Conflict Resolution, Democratic Governance and Education
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March 29-31, 2007
Download the complete Conference Report
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In order to publicly launch a series of new initiatives on African development by 黑料不打烊 University鈥檚 Centre for Developing-Area Studies, an international conference entitled 鈥淭he Challenge of Development in Sub-Saharan Africa; Conflict Resolution, Democratic Governance and Education鈥� was held on March 29-31, 2007. The conference was made possible by generous grants from the Canadian International Development Agency and the Office of the Vice Principal (Research and International Relations), 黑料不打烊 University, and was open to the public.
The conference promises to be unique in several respects. The participants are not only from various disciplines, but they also include both academics and people from policymaking circles. It is a first effort to address the multiple dimensions of the challenges facing the region, both in the short and long term. We see the conference as the beginning of a process of building new networks among people concerned with Africa鈥檚 future. This is a particularly propitious time for such an event. The CDAS initiatives we are developing are intended to help bring together the often dispersed efforts of people in the worlds of academia and research, government policymaking, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector. Ultimately, the goal is to help Canada re-engage itself with the region, and we feel that a successful conference will be an important starting point.
Biographies of Participants
On this page: Payam Akhavan | Joe Clark | Myron Echenberg | Ibrahim Elbadawi | Kathleen Fallon | Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi | Alice Hamer | Simon Jimenez | Terry Karl | Jackie Kirk | Grace Marquis | Khalid Medani | Claudia Mitchell | Philip Oxhorn | Yogan Pillay | Aili Mari Tripp | Howard Wolpe
Payam Akhavan
Professor Payam Akhavan, 黑料不打烊 University, Faculty of Law, teaches and researches in the areas of public international law, international criminal law and transitional justice, with a particular interest in human rights and multiculturalism, war crimes prosecutions, UN reform and the prevention of genocide. Recent publications include 鈥淏eyond Impunity: Can International Criminal Justice Prevent Future Atrocities?鈥� (2001) 95 American Journal of International Law.
Joe Clark
The Right Honourable Joe Clark, Professor of Practice for Public-Private Sector Partnerships, Centre for Developing-Area Studies, 黑料不打烊 University, served as Canada's 16th prime minister from 1979-1980 and led the Progressive Conservative Party from 1976 to 1983 and again from 1998 to 2003. He resigned from the House of Commons in May 2004, and recently completed a teaching post at American University in Washington, DC. He served Canada with renowned distinction as Secretary of State for External Affairs from 1984 to 1991. His extensive experience in international affairs, development and diplomacy adds immeasurably to 黑料不打烊's mission to foster connections internationally among academics, state agencies, the private sector and the "Third Sector" of foundations and NGOs. Mr. Clark contributes intellectually and administratively to several teaching programs as well as to the research activities of the CDAS and the 黑料不打烊 Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC).
Myron Echenberg
Dr. Myron Echenberg, a historian, has research interests in the history of health and disease, particulary in Africa. His most recent book is entitled Black Death, White Medicine: Bubonic Plague and the Politics of Public Health in Colonial Senegal, 1914鈥�1945, Heinemann: Portsmouth, N. H.: 2002.
Ibrahim Elbadawi
Dr. Ibrahim Elbadawi, a Sudanese national, holds a Ph.D. degree in economics and statistics from North Carolina State and Northwestern Universities. He worked at the Policy Research Group of the World Bank from since 1989, including spending five years of external service in Nairobi from 1993 to 1998, where he served as the Research Director of the African Economic Research Consortium. Before joining the World Bank he was an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Gezira in Sudan. His research interests range from broader socio-economic issues such as the linkages between poverty and civil wars, to more traditional macroeconomic topics, such as :exchange rate economics; capital flows; globalization, exports and comparative advantage; private investment and growth. His research and policy experiences covers Africa and the Middle East, including detailed country experiences related to several countries from the two regions.
Kathleen Fallon
Professor Kathleen Fallon, 黑料不打烊 University, is a sociologist with research interests related to political sociology, social movements, gender, international development, africa, methodology and stratification. Her recent publications include Bradshaw, Y., K. Fallon and J. Viterna. Forthcoming. "Wiring the World: Access to Information Technology and Development in Poor Countries." in Social Stratification and Mobility, and "Using Informal Networks to Seek Formal Political Participation in Ghana,鈥� in The Power of Informal Networks, edited by Mangala Subranamian and Bandana Purkayastha. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi
Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Ghana, Legon. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Democratic Development, CDD-Ghana (a democracy and governance research think-tank, which mobilized civil society support for and inputs into Ghana鈥檚 national reconciliation program). His recent academic publications include: Democratic Reforms in Africa: the Quality of Progress (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004); Public Opinion, Democracy, and Market Reform in Africa (with Michael Bratton and Robert Mattes) (Cambridge University Press, 2005); and 鈥淕hana: The Political Economy of 鈥楽uccessful 鈥楨thno-Regional Conflict Management鈥� in Sunil Bastian and Robin Luckham eds., Can Democracy be Designed? (London: Zed Press, 2003).
Alice Hamer
Dr. Alice Hamer is Director of Social Development (North, South and East Region) at the African Development Bank where she has worked for approximately 20 years. She is responsible for projects financed by the AfDB in three different domains: education, health and social protection. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and History from the University of Michigan as well as a Masters in Public Health from the same university.
