Panel | Rethinking Collaborative Governance
Panel 1 — Local Ownership for Development: Beneficiary Involvement in Global Governance
Description
All development projects are designed to be in favor of a given population — qualified as “disadvantaged”, “at risk”, or “vulnerable”. These beneficiaries comprise the focus of “high-impact” projects, and their images are often used in media campaigns. However, such focus and visibility does not reflect these actors’ involvement in governance structures. They are sometimes consulted, rarely participate, and almost never decide. How can development projects genuinely include the populations they strive for in decision-making? What lessons can we learn from community-based approaches? The panel will highlight how technology can foster more holistic forms of governance.
Panel 2 — BRICS Abroad: Shifting Patterns of Foreign Aid
Description
Representing a quarter of the global GDP, the BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — have begun to provide significant amounts of foreign aid to other developing countries, particularly those in Africa. With assistance from traditional donors such as the US and Western Europe decreasing in real terms in 2011, emerging BRICS donors offer countries more opportunities to finance much-needed development. However, there is a rising concern over this type of funding as it typically comes in the absence of domestic frameworks for accountability on international engagements. This shift has heightened worries on this model’s potential to undercut international standards and encourage unsustainable policies, governments, and debt. Are these worries over-rated considering that some foreign aid is better than none at all? This panel will explore whether the BRICS present an alternative and competing model of involvement and foreign assistance to that of traditional donors and whether this aid is more, less, or equally effective in improving standards of living for recipients.
Panel 3 — Climate and Development: Cooperation Beyond the Kyoto Protocol
Description
Twenty years of negotiation under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have produced little measurable progress reducing greenhouse gas emissions or enabling the most vulnerable to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The world urgently needs new approaches to international climate and development cooperation that think beyond the Kyoto Protocol’s top-down, legally-binding structure. This panel will bring together leading climate and development researchers and policymakers in a dialogue about building and sustaining momentum toward low-carbon and resilient development through action by non-state actors, including development institutions, local governments, and the private sector.