Collective responsibility for sustainable livelihoods

Collective responsibility for sustainable livelihoods

The Hague Meeting

Tags: Knowledge Platform, Small Producers Agency

The second launch of ‘Beyond Economics’ took place in The Hague on 11 December 2009 and was inspired by the third issue of Development Vol 52. The Hague seminar hinged on the question of whether economics itself has to change or whether the existing economic principles just need to be more efficiently put into practice perhaps with better, more people-centred and environmentally friendly policy.

Chaired by Jan Pronk, President of SID and Chair in the Theory and Practice of International Development at the Institute of Social Studies, the meeting of around 50 people from academe, civil society and the business community had a lively debate. The meeting took place in the shadow of Copenhagen discussions on climate change.

Keynote speaker Rick van der Ploeg, Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford and Deputy Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, underlined that the climate crisis has to be faced and answered by radically different forms of financial and economic policies. In contrast,

Wendy Harcourt Editor of Development at the Society for International Development, emphasized the need for a new type of economics, building from the bottom up, with new values and new types of livelihoods with social economies working with and along side global markets.

Franck Amalric, author of one of the articles in the journal argued that it is important to question the dominance of economics in development. For Amalric the real issue is about empowerment, a concept which is not graspable in economics.

Allert van den Ham, Director of Programmes and Projects at the Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (Hivos), underlined that the financial, food and environment crises are the result of collective decision making processes that need to change. Linking the economic to the social agenda will necessarily create new, far more democratic institutions that can serve the interests of the poor and recognize the civic agency of people.

Arthur Muliro, Deputy Director of SID, spoke about the financial crisis in Africa and its impact on African people. He argued that African states need to take their responsibilities and not rely on the outside world in facing the huge inequalities but also possibilities in Africa.

A more detailed report of the event will be available soon.

A third launch of ‘Beyond Economics’ will take place in Tanzania on 1-3 February 2010. The launch will bring together African partners in the SID and HIVOS networks involved in research and advocacy looking at the impact of the systemic crises on African development. The seminar will look at the way the crises are playing out in Africa, specifically at the socio-economic impact on both the macro and micro levels. The launch will look at Beyond Economics from two entry points: the first conceptual and the second looking towards the future work of SID and partners such as HIVOS in the Region.