Pri's blog

STI Forum Logo - two men pushing cogwheels -  This last week I received the report of the Co-Chairs of the STI Forum on the SDGs 2017 and followed the presentation to the HLPF on the UN webcasting site.  The STI Forum may not be the only culprits, this could be a general malaise across the whole UN  & SDG system, but I was  disappointed that the report and the presentation of the co-chairs reflected an inability to follow an innovative line  of thinking – despite the rhetoric of transformation,  the repeated references to the interrelatedness of the seventeen goals, the continued emphasis on the need to focus on people,  the importance of ‘leaving no one behind’ and the concern that development activity does not destroy our planet.  There was far too much rooted in the past, in business as usual, and far too little linked to achieving a different kind of future.   As the Secretary General has observed, the 2030 Agenda is “a m...

  Born: 6April 1959 Died: 23 June 2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saman_Kelegama I never actually worked with Saman Kelegama though we met regularly in different forums, notably as the bosses of the two Sri Lankan think tanks supported by the Think Tank Initiative , and also as co-Directors of the Gamani Corea Foundation.     I greatly admired Saman’s knowledge of economics, his analysis and the contribution he made to Sri Lanka’s policy making, had huge respect for how he navigated the murky political contexts to retain IPS ’ independence and integrity, recognised that he was much loved by his colleagues   and greatly admired by scholars as a development intellectual, both in Sri Lanka and globally. Among the Think Tank Initiative think tank Directors in South Asia, Saman had his place among the heavy weights! I didn’t really understand Saman’s world of trade economics, nor did I really approve of his management style (nor he of mine!) S...

Yesterday, at the end of the STI Forum , I attended a side event organized by Jonny Casey of Practical Action , enthusiastic   young man, of the ilk of all those enthusiastic young men that were part of ITDG, as Practical Action was called in dem-good-ole-days !   [Note:   I am a little partial to Jonny because he was very complimentary on twitter   about my presentation at the STI Forum.   Checking him out I find that at Practical Action   he “leads the organisation's efforts to mainstream gender across its work”   which explains a lot and should endear him further to us genderequality wonks!]   The side event was billed “World Cafe: A knowledge systems approach for # SDG2 ”   and even though the methodology fell far short of what I understood as a World Café, our small group discussion was extremely interesting, if rather depressing.   The group comprised largely of young people, mainly part of the UN Working group on Child...

This time outside my office in Bangsar Utama 9, Kuala Lumpur.   Recalling  my blog of May 9, 2011

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"You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? ”   Can we talk about what Fidel Castro left behind?    A country with a HDI of 0.769 and ranked 67 th of all countries, with the trend towards this HDI increasing since 1990 and retaining the level over the last few years.  And this despite the US embargo.  And the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. And yes, a good education system and a good  health system – but also can we talk about Cuban medical internationalism that provides medical assistance  to countries in need? Somebody asked me was I advocating the  Cuban model because I thought it was good for everyone to be equally poor.  I must say I never even had a glimpse of poverty in the way I have seen it in many countries in Asia, Africa and other parts of Latin America in Cuba.  And so yes, since it is unlikely that th...