Prof. Adil Najam Leads Conference in Addis Ababa on Global Governance

Dr. Adil Najam, Director  Boston University Pardee Center
Dr. Adil Najam, Director Boston University Pardee Center

Prof. Adil Najam, Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and Boston University Professor of International Relations and of Geography and the Environment, co-led (with Mark Halle of the International Institute for Sustainable Development) a two day conference on developing an African position on international environmental governance reform, held at Addis Ababa Ethiopia, on May 23-24.

The conference, held at the campus of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa, brought together government, civil society, academic and international organization leaders from across Africa to discuss the reform options for international environmental governance, in the context of the forthcoming 2012 Rio+20 conference (officially, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development).

Prof. Adil Najam is a leading expert on the subject and opened the conference with a keynote presentation on the reform options and on African priorities for reform. This then led to a two-day discussion on these options and priorities, as a contribution to developing an Africa-wide position on the subject in advance of the Rio+20 negotiations.

While at the conference, Prof. Najam also introduced participants and the UNECA leadership to Pardee Center research in the Africa 2060 project and also on issues related to global environmental governance and to Rio+20.