The Challenges of Development Today

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What role might Canada play in the developing world today? Since at least the 1960s, Canada has striven to be a leader in fostering development in the global south, consistent with the role it has sought to play on the global scene more generally. Yet the international context for understanding the challenges of promoting development has changed considerably—and often dramatically—in recent years. This seminar is intended to start a dialogue that will help develop a new understanding of Canada’s potential role in working with developing countries. Co-sponsored by McGill University’s new Institute for the Study of International Development (which has absorbed the Centre for Developing-Area Studies) and the Public Policy Forum, we have convened an impressive array of people with diverse experiences as “development practitioners.”

Monday, March 23

Inaugural Event for the McGill Institute for the Study of International Development

 

17:00-17:30  Welcome

Professor Christopher Manfredi, Dean of Arts
Professor Philip Oxhorn, Director, ISID
Margarets Biggs, President, Canadian International Development Agency
David Malone, President, International Development Research Centre
The Rt. Honourable Joe Clark, ISID

17:30-19:00  Keynote Address

Professor Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Member, Board of Governors, International Development Research Centre and President, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi: Bows Without Arrows: The Institutional Deficits of Development Policy. Reflections on the Indian Experience

19:00-20:00  Reception

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Tuesday, March 24

9:00-10:45  Perspectives from Donor Agencies

Berit Olsson, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
Kevin Colgan, Irish Aid

Chair: Professor Franque Grimard, ISID

Discussant: Charles Basset, former Canadian Executive Director, Inter-American Development Bank and former Senior Vice-President, Canadian International Development Agency

10:45-11:15  Coffee Break

 

11:15-13:00  Perspectives from Non-state Actors in Development: Businesses and Foundations

Ronald Denom, SNC-Lavalin
Robb McCue, Specialist in Education and Project Management, Agriteam
David Tennant Senior, Executive Director, Canadian Economic Development Assistance for Southern Sudan

Chair: Laurent Charette, Director, Sudan Program, Canadian International Development Agency

13:00-14:00  Lunch and Keynote Address

David Morley, CEO and President, Save the Children: Tilting at Windmills? The Quixotic Quest of the NGOs

14:00-15:45  Perspectives from Today’s Youth:
With:

George Roter, Engineers without Borders
Catherine Awad, MBAs without Borders
Erin Nesbitt, Youth Challenge International
Lazar Konforti, Equiterre

Chair: Professor Eliane Ubalijoro, ISID, McGill University

Discussant: Natasha Sawh, Manager, Global Citizenship Program, Walter and Duncan GORDON Foundation

15:45-16:00  Coffee Break

 

16:00-17:30  Closing Keynote

The Rt. Honourable Joe Clark: Renewing Canada’s Commitment to Development

Biographies of Participants

On this page: Catherine Awad | Charles Bassett | Margaret Biggs | Kevin Colgan | Ronald Denom | Franque Grimard | Lazar Konforti | David M. Malone | Robb McCue | Pratap Bhanu Mehta | David Morley | Erin Nesbitt | Berit Elli Martens Olsson | George Roter | Natasha Sawh | David Tennant Senior

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Catherine Awad

Catherine is Editor-in-Chief for MBAs without Borders’ magazine Managing & Developing (M&D). Currently pursuing the MBA at McGill University, Catherine holds an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and her professional background is in B2B marketing in the telecommunications industry. At a start-up high-tech firm, Catherine held the roles of product manager and marketing communications specialist where she focused on branding, public relations and creating customer co-marketing programs. A passionate traveler, Catherine is fluent in English, French, Arabic and Spanish. She took part in McGill’s Canada-Brazil exchange program and also volunteered with the NGO Coptic Orphans in a high-poverty area of Egypt.

Charles Bassett

Charles Bassett was formerly Canadian Executive Director of the Inter-American Development Bank. As a member of the Executive Board, Mr Bassett was involved in overseeing the policy and programming of the Bank. He also represented a broad spectrum of Canada’s interests: coordinating foreign policy issues, overseeing international development objectives, and providing support and information to the Canadian private sector. Prior to his appointment to IDB in 2003, Mr. Bassett had an illustrious 27 year career at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) where he occupied many strategic positions including that of Senior Vice-President. Among his other responsibilities, Mr Bassett was President, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

Margaret Biggs

Margaret Biggs is president of the Canadian International Development Agency and has a MA in International Affairs from Carleton University. Before coming to CIDA she worked with the Privy Council Office and Human Resources Development Canada.

