THE ASSOCIATION OF DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHERS IN DENMARK (FAU)
ANNUAL CONFERENCE AUGUST 29-31, 2018
AT DJURSVOLD (DJURSLAND)

After decades of state retrenchment and market expansions, the question remains whether there is still a role to play for state provision of welfare in developing countries? FAU will take up the tradition of informal, in-depth discussions among researchers, lecturers, practitioners and students in the tranquil surroundings of rural Djursland.

Download the program here: FAU Conference 29-31 August 2018 flyer

A New Order for Development – State, Market or both?

For most updated information, and prelimiary program: http://www.fau.dk/regular-activities/156-fau-seminar-april-12-14-2018-a-new-order-for-development-state-market-or-both.html

Are Brexit, Trump, and the rise of nationalist parties and authoritarianism in many countries within the past 5 years signs of an emerging new order of development?

This is the topic of a 3-day seminar for development researchers, practitioners and students. The format of the seminar provides a rare opportunity to engage in more in-depth, interdisciplinary and direct discussions than is normally the case. It takes place in the tranquil surroundings of rural
Djursland and emphasizes informal interaction between international and Danish speakers and participants.

International scholars (Dirk Willem te Velde, ODI; and Olle Törnquist, UiO) will give plenary input while groups of committed scholars from different institutions convene the two workshops (1. The Private Sector and Financing the SDGs, and 2. Does the State still have a Role as Welfare Provider in Developing Countries?).

Through these debates, the seminar will address:
1. What do these changes mean for the global role of dominant powers and marginalized
regions in the south and elsewhere?
2. How have these changes affected development research and development programs and
projects as we have known them and what can we expect in the future?
3. To what extent are these changes part of larger trends of affecting states, markets, civil
societies and their interaction?

We thereby hope to address the challenges and opportunities of a possible new order of development especially issues of how and whom to finance, deliver and decide over growth and welfare. See the preliminary conference program below.

Dirk Willem te Velde is a Principal Research Fellow and head of the International Economic Development Group at Overseas Development Institute (ODI). He has worked on a number of themes relating to the private sector in development, state-business relations and more (read
more here: www.odi.org). Olle Törnquist is Professor of Political Science at University of Oslo (UiO), Norway. He has worked on democracy and popular movements in developing countries, particular in Asia for many years (read more here: sv.uio.no).

Workshop 1 on ‘The Private Sector and Financing the SDGs’ is convened by: Lars Engberg-Pedersen, Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Søren Jeppesen, Copenhagen Business School (CBS), and Michael Wendelboe Hansen, CBS. (See detailed workshop program below)

Workshop 2 on ‘Does the State still have a Role as Welfare Provider in Developing Countries?’ is
convened by: Aase Mygind Madsen (VIA), and Martin Hvidt, University of Southern Denmark.

Participants interested in presenting a paper in the workshops are kindly requested to contact the conveners (see names and emails below).
Registration & Fees: Registration takes place in two steps; a) an email to the FAU Assistant (fau.msc@cbs.dk) including full name, name of institution, choice of workshop (1 or 2), and dietary requirements, if any, and b) payment of the registration fee (see the categories below) to the FAU bank account at: Danske Bank, SWIFT-code: DABADKKK; Registration-number: 1551; account-number 1651161. IBAN: DK143000-0001651161.

Only when the payment is registered, is the registration complete.

The deadline for registration is Wednesday 28 March 2018.

The participants’ fees covering full board during the seminar from Thursday 12th in the afternoonto Saturday 14 th at lunchtime and lodging. The fees are as follows:
– Students (Master and PhD): DKK 450/Euros 60 (if members of FAU. See fees below).
– Members of FAU: DKK 1400/Euros 200
– Non-members of FAU: DKK 2000/Euros 300
– Non-members can save a considerable amount by joining FAU, and thereby also enjoy the benefits of FAU membership:
– FAU Membership fees (annual): a) Students & Unemployed: 175 DKK/Euros 25, b) Ordinary members: 250 DKK/Euros 30, c) Family members: 300 DKK/Euros 40, and d) Institutions and organizations: 750 DKK/Euros 100. You can join FAU by emailing the FAU Assistant
(fau.msc@cbs.dk) and pay the required membership fee into the FAU bank account (see above).

