NFU Conference 2009

Welcome to the website of the the NFU Conference 2009! The conference will be an opportunity for exchange of knowledge and experience among researchers and practitioners from multiple fields of relevance for development studies. The NFU conference is intended as a forum for development research, and the conference is therefore open for workshop contributions on other relevant topics of the field.

Time: 23-24 November, 2009 Venue: University of Agder, Campus Kristiansand

Over the past decades it has become increasingly clear that we are living in a world of rapid and profound changes:

• Climate change has come to the forefront of the public and scientific debate.
• Geo-political power relations have shifted, providing new countries such as China, India, Brazil and Mexico with increased power and influence.
• The global financial crisis, threatening the modern market economy, is dominating the international media picture.

On the development arena we have witnessed that the democratization paradigm has led to a shift from vertical to horizontal governance. New actors and buzzwords are emerging in the development space. Private sector involvement is no longer associated only with the NGOs, but with a strong focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR) worldwide.

To an increasing degree the private sector and the civil society are seen to be important partners for governments in order to manage complex processes and activities related to development. This goes along with a new international aid architecture where it is assumed that an increased emphasis on the developing countries’ ownership to development policies and strategies will lead to increased efficiency.

Financial and economic turmoil, large scale unemployment, climate changes, shifting geo-political alliances represent new challenges to local and global development agendas. But international financial institutions, donors, textbook theories and conventional tools have been unable to anticipate and grasp the complexity of the new global situation. Consequently, both development practice and research facing huge challenges. It is an objective of this conference to stimulate debates and reflections on the above issues.

Please direct questions to: nfu-konferanse@uia.no

Conference administrator: Camilla Michalsen