SDPI Research and News Bulletin

Eighth Sustainable Development Conference:
A Curtain Raiser

Uzma T Haroon
uzma@sdpi.org

The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) will hold its eighth Sustainable Development Conference (SDC) from December 7-9, 2005 in Islamabad, Pakistan. SDC is designed to be a forum for sharing and exchanging dialogues on sustainable development with practitioners, civil society and policy makers. Some 150 panelists from 18 countries participated in the seventh SDC held in December 2004.
The proposed eight SDC will examine the multiple facets of sustainable development in the context of South Asia. The speakers will discuss how problems and issues in South Asia can be dealt effectively at various levels, based on prior experience of successful policy interventions.
The conference seeks to bring together from South Asia and other regions of the world theorists, researchers, activists, policy makers, and academicians to debate the issues of sustainable development in an era of globalization.

Five major themes have been planned for this year. They are:

• Women’s/gender issues
• Livelihood
• WTO and governance
• Unraveling history and politics in the subcontinent: Peace and people’s rights
• Health

Under the major themes, the following sub-themes have been identified:

• Gendered violence and positive masculinities in South Asia
• Millennium Development Goals and women’s empowerment: The way forward
• Displacement, livelihoods and rights: Gendered experiences
• South Asian livelihoods at risk
• Child labor
• WTO and governance
• South Asian textile trade in the post-quota era: Human development implications of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing
• Religious minorities: 1947 violence and relief work
• Religious minorities: Post partition struggle and contributions
• Women mystic/sufi poets: Dissent voices from South Asia
• Linking our past to the future: The regional voices (Pashtun, Baloch, Sindhi, Punjabi)
• Linking our past to the future: The concept of “other”
• Students in political mobilization
• The significance of Indo-Pak peace
• Critical issues in health care
• Children’s health and environment

A plenary session will be organized each day with personalities whose contribution in sustainable development is well known. Every panel will run for about two hours. There will be three to four speakers giving a presentation of 15 to 20 minutes each, followed by a dialogue with the audience at the end of the presentations. Anthology of the previous conference papers, that is under print, will also be launched at the eighth SDC.

Updated details of the eight SDC will be available shortly on the SDPI’s website: www.sdpi.org