Oxford Martin School: Public Lectures and Seminars Oxford University

The Minister for Development and Africa, Andrew Mitchell MP, will join us to discuss how to address these challenges as well as seize new opportunities. The UK launched an international development White Paper in November 2023, setting out seven areas for action across a broad range of development themes and policy areas.

The White Paper recognises the increasingly contested world we face, with a more complicated and fractured geopolitical environment. As the UK moves into implementing this vision, it will need to navigate this.

The Minister for Development and Africa, Andrew Mitchell MP, will join us to discuss how to address these challenges as well as seize new opportunities.

The panel will consider how to mobilise additional resources for genuine impact when fiscal and political conditions in the UK and traditional donor partners are unfavourable; how to work with new and emerging donors and balance the imperative for more funds against the UK’s commitment to its values; how to manoeuvre in the context of the wide choices of finance available to recipient countries, often with different terms and conditions; and how to balance a focus on climate mitigation, primarily in middle income countries, with finance to tackle extreme poverty and climate adaptation, primarily in the least developed countries.

Panel:

Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP, Minister for Development and Africa
Professor Stefan Dercon, Co-Director, Oxford Martin Programme on African Governance
Dr Emily Jones, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government
Professor Ricardo Soares de Oliveira (Chair), Co-Director, Oxford Martin Programme on African Governance

Hannah Ritchie discusses her new book 'Not the end of the world' with Prof Charles Godfray. We are bombarded by doomsday headlines that tell us the soil won't be able to support crops, fish will vanish from our oceans, that we should reconsider having children.

But in this talk, data scientist Hannah Ritchie, author of Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet will discuss with Professor Sir Charles Godfray, Director of the Oxford Martin School, that if we zoom out, a very different picture emerges.

They will discuss how the data shows we've made so much progress on these problems, and so fast, that we could be on track to achieve true sustainability for the first time in history and we can build a better future for everyone.

Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator, explores the implications of growing paralysis, polarisation and uncertainty for a world in a race against time to achieve systemic and transformational change. Conflicts, climate change, rising inequalities…. the list of crises is long and growing.

But it doesn’t really matter what we call this unprecedented moment in history, in which human activity has become the dominant force shaping the planet. Whether this is the “Anthropocene” – the Age of Humans – or the “Era of Poly-crises”, what matters is that it is real, changing our lives at extraordinary speed and challenging our post-war institutional architecture. At a time of unprecedented interdependence, are we losing our capacity for collective problem-solving and effective global governance? With the UN and Bretton Woods Institutions in the crosshairs of both governments and citizens for chronic failures in preventing conflict, climate change or the current financial/debt crisis, what hope is there for multilateralism in a multipopular world? How will citizens and institutions respond and what would it take to rebuild trust and confidence?

Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator, will explore the implications of growing paralysis, polarisation and uncertainty for a world in a race against time to achieve systemic and transformational change. Drawing on a range of contemporary and contested policy arenas such as decarbonising our economies, reforming the international financial system and harnessing the disruptive power of technology and innovation, he will present ‘signals’ that imply fundamentally different future scenarios for ‘human security’ vs ‘national security’.

Following his presentation, Achim Steiner will join Baroness Valerie Amos, Master of University College, to debate how paradigm shifts in geopolitics and economic orthodoxy can be achieved and how to build political movements and momentum - less focused on competition and confrontation and more on shared interest, cooperation and co-investing in our collective ability to tackle inequality and sustainability.

Adama Dieng, former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, July 2012 to July 2020, discusses the UN's role in the global collective responsibility to prevent genocide and other mass atrocities. Adama considers how the UN can learn from the past and take effective action to prevent mass violence set against a background of increasing commission of atrocity crimes globally, a rise in hate speech, identity-based discrimination and intolerance. He will also explore the UN's continued crucial role in de-escalating conflicts and the challenges that are preventing humanity from achieving its goal of a world without genocide and other atrocity crimes.

After a summer of extreme heatwaves, devastating wildfires and deadly flooding across the world, all made worse by climate change, the Rt Hon Sir Alok Sharma, President of COP26 in Glasgow 2021, will discuss the ongoing climate crisis. In the run up to COP28, Sir Alok will describe his hopes for the summit and his views on the future of the COP process, as well as the role of the UK in international climate policy. He will explore the importance of business in tackling climate change, and the challenges of financing the scale of climate action required. And climate action requires a facilitating political environment: how strong is the climate agenda and how much support does it have amongst citizens and in the private sector.

Speaker: Rt Hon Sir Alok Sharma, President of COP26 in Glasgow 2021
In conversation with: Professor Sir Charles Godfray, Director of the Oxford Martin School,

Yves Daccord, former CEO of the International Committee of the Red Cross, joins us at the Oxford Martin School. The history of humanitarianism is one of vulnerabilities, power, mobilisation and adaptation.

This has been true since humanitarian aid became an industry in its own right and continues to be so today.

The reaffirmed sovereignty of states, the zero risk practices of the major donors, and the rapidly changing needs and expectations of people and communities affected by wars and disasters are all challenges to the relevance of international humanitarian action. From Kiev to Damascus, from Bamako to New York, the adaptation of the humanitarian organisations will have to be radical. Join Yves Daccord, Executive Chairman of the Edgelands Institute & Former CEO of the International Committee of the Red Cross, as he asks 'is that still possible?'.