Seventh International Conference on Ethics and International Development

Author(s): Des Gasper
Publication date: Monday 09 January 2006

On paper, the countries of the world have committed themselves to reducing poverty and to realizing human rights, including a right to development.  The premise of this conference is that these commitments can be realized only if accountability, responsibility, and integrity prevail. 
The conference will bring together key thinkers, educators, policy-makers, and development workers to clarify the values as well as mechanisms that are required to enhance accountability, responsibility, and integrity in development, especially in the African context.  Considerations of gender equity will be mainstreamed throughout.  The practical goal of this conference is to strengthen and enhance the network of African researchers, educators, policy-makers, and other development workers who concern themselves with these issues, and in particular to enhance the teaching and knowledge exchange of development ethics and the ethics of public management.  The conference will provide an historically unique opportunity for some of the foremost African and international thinkers on ethics and development to learn from each other, with a view to transforming thought to practice.
Conference Themes.  Six themes will be highlighted.  Discussion of gender issues in each theme is welcome, even where gender has not been identified specifically as a subtheme.

A. Development Ethics ? Theory and Practice
Philosophical foundations of development ethics; normative theories and their perspectives on development; ethical issues and dilemmas of development; professional and business ethics for the developing world.
B. Accountability ? Good Governance, Empowerment, and Exclusion
Participatory decision-making ? problems and prospects; public consultation; accountability and social inequality; empowerment of women; accountability of NGOs; development from below; political democracy and development; access to information; on exclusion: Human Development Report 2004; culture, religion, and gender aspects of governance and development.
    
C. Responsibility ? and Globalization
Globalization and development in Sub-Saharan Africa; globalization?s impact on inequality (including gender); development aid: responsibility and project ?ownership?; responsibility towards the MDGs; responsibility and NGOs; responsibility for cultivation of civic virtue; the ?responsibility to protect?; responsibilities for realizing the right to development; corporate social responsibility; overcoming impunity.
D. Fostering Integrity & Accountability ? in Development and Governance
Roles for international donors, governments, civil society, the private sector, transnational and regional economic actors, as well as culture and religion in fostering integrity and accountability.
E. Peace and Conflict in the Developing World
Roles for the private sector, governments, and religion in peacebuilding; the culture of peacebuilding. 
 
