SID Nederland Weblog

On Monday 16 November Aart de Geus, currently Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD and from 2002-2007 minister of Social Affairs and Employment, will hold the second lecture in the 2009-2010 series, on ’sustainable economic development’. In his lecture he will discuss whether the current economic climate and scarcities will affect efforts towards sustainable economic development, which has been advocated for years to relief the environment of the burdens of economic growth. After his lecture there is ample time to engage in discussion. For more information see the agenda.

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.

The provisional programme for the SID Lecture Series 2009-2010 is now online.  Click here to read the programme.

On Monday 15 June 2009, Ad Melkert (UNDP) gave a lecture on ‘The Global Relevance of European Social Values’. The lecture and the discussion afterwards were chaired by Ieke van den Burg (Europarlementarian). Click here for Ad Melkert’s speech.

Time and place: 18:00-19:30h | 15 June 2009 | Auditorium | VU University | Boelelaan 1105, Amsterdam

For more information: 070 338 32 93, or sid-nl@socires.nl.

On Monday 15 June, directly after the tenth lecture in the SID 2008-2009 lecture series “Economic Growth and the Common Good”, SID Netherlands President Jos van Gennip will present the first copy of the new  book “Emerging Global Scarcities and Powershifts” to Ad Melkert.

The book contains the lectures that were organised by the Netherlands Chapter of the Society for International Development in the year 2007-2008. Several prominent academics and politicians have contributed to the publication and SID is proud to present the book to the public on the 15th of June.

The book presentation will start at 19.30/ Auditorium/ Vrije Universiteit/ De Boelelaan 1105/ Amsterdam

Book information:

Title: Emerging Global Scarcities and Powershifts

Author: Bernard Berendsen (et al)

ISBN:  978 90 6832 689 5

Price: € 26,50

Publisher: KIT Publishers

for more information: vijverberg.sid@socires.nl