Application deadline: 1st of august 2015
Theme: Economic Justice in Africa: Globalization, the State and Civil Society
Date: 7 – 18 September 2015
Venue: Durban, South Africa
CODESRIA is a Pan-African membership research organization established in 1973 with the broad goal of promoting the work of African and Diaspora social scientists. In partnership with the OSISA Economic Justice Programme CODESRIA is pleased to announce the organization of an Economic Justice Institute in Durban, South Africa from September 7-18, 2015. The theme of the Institute is ‘Economic justice in Africa: globalization, the state and civil society,’ and it will be held on the margins of the World Social Science Forum in Durban co-hosted by HSRC and CODESRIA and whose theme is “Transforming global relations for a just world”. CODESRIA invites applications for participation in the institute from scholars, researchers, practitioners and civil society activists from the SADC region working in the areas of social and economic justice, resource governance, property rights, commodification and extension of markets, climate justice, agriculture and other issues in the broad area of sustainable development.
The discourse on sustainable economic development and related policy drivers is changing at a fast pace as the world grapples with multiple levels of turbulence involving climate change, economic and financial crises, growing income inequalities and food insecurity. Over the past 20 years notable broad frameworks for dealing with these and other challenges in a rapidly evolving global environment have included the United Nations’ Agenda 21 aimed at ensuring the achievement of sustainable development, and the Millennium Declaration and Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at improving life for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable by 2015. As the deadline for achieving the targets for the MDGs approaches, global transformations challenge long held beliefs and theories about the political economy of development, call on practitioners involved in developing a new global framework on the Post 2015 and Sustainable Development Goals to rethink e dominant approaches to development issues.
These shifts in policies bring with them complex challenges and new forms of struggles for socio-economic and cultural rights to which social and economic justice actors must be equipped to respond.
There is no doubt that Southern Africa needs fresh approaches to sustainable development that go beyond the traditional neo-liberal strategies of macro-economic stability and market friendly reforms. Laying institutional and social foundations for structural changes that will facilitate sustainable development, ensuring inclusive and pro-poor policies that explicitly take into account issues of gender, class and the structural causes of unsustainable and unequal development and empowering civic actors to push for alternative frameworks should be priorities as countries develop their Post Rio+20 Sustainable Development frameworks, Post 2015 MDG frameworks, Green Economy National and Regional Strategies as well as policy responses to the prevailing financial and economic crises.
Unfortunately, in this work the commitment towards developing a transformative development agenda has not always coincided with the capacity for innovative thinking on sustainable development
Civil society activists need to upgrade skills, knowledge and strategies that challenge and critique dominant approaches to development.
The goal of the Economic Justice Summer School is to ‘cultivate a shared understanding of alternative sustainable development approaches and provide analytical tools that enable social and economic justice researchers, practitioners and activists to interpret real world conditions in a rigorous manner’
The institute will focus on tapping into participants’ experiences as a foundation for learning with a view to developing critical thinking skills, deepening subject matter knowledge and facilitating tools for advocacy. It will also draw on the expertise of leading scholars and practitioners. The specific objectives are to:
- Support the development of knowledge and skills necessary to facilitate change and inclusive sustainable development in the region and deepen critical thinking amongst practitioners, activists and key policy makers around current issues on economics and sustainability
- Strengthen the interaction and engagement between networks and CSOs working on economic justice related issues in SADC and sharpen their advocacy in this area
Issues covered by the institute will include development and sustainability, power, control and access to resources, resource commodification and market expansion, the evolving African state, its location in global political economies and the challenges of sustainable development, representation, accountability and political mobilization, the environment, and climate change and prospects for transformative change in Africa.
Application Procedures
Applications for the position of resource person should include:
1. An application letter;
2. A curriculum vitae;
3. Two (2) published papers;
4. A proposal of not more than five (5) pages in length, outlining the issues to be covered in the proposed lectures.
Applications for laureates should include:
1. A letter indicating institutional or organizational affiliation;
2. A curriculum vitae;
3. A two or three pages application letter including an analysis of the relationship between the candidate working area and the problematic and concerns raised by the theme of the Economic Justice Summer School;
4. Two (2) reference letters from scholars, researchers or activists known for their competence and expertise in the candidate’s working area, including their names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses.
5. A copy of the passport.
Application Deadline
The deadline for the submission of applications is 1rst of august 2015. Selected applicants will be notified in the first fortnight of August 2015.
Submission of Applications
All applications or requests for additional information should be sent to:
Economic Justice Summer School
CODESRIA
Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop x Canal IV
BP 3304, CP 18524, Dakar, Senegal
Tel.: (221) 33 825 98 21/22/23
Fax: (221) 33 824 12 89
E-mail: economic.justice@codesria.sn
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