Kevin Colgan

Kevin Colgan is a Senior Development Specialist in the Policy Planning and Effectiveness section of Irish Aid, leading in the areas of Research, Knowledge Management and Local Development. In his role he regularly travels to Irish Aid programme countries in a support capacity. He has worked with Irish Aid since 1993 in Zambia, Uganda, and Mozambique and has been at headquarters since 2004.

Ronald Denom

Ronald Denom has leadership responsibilities for the development of SNC-Lavalin’s global business in engineering-construction, professional services, infrastructure investment and concessions, operations and maintenance and mergers and acquisitions. Turnover in 2007 was $6.73 billion.

Born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Mr. Denom was raised in Montréal and graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor’s degree in Metallurgical Engineering and a Master’s degree in International Business Management. Over the last thirty years, he has worked around the world on engineering-construction projects of all types. For the seven years leading up to his appointment as President of SNC-Lavalin International in 2006, Mr Denom was responsible for the development of SNC-Lavalin’s business in Eurasia, which included Western, Central and South East Europe, Russian, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Turkey.

SNC-Lavalin is one of the leading groups of engineering and construction companies in the world, a key player in facilities and operations management and a global leader in the ownership, operation and maintenance of infrastructure. The SNC-Lavalin companies employ over 21,000 people in offices in 36 countries around the world and currently have active projects in some 100 countries.

Franque Grimard

Franque Grimard is an Associate Professor of the Department of Economics at McGill University. His specialties are Development, Health and Environment Economics. His research covers developing countries where he is interested in the application of statistical analysis and data collection to applied policy issues such as aid effectiveness, health programs, sustainable development and cost-benefit analysis. He has worked on the role of NGOs in improving health standards of poor individuals in Pakistan, on analyzing new tuberculosis control programs and their consequences in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Mexico, on health and education among women in Peru, on the effects of socio-economic conditions on health among elderly in Mexico, on microcredit and health of women in Bangladesh, on sustainable agricultural practices and avoiding deforestation in Panama and has done some cost-benefit analyses of fiscal reforms of the government of Pakistan. His research in developed countries examines physician remuneration methods, smoking and low-income households in Canada as well as exploring the causal links between health and education looking at the smoking behavior of Canadian and American individuals. Dr. Grimard was recently a Research Fellow with the Canadian International Development Agency to help them elaborate and enact their plans on their Africa’s Health Systems initiative projects and analyze the effectiveness in health projects in developing countries.

Lazar Konforti

Lazar Konforti is currently an assistant researcher in the agriculture and commerce department at Équiterre. Équiterre is a Montreal-based non-governmental organisation dedicated to building a broad-based social movement urging citizens, organisations, and governments to make ecological and equitable choices based on solidarity. Lazar has an MA in Development Studies and has been a long-time campaigner with local grassroots organisation STAC-Montreal (Students Taking Action in Chiapas) doing solidarity work with autonomous peasant organisations based in southern Mexico. He has also worked with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in Panama, researching the FSC's credentials as a market-driven social development mechanism.

David M. Malone

President, International Development Research Centre

David Malone is President of Canada’s International Development Research Centre, one of the world’s leading institutions in the generation and application of new knowledge to meet the challenges facing developing countries, on 1 July 2008. Previously, he served as Canada’s High Commissioner to India and non-resident Ambassador to Bhutan and Nepal from 2006 to mid-2008. Prior to his nomination to India, from 2004 to 2006, he was Assistant Deputy Minister in Canada’s department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade responsible initially for Africa and the Middle East and subsequently for Global Issues, in which portfolio he oversaw Canada’s multilateral and economic diplomacy. From 1998 to 2004, he was President of the International Peace Academy, an independent research and policy development institution in New York.

From 1994 to 1998 he served within Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade as Director General of its Policy, International Organizations and Global Issues Bureaus. During this period he also acquired a D.Phil. from Oxford University with a thesis on decision making in the UN Security Council.