The venue:
The Djursvold Hostel, Gjerrild is situated at Dyrehavevej 9, Gjerrild, 8500 Grenaa. Accommodation will be in rooms with 2-4 persons. The buildings used to host the local railway station are located close to the sea and various local attractions. See more at: www.danhoselgjerrild.dk

Please note that participants are to arrange transport to and from the venue and cover the expenses of this.
Mark the dates (12-14 April 2018) and Join us at Djursvold!
See the preliminary conference program and the workshop programs below; Follow the updates on http://www.fau.dk/regular-activities/156-fau-seminar-april-12-14-2018-a-new-order-for-development-state-market-or-both.html

Special announcement: Calls for Papers

EADI Panel at World Social Science Forum, 25-28 Sep, Fukuoka, Japan

Our panel is entitled “Development Studies and Knowledge Production – Which Way? In search of a transdisciplinary and transformative (research) agenda on equality”. The Call for Papers is open until 17 March.
EADI Panel at Development Research Conference 2018, 22-23 August, Gothenburg

In collaboration with the EADI Working Group on “Post-/Decolonial Perspectives on Development”, EADI organises a panel titled “Rethinking Development Research: objects and subjects in development studies”. The Call for Papers is open until 23 February.

All interested researchers are invited to submit an abstract.

—————————————————————————————

Please register your name upon payment.

Membership fees 2018

The membership fee is payable to account no. 0540 08 76225
Remember to state your name upon payment.

The general assembly takes place Tuesday, 12 Dec, from 16.00-18.00. The location is Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), C. J. Hambros plass 2, 0164 Oslo. 

Your participation and input to NFU is welcome!

The NFU Annual Report 2017 is to be found here: Annual-report-NFU-2017.
——————-

There is an event organized by the TaxCapDev Network going on at NUPI before our general assembly, called “Many Ways to Lose a Billion: Extractive Sector Revenue Loss in Africa”.

President and founder of Resources for Development Consluting, Don Hubert, visits NUPI for the occasion.

The event has a waiting list, so if you wish to attend it remember to register using the link below:

http://www.nupi.no/en/Events/2017/Many-Ways-to-Lose-a-Billion-Extractive-Sector-Revenue-Loss-in-Africa

Frokostseminar i Oslo, 8. november 2017, klokka 0800-0930.
“Øyvind Eggen i Civita innleder om hovedlinjene fra rapporten «Veier ut av fattigdom», og peker på hva Norges bidrag bør være. Kjell Roland i Norfund vil deretter ha en kort innledning og kommentar til rapporten en samtale mellom disse to, ledet av Nikolai Hegertun fra Civita.”

Les mer her: http://www.polyteknisk.no/moter/veier-fattigdom-bor-norges-bidrag-vaere/

Norwegian research institutions are invited to arrange the biennial NFU conference in late 2018 (Oct-Dec).

The Politics of Sustainability

Important deadlines:
20 Oct 2017: Deadline for Working Group proposals
30 Oct 2017: Call for Papers sent out
30 Nov 2017: Deadline for Paper/presentation abstracts
15 Dec 2017: Notification of accepted Paper abstracts
15 Dec 2017: Registration begins
12 Feb 2018: Registration ends
14 Feb 2018: Pre-conference workshop
15-16 Feb 2018: Development Days Conference

Read more on the conference website: http://www.kehitystutkimus.fi/conference/

POLLEN18: Political Ecology, the Green Economy, and Alternative Sustainabilities

When: 20-22 June 2018
Where: Oslo and Akershus University College, Oslo, Norway
Organised by: The Political Ecology Network (POLLEN) Secretariat; Oslo and Akershus University College; Centre for Environment and Development (SUM), University of Oslo; Noragric, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
Paper/Panel Submission Deadline: 15 December 2017
Conference Website: https://politicalecologynetwork.com/pollen-biannual-conference/

