Media Coverage December 6, 2005

• Sustainable Development Conference starts tomorrow

Sustainable Development Conference starts tomorrow
The News, Rawalpindi/Islamabad
December 06, 2005
By Rasheed Khalid

The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) is organising a 3-day Eighth Sustainable Development Conference (SDC) starting on December 7 (Wednesday).

The conference will host a number of national and international scholars, academicians, researchers and activists, both from the civil society and the government. The speakers will focus on the conference’s six major themes: ‘Women and gender issues’, ‘Livelihoods’, ‘WTO and governance’, ‘Health’, ‘Peace’, ‘Child labour’ and ‘People’s rights’. An anthology of last year’s Seventh conference on "Sustainable development and governance in the age of extremes" containing 42 research papers jointly published by the SDPI and Sama Editorial and Publishing Services, will also be launched on the occasion.

In view of the recent earthquake tragedy, panels on earthquake, injuries/disabilities and rehabilitation and disaster management are also being organised at the conference. The disaster management panel will look into the earthquake disaster in Pakistan from governance, geological, livelihood and environmental perspectives.

The conference would examine the multiple facets of sustainable development in the contexts of South Asia. The speakers will discuss how problems and issues in this region could be dealt effectively at various levels based on prior experience of successful policy interventions. The event seeks to bring together theorists, researchers, activists, policy makers, and academicians from South Asia and other regions of the world to debate the issues of sustainable development in the contexts of South Asia.

Some of the noted national and international scholars that are expected to participate in the SDC include Dr Tariq Rehman, Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed, Dr William van Schendel, Dr Mubarak Ali, Dr Rita Pandey, Andrey K Demin, Mita Dutta, Ansar Ahmed Ullah, Radhika Chopra, Kim Weidenberg, Khawar Mumtaz, and Dr Shreekant Gupta.