Invitation to Actively Participate in a
Symposium on Hunger and Economic Growth
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)
Uppsala, 12-13 September 2012
Dates and times:
12 September: 11:30 to 18:00
13 September: 8:30 to 14:00
Location:
Undervisninghus, SLU, Ultuna
Economic growth does not necessarily lead to a decline in poverty or malnutrition. This has
been well documented and counter-argued in studies from India and increasingly from
China. India was once heralded as the birth and the crucible of the green revolution, while
today it is questionable if that was the right intervention. The Prime Minister of Great Britain,
David Cameron intends to use the Olympic Games spotlight to debate World Hunger. While
on the 8th August 2012, African musicians, artists, activists and actors wrote an open letter
in The Guardian to the world. The emphasis of the letter was the need for the world to invest
in sustained long-term investment that leads to growth in gross domestic product.
Economists and agrobusiness investors have seen the potential of low-income countries as
the next frontier for trade and economic growth. Leaders worldwide are increasing their
investments in agribusiness, while the private sector is increasing its interest in tapping into
the burgeoning consumption habits of the growing low and middle-income countries.
“Let's be clear. Parts of Africa are blighted by poverty, hunger, war, corruption and the
vagaries of a harsh and changing climate. Today severe hunger is stalking a huge swath
of Africa from Senegal in the west to Chad, on through Sudan and all the way to Somalia
in the East. More than 20 million people are affected. These parts of this vast continent
need our collective support. Immediate aid is needed.
But Africa also needs sustained long-term investment which helps people provide
enough food for their families, build their own future, withstand the next challenge and lift
their horizons beyond the latest crisis.” (guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 August 2012
20.59 BST)
We invite you to actively participate in a two-day Symposium at the Swedish University of
Agricultural Sciences – SLU in Uppsala, Sweden. The Symposium will address the
interconnections between hunger and economic growth in the world. With the current global
food, fuel and economic crises, the first Millennium Development Goal of eradicating
extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 continues to be elusive.
Within this context, some acute questions arising today are:
Can we have economic growth without hunger?
Are there specific tools that can assist us in ensuring food security, health and
development?
How can we achieve the millennium development goal of eradicating extreme
poverty and hunger by 2015?
This two-day symposium is expected to generate discussions that can broaden our
perspective, analytical capacity and critical argumentation on issues pertaining to hunger
and economic growth. The program includes five highly renowned international scientists
that will set the scene for the discussions. All the discussions will be moderated by a
responder. Graduate students, doctoral candidates, post-docs, scientists, and networks are
invited and encouraged to prepare a poster for presentation at the symposium. On the last
day of the symposium, time has been allocated for a round table discussion with the invited
keynote speakers.
The symposium is organized by the Natural Resource Management and Livelihoods in
International Development (NRML) Research School and the Swedish International
Agricultural Network Initiative (SIANI).
Keynote speakers:
Rodomiro Ortiz is Professor of Genetics and Plant Breeding at
SLU. He holds a BSc-Biology and a MSc-Plant Breeding &
Statistics from UNALM (Perú), and, a PhD-Plant Breeding &
Genetics from the Univ. Wisconsin-Madison. He has attended the
Agribusiness Seminars at Harvard Business School and an
International Internship Program in Intellectual Property Rights and
Technology Transfer at Michigan State Univ. He worked as
researcher at UNALM, CIP (Perú), Rutgers Univ. and IITA (Nigeria),
held a Nordic professorship in plant genetic resources at KVL –now
the Faculty of Life Sciences at the Univ. Copenhagen, and was
hands-on program leader at IITA, and program director at ICRISAT
(India) and CIMMYT (México), deputy-director General/director of
research for development, division director, and officer in charge of
the High Rainfall Station and the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Centre of IITA, and
Senior Advisor to CIMMYT Director General, and served as independent free-lance advisor for
international organizations. He works now as Professor of Genetic and Plant Breeding at the
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
Magnus Jirström is Professor of Social and Economic Geography and Head of the Department
of Human Geography, Lund University. He teaches, since 1991, courses in development
geography and development studies and is the chairman of LUMID, Lund University Master
Programme in International Development and Management (www.lumid.lu.se). During the period
2000-2005 he was the Head of the Department of Service
Management at Campus Helsingborg, Lund University. His research
interests are focused on issues of rural and agricultural development in
low-income countries with a regional emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa
and Southeast Asia. He is a member of the LU-based Swedish-African
research programme Afrint (www.blog.sam.lu.se/afrint). Since 2009,
he is the chairman of Agri4D - The Swedish Research Network:
Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry for Development
(www.agri4d.se). His current research areas include: structural change
and income diversification among smallholders; agricultural policy and
the role of the state in agricultural transformations; technological
change in smallholder agriculture; the role of local organizations and
NGOs in rural development.
