I was very lucky to be able to participate in last week’s Stockholm Resilience Centre conference on ‘Transformations 2015: People and Planet in the Anthropocene‘. Involving a dynamic and highly policy-influential global interdisciplinary community, this was a large, friendly and very interactive meeting. It more-than-fully lived up to the very high standards set by earlier…
Time to rei(g)n back the Anthropocene?
Giving flesh to the science and innovation we need to see
by Ben Ramalingam, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies Science, technology and innovation have been integral in successful development and poverty-reduction efforts, whether in Europe, Latin America, Asia or Africa. But time and time again, the real lessons of how this contribution actually worked — the genuine pathways of development change — have been lost…
SDGs: time to rethink energy infrastructure?
As the new Sustainable Development Goals are launched this week, attention will be focused on some of the great global challenges that face our world. They also give us a chance to think about how to do things differently. One of the big questions is how processes of industralization and innovation can really create the…
Will the Sustainable Development Goals make a difference?
This week heads of state assemble in New York to launch the Sustainable Development Goals. The agreed text lays out 17 goals and 169 targets. It is an ambitious agenda for all of humanity. But will they make any difference? We have had the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were launched with similar fanfare in…
Achieving sustainable development means no goal leaving gender behind
This article is part of a series on the Sustainable Development Goals. Feminists and their allies fought strongly for a stand-alone Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on gender equality and empowerment of women and girls. Goal 5 now offers the potential to embed gender equality into transformative approaches to sustainable development. For this promise to be…
Book: Gender Equality and Sustainable Development
A new book, Gender Equality and Sustainable Development, edited by Melissa Leach, has been published in the STEPS Centre’s Pathways to Sustainability book series. For pathways to be truly sustainable and advance gender equality and the rights and capabilities of women and girls, those whose lives and well-being are at stake must be involved in…
Debating Science and Technology for Development in Africa
By Ian Scoones, Director of the STEPS Centre At an event today we will be debating the STISA-2024 (Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa) initiative by the African Union (AU), the latest attempt to bring science and technology to the centre of the development debate in Africa. The STISA-2024 document opens with a rousing…
Between ‘greenization’ and ‘citizenization’: Welcome to China’s New Normal
By Sandra Pointel A group of researchers from China, Africa, Latin America and Europe met last week in Beijing to launch the new China Sustainability Hub, in collaboration with the STEPS Centre’s long-term partner Beijing Normal University (BNU) and other institutions. Hosted at BNU School of Social Development and Public Policy (SSDP), the launch was…
45 years of Earth Day: transitions and transformations
It’s 45 years today since the first Earth Day. Plenty has happened since then to explore different pathways to sustainability – from big, high-profile international conferences and governance, to local activism and action, and all scales in between. This year, 2015, is a crunch year for science, environment and development agreements, with the COP21 climate…
Davos, development and delivering progress
As the money men and women of the world gather in the Swiss ski resort of Davos for annual The World Economic Forum (WEF), the challenges of addressing inequality, mitigating against climate change and living sustainably on this fragile planet are at the forefront of their minds. Actually, I lie. Those things do not appear…