Prof. Najam Speaks in Berlin on Global Institutions and the Financial Crisis

The Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, Prof. Adil Najam, was amongst the speakers at an international conference on The Global Institutional Architecture and the Financial Crisis: An Opportunity for Sustainable Development, organized in Berlin, Germany, by the EcoLogic Institute.

The conference, held on 14-15 September 2009, in Berlin. The objective of the conference was to expand understanding of the relationship between the global institutional architecture and the financial crisis and to examine its implications for achieving sustainable development.  In his presentation to the conference, titled “We Need a G-All,” Prof. Najam focused on the recent developments within the G-8 and G-20 and argued that while the expansion of membership in key global organizations is a good step, it has to be taken to its logical conclusions which has to focus on the strengthening of the U.N. (i.e., G-All) rather than creating more power centers outside of the U.N. The Brazilian Ambassador to Germany also spoke along with Prof. Najam on this theme.

Particularly on the financial crisis, Prof. Najam emphasized that there was an opportunity within it for the revamping of the international institutional architecture and for revamping it around the principles of sustainable development. However, he said, that the efforts have been mostly directed towards propping up the exact system that had failed rather than using this opportunity to redesign it for greater global sustainability.

Other speakers at the conference included: Andreas Kraemer, Ecologic Institute; Moustapha Kamal Gueye, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); Sol Iglesias, Asia-Europe Foundation; Mark Halle, International Institute for Sustainable Development; Miranda Schreurs, Freie Universität Berlin; Everton Vieira Vargas, Ambassador of Brazil; Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf, Ecologic Institute; Pablo Heidrich, North-South Institute; Günther Bachmann, German Council for Sustainable Development; Candice Stevens, OECD; Nick Mabey, E3G; Christian Hornberg, KfW Banking Group; and Fiona Marshall, International Institute for Sustainable Development.