Why development still matters: International development after the global financial crisis - 18th March 2010

This event is being held as part of the ESRC´s Festival of Social Science week, and also as the launch event of SIDNet, the Sheffield International Development Network.

The event will be a public debate on the future of international development in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. We have four leading external speakers at this event, each at the cutting edge of their own areas of development practice and research:

• Prof Stuart Corbridge – Director of DESTIN (Development Studies Institute), LSE.
• Duncan Green – Head of Research, Oxfam.
• Claire Melamed – Head of Policy, ActionAid.
• Dr Dianna Mitlin – Senior Lecturer, International Development and Public Management, University of Manchester, and Senior Research Fellow, International Institute of Environment and Development, London. IDPM

Our external speakers thus have a range of experience of different aspects of international development from issues of international debt to questions of urban poverty – and we are looking forward to a lively debate. Our speakers will give their own initial introductions to the subject, before opening to questions from the floor in a `Question Time´ format, with Prof Tony Payne, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Social Sciences in the chair. We anticipate an audience which is primarily drawn from university and sixth form students.

The event will also act as a public launch of Sheffield International Development Network (SIDNet): SIDNet is a group of research-active interdisciplinary scholars within the University of Sheffield who will present their work before and after the debate through posters and other media. After the debate itself, there will be a display of posters of some of SIDNet´s current research that will showcase the group´s work. Focusing on current and recent ESRC projects, this will highlight the importance of academic research in practically engaging with contemporary development concerns across the Global South.

And some background on SIDNet, the network which is being officially launched at the event…

Over the last year, a group of researchers with interests in different aspects of international development has come together from across a range of the University of Sheffield´s departments (from medicine to music). Our aims are to support the cutting edge research currently being conducted on international development within the University, to look for new opportunities for collaborative research, and to promote the University´s role as a national centre for high-level teaching and training in international development. In this the first year of our operation, we´ve set up a seminar series, held a one-day conference on current postgraduate research, and have further events planned. The network´s website is: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/internationaldevelopment/