DSAI ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2018
23rd and 24th October 2018
Conflict is estimated to account for over three quarters of humanitarian need and forced displacement due to conflicts now affects nearly 70 million people.The complex interlinkage between development, conflict, and security is becoming a pressing issue for global governance and the implementation of international human rights law. According to a 2018 joint report by the United Nations and the World Bank Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches for Preventing Violent Conflict, more countries experienced violent conflict in 2016 than at any time in almost 30 years.It is estimated that by 2030 nearly two thirds of the extremely poor will live in conditions of conflict and endemic violence.
We will examine the securitisation of development, the increasing numbers of conflict situations, and their effects on society, people, democracy and world stability. We will look at existing mechanisms to resolve conflicts such as the Sustaining Peace Agenda, Inclusive Peace, SDG16, and at how integrating violence reduction strategies and peacebuilding into humanitarian programmes is carried out.
Our 2018 conference will address these issues from a critical perspective through contributions by its Study Groups, namely those studying and engaging with Civil Society, Humanitarian Action, Gender, Adaptive Programming, Education, ICT4D and its vibrant postgraduate network.
Keynote Address by Prof Nic Cheeseman, author of How to Rig an Election at the Royal Irish Academy
Nic Cheeseman (@fromagehomme) is Professor of Democracy at the University of Birmingham and was formerly the Director of the African Studies Centre at Oxford University.
Nic studies democracy, elections and development and he has conducted fieldwork in a range of African countries including Ghana,Kenya,Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The articles that he has published based on this research have won a number of prizes, including the GIGA award for the best article in Comparative Area Studies (2013) and the Frank Cass Award for the best article in Democratization (2015)
Professor Cheeseman is the author or editor of ten books, including Democracy in Africa (2015), Institutions and Democracy in Africa (2017), How to Rig an Election (2018), and Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective (2018). He is the founding editor of the Oxford Encyclopaedia of African Politics, and is a former editor of the journal African Affairs. He was an advisor to Kofi Annan's African Progress Panel. A frequent commentator of African and global events, Professor Cheeseman’s analysis has appeared in the Economist, Le Monde, Financial Times, Newsweek, the Washington Post, New York Times, BBC, Mail & Guardian, Daily Nation and many more. In total, his columns and articles have been read over a million times. Many of his interviews and insights can be found on the website that he founded and co-edits, www.democracyinafrica.org.
Keynote 2 Clionadh Raleigh Domestic Politics and Disorder across Africa
Clionadh Raleigh is a Professor of Political Geography and Violence at the University of Sussex, and the founder and director of the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). Her research is currently concentrated on power mapping, political elite networks and disorder across African states, and is supported by the European Research Council.
Keynote 3 Dr Peace Medie Global Norms and Local Action:The Campaigns to End Violence against Women in Africa
Dr Peace Medie is a Research Fellow in the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy at the University of Ghana. Her book, 'Global Norms and Local Action: The Campaigns to End Violence against Women in Africa', is about to be published by Oxford University Press.
In it she examines how international organizations and the women’s movement have influenced the implementation of gender-based violence norms in Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire. Peace is also an editor of African Affairs and a 2015-2017 Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellow.
She has recently published Power, Knowledge and the Politics of Gender in the Global South (2018) in the European Journal of Politics and Gender and Rape Reporting in Post-Conflict Côte d'Ivoire: Accessing Justice and Ending Impunity (2017) in African Affairs.