He is a graduate of l’Université de Montréal, of the American University in Cairo, and of Harvard and Oxford Universities. He has published extensively on peace and security issues in a variety of journals. His books include Decision Making in the UN Security Council: The Case of Haiti (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) and, with Mats Berdal (eds.), Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000). His widely reviewed book The International Struggle for Iraq: Politics in the UN Security Council, 1980-2005, was published in 2006 by Oxford University Press.

Robb McCue

Education Specialist/ Project Management

Robb has 20 years of management experience in all elements of the project cycle, from design to evaluation. He has been a teacher, teacher trainer, adult educator, curriculum developer, and intercultural manager at all levels of the education system in Canada and abroad. In addition to his extensive work in international education, he has been a project director in landmine awareness, environmental management, water and sanitation, technical vocational training, performance measurement, scholarship management, refugee resettlement, transfer of technology, RBM and gender equality. He has had long-term overseas assignments in Micronesia, Iran, Indonesia, Thailand and Pakistan and short-term assignments in 15 countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Robb has degrees in Political Science (BA), Education (MAT) and International Administration and Training (MA).

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Pratap Bhanu Mehta is President of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. The Centre for Policy Research is one of India’s most distinguished think tanks. He is also a been appointed to NYU Law School’s Global Faculty. He was previously Visiting Professor of Government at Harvard University; Associate Professor of Government and of Social Studies at Harvard, and for a brief period, Professor of Philosophy and of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Mehta has also done extensive public policy work. He was Member-Convenor of the Prime Minister of India’s National Knowledge Commission; Member of the Supreme Court appointed Lyngdoh Committee on Indian Universities and has authored a number of reports for leading Government of India and International Agencies. He is on the Board of Governors of IDRC, and other distinguished academic institutions. He is member of the World Economic Forum’s Council on Global Governance. He is also on the Editorial Board of numerous journals including the American Political Science Review and Journal of Democracy.

Mehta has published widely in the fields of political theory, intellectual history, constitutional law, politics and society in India and international politics. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading international referred journals in the field, as well as numerous edited volumes. His early work was on eighteenth century thought, particularly on Adam Smith and the Making of the Enlightenment. He has also written on issues of Cosmopolitanism, Liberalism, Rights, Judicial Review, International Governance and Democratic Theory. His most recent publications include, The Burden of Democracy and an edited volume India’s Public Institutions. His forthcoming work includes a book a Constitutionalism in Modern India and a book on India’s Great Transformation. He is also co editor (with Niraja Jayal) of the Oxford Companion to Politics in India.

Mehta is a prolific participant in public debates in India and abroad and has written columns for leading national and international dailies, including the Indian Express, Hindu, Financial Times. He is an Editorial Consultant to the Indian Express. .Mehta got his B.A. from Oxford University in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and has a Ph.D in Politics from Princeton University.

David Morley

David Morley is President and CEO of Save the Children Canada. His extensive experience in international cooperation began when he volunteered to work with street children in Central America in the 1970s Since then he has worked in community development and humanitarian projects in Congo, Zambia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Brazil.

From 1998-2005 Mr. Morley was Executive Director of the Canadian section of Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors without Borders and under his guidance the organization grew from an annual budget of $5 million to $20 million and the number of overseas volunteers tripled. In 2005 he was chosen by the Right Hon. Adrienne Clarkson and John Ralston Saul to serve as the founding Executive Director of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, as President of the Ontario Council for International Cooperation, and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Stephen Lewis Foundation and a Mentor with the Trudeau Foundation.

David Morley's writing on international issues has appeared in the International Herald Tribune, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, La Presse and the Toronto Star, and he is a frequent commentator on radio and television. He co-authored the Canadian bestseller Under the Tree: Creative Alternatives to a Consumer Christmas, a book about environmental and global issues. His 2007 book Healing Our World: Inside Doctors without Borders has been released in Canada, South Korea, and the United States, where it has been the recipient of a number of awards.

