Society for International Development
Network Memo
October/November 2007

GOVERNANCE
The 2007-2010 Governing Council held its first Annual Session in Civita Castellana (Italy) on 20-21 October 2007.
The Session enjoyed a lively debate on the critical strategic choices for the coming period, with special emphasis being placed on the urgent need for an institutional development plan that could catalyze the further strengthening of the SID network.

Under the leadership of SID’s Interim President, Jos van Gennip, the Council unanimously elected Jan Pronk, former Dutch minister for both Development Cooperation and the Environment, and Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations in Sudan from 2004 to 2006, as the new President of SID, while Jacqueline Pitanguy (Brazil - Director of CEPIA) and Juma Volter Mwapachu (Tanzania - Secretary General of the East Africa Community), were elected Vice-Presidents. While both Vice Presidents will immediately complement Mr. van Gennip in its interim leadership of SID, Mr. Pronk will take up office on January 1st, 2008. The Council also renewed the mandate of Stefano Prato as SID Managing Director.

The report of the 2007 Annual Session of the SID Governing Council will soon be available for Council review and feedback.

Tribute to Robert Cassani
Sadly Robert Cassani, former SID Deputy Secretary General, passed away at the young age of 48 on September 3 in California, where he was receiving treatment for cancer. Robert began his active association with SID as an intern in the Rome office in 1980 recruited from the San Francisco Chapter leaving to join IFAD in 1998. As well as working closely with Maurice Williams in leading the International Secretariat in the early 1990s, his contributions to SID included work on the sustainable livelihoods programme and the Society's activities in South Asia. The people that worked with him at SID will remember the warmth and calmness that he was able to transmit.

SID JOURNAL DEVELOPMENT
The issue on Migration and Development (Vol. 50.4) is scheduled to be ready by December 2007. The issue analyzes the impact of migration on development both at the international and domestic level, through the complex lens of globalization, market demand and the insecurity of the national state. It also explores the cultural and social aspects of people’s movements in order to understand how the world is being transformed by migration.

Volume 51 of the journal (2008), will focus on the overall theme of Environment and Development. The four issues of the journal are: Vol.51.1 (March) which will focus on Water and Peoples, Vol.51.2 (June) on Gender and Fisheries, Vol.51.3 (September) on Climate Change and Vol.51.4 (December) on The Future of Agriculture.

Please note that all members are entitled to receive a copy of Development as part of their membership subscription. If you have not been receiving the journal regularly, please contact the SID membership officer, Paola Pepere (membership@sidint.org) or the Publisher at subscriptions@palgrave.com.

REGIONAL PROCESSES & PROGRAMMES
East Africa Scenarios Project
The East Africa Scenarios are almost ready to be launched. The SID project team has been testing the scenario stories with select audiences in Dar es Salaam, Kampala and Nairobi. They were also presented to a group of African diplomats on 23 October 2007 in Rome. The meeting was attended by diplomats from Kenya, Burundi, Sudan and Egypt, as well as by regional experts and academics. The State of East Africa Report 2007: Searching for the Soul of East Africa was presented by Aidan Eyakuze, SID’s East Africa Scenarios Programme Director, who also gave a brief outline of the three stories on the future of the region that emerged as a result of the programme: I Want to Be a Star or the Seduction of Wealth, I Want a Visa or the Illusion of Control, and Don’t Rush Me! or the Burden of Freedom.

The stories and the accompanying research compendium are scheduled to be launched in the last week of November.

Click here to read a copy of the report.

SID was also invited to present the State of East Africa Report 2007 at the East Africa Law Society (EALS) Annual Conference and General Meeting in October 2007. The presentation sparked a lively debate about the nature and drivers of regional integration among an audience of over 70 participants who included Hon Eriya Kategaya, Chairman of the East African Community Council of Ministers and Uganda's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Community Affairs, and Mr Charles Mbogori, Executive Director of the East African Business Council.

