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Patrick Bond lecture on water commodification and resistance, 9 April







About the SEF
The idea for SEF is premised on the realization that developing economies across the world are facing acute difficulties, partly induced (and often aggravated) by policies of adjustment, stabilization and liberalization simplistically derived from standard neo-liberal premises necessitates the existence of initiatives such as SEF. The failure of mainstream economic paradigm, as formulated by neo-liberal orthodoxy, to achieve sustainable, equitable and participatory growth is evident in Zimbabwe since the days of structural adjustment programmes.

The economic, social and political challenges that the country is currently facing also calls for initiatives such as SEF which is cogniscent of the fact that most Economists and graduates of other disciplines, coming out of University lack the exposure to alternative economic thinking considering the fact that most university syllabi approach the subject of Economics from a strictly neoliberal framework that doesn’t address the developmental priorities of developing countries such as Zimbabwe. This in turn means the dominant economic and development paradigm is bound to follow what the mainstream academic channels. Yet the future of the country lies in the hands of these young brains that the walls of our universities churn out yearly.

The aim of SEF is to strengthen and develop alternative thinking and activism by young sustainable economics activists in the Zimbabwean context to the current mainstream economic paradigm as formulated by the neoliberal orthodoxy.

The SEF OBJECTIVES are:
• Generation interest in and appreciation of economic issues that affect everybody’s lives
• To enhance capacity in research, policy making and advocacy by creating a platform and space for:
o Robust debate on social and economic issues.
o Innovative and interactive engagements , with economists and sustainable development activists, particularly young progressive economists or activists, in order to create new perspectives to encourage and develop alternative analyses of socio-economic development issues in Zimbabwe
o Inspiring social solidarity , promote interaction between research activities, policy advocacy and activism, and to reinforce the links between activists, policy makers and other people working on similar issues.
• To create a medium for the exchange of scholarly and policy-oriented work on economic issues



About the Presenters

Patrick is a political economist with longstanding research interests and NGO work in urban communities and with global justice movements in several countries. He teaches political economy and eco-social policy, directs the Centre for Civil Society and is involved in research on economic justice, geopolitics, climate, energy and water. In service to the new South African government, Patrick authored/edited more than a dozen policy papers from 1994-2002, including the Reconstruction and Development Programme and the RDP White Paper, and he taught at the University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Public and Development Management from 1997-2004.

Patrick currently also serves as a visiting professor at Gyeongsang National University Institute of Social Sciences, South Korea. He was visiting professor in 2003 at York University Department of Political Science and Faculty of Environmental Studies in Toronto; in 2004 at the Africa University Institute for Peace, Leadership and Governance in Mutare, Zimbabwe; in 2005 at the Central European University Summer School on Transnational Flows, Structures, Agents and the Idea of Development in Budapest,Hungary; in 2006 at Chulalongkorn University’s Focus on the Global South Course on Globalisation and Civil Society, in Bangkok, Thailand; in 2007 at the Stellenbosch University Sustainability Institute, in 2008 at the State University of New York in Geneseo; and in 2009 at Suffolk University in Boston. In 2010-11 he was a visiting scholar at the University of California/Berkeley and the Story Of Stuff Project.

Patrick is an advisory board member of several international journals: Antipode (Manchester University), Human Geography (Clark University), Socialist Register (York University), International Journal of Health Services (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health), Historical Materialism (London School of Economics), Journal of Peacebuilding and Development (American University), Studies in Political Economy (Carleton University), Capitalism Nature Socialism, Review of African Political Economy, and the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities (Unesco, New York). His brief articles are regularly published by The Mercury, ZNet, Pambazuka, Counterpunch, Triple Crisis Blog, and Links ezines.

He worked at Johannesburg NGOs during the early and mid-1990s, and at several social justice agencies in Washington and Philadelphia during the 1980s. He was educated at Swarthmore College’s Department of Economics, the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania and the Johns Hopkins University Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering where he received his PhD in 1993. Patrick was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1961, and is father to a son and daughter.
For more: http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?10,24,8,55

Prof. Ashok Chakravarti
Part-time Lecturer

Academic Interests: Institutional Economics; Institutions and Economic Performance; Institutional Change.

Publications

Books:
1. 1.“Economic Performance and the Visible Hand: Theory and Evidence”. 2012. Edward Elgar (USA and UK).
2. 2.“Aid, Institutions and Development: New Approaches to Growth, Governance and Poverty”. 2006. Edward Elgar (USA and UK).

Papers:
1. “Rationality, Opportunism and Market Performance”. Working Paper No. 1/2010, Department of Economics, University of Zimbabwe. June 2010.
2. “A Theory of Discontinuous Change”. Working Paper No. 164, Dept. of International Development, Oxford University, U.K. June 2008.
3. “Livelihoods Scoping Study of the Zambezi Valley”. DFID/Save the Children, Harare. May 2004.
4. “Malawi: Salt Marketing and Distribution Study”. Harvard Institute for International Development, Malawi. March 1995.
5. “Malawi: Seed Policy Study”. USAID, Malawi. February 1994.
6. Aid Flows to Malawi 1986-90: an Analysis. Department of Economic Planning, Government of Malawi. August 1991.
7. Generalized Scheme of Trade Preferences and the Asian Least Developed Countries: an Analysis of Approaches and Potential Benefits. UNCTAD. May 1984.
8. Trade Sector Issues in the Least Developed Countries of Asia and the Pacific. UNCTAD. August 1983.
9. Bhutan: Economic Memorandum. Planning Commission, Government of Bhutan. 1983.
10. Protection of the Synthetic Fibres and Yarns and its Implications for Inter-fibre Policy. Economic and Political Weekly, Bombay, India. August 1982.
11. Social Profitability of Training Unskilled Workers in India, an Application of the Little-Mirrlees Method. Oxford Economic Papers, March 1972.
12. Social Profitability of selected Public Sector Enterprises in India, M. Phil. thesis to University of Oxford. 1972.
13. Developmental Impact of the International Finance Corporations Projects: 1956-71. Research Report to I.F.C., World Bank. 1971.



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