Erin Nesbitt

As Canadian Programs Director with Youth Challenge International, Erin oversees the international volunteer sending and domestic youth engagement programs. With a BA in International Development and a Masters in Adult Education with a focus on International, Comparative and Development Education as a foundation, Erin has developed over 8 years of program development experience in the non-profit sector with a special focus on youth engagement and volunteer management. Erin also sits as a member of the Ontario Council for International Cooperation’s Board of Directors.

Berit Elli Martens Olsson

Berit Olsson recently retired from 10 years as Director of SAREC, the Department for Research Cooperation at Sida, Sweden. She has been responsible for the formulation of Swedish policies for research cooperation and University Support, implying a shift from merely project funding to comprehensive institutional support for research in Low-income countries. She has participated in numerous international fora and debates arguing for investments in research in Low-and mid-income countries based on the conviction that all countries need a viable research community in order to ascertain their “ownership” in development.

She was awarded honorary doctorates 2006 in Nicaragua and 2008 in Mozambique in recognition of her contributions to research in development .

Her first career as specialist in Endodontics (root canal treatment) at Lund University Sweden brought her to University of Connecticut as a visitng professor, her interest in public oral health as a researcher to Ethiopia, Mozambique and Sudan. Her PhD thesis 1978 is on Studies in Oral Health Health in Ethiopia.

George Roter

George Roter has been recognized as one of Canada’s emerging leaders in the non-profit sector. He strongly believes that Canadians are passionate about driving social change both within our country’s borders and abroad. He has dedicated the past 8 years of his life to building organizations that engage a broad cross-section of Canadians, and specifically foster the involvement of our country’s next generation of leaders. Most of that dedication and effort has been focused on building Engineers Without Borders, an organization that, together with Parker Mitchell, he co-founded and where he continues to serve as Co-CEO. While completing his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Waterloo, George became aware of the complex challenges facing three billion people around the world who live in poverty. He also saw an opportunity to mobilize engineers and their unique problem-solving approach as agents for social change. And so he co-founded Engineers Without Borders.

He has since learned that the challenges of poverty will not be solved overnight, nor with handouts. Since its inception in January 2000, EWB has taken the approach of building capacity of individuals and organizations in developing countries to be able to create sustainable change locally. To this end, EWB has sent over 200 volunteers on projects in 25 countries around the world.

George is a frequent speaker at conferences and events across North America and has recently been awarded the Public Policy Forum’s prestigious Leaders for the Future Award (2007). In 2005 he was named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 and in 2004 he was awarded a prestigious Action Canada Fellowship (2004) on public policy, which added to previous awards for his work with Engineers Without Borders (Canadian Bureau for International Education, 2002; University of Waterloo, 2000). When he is not working toward creating social change, George would like to think he can be found pounding the pavement in his running shoes or paddling his Old Towne canoe down the French River.

Natasha Sawh

Natasha manages the Global Citizenship programme at the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, which provides grants to youth and diaspora organizations as well as fellowships to individuals through the Gordon Global Fellowships (formerly the Global Youth Fellowships). Natasha has worked in both the not-for-profit and public sectors, including positions at the Policy Research Initiative of the Privy Council Office, the research department of the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation and most recently as Director of Programs and Operations at the Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation. An alumna of McGill (where she completed a minor in international development studies), Natasha holds an M.A. in Globalization Studies from McMaster University.

David Tennant Senior

David was born in Scotland and immigrated to Canada in 1966. His first career was with the London Police Service and was a founding member of the London Drug Squad. After leaving the Police Service in 1972 he worked with this late brother then entered the Real Estate Industry first as a Commercial Real Estate Agent specializing in land. In 1982 he founded the Hampton Group Inc. a Land Development Company which develops mainly residential land in South Western Ontario. David is the President of this family run business which includes his son as his partner.

David has been active in Local Provincial and Federal Politics for some 30 years and served, for a short time as The Chief of Staff to the Honorable Tom Hockin when he was Federal Minister for International Trade in 1993 when N.F.T.A. was finalized. David has been and remains active in Community work and his Church and is serves on many committees and boards. He presently serves as voluntary Executive Director for Canadian Economic Assistance for South Sudan (CEDASS). David is married to Jennifer has two children and three grandchildren. He and Jennifer reside in London, Ontario.