Always Promising

Click here to watch on BUniverse. Download available on iTunesU.

An interdisciplinary panel of Latin America experts from BostonUniversity discuss why the “always promising” region of Latin Americahas yet to meet its potential for economic growth and development andhow that pattern might be altered.

The event was organized and moderated by Kevin G. Gallagher, a Collegeof Arts and Sciences assistant professor of international relations anda Pardee research fellow. He is joined by Carlos Blanco, a CAS visiting international relations professor, Shane Hunt, a CAS emeritus professor of economics, Kirk Dearden a School of Public Health associate professor of international health, and Robert Kaufmann, a CAS professor of geography and environment.

Turning to regional economic development, Hunt discusses “convergencetheory,” which holds that countries at varying stages of developmentwill become relatively equal if the less developed countries can adoptand adapt the technologies of more developed countries and canestablish new institutions, such as financial institutions and bettereducation systems.

Discussing public health in the region, Dearden points out some hopefultrends, such as decreased infant mortality and fewer cases of childhoodmalnutrition, but says they are tempered by the huge challengescountries still face in terms of both infectious and chronic diseases.

According to Kaufmann, institutional reform will be critical toprotecting the region’s environment. As an example, he notes Brazil’sAmazon Basin, where the country is moving away from “command andcontrol” policies, such as prohibiting all development in naturereserves, toward market-based programs that give people financialincentives to be good environmental stewards.

November 19, 2008, noon
Pardee Center

About the speakers:

Kevin G. Gallagher, a CAS assistant professor of international relations, is a research fellow at the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.His research and teaching examine the political economy ofglobalization and governance for development in industrializingnations, particularly in Mexico and Latin America. He is the author ofThe Enclave Economy: Foreign Investment and Sustainable Development in Mexico’s Silicon Valley (with Lyuba Zarsky) and Free Trade and the Environment: Mexico, NAFTA, and Beyond.Gallagher is also a research associate at the Global Development andEnvironment Institute of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy atTufts University and the Political Economy Research Institute at theUniversity of Massachusetts, Amherst, an adjunct fellow at Research andInformation System for Developing Countries in Delhi, India, and amember of the US-Mexico Futures Forum.

Carlos Blancois a CAS visiting professor of international relations. He is aprofessor at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and a fellow of theWeatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Hisbooks include Revolucion y Desilusión / La Venezuela de Hugo Chávez, La Reforma del Estado y la Comisión Presidencial para la Reforma del Estado (under review), and Venezuela, Del Siglo XX al Siglo XXI: Un Projecto Para Construirla(editor). He has been a research scholar in the David RockefellerCenter for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, has served asminister for the reform of the state and president of the PresidentialCommission for State Reform in Venezuela, and has been president andsecretary general of the Latin-American Center for AdministrativeDevelopment.

Kirk Deardenis a School of Public Health associate professor of public health. Forthe past 17 years, he has provided technical assistance tonot-for-profit institutions to help them evaluate and improve upon thedelivery of health services. Dearden has worked as a senior research andevaluation specialist at the Academy for Educational Development, JohnsHopkins University, Save the Children, and the International Center forDiarrheal Disease Research, in Bangladesh. More recently, he spent fiveyears as a faculty member at Brigham Young University. He continues toconsult on applied research with the Academy for EducationalDevelopment, Save the Children/US, Freedom from Hunger, USAID, and theWorld Health Organization, among others. He has worked on developmentprojects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Shane Hunt is a CAS emeritus professor of economics.He has worked on Peruvian economic problems since his first visit tothe country in 1963 and has published on Peru in areas such as publicfinance, industrial, trade, labor policy, and economic history andstatistics. He was a visiting professor at the Banco Central de Reservain 1969 and the Universidad del Pacifico in 1989. From 1993 to 1995, hewas chief of party of the PAPI Project (USAID/BIDE). In recent years hehas been a consultant for the International Development Research Centrein Canada, which supports a consortium of economic and social researchcenters in Peru.

Robert Kaufmannis a CAS professor of geography and environment and director of BostonUniversity’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. His researchfocuses on world oil markets, development and analysis of policies toslow the emission of greenhouse gases, and ecological economics. Ineach area, his research integrates theory and techniques developed inthe social and natural sciences.