Policy Discussion Silent Crises, Politics, Mobilization and Development Research

ACADEMIC PANEL: CROP will co-organise this plenary session at the NFU Conference 2010 "Rethinking Crises: Vulnerability, Community and State in Development Research"

Many societies and communities in the South are faced with multiple crises in the form of armed conflicts and violence, HIV/AIDS, climate change and financial crises. This creates situations of fragility and vulnerability with weak and fragile state and community institutions. Ability to meet the crises on community level is often overlooked and poorly researched and not used in informing national and international policies and strategies for interventions. Understanding communities and state resilience in situations of crises and how this affects their ability to withstand pressure and not develop into armed conflict or humanitarian crises is vital.

While many conferences recently have focussed on opportunities and new positive developments in the South, the NFU Conference 2010 will put the focus on how states and communities address crises and respond to them. The main emphasis will thereby not be on the crises themselves, but on the dynamics behind them, and responses to them, and how we as researchers address this research field. The new research agenda needs to link peoples everyday life and resistance, community resilience and civil organisations' role in building resilience, and state capacity and political settlement in peace building and post-conflict situations.

The plenary sessions:
-Conflicts and political settlements
-Religion, conflict and development
-Climate change and resource scarcity
-Policy discussion: Silent crises, politics, mobilization and development research

There will be four parallel workshop sessions during the two days.

The deadline for submitting final papers and for registering is 1 November. Visit http://nfu.mf.no for further information.