Track V: Business at the Bottom of the Pyramid
January 29, 2006 by admin · Comments Off
| Panel I: Fair Trade: Turning the Pyramid Upside Down |
| PANELISTS |
|
|
Base of the Pyramid fanfare focuses on the business opportunity for multinationals to sell goods and services to the poor in developing countries. Fair Trade turns the pyramid on its head by connecting the poor directly to international buyers – and, in turn, to millions of US consumers – and empowering them to become international businesspeople. In six years, sales of Fair Trade Certified products in the US have channeled more than $67 million in additional, above-market revenue to farmers and farm workers throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia. Fair Trade income funds sustainable local development projects – health systems, scholarships, women’s leadership initiatives, and microfinance programs – in over 50 countries around the developing world, and provides over 1 million farmers with resources to invest in their businesses and their products.
Fair Trade is increasingly recognized as the gold standard of social and environmental certification. It has expanded from its emergence in the specialty coffee market to a growing number of commodities: cocoa, tea, rice, sugar, bananas, mangoes, pineapples, and grapes. Consumers can now choose Fair Trade Certified products in Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonalds, supermarket chains, and college cafeterias. Panelists will draw upon their experiences at various stages in the Fair Trade supply chain to examine the following issues: Read more |
Track IV: Trade for Development
January 29, 2006 by admin · Comments Off
| Panel I: Accommodating Developing Countries’ Concerns |
|
Recent trends in trade arrangements have a tendency to curtail the policy options that developing countries can tailor to achieve their objectives of growth, economic development, and social welfare. At the same time, in the past decades we have seen that countries that have achieved high levels of growth and poverty reduction have benefited from a combination of orthodox and heterodox policies, which invariably include integration objectives.
The follow-up question is, what can developing countries do to combine their objectives of integrating into the world trading system, on the one hand, while preserving the policy space they need for economic development, on the other. This panel will identify the needs for policy space that developing countries should defend and safeguard in world trade. In particular, the discussion will be geared towards brainstorming and developing concrete flexibilities that can be engineered into trade agreements to make policy space actionable and effective. These issues will be addressed from the multilateral, regional, and bilateral negotiating scenarios. Read more |
Track II: Environment, Natural Resources and International Development
January 28, 2006 by admin · Comments Off
| Panel I: Improving Access to Modern Energy Services: Lessons Learned and Future Opportunities |
| PANELISTS |
|
| MODERATOR |
|
|
Two billion people, or roughly one third of humanity, still lack access to modern energy services such as heat, light and mechanical power, all of which are integral to economic development. Employing sustainable energy technologies to increase access to these services has proven beneficial to poor, underdeveloped communities by improving livelihoods and generating sources of income. In addition to the significant environmental benefits associated with sustainable energy technologies, cleaner technologies are often the most cost-effective solutions in remote, rural areas. In the case of electricity, for example, conventional grid-extension can be prohibitively expensive. Moreover, studies indicate that poor energy consumers have a high willingness and ability to pay for these technologies given the proper financial mechanisms. If the provision of modern energy services through sustainable energy technology creates a potential win-win solution for the environment, the private sector as well as poor, rural energy consumers, why haven’t more projects succeeded? Which economic, financial and policy barriers exist to successful implementation of profitable rural energy programs? What is the role of government, multi-lateral institutions, and the private sector? What are the important lessons to be learned from past rural energy efforts and how can we make projects more self-sufficient in the future? Lastly, what creative solutions can we employ to improve access to energy services in underdeveloped countries? Read more
|
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 |
| PANELISTS |
| Coming Soon… |
| Panel II: The Professionalization of Humanitarian Aid |
|
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. |
| PANELISTS |
|
| Read more |