Track I: Humanitarian Aid and Post-Conflict Development
January 28, 2006 by admin · Comments Off
| Panel I: The Four R’s of Post-Conflict Recovery: Rehabilitation, Reconstruction |
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| Panel II: The Professionalization of Humanitarian Aid |
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Humanitarian crises of the past decade reflect a changing political dynamic, in which the end of the cold war and the declining role of superpower regulation of regional and ethnic conflicts have contributed to the increasing prevalence of intra-state conflict and civil war. These crises, which typically occur in areas of grave underdevelopment or impoverishment, have trapped large numbers of people in environments torn by war, famine and disease. As evidenced in Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, and elsewhere, these crises are characterized by targeted attacks on civilians, mass population dislocation, widespread human rights abuses, and a high level of insecurity for responders.
Humanitarian studies represent a new and evolving interdisciplinary arena. To cover the diverse topic areas in adequate depth at the graduate level requires expertise and curriculum offerings in a broad range of disciplines. Additionally, the debate in practitioner and academic circles over how to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian aid and development assistance is ongoing and intense. With the increasing professionalization of humanitarian and development assistance, and more and more academic institutions offering it as a field of study, now is an important time for the subject’s development. This panel will outline some of the major challenges facing the humanitarian aid field and discuss how to improve the effectiveness of aid, as well as asking probing questions about the role that humanitarian agencies play in conflicts. |
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Keynote Speaker 2
January 28, 2006 by admin · Leave a Comment
WILLIAM EASTERLY
Economist & Professor at New York University
William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University, joint with Africana Studies, and Co-Director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. He is also a non-resident Fellow of the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC. William Easterly received his Ph.D. in Economics at MIT. He has spent sixteen years as a Research Economist at the World Bank. His work has been discussed in media outlets like National Public Radio, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the Economist, and Financial Times.
Easterly’s areas of expertise include the determinants of long-run economic growth and the effectiveness of foreign aid. He has worked in most areas of the developing world, including Mexico, Jamaica, Ghana, the Gambia, Colombia, Thailand, Russia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Bolivia, South Africa, and Pakistan. Easterly is an associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Economic Growth, and of the Journal of Development Economics.
He is the author of the upcoming book, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (Penguin 2006), as well as the much acclaimed, The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (MIT, 2001).