Migration and Development
South of Lampedusa, the documentary produced as part of the CeSPI-SID project Migration and Development, and tracing the transit route of sub-Saharan migrants from the city of Agadez to Libya, through the desert of Teneré, has recently been shown at the Medvideofestival-Paestum (Italy), where it was awarded the Special Prize, and at the MilanoFilmFestival (Italy).
The movie was also awarded the Homo Migrans prize by Celim.
South of Lampedusa will be shown at Cinemafrica Festival (Rome) on 1-9 December 2007, at the MEDFILMESTIVAL (Rome) on 8-19 November and at the African Cinema Festival (Verona, Italy) on 18-21 November.

European Programme
On 26 November 2007, SID European Programme, EU Coherence Programme/EVS and EDC 2010 Programme/EADI held a briefing for parliamentarians on the theme ‘Implementation of the European Consensus on Development: 2007 Policy Coherence for Development Rhetoric or Reality?‘

The briefing session dealt with the issue of Policy Coherence for Development within the larger context of implementation of European Consensus for Development. The timing of the session was chosen to follow the publishing of the first ever European Report on Policy Coherence for Development, which was prepared by the European Commission and which will be voted in the EP plenary early next year.

The purpose of the session was two-folded: on one side to provide parliamentarians, policy makers and representatives of development administrations with the latest information regarding the above topic, and at the same time to provide the participants with an opportunities to discuss the subject with an expert panel of multi-stakeholder representatives (the European Commission, researchers, parliamentarians and civil society), and with their colleagues parliamentarians from other MS and EP.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS
Third National Conference Italy-Latin America
The Third National Conference Italy-Latin America was held in Rome on 16-17 October 2007. The conference, organized by SID’s partner organization CeSPI and by IILA (Italian-Latin American Institute), featured the participation of the President of Chile Michelle Bachelet and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. The Italian Government expressed a strong will to strengthen its ties with Latin America after years of loose engagement, a will confirmed by missions of Italian ministers to 18 countries in the region during the last two years. The event was attended by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of 14 Latin American countries.


The Future of Fair Trade
A talk on ‘The Future of Fair Trade’ was held in Rome on 6 October 2007. The talk, organized by CTMAltromercato, an Italian fair trade association, featured a presentation by Wolfgang Sachs, former editor of Development. The meeting stimulated a lively debate between fair trade supporters on one hand and those who advocate for policy changes in international trade rules on the other. It was pointed out however that the two positions are not necessarily divergent and that fair trade, although not challenging the export-oriented economic system, has proved a useful experiment in social enterprise and a vital organizational tool for local producers. Sachs, who also presented his latest research Slow Trade-Sound Farming, advocated for national states to reclaim a political space currently in the hands of transnationals, for environmental and social standards to be introduced and for preferential access to be guaranteed to poorer countries and producers.

NETWORK ACTIVITIES
AISI-Sicilia
AREMEDD (Association of the Mediterranean Network for Durable Development), headed by M. Mohamed Mehdi Mlika, adviser to Tunisia’s Prime Minister, organized an Arab-Mediterranean Conference on the theme ‘Safety in the Handling of Chemical Products for Quality of Life’. The conference, organized under the patronage of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia’s President of the Republic, was held in Tunis on 2-3 November 2007. Many not-for-profit organizations, in particularly Arabic associations, were invited. Among them was AISI Sicilia, member of the Society for International Development.

In his opening speech, Salvatore Grasso, president of AISI Sicilia, called for the creation of a ‘Commission for Sustainable Chemistry to Improve the Quality of Life in the Mediterranean’, with the aim of urging Mediterranean governments to sign a protocol for sustainable chemistry.

The conference concluded with the signing of the ‘Tunis Appeal for the Safe Handling of Chemical Products for Quality of Life’.

For more information on the project, please visit www.aisisicilia.it.

SID Bangladesh Chapter
On 22 October 2007, SID Bangladesh held a discussion meeting with Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, one of the lead authors of the IPCC’s forthcoming ‘Climate Change 2007 – 4th Assessment Report’. In his presentation, Dr Ahmad stressed that South Asian people are particularly suffering the effects of climate change and are at most risk of frequent floods, drought, cyclones and other devastating natural calamities. He said he hoped the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC would stimulate more attention to climate change and environmental degradation.

SID Berlin Chapter
On 25 October 2007, SID Berlin’s 13th lecture series started at the Technical University in Berlin. The emphasis of the current series of lectures is on international development institutions and their activities and concepts in conflict prevention and conflict management.