F. The Teaching of Development Ethics and Ethics in Public Management ? Sharing Experience, Widening and Strengthening the Network
Note: though sessions on these themes will be devoted primarily to informal sharing of experience and planning future cooperation and action, paper proposals are also welcome.
The conference will address these issues in relation to the emerging interdisciplinary field of development ethics, which engages development researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners with philosophically-trained ethicists.  For a more detailed listing of conference themes, navigate to ?Uganda? under ?Conferences? at www.development-ethics.org. 
Conference Programme.  The conference aims to draw 30 international and 120 African researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers, along with 50 African students.  Subject to funding arrangements, the principal plenary speakers (listed in alphabetical order) will be: 
·    John Githongo, former Permanent Secretary, Office of the President of Kenya in charge of Governance & Ethics. Mr. Githongo is one of Africa?s leading anti-corruption advocates. Until his resignation, he was Kenya?s  first "Anti-Corruption Czar" following the election of a coalition government in 2002.  In that capacity, he aggressively investigated cases of large-scale corruption within the new government and led asset recovery efforts. Prior to that, he was the Executive Director of Transparency International in Kenya.  A member of the Forum of Global Young Leaders fraternity, he was most recently a recipient of the Deutsche Afrika Stiftung (German Africa Foundation) award for his work. Mr. Githongo remains a powerful advocate of governance reform in Kenya and across Africa even after his resignation from his post as Permanent Secretary. Originally a journalist, Mr. Githongo holds a B.Sc. in Economics from the University of Swansea.
·    Martha Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago. From 1986 to 1993, she was a research advisor at the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER), Helsinki.  She and Amartya Sen were co-founders of the ?capability approach? to equity and development, and she is the current President of the Human Development and Capability Association.  Her publications include Aristotle's De Motu Animalium (1978), The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (1986, updated edition 2000), Love's Knowledge (1990), The Therapy of Desire (1994), Poetic Justice (1996), For Love of Country (1996), Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (1997), Sex and Social Justice (1998), Women and Human Development (2000), Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (2001), and Hiding From Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law (2004).   She has also edited thirteen books. Her new book, Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership, will be published by Harvard University Press in fall 2005.  Her current work in progress includes The Cosmopolitan Tradition (under contract to Yale University Press), Democracy in the Balance: Violence, Hope, and India's Future (under contract to Harvard University Press), The Fixed Star: Religion and Equality in American Public Life (under contract to Basic Books), and Compassion and Capabilities (under contract to Cambridge University Press).
·    Thomas Pogge, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University.  His recent publications include Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Who Owes What to the Very Poor? (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2006), Real World Justice, edited with Andreas Follesdal (Berlin: Springer 2005), Global Institutions and Responsibilities: Achieving Global Justice, edited with Christian Barry, (Oxford: Blackwell 2005). World Poverty and Human Rights (Polity Press 2002), Global Justice (edited, Blackwell 2001), ?What We Can Reasonably Reject? (NOÛS 2002), ?Can the Capability Approach be Justified?? (Philosophical Topics 2002), ?On the Site of Distributive Justice? (Philosophy and Public Affairs 2000) and, with Sanjay Reddy, ?How Not to Count the Poor? (www.socialanalysis.org).  Pogge is editor for social and political philosophy with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and he is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science.
·    Edward Wamala, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Makerere University.  He is one of the key persons behind the founding of the M.A Ethics and Public Management Programme in Makerere University, having been a stalwart champion for this cause in the University Senate, which (after protracted and resolute advocacy by Dr. Wamala) presented it to the University Council for approval.  Dr. Wamala is currently Head of the Department of Philosophy and is the lecturer in charge of the teaching of Philosophy of Development and Philosophy of Economics on the B.A (Philosophy) Programme.  He is also in charge of the teaching of the M.A (Ethics and Public Management) course entitled Ethics, Public Policy, Human Rights and  Development.  Some of his major interests in Philosophy are Critical Theory and the current trend of Postmodernism.
In addition to plenary sessions addressed by these invited speakers, the conference will include:
·    Round-table sessions on the teaching of development ethics, professional ethics, and the ethics of public management, sharing experience and perspectives, and exploring the next steps of networking and cooperation.
·    Concurrent sessions for submitted presentations on conference themes and other topics in development ethics.  In addition to presentations by academic researchers and policy-makers, case studies and other presentations by development workers, NGOs or civil society organizations are welcome.
The International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) was founded in 1984 to promote ethical reflection and discussion amongst development scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners, as well as philosophers, on two interrelated sets of questions:  (a) the proper ends and means of socio-economic development, and (b) particular issues and dilemmas that are raised by development projects and processes.  The Association has organized or otherwise participated in workshops and conferences in Costa Rica, Mexico, The United States, Kenya, Honduras, Chile, Scotland, and India.  Its website at www.development-ethics.org contains a newsletter, reviews, and syllabi for university courses on development ethics, in addition to information about the Association.  The International Organizing Committee for this conference includes:
·    Nigel Dower, IDEA President and Conference Convenor
·    David Crocker, University of Maryland, USA
·    Jay Drydyk, Carleton University, Canada
·    Des Gasper, Institute of Social Studies, Netherlands
·    Sirkku Hellsten, Embassy of Finland, Kenya
·    Desmond McNeill, University of Bergen, Norway
·    Byaruhanga Rukooko, Makerere University, Uganda
·    Stephen Schwenke, Makerere University, Uganda
·    Asuncion St. Clair, University of Bergen, Norway
The M.A. Ethics and Public Management Programme, Faculty of Arts, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda was born out of the members of the Department of Philosophy having observed that the major problems and threats which societies worldwide face today hinge on matters of Ethics.  For instance, the public outcry against graft, lack of transparency and accountability, and the increasingly noticeable absence of leaders of integrity, are some of the major problems that face societies today as they grapple with the challenging task of development.  In response both to the public yearning for professionalism and leadership characterized by high ethical standards, and to the pressing demands by citizens for public accountability, the Department of Philosophy noted that all these invariably point to the centrality of Ethics in the public management of society.
It is against this background that we introduced an M.A. Programme in Ethics and Public Management to contribute to the training of the various professionals, policy makers and leaders at various levels, in the subject of Ethics as it is related to the management of public policy and good governance.  The programme, therefore, targets all those women and men who are involved in or who intend to serve in the different professions that offer services to society in the public and private sectors, and in civil society. These include persons such as legislators, civic leaders, human resource managers, educators, project managers, academicians, professionals, social researchers, and recent graduates.
Background: Development Ethics.  It is now widely accepted that economic development is a worthwhile goal only if it enhances human well-being, if it is equitable, if it engages people in free and democratic participation, if it is environmentally sustainable, if it supports cultural flourishing, and if it promotes the effective enjoyment of human rights.  These could be considered six primary values within development ethics at present. They are recognized as central within the ?human development? approach that informs the annual Human Development Reports published by the UNDP. 
In its earlier stages, development ethics consisted mainly in advocating these values and their relevance to development.  Today some development ethicists give equal or greater emphasis to clarifying the implications of these values for specific development problems and processes ? such as post-conflict situations, or projects that displace communities.  Some focus on universal problems that have unique manifestations within development, including pressing practical problems such as gender inequity and unequal enjoyment of human rights; other development ethicists focus more on potential solutions, by exploring the proper role and meaning of ?empowerment?, ?participation?, ?agency?, and ?deliberative democracy?, as well as the three themes of the present conference.  Others interrogate the local/global nexus, by examining the demands of global justice regarding poverty, health, and education, or by exploring changes political structures and priorities ? both national and international ? needed in order to reduce the ?substantial unfreedoms? that are currently imposed upon the majority of the world?s population.

Related links:

IDEA