of the other discussions I felt many people still feel they have to defend development studies rather than taking it as it is, and contributing with it to a global sustainability debate. Development studies are not what they were in the 1970ies and 1980ies any longer, and it is time that DS finds its new role. By refusing to accept the necessity of this, and the need to adapt to a very different situation in 2008 compared to 1968 DS acts against its very own principles, and that makes me very sad. However, there are some encouraging developments, and I very much hope that DS manages to 'leap-frog' into a new era, bringing with it the way of thinking in cross-disciplinary ways,its theoretical foundations, a certain amount reflexivity and the ability to be more than just a discipline in a box not able to communicate with others.
However, for this to be successful the issue of partnership needs some serious discussion. In the roundtable yesterday I had a very awkward feeling that we are not quite as far away from a colonial way of thinking as we probably think we are. Good intentions, and nicely phrased rules, are not enough. Partnerships, as we all know, will always be frictuous - the more interesting partnerships in our lives always have some kind of tension in them, and some imbalance in one or the other way, that is how we complement each other.
For me in research partnerships the most important is to focus on our shared interests, and make sure the institutional, structural and financial environment enables us to focus on this, rather than imposing strong assymetries that make it impossible for us to work together in a meaningful way...

Submitted by Birgit Habermann at Freitag, 27. Juni 2008 07:17

Day 3: Birgit's Blog
PLENARY: CAN ECONOMIC GROWTH BE RECONCILED WITH SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT? ON KNIFE-EDGE BETWEEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
A bit tired from listening to people celebrating on the streets after the football game last night (and not quite over the disappointment of Turkey losing the game...), I manage to scrap together some enthusiasm to attend the next morning session, as the title is really intriguing. The MDGs, yes, they still exist, indeed...
A little bit disappointed I register that again there is only one woman sitting on the panel, this time it is the chair. And even worse, probably, no representative of any Southern research organisation. Surely there must be a mistake, and she/he is late...or maybe not.
However, Jean-Louis Arcand, from the Centre for Studies and Research on International Development (CERDI), France saves my morning in giving a very inspirational talk concluding that he cannot give an answer to the question that is the topic of this session. That's original. Fortunately, he did not just say no, and left, he elaborated on his reasons for not being able to give an answer. His main criticism is that there is a missing link between household behaviour and environmental data. He raises the question if macro data collected over the last decades will tell us anything more - future improvements will be marginal both for the growth and the environmental side. The micro level looks at thousands of household surveys around the world. There is good analysis both in terms of income or poverty and in terms of environmentally-significant behaviour, also about the way in which households construct institutions. However, a number of reasons make these data hard to access, and he suggests more involvement with institutions that gather data, greater involvement with developing country universities, and greater interdisciplinary cooperation: 'An anthropologist or sociologist would at least slow down the economists: they study a village for 25 years, while an economist after 15 min believes to know everything, after a brief chat with the village head'.
He concludes that as an economist he cannot even begin to answer the question. The sources of growth or environmental sustainability are not understood, there are no data that are needed to do so, and nobody is doing anything about it. He believes that long-run micro panel data on households, firms, and their environments are needed to come close to trying to answer the question of this session.
Charles Gore, from UNCTAD, takes us back to the past. He tells us that in 2007 there was the 25th anniversary of the introduction of structural adjustment programmes. His hypothesis is that first we had 25 years of national developmentalism, 'liberation of peoples' (1957 to 1982); in this post-colonial moment political AND economic independence was sought. From 1982 to 2007 there was the big time of liberalisation of economies and policies of global integration. So he asks, after these two 25 year periods, what's next? He claims that we are now in a moment of paradigm shift, and he believes we are at the starting point of a new 25 year period (2007 - 2032). We would now have to bring together economic development, growth, climate change, MDGs into one coherent framework. He puts five critical aspects for this new period: resource scarcity, with technological process lagging behind; radical global inequality and interdependence (my ecological footprint affects everyone everywhere...); increasing importance of BRICS+ (complex interactions N/S, SS); globalization of expectations without globalisation of opportunity. However, I was disappointed to see that his data on income distribution and inequality dated back to the 1990ies!
On the MDGs he claims that they need to be placed in an economic development framework - they are imperfect, but they exist. According to him, the MDGs emerged from OECD (1996) on rethinking development cooperation, emphasis on partnership between donors and local recipient partners. He believes it was a mistaken view of the rationale for aid. It should create development opportunities, but back then aid was focused on poverty reduction and human development targets.