Anne N. Kubai holds PhD of the University of London in religious
studies and she is an associate professor of world Christianity and
interreligious studies. She is also trained in education and the taught
Islamic studies for many years at Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya.
She worked at Kigali Institute of Education as an expatriate for Rwanda
Ministry of Education where she served as head of Department of
Religion. She worked for a number of years as head of department of
religious studies at Kigali Institute of Education, Kigali, Rwanda. While in
Rwanda she carried out extensive research on the Rwandan genocide,
the role of the churches, and the challenges of forgiveness and
reconciliation that the post-genocide Rwandan society is facing. From
August 2004 to July 2008 she worked as the Research Director for Life
& Peace Institute, Uppsala, Sweden. Currently she carrying out research on mission and
migration based at Uppsala University. She is also a senior researcher at Karolinska Institutet
where she teaches qualitative research methods. Besides teaching and research in the
academy, Anne is also involved in the work of several international networks and organizations
working with peace and conflict issues; and occasionally works as a consultant in project
evaluation and management.
Ding Shijun, Shijun Ding is an agricultural economist by training, with a
PhD degree in the same field and a PhD certificate from Winrock
International. He has more than twenty years experience working in
agricultural economics and rural development, mostly in China. His main
research interests include smallholders' risk coping strategies, technology
adoption and its impact in rural China, and he published in journals
include China Economic Review, Mountain Research and Development,
Asian Economic Journal, and so on. He has long been working with
collaborators from Institute of Development Studies in the UK and the International Rice
Research Institute in the Philippines.
Biraj Swain leads the Campaigns at Oxfam India, an affiliate of the
global confederation. This includes the Food Justice Campaign, the
largest global campaign called GROW. She is an international
development expert specialising in nutrition and food security, rural
development, water sanitation, health, electricity regulation watch,
administrative reforms, public transport, and civil liberties. Her body of
work spans across South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa. She works on
democratising governance of institutions and essential services, and
designing inclusive and equitable systems responsive to citizens’
engagement with sustainable models of delivery. Biraj is also a visiting
faculty with United Nations University, Tokyo, UNESCO’s Madanjeet
Singh Institute of South Asian Regional Cooperation and School Of
Social Sciences and International Studies, Pondicherry Central
University, India.
Hans Rosling is Professor of International Health at Karolinska
Institute and co-founder and chairman of the Gapminder Foundation,
which developed the Trendalyzer software system. Rosling's
research has also focused on other links between economic
development, agriculture, poverty and health in Africa, Asia and Latin
America. He has been health adviser to WHO, UNICEF and several
aid agencies. In 1993 he was one of the initiators of Médecins Sans
Frontières in Sweden. At Karolinska Institutet he was head of the
Division of International Health (IHCAR) from 2001 to 2007. As
chairman of Karolinska International Research and Training
Committee (1998–2004) he started health research collaborations
with universities in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.
He started new courses on Global Health and co-authored a textbook on Global Health that
promotes a fact-based world-view.
Symposium Organizing Committee
Linley Chiwona-Karltun ([email protected])
Margarita Cuadra ([email protected])
Chad Ellingson ([email protected])
Notification of attendance shall be sent to Chad Ellingson ([email protected]) no later than
September 4th, 2012.
Natural Resource Management and Livelihoods in International
Development
Research School
Symposium on
Hunger and Economic Growth
Uppsala, 12-13 September 2012
Venue: Undervisningshuset (Almas allé 10), Ultuna
PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME
September 12 Wednesday
12:30
Participants registration (Upper foyer)
13:00
Opening and welcome, introduction to the symposium theme
13:10
Opening lecture by Prof Rodomiro Ortiz: The role of biotechnology in
promoting food security – proposition no biotechnology, means more
hunger?
13:50
Discussion
14:10
Health break
14:20
Lecture by Prof Magnus Jirström: Food security – a question of economic
growth and distribution
15:00
Discussion
15:20
Health break with coffee or tea
15:50
Lecture by Anne Kubai: Hunger, Conflict and Development
16:30
Discussion
16:50
Conclusion for day one
17:00 to 18:30
Poster presentation and social mingle in the upper foyer
September 13 Thursday
08:30
Opening and welcome to the second day of the symposium (Aulan)
08:40
Lecture by Prof Shijun Ding: Smallholder's Agricultural Technology
Adoption and Its Impact in China.
09:20
Discussion
09:40
Health break with coffee or tea
10:00
Lecture by Biraj Swain: Food Justice and Agrarian Agenda: Challenging
Hunger and Exclusion
10:40
Discussion
11:00
Closing lecture by Prof Hans Rosling: Fact based world-view. The world
according to Gapminder.
12:00
Discussion
12:20
Closing of the symposium
12:30
Light lunch and Poster viewing in the upper foyer
13:30 to 15:00
Round table discussions with the participants