STEPS SYMPOSIUM: MULTIMEDIA

By Julia Day We had a great Symposium last week, with an engaged audience who were game enough to participate in some video interviews, answering one question: “If you had…

STEPS Centre Symposium ’09: Multimedia

The STEPS Centre’s Annual Symposium focussed on our New Manifesto project. We attempted to capture a flavour of the discussions by recording video interviews, taking photos, by bloggers  contributing  thier thoughts and by making…

STEPS SYMPOSIUM: DEMOCRATISING INNOVATION

By Oliver Johnson The penultimate session of the STEPS Centre symposium – Democratising innovation: towards more accountable institutions – threatened to be a rather tired affair: afternoon slots are always…

STEPS SYMPOSIUM: IMPACT OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

By Sara J Wolcott Hardly surprisingly, the implications of the Financial Crisis of 2008 was a sub-theme of the Symposium. Several participants noted that there seems to be less money…

STEPS SYMPOSIUM: PREACHING TO THE CHOIR?

By Sara J Wolcott One knows one has a good symposium when the participants are not afraid to ask challenging questions. Such as, what is the point of the New…

STEPS SYMPOSIUM: MOVING BEYOND THE NORTH-SOUTH DIVISION IN DEVELOPMENT

By Sara J Wolcott Brian Wynne wasn’t the only one who pointed it out, but he was particularly eloquent: he felt that when he analyzed and critiqued Northern institutions, he…

STEPS SYMPOSIUM: ARE WE AFRAID OF INNOVATION?

By Sara J Wolcott While not surprised that innovation was a major theme at the 2009 STEPS Centre Symposium, I was surprised to learn how little innovation is mentioned or…

STEPS SYMPOSIUM: INNOVATION, SUSTAINABILITY, DEVELOPMENT

By Julia Day We live in a time of transformations. The collapse of the Washington “consensus”, the financial crisis, the rise of China and other emerging economies and, of course,…

ILO Kenya Employment Mission: Technical Change, Dualism and Employment

In the late 60s and early 70s there was greater attention to the links between technical change and employment. This was evidenced in several reports in which Hans Singer was involved, especially the later 1972 Mission Report to Kenya for the International Labour Organisation, conducted by Hans Singer, Richard Jolly, and Charles Cooper, which highlighted technical change and the application of ‘modern’ capital intensive technology as an important factor in unemployment and underemployment, and from whence came the ‘distribution with growth’ theory. This was embraced in a speech by World Bank president Robert MacNamara to the Bank’s Governors in Nairobi. The speech was followed by the Bank’s landmark change in policy, “Redistribution with Growth”.