2012

  • 2012 Apr 10

    The Rift Revealed: The Search for Inclusion in Kenya’s Financial Landscape

    4:10pm to 5:30pm

    Location: 

    124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Room 226, Cambridge, MA
    Susan Johnson

    Susan Johnson, Bath University

    About the Seminar
    The rapid take up of mobile money transfer services in Kenya has ignited enthusiasm globally about the potential for financial service delivery based on the platform of mobile phone technology. On the basis of a research project looking across the financial landscape, Susan Johnson argues that this rapid take up can be understood as evidence of the extensive interpersonal transactions that Kenyans undertake and that, rather than revealing the potential for the development of formal sector services – in particular voluntary savings – it reveals the rift between the formal and informal sectors. Seen in this way she discusses the challenges that formal services face in the search for financial inclusion.... Read more about The Rift Revealed: The Search for Inclusion in Kenya’s Financial Landscape

  • 2012 Apr 10

    Riding the Tiger: Challenges of China's Municipal Finance in the 21st Century

    11:40am to 1:00pm

    Location: 

    79 John F. Kennedy Street, Littauer 140

    Christine WongChristine Wong, University of Oxford

    About the Seminar
    From 1980 to 2011, the number of people living in Chinese cities increased by 500 million. This is urbanization on a scale and pace unprecedented in human history. Financing infrastructure and public services to accommodate the growing population and economic base presented a gargantuan challenge that, in China’s decentralized fiscal system, was left to municipal governments, with little assistance from higher levels.

    The cities responded with great energy and ingenuity. Under a policy regime of benign neglect from the central government, they expanded their resources by tapping a variety of extra-budgetary revenues including land, they limited eligibility to urban services by excluding migrants, and they created corporate entities to borrow. The strategy helped China achieve spectacular growth over the past three decades, but left in its wake a patchwork of risky and unsustainable financing mechanisms, a mountain of debt and a two-tiered urban populace. Fixing the system of municipal finance is critical to China’s transition from middle-income to high-income status, and to her long term prospects for creating humane and livable cities.... Read more about Riding the Tiger: Challenges of China's Municipal Finance in the 21st Century

  • 2012 Apr 09

    The Center for Economic Opportunity: NYC’s Innovative Solution to Fighting Urban Poverty

    4:10pm to 5:30pm

    Location: 

    124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge, MA

    Veronica M. White, Center for Economic Opportunity

    About the Seminar
    The Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO) works to design, implement, and evaluate anti-poverty programs. CEO has now implemented more than 50 programs in partnership with 28 city agencies and has introduced a new measure of poverty for New York City, based on the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences.


    CEO presents before the National Selection Committee in 2011

    Unique programming includes SaveUSA, which encourages saving among low-income families by offering a 50 percent match to participants that save a portion of their tax refund. In addition, Jobs-Plus offers public housing residents aid in securing and retaining employment through job search services and coaching, vocational training, and assistance with GED and ESL courses. CEO is now replicating five of its most promising programs in cities across the country through the federal Social Innovation Fund.... Read more about The Center for Economic Opportunity: NYC’s Innovative Solution to Fighting Urban Poverty

  • 2012 Apr 06

    Developing a Curriculum on Civil Society & Nonprofit Organizations in China

    10:30am to 12:00pm

    Location: 

    CGIS North, Room K262, 1737 Cambridge St.

    Nara Dillon, Harvard University; Anthony Saich, HKS; Christopher Stone, HKS; and Robert P. Weller
    Co-sponsored by the Harvard China Fund and the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations

    About the Seminar
    Speakers Anthony Saich, HKS; Christopher Stone, HKS; Nara Dillon, Harvard University; and Robert P. Weller, this seminar will showcase their collaboration over the past year developing a curriculum on civil society and nonprofits in China, an initiative supported by the Harvard China Fund and organized by the Nonprofits in China Domain of the Hauser Center. The Conference on Civil Society and Nonprofits in China at Harvard in January 2011 was a part of the effort. Attendees will learn about outcomes from the conference including curriculum building and their course offering plans.

  • 2012 Apr 03

    Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World

    5:30pm to 7:00pm

    Location: 

    124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge, MA

    Philippe van ParijsPhilippe van Parijs, Université Catholique de Louvain
    Co-sponsored by the Center for European Studies and the Harvard Department of Philosophy

    About the Seminar
    In Europe and throughout the world, competence in English is spreading at a speed never achieved by any language in human history. Is the resulting growing dominance of English to be resisted or accelerated? Does it breed injustice? If so, in what sense exactly, and what should be done about it? In this talk, Philippe van Parijs will summarize the answers offered to these questions in his book Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World (Oxford UP, 2011) and discuss some of the main objections against them.... Read more about Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World

  • 2012 Mar 30

    Forest or Not? Contentious Discourse on Expansive Oil Palm Plantations in Southeast Asia

    12:00pm to 1:30pm

    Location: 

    Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University

    Professor Okamoto Masaaki, Kyoto University
    Discussants: Deborah Gewertz, Amherst College and Frederick K. Errington, Trinity College
    Co-sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute

    About the Seminar
    This talk will focus on the contentious discourse regarding the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia. With the rapid rise in global