To reconcile sustainable development with economic development it is important to look at different approaches to economic growth. His main conclusion is that the route to reconcile growth and environmental sustainability is via the development and utilization of productive capacities. His policy recommendations are to focus on development and utilisation of productive capacities in national policies, and include industrial policies to promote structural change for the transition to a low-carbon economy. This will of course require deeper cuts in the richer nations. He warns that reframing the issues at stake as MDGs versus climate changes would indeed be regressive.
Wolfgang Sachs, from the Wuppertal Institute in Germany, asks the old question why until recently Europe dominated in the World. He says that up to 1780 Europe and China were more or less on the same level. However, looking at a comparison between England and China, he names two major reasons: until the late 1800s land scarcity was a shared constraint between England and China - England overcame this with colonisation, and imported resources such as wood, sugar, etc. from colonies. China did not have this overseas expansion. England also tapped into the 'sub-terranean forest' using coal - carbon became the fuel for a rising economy.
In these 200 years the imagination of the world was shaped by the Euro-Atlantic way - at the same time the means to get there were ever less available. There is still the imagination, but the means to reach it are diminishing. Wolfgang Sachs then names seven affirmations to answer the question given to the panel. He claims that in Europe material requirement has not increased over the last 30 yrs, but economic growth has been pushed further. He says that monetary growth is an inefficient way to measure poverty. It does not just matter how rich a society becomes, distribution matters as well. On carbon emissions he says that for the North 80-90 % of reduction in carbon emissions is not compatible with an economic growth path. This reduction is required until 2050 to create equality in emissions. However, even considering a constant GDP for the next 45 years with no growth, energy productivity would have to increase by 4-5% to maintain the level we have at the moment.
He claims also that for newly industrialising countries there is not sufficient carbon space left to allow for considerate aggregate growth over the next decades. The amount of emissions from the S is already high, and by 2030 it will be higher than the one from the N. He says, ' A last minute development push before becoming environmentally friendly will not work.' But the S will suffer from climate change. No matter what the North does, the S will suffer from disastrous consequences.
Now this I find a very problematic statement and it feels very disempowering as well. What really comes across is us telling people in other parts of the world the classic 'do not repeat our mistake' paradigm. Very disappointing, Mr. Sachs!
He even goes as far as to suggest that the poorer countries should go for what he calls 'ecological leap-frogging'. In infrastructure development there are different options, and if the S goes for lighter, less resource consuming solutions, it might even out-leap the industrialised countries. Underdeveloped might reveal itself as a blessing in disguise, so he says. Windmills and solar panels all over Malawi? Hm, I still have to think about this.
He summarises that we need an enlarged view on what wealth is: wealth is composed of both commercial and common goods. Growth should be put on the back seat, should not be given priority, but instead to common goods such as social security, participation, ecosystem services.
After this input, I no longer had the strength to listen to the next speaker (and I ran out of battery on my notebook...), but I recovered during a very exciting and challenging discussion with the plenary. The comments in the plenary reflected many of my concerns: the one-sided views represented by a panel, that only represents one small part of the world, and one gender perspective as well, and its lack of legitimacy to discuss the issues in question, the worries about telling other countries not to follow the path that lead to prosperity (though admittedly also tremendous environmental problems) in our societies. To argue that the South will have to find different ways, and to fortify this argument by agreeing that the South will be worst hit by climate change frankly speaking must sound very sarcastic to our colleagues from the South, and I was happy to hear some very critical reactions along these lines.
Concerns were raised, that neglecting the MDGs to focus on climate changes as suggested by Wolfgang Sachs, would have terrible consequences: what about women and children, whose situation and problems were at least highlighted very strongly due to the MDGs. There also seems to be a rise in shifting the focus from social issues to technical and often very technocratic approaches. This may be true, but again, the Global North does not have the right to tell the Global South which path to chose...still I was left with the impression that in this panel discussion we were still doing that, rather than reflecting on our own issues and what could be our own contribution for a better future.
Another provocative statement by Wolfgang Sachs: 'development studies should get rid of economics!'. I am not sure if everyone would agree but nobody in the panel or plenary objected to this statement, funnily enough....

