Climate Change and Sustainable Development

This paper argues that in the future the primary focus of policy research and global agreements should be the de-carbonization of economic development. Consequently, instead of treating climate stabilization and economic development as separate and equal, the strategy should be to re-integrate the two global policy goals, in part by separating responsibility (and funding) from action. This will require an approach that goes beyond Kyoto. The paper invokes the example of the Manhattan Project to argue for a massive, globally funded public investment program for the deployment of renewable energy technologies in developing countries.carbon emissions, climate change, sustainable development, international cooperation, mitigation, adaptation

Making the great transformation, November 13, 14, and 15, 2003

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Conference Series, a publication series that began publishing in 2006 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. This Conference took place during November 13, 14, and 15, 2003. Co-organized by Cutler Cleveland and Adil Najam.The conference discussants and participants analyze why transitions happen, and why they matter. Transitions are those wide-ranging changes in human organization and well being that can be convincingly attributed to a concerted set of choices that make the world that was significantly and recognizably different from the world that becomes. Transition scholars argue that that history does not just stumble along a pre-determined path, but that human ingenuity and entrepreneurship have the ability to fundamentally alter its direction. However, our ability to ‘will’ such transitions remains in doubt. These doubts cannot be removed until we have a better understanding of how transitions work

Higher Education Capacity Building in Water Resources Engineering and Management to Support Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal for Water in Pakistan

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires a multi‐pronged approach, with a key element being the development of a trained Community of Practice to sustain the advances in the relevant sectors. The engagement of higher education as a catalyst in the development and capacity building of the next generation of professionals and citizens comprising the Community of Practice is essential to meet the challenges of poverty, climate change, and clean water and to sustain those advances past 2030. This paper describes a capacity building program funded by the United States Agency for International Development to partner the University of Utah, in the United States, with Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, in Pakistan, to create the U.S.‐Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water (USPCASW). The USPCASW program includes six core components of Curriculum Reform, Applied Research, Exchanges and Training, Governance, Gender Equity, and Sustainability. This paper describes the project, the activities for each component, and the multi‐level assessment of the program, activities, and impact. The paper also highlights the overarching impact of the program and its alignment with achieving the Sustainable Development Goal for Water. Following the description of the program components and assessment, the paper concludes with a discussion of challenges and lessons learned

Assessment of a Peer Mentoring Program to Build Capacity for Course Development and Delivery

Building capacity in higher education in under-developed countries is critical for meeting many of the local development objectives. There have been numerous approaches to improve the abilities of professors to develop and deliver courses. Structured independent learning using published resources (e.g., books, online), workshops, seminars, and mentoring are among the most common. This paper describes a peer mentoring program to build capacity of professors in Pakistan teaching water resources and environmental engineering courses. The program is delivered remotely using an online learning management system, Canvas. The peer mentoring is conducted at weekly intervals with the structured learning facilitated through Canvas. Structured instruments guide mentor review and feedback on the creation of syllabus, lesson plans, learning activities, and assessments. The program has been delivered each semester since Fall 2015. This paper will present an assessment of the impact of the program on course development and delivery. Student evaluations, mentor reflections, and instructor reflections from 2.5 years of the program are analyzed to identify effective and ineffective program elements. Ideas for evolving the program to an autonomous course development and delivery mentoring available online were compiled and used to transition the program to one being made available through the Internet

Just Adjustment Protecting the Vulnerable and Promoting Growth

This paper is a follow up in the Pakistani context of the issues raised in UNICEFs classic contribution to the political economy of development, Adjustment With a Human Face [Cornia, Jolly and Stewart (1987), henceforth AWHF]. It tries to set out the issues involved in understanding why despite four decades of development has there not been a significant move towards meeting the basic needs of the population. Our argument is that reliance on the cultural norms of justice and humanness - particularly as regards vulnerable groups - as the basis of choosing priorities and designing policies, is a means and not an obstacle to systainable growth and structural adjustment. Structural adjustment, namely changes in a ~untry's production and consumption structure, becomes necessary when expenditures begin to exceed incomes systematically. However, orthodox adjustment programmes have often been criticised because they have tended to retard growth in poor countries, and to shift the burden onto vulnerable groups. In the tradition of this literature, we argue not against the necessity of structural adjustment, but against the adverse entailments of such adjustment. Hence the title, "Just Adjustment"