The lecture series, which is held each year, is regularly attended by both students and experts from development organizations and NGOs, with 50 to 100 participants. Over the past 7 years the lecture series has addressed a variety of different topics ranging from Development Policy in general to specific discussion of Development Cooperation with the many stakeholders and decision makers involved. The lectures have also covered concrete issues like migration, the MDGs, resource based and other conflicts and trade.

The idea of this series is to present development policy as an important part within the international politics and to combine the academic views with the perspectives from the development practice.

SID Bonn Chapter
From 11 to 14 September 2007, SID Bonn Chapter in cooperation with the German Development Institute (GDI), InWEnt (Capacity Building International, Germany) and the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) held a series of lectures on ‘Development Cooperation of the European Commission’. Speakers from the European Commission were Dr. A. Baum, Head of the Department for Institutional Relations and Civil Society, K. Rudischhauser, Director ACP 1, General Affairs and Dr. S. Grimm from the GDI. Also present was Dr. F. Kitschelt, Head of the European Department of the German Ministry of Development Cooperation. C. Overkamp, General Director of the ‘Coopération Internationale pour le Développement et la Solidarité’, presented the results of the study ‘Governance and Development Cooperation. The EU’s Footprint in the South’ adding a civil-society perspective on the issue. For SID, Dr. K. van de Sand, Member of SID’s Governing Council, reflected on the Society’s 50 years. Last but not least, J. van Gennip, SID’s interim President, gave a speech on the EC as a global player in the development cooperation arena. SID Bonn is currently working on a booklet (in German) covering the lecture series. It will be published before the end of the year and can be ordered at info@sid-bonn.de.

SID Ivory Coast Chapter
On the occasion of the 42nd Literacy Day in Ivory Coast, on the theme ‘I count, I write, I read and I apply health measures’, SID-Ivory Coast has launched a huge literacy campaign in Yopougon, the biggest area of Abidjan.
As part of this campaign, youths have been recruited and trained as health animators and have started teaching illiterate women and young girls about health issues.

SID-Ivory Coast will also provide training and employment opportunities to women and young girls who work as housemaids, in the framework of the fight against female poverty.
As part of this project, SID Ivory Coast has carried out a survey among housemaids. The result of the survey showed that most of the women who are employed as housemaids are illiterate or come from vulnerable families. Their main worry is how to survive. Their role involves cooking, washing, cleaning, taking care of children, shopping, and sometimes providing sexual favours.

SID Netherlands Chapter
On 29 October 2007 SID Netherlands held the opening lecture in the 2007-2008 lecture series on ‘Emerging Global Scarcities and Power Shifts’. The lecture, entitled ‘Biobased Economy and the Future of the CAP’, was given by Gerda Verburg, Dutch Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Qualitys.

The lecture series intends to investigate the relationship between commodities such as water, energy and food, and the international geopolitical framework. It will analyse how new scarcities affect the geography of poverty and the position of developing countries, and what impact they will have on international and development cooperation. Further information is available from the SID Netherlands Chapter ‘s website www.sid-nl.org.

SID Rajasthan Chapter
SID Rajasthan held an International Dialogue on ‘Economics of Non-violence: Cultural Values & Ethics’ at Udaipur, Rajasthan (India) on 1-3 November 2007.

If you would like to receive a copy of the background paper entitled ‘Development with Nonviolence: Incredible India at 60: Opportunities & Challenges’ please contact Laura Fano.

SID Washington Chapter
On 27 September 2007 SID Washington held celebrations for the chapter’s 50th anniversary. The event featured Paul Collier, Professor of Economics at Oxford University and author of ‘The Bottom Billion’. For the occasion, SID Washington prepared a booklet tracing the history of the chapter. The booklet also contains contributions by SID Washington’s past presidents and its Strategic Plan for 2007-2012. If you would like to receive a copy of the booklet, please contact sid@aed.org.

On 30 October 2007, SID Washington held the talk ‘China in Africa: What Does the Rise of Another Global Power Mean to Current Development Trends?’. The panelists were Sun Bahong from the Embassy of China, Ambassador David Shinn from the GWU Ellliott School of International Affairs and Karen Turner, Director of USAID Office of Development Partners.