Conference Program

In 2005, UNSG Kofi Annan referenced the interrelatedness of the three pillars of the UN by noting “we will not enjoy security without development, development without security, and neither without respect for human rights. Unless all these causes are advanced, none will succeed.” Policy prescription for humanitarian actors, and obligations for those who govern, must increasingly consider spillover between these diverse agendas. This interdisciplinary perspective has been reflected in the newly emerging discourse on the humanitarian-development-peace nexus (HDPN). Contemporary threats, such as climate change, environmental degradation, pandemics, refugee flows and forced migration, poverty, distributive injustices, and natural or human-induced disasters, do not lend themselves to statecentric governance. These issues threaten national and international/systemic security, but they also threaten the security of vulnerable human beings and groups, individually and collectively. The negative consequences of conflictual operating environments and relationships can spill over both downwards from international and national insecurities to human vulnerabilities, and in the opposite direction. Despite progress, humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding initiatives have tended to remain top-down, donor or international actor driven, reliant upon aggregate measurements of governance success, and siloed. The operationalization of the HDPN requires not only holistic policymaking simultaneously encompassing all the intersections, and comprehensive governance including all the relevant actors, but also a human-centred approach.

This paper examines the relationship between militarization and development in up to 150 countries between 1990 and 2020. Using data from the new Multidimensional Measures of Militarization (M3) dataset and the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI 2006 – 2024), we demonstrate that the global demilitarization trend of the 1990s and 2000s has reversed in the 2010s. We further show that there is a substantial and significant effect of militarization on democratic backsliding, poor governance performance and development backsliding, though effects vary by region, regime type and level of development.

Development paradigms – grand narratives about the what, how and who of development – have long been sites of and tools for geopolitical contestation. From the local to the global, development paradigms operate at different levels of social organisation. Development cooperation templates or large-scale initiatives set up by individual countries or groups of states also put forward implicit or explicit claims about what development is and how it should be done. Historically, development paradigms have been an integral part of hidden and/or overt geopolitical strategies. Following WWII and several waves of decolonization across the South, efforts spearheaded by the US and its Western allies dominated global development discourses. Over the last decade, however, dynamics have taken a new turn, notably spurred by China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the announcement of its Global Development Initiative (GDI) in 2021. China’s approach to ‘doing development’ has provided an increasingly palpable challenge to the Western-dominated status quo. The US and other Western states have tried to react to China’s expanding clout by setting up new global initiatives and/or rebranding their development-related efforts. At the same time, Southern players such as India have re-defined and expanded their contribution to (the geopolitics of) global development. The paper takes the increase in geopolitical tensions over the last decade as a starting point to examine global struggles over competing development paradigms.

In this project we examine why and how private banks and investment funds work together with the Green Climate Fund (GCF). We will investigate the process of engagement from the private sector perspective and identify opportunities, problems, and conflicts. Public international organizations such as the GCF and the private sector have very different motivations to engage in climate finance in the Global South. The GCF has the public mandate to support developing countries in evenly financing climate mitigation and adaptation projects in the Global South. These projects should be implemented following sound principles of effective development cooperation such as country ownership, results orientation, inclusiveness as well as transparency and accountability. The private sector on the other hand is profit oriented and aims at exploring new markets. They develop marketable products while climate mitigation and adaptation effects are only relevant, if that helps to sell these products. Despite the different goals, there are numerous synergy effects between private investors and a public international organization such as the GCF. At the same time there are numerous possible disadvantages. To find out about private sector motivation, interests, and possible trade-offs we will conduct a survey with closed-ended and open-ended questions of all seven private sector accredited entities will be conducted. In addition, semi-structured interviews with selected decision makers in the private sector entities will be conducted.

Theory has stressed that openness, exchange, and international competition can lead to economic convergence across nations. Empirical evidence however has not been fully consistent with such claims. We look for evidence of convergence by analyzing competition in the modern Olympic Games. We find that convergence does occur at the Olympics, with less-developed nations closing the performance gap with developed countries over time. Findings indicate that such convergence takes time and is a product of learning-by-doing and knowledge spillovers. Knowledge spillovers achieved through competition hastens the convergence process. We discuss the implications of these findings for future work on development and growth. This study tests theories of convergence using a novel context: the Olympics. The findings provide support for convergence, but convergence takes time. Convergence is a product of both learning-by-doing and knowledge spillovers. Knowledge spillovers via competition hastens convergence.

Keywords: Learning; Knowledge Spillovers; Economic Growth; Convergence.