Submitted by Birgit Habermann at Freitag, 27. Juni 2008 07:16

Day 2: Birgit's Blog
PLENARY: GLOBAL GOVERNANCE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: THE CHALLENGE OF POLICY COHERENCE AMONG INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS.
Inspired by the inspiring lecture on Earthland, I went back to the plenary. On time, even! And Kemal Dervis managed to follow up on the evening before, with his introductory speech on global governance for sustainable development. As UNDP Administrator he is certainly most qualified to do so. He brings forth some convincing examples where the lack of policy coherence and policy coordination had disastrous consequences on a global scale. An example where the World Community should have come together to create joint policies are the subsidies on biofuels. If I understood him correctly, subsidies on biofuels caused at least one third of the recent dramatic increase in food prices all over the world. This is certainly an example where researchers have been warning policy makers of the consequences; however it appears they chose not to listen for a very long time. He also argues that a lot of the problems we are facing are global public good problems and he stresses that there is a dramatic need for global governance.
When Juan Somavia, the Director General of the ILO, and after him Bertrand Ramcharan, the former Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights took the floor, they lost me. As it so often the case with UN representatives, and former UN representatives, they tend to get caught up in reporting on UN meetings, and the people that attended them, and what these people had said etc....However, Juan Somavia did raise some important points when he criticised the lack of political leadership within the UN - countries pursue their national interests. While to him, and the other UN panellists, the UN would be the logical institution to take lead on global governance, none of them seemed convinced that the UN would be willing and able to take on this role in the near future. Juan Somavia, calls it a 'democracy deficit' in the UN. He believes a social movement is required for change.
Ngaire Woods, the director of the Global Economic Governance Programme; Oxford - and yes, she is a woman, after a male chair, three male speakers for the opening and three more male panellists - emphasises that the principle of subsidiarity should not be forgotten: global governance should be promoted in strong subsidiarity on a local level. Well said and well placed - Switzerland is a country that has a lot to say about this. She also warns that aid is declining again, and that development studies may be losing out to other actors. In her opinion the UN is not seen as a neutral forum, not as an unbiased advisor, not impartial: 'Thus the emerging economies politely participate, but do not engage.'
What is my conclusion of this panel discussion and the comments from the auditorium? The UN is aware of the potential role it could play in global governance, but not able to do so. It remains doubtful if anyone really wants it to take on this role anyway. But there is a moral dilemma in denying the UN this role it is supposed to have, because there is no adequate alternative, so where would that leave Earthland if it abolished its government without any alternative? In any case, I have no solution to this answer, if this distinguished panel did not have it. I like however that Ngaire Woods brought back the idea of subsidiarity, and some idea of alternative ways of looking at different scenarios to emerge.

Submitted by Birgit Habermann at Freitag, 27. Juni 2008 07:16

PUBLIC LECTURE TARIQ BANDURI: EARTHLAND
Tariq Banduri, Stockholm Environment Institute, gave a very inspiring public lecture on Tuesday evening: he argues that, when looking at the world as one single country that he calls 'Earthland', the world becomes a developing country. He brought forth convincing arguments comparing Earthland with developing countries regarding income distribution, inequality, travel restrictions etc. - within Earthland he distinguishes between North, South and East. Here, I believe his argument loses its strength, because it risks becoming populist and loses its credibility. The comparison between apartheid South Africa and Earthland equally implies that racism plays a big part in Earthland inequality. He may not have meant to put it like that, in fact I am sure he didn't, but to me it is a slightly problematic comparison. Nevertheless, it is an intriguing suggestion that, with some more reflected data representation, can be a valid contribution to looking at global governance for sustainable development. I hope we will be hearing more from Tariq Banduri on his views on Earthland! Thanks for an inspiring lecture!

Submitted by Birgit Habermann at Freitag, 27. Juni 2008 07:15

PUBLIC LECTURE TARIQ BANDURI: EARTHLAND
Tariq Banduri, Stockholm Environment Institute, gave a very inspiring public lecture on Tuesday evening: he argues that, when looking at the world as one single country that he calls 'Earthland', the world becomes a developing country. He brought forth convincing arguments comparing Earthland with developing countries regarding income distribution, inequality, travel restrictions etc. - within Earthland he distinguishes between North, South and East. Here, I believe his argument loses its strength, because it risks becoming populist and loses its credibility. The comparison between apartheid South Africa and Earthland equally implies that racism plays a big part in Earthland inequality. He may not have meant to put it like that, in fact I am sure he didn't, but to me it is a slightly problematic comparison. Nevertheless, it is an intriguing suggestion that, with some more reflected data representation, can be a valid contribution to looking at global governance for sustainable development. I hope we will be hearing more from Tariq Banduri on his views on Earthland! Thanks for an inspiring lecture!

Submitted by Birgit Habermann at Freitag, 27. Juni 2008 07:15

Day 1: Birgit's Blog
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE AND MANAGING CHANGE IN RESEARCH INSTITUTES AND THINK TANKS
The first day of the conference was dedicated to a workshop of directors of European development institutes debating change in their institutions. This refers to the trend to merge institutes of development studies with institutes of international development to global studies, as well as the changing demands on development researchers: there is more and more requirement to produce policy-relevant outputs, rather than academic publications. However, on the other hand the academic review system still evaluates researchers based on their output in peer-reviewed journals. Different approaches of different institutes to deal with this have been presented. Institutes need to provide both training and incentives for researchers to act as policy advisors at the same time as producing publications for peer-reviewed journals - if this is the way to go, or if this is possible at all, has not found agreement among all participants, and there are both diverging views and strategies to deal with this trade-off. To me, two observations were particularly relevant for KEF: there is a huge heterogeneity among European development research institutes, and what is true for some is not true for others. This refers to both our different academic traditions, as well as to our histories in development studies, and the way we have been cooperating with partners. Not even mentioning the huge differences in institutional and political support and the money resulting from this...

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