Join the network
Call for posters
WIDER Development Conference: Global Partnerships for Sustainable Development
There is a lot of ground to cover in the years leading up to 2030 to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set in 2015. While progress on some implementation targets is moving rapidly, significant challenges remain: official development assistance is declining despite the onset of humanitarian crises, domestic resource mobilization lacks the scale necessary to achieve the SDGs, and private investment flows are not always compatible with sustainable development needs. Moreover, there continues to be a significant digital divide and trade tensions continue to grow. The world is more interconnected than ever, and only global approaches and partnerships will make moving ahead possible.
The 2020 WIDER Development Conference, in Helsinki, Finland, on 26 and 27 June, aims to take stock of global progress towards achieving SDG 17 – ‘Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development’: share knowledge on success stories and good practices, identify main challenges, and suggest ways forward. To this end, we aspire to bring together organizations and individuals from around the world to discuss the evidence and solutions to five big issues surrounding SDG 17:
- Finance: How to foster domestic resource mobilization (including domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection), official development assistance, and long-term debt sustainability? What is the role of the private sector in financing the large investment needs behind Agenda 2030?
- Trade: How to promote a rules-based and equitable multilateral trading system, collectively reduce trade tensions, and support developing countries to increase and diversify their exports?
- Technology: How to bridge the digital divide? How can technology benefit the world’s poorest and contribute to Agenda 2030?
- Macroeconomic stability: How to improve domestic capacity for managing currency and price fluctuations, debt burdens and inflation, and reduce the vulnerability to external shocks? What are the measures needed to improve the working of the international monetary system and enhance macroeconomic policy co-operation?
- Data for development: How to collect high-quality, timely and reliable data and how to measure progress on sustainable development?
The conference seeks contributions that improve our understanding of these issues and provide evidence on the policies, partnerships and co-ordinated actions that support sustainable development in countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. With that objective, the conference will bring together some 250+ participants from academic, government, and development communities from across the world, and provide a forum to discuss innovative, theoretical, and empirical research and its policy take-aways. The conference will consist of plenary sessions with keynote speakers, organised parallel sessions, a policy event, and two poster sessions.
Interested applicants wishing to present original research at one of the poster sessions at the conference on the topics discussed above should complete the online application form using the 'Apply here' link on the left side column.
Applicants must be early-career researchers from universities and research institutes or PhD candidates who are about to complete the dissertation. Applications from suitably qualified female researchers and early-career developing country researchers from universities and research institutes based in the Global South are particularly encouraged.
