SID Nederland Weblog

On Monday 18 January 2010 Seth Kaplan will give the fourth lecture in the series on ’Common Goods in a Divided World – Challenges and Opportunities for International Cooperation’. Seth Kaplan is an expert on the area of fragile states, and in his lecture will discuss a new approach to fragile states. After his introductory speech there will be ample time for a discussion with the audience, moderated by Christa Meindersma from the the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. For more information see the agenda.

On Monday 14 December Andrew Mack gave the third lecture in the series on ’Common Goods in a Divided World – Challenges and Opportunities for International Cooperation’, on the topic of Human Security. More information on his lecture as well as the powerpoint which he used will be posted on the website shortly.

This seminar was part of a broader debate on the financial and ecological crises, including a special issue of Development (vol. 52, no. 3) entitled Beyond economics and an international seminar held with UNDESA in New York in November this year, highlights of the new York event can be found in the report. This global event was organised in partnership between the Society for International Development (SID International and SID NL) and the Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (Hivos). The title of the launch organised in partnership with HIVOS was Beyond Economics: building collective responsibility for sustainable livelihoods. The afternoon event was chaired by SID President Jan Pronk and it featured a presentation by Professor Rick van der Ploeg  as the key note speaker and an international panel of civil society experts: Allert van den Ham, Franck Amalric and Arthur Muliro.

Presentations have initiated an informed and lively debate, which was skillfully lead by Jan Pronk.

On Monday 16 November the second lecture in the 2009-2010 series took place. Mr de Geus, deputy Secretary-General of the OECD spoke about the matter of sustainable economic development. In his lecture and the ensuing discussion he discussed the relationship between economic development and taking care of the environment. Interestingly, in Mr. de Geus’ eyes investments for the environment may provide a way out of poverty; a statement which he illustrated with the example of Haiti, where extreme poverty and climate vulnerability go hand in hand and are mutually reinforcing. Mr. de Geus also emphasized that the current economic crisis has made very clear that our usual way of measuring growth and prosperity will need to be revised. Not only does the development of, for instance, GDP not necessarily indicate the economic situation of people, it also does a poor job measuring prosperity (i.e. happiness, well-being) in a society. Mr. de Geus’ lecture is now on the website.

On Monday 19 October Herman Wijffels opened the new SID-lecture series ‘Common Goods in a Divided World. Challenges and Opportunities for International Cooperation’, with a lecture entitled ‘a Changing World Order and the Provision of Common Goods’. During this well attended lecture, the discussion he engaged in with the audience touched issues ranging from the role of morality in today’s societies, the current relevance of war and military investments, and Dutch efforts to develop durable energy. For an abstract of Mr. Wijffels’ lecture please click here.

A lunchmeeting with Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator, was organized by SID and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday 31 August. Helen Clark spoke to a full room of multi-stakeholder participants. One of the important messages Ms. Clark conveyed was that before we start the discussion on the MDGs after 2015, we need to concentrate our effort right now on trying to achieve them wherever possible in the next five years.

On Thursday 22 October 2009, Professor Xizhe Peng, Director of the Institute of Population Research at Fudan University in Shanghai, gave a lecture on “Population, Livelihood and Environment”. Co-referent was Jeroen Ginneken and the session was chaired by Anke Niehof. Professor Peng gave a good and detailed description of the issues of population growth and its impacts on the environment in China. For Powerpoint presentations please see here.

On Wednesday 23 September 2009 the Senate conference finalized the lecture series of 2008-2009.  In the follow up of the conference a short report has been prepared. For the report, the final participants list and a number of presentations, please see here.

On Thursday 17 September 2009, Mari Simonen, Deputy Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), gave a lecture on ‘Population and Gender’. Co-referent was Wendy Harcourt, and the session was chaired by Sylvia Borren. For Powerpoint presentations please see here.