The jury had a challenging task deciding the winner of the master thesis award 2017. We were impressed by the quality of the master theses, investigating a variety of development aspects, with solid methodological approaches based on empirical data. At the end of the process it was a close race between four strong candidates:

Tone Standal Vesterhus wrote an excellent thesis on Youth, Informality and Public Space, based on fieldwork in Nairobi, Kenya. She investigated how youth in the slums navigate their opportunities and how public spaces play a role in improving the lives of young people.  Antoine de Beny Puyvallée wrote a thesis on Norway’s International response to Ebola, where he investigated the altruism and self-interest involved in humanitarian responses. Henrik Wesenberg Dale wrote a thesis on the donor-recipient relationship between the EU and Etiopia. Amongst his findings he shows how the negotiating capital of the Ethiopian state is high as compared to other sub-Saharan countries. The forth candidate, Andrea Aleman-Andrade wrote about the agency of Andean Agrarian NGOs in the relationship with the Bolivian state´s political model during the last 20 years.

We are happy to announce that the winner of the thesis award is Andrea Aleman–Andrade, enrolled in the Development Management Master programme at the University of Agder, Norway.

Andrea’s master thesis explores the evolvement of the status and role of the NGOs in Bolivia during the past decades as the country has been undergoing different regime changes, culminating with the Andean nationalist-socialist policies of the present MAS government. How NGOs played a crucial role in facilitating the MAS «revolution», only to be later coopted by the socialist state, is an interesting story to be told and discussed. The candidate has through the examples of three different rural NGOS located in the highlands of Bolivia demonstrated how the NGOs have taken different approaches in their relationship to the state in different political periods: NGOs agency for reproduction, applying the demands of the state and the global civil society trends, and NGOs agency for social change, where NGOs have been working to support indigenous and peasant communities beyond the state. The candidate problematizes how the state since 2008 and the so -called commodity consensus wants to use the NGOs as instruments for its rigid laws that show a regimen on the path towards authoritarianism. The difference with the neoliberal period is that the state now demands a relation with NGOs only for the reproduction of the commodities consensus model. A new law demands NGOS to follow the Patriotic Agenda 2025, otherwise, they cannot access to official funds. This is a clear reflection of how the state now exercises direct power over the NGOs, aiming to control their activities and funds. In cases where the NGOs get the license by the state, but work in a different direction, the state can abolish the NGOs. In such cases, NGOs do not have the right to defend themselves. It means that there is no alternative of a relation with the state through an agency of social change that potentially differs from the state’s perspective. NGOs can then no longer be seen as expressions of civil society, but have rather become the instruments of the state. However, for its survival or for sharing similar approaches, NGOs are submitting to the law. Hence, NGOs are accepting to follow the commodities consensus state model, which implies the prioritization of the economy and “productivity”. In this scenario, the relationship of coproduction between NGOs with neoliberal governments seems to be reproduced by the commodities consensus political model, but in the shape of discipline. Again, the most affected by this relation are the Andean communities, since the rural development is based on the state agenda and not on their direct interests, far from the ‘bottom-up linkage approach’ . The state currently demands an Andean agriculture that could respond to neo-liberalistic trends through an increase in production, although climate change and farming strategies do not allow for it.

Despite some minor challenges with the language this is a well written and well-structured thesis where the candidate provides a solid theoretical framework applying the concepts of agency and govermentality when presenting the historical journey of NGOs through a shifting political context radically altering the relationship between organizations and the state. Aleman-Andrande demonstrates an excellent analytical capacity in her discussion and makes an important contribution to an ongoing, and increasingly more politicized and difficult discussion about the role of NGOs and Civil Society Organisations for development processes in Bolivia. The fact that the candidate gets involved in this types of debates, despite the potential harm it may bring for her future professional and academic life in Bolivia requires courage and thus also recognition.

Access the full thesis here: https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2459903/UT-505%20-%20Aleman%20Andrade%2C%20Andrea.pdf?sequence=1