The Eighth Sustainable Development Conference (SDC) was held from December 7th to 9th 2005 at the Best Western Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Sustainable Development Conference is a significant engagement on the research and academic calendar in Asia, attracting intellectuals and policy-makers to assemble in Islamabad.
The Eighth SDC probed multiple facets of sustainable development in the contexts of South Asia through six major themes. Overall, 30 panels were organized, and 94 speakers from 11 countries presented their work at the conference.
This theme addressed dispossession and empowerment of women in the South Asian context. It juxtaposed South Asian women’s gendered experience of both structural and direct violence, of vulnerabilities and natural disasters and also explored examples of positive masculinities in South Asia as a means of countering the violence women experience.
Panels were organized on multiple sub-themes relating to how policy makers can assure sustainable livelihoods that can cope with disasters like earthquakes, withstand the changes in human settlement patterns; the social dimensions of earthquakes, tsunamis and other disasters, and linkages between environmental degradation and natural disasters.
Panelists discussed the developments emerging from a fresh round of WTO agreements and the challenges they present for the Asian region. Many analysts predict that the agreements may lead to economic growth for those who can tap the opportunities; however, economic growth will be unable to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. The panels organized under this theme explored linkages of multi-trading system with sustainable development in order to make liberalization of trade and investment people-friendly.
Panelists explored the individual and community’s capacity to transform physical health and mental well being into economic productivity, growth, and sustainable development. One panel was specifically devoted to the repercussions of the October 8th earthquake in Pakistan.
This panel was an attempt to catalogue the alternative voices and life histories in South Asia. The sub-themes focused on the influence that Pakistan’s state and political structure has had on violence in society since independence. This was taken up by exploring the treatment of religious minorities in Pakistan; inter-state peace between Pakistan and its neighbors; and the role of cinema in highlighting people’s rights.
This sub-theme examined the violation of human rights of vulnerable children. Child labor constitutes a grave violation of human rights as it negates the principles of human dignity. Its existence poses a serious challenge not just to the persons or families directly involved in child labor but to society at large. Child labor deprives children of their unalienable right to education, health and a carefree childhood. Moreover, child labor also affects the level of human resource development in a country.
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