Simon Jimenez
Simon Jimenez of Globescan has a BA in Economics and an MA and PhD in Education. His professional experience includes reputation research, organizational reviews, and stakeholder research. Globescan is a Canadian corporation which has been providing public opinion and stakeholder research and strategic counsel to clients since 1987.
Terry Karl
Professor Terry Karl, Stanford University, William and Gretchen Kimball University Fellow and a political scientist, has research interests including comparative politics (comparative democratization in developing countries, democracy and inequality, Latin American politics), the political economy of development (relationship between natural resources, stability, equity, and human rights, especially in oil-exporting countries), and international relations (resolution of civil wars, the global politics of human rights, and U.S. policy towards the developing world).
Jackie Kirk
Dr. Jackie Kirk completed her PhD in the Education Faculty at 黑料不打烊 University, writing on women teachers in Pakistan. She is now a research associate with the 黑料不打烊 Centre for Research and Teaching on Women, and a research fellow with the UNESCO Centre at the University of Ulster. Her main areas of work are gender and teacher education in emergency education and in education in conflict and post-conflict contexts. She also has a focus on adolescent girls and young women. She works with a number of international agencies and organizations, including the International Rescue Committee, UNESCO and CARE and has extensive field experience in South Asia and in Africa. Jackie is an active member of the International Network on Emergency Education (INEE), and on the steering committees of the working groups on Gender and Peace-building and Children and Armed Conflict of the Canadian Peace-building Coordinating Committee.
Grace Marquis
Professor Grace Marquis, 黑料不打烊 University, is Canada Research Chair in Social and Environmental Aspects of Nutrition in the Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition. She has a PhD from Cornell University. Her research interests include child nutrition in the developing world and specifically studying the biological, social and environmental determinants of early nutrition.
Khalid Medani
Professor Khalid Medani, 黑料不打烊 University, is a political scientist with research interests related to African politics, Islam and politics, informal economies, Middle East politics, ethnic and civil conflict, comparative politics, and the political economy of development. Recent publications include 鈥淪tate Building in Reverse: The Neo-Liberal 'Reconstruction' of Iraq鈥�, Middle East Report, Summer 2004.
Claudia Mitchell
Professor Claudia Mitchell, 黑料不打烊 University, Faculty of Education, has research interests including youth, gender and AIDS, youth culture, visual and arts-based research methodologies, girls education in development studies and teacher identity. She has specific interests in South and Southern Africa. Her most recent publications are Mitchell, C. & Smith, A. (2003). 鈥淪ick of AIDS: Literacy and the Meaning of Life for South African Youth鈥�, Culture, Health & Sexuality, 5, 513-522, and Mitchell, C. & Reid-Walsh, J. (2002). Researching children鈥檚 popular culture. London: Routledge.
Philip Oxhorn
Professor Philip Oxhorn, director, Centre for Developing-Area Studies, is a political scientist. His research interests are related to theories of civil society, democracy and processes of democratization, and Latin American politics. His recent publications include Decentralization, Civil Society, and Democratic Governance: Comparative Perspectives from, Africa, Asia and Latin America, contributor and co-editor with Joseph S. Tulchin, and Andrew D. Selee (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press/the Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), and 鈥淐onceptualizing Civil Society from the Bottom Up: A Political Economy Perspective,鈥� in Richard Feinberg, Carlos H. Waisman and Leon Zamosc, eds., Civil Society and Democracy in Latin America (Palgrave Macmillan).
Yogan Pillay
Yogan Pillay is currently chief director of strategic planning in the National Department of Health, South Africa. He was previously employed by Management Sciences for Health as the national manager of the Equity Project, a USAID funded primary health care project. Prior to taking up this position he was a Director in the National Department of Health responsible establishing the district health system and for policy co-ordination. He is currently on the boards of the Health Systems Trust as well as AMREF, South Africa. He has published widely on mental health as well as health systems and health policy issues.
Aili Mari Tripp
Prof. Aili Mari Tripp is Associate Dean of International Studies and Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies. Her teaching and research interests are in African politics, comparative politics, and gender studies in an international context. She is author of Women and Politics in Uganda (2000) and Changing the Rules: The Politics of Liberalization and the Urban Informal Economy in Tanzania (1997). She has a forthcoming book co-authored with Isabel Casimiro, Joy Kwesiga and Alice Mungwa entitled Women in Movement: Transformations in African Political Landscapes (Cambridge University Press).
Howard Wolpe
Dr. Howard Wolpe is Director of the Africa Program and the Project on Leadership and Building State Capacity at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. A specialist in African politics, for 10 of his 14 years in the Congress Dr. Wolpe chaired the Subcommittee on Africa of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he was instrumental in effecting many changes in U.S. policy on Africa, including the ending of military assistance to Gen. Mobutu in Zaire (Congo) and enabling the passage of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986. Dr. Wolpe is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and of Africare. He co-directed (with Ambassador David C. Miller, Jr.) the Ninetieth American Assembly on 鈥淎frica and U.S. National Interests鈥� held in March 1997. He has written extensively on Africa, American foreign policy, and the management of ethnic and racial conflict. Currently, Dr. Wolpe is working on a book based on his diplomatic experience with the Burundi peace process and is directing several post-conflict leadership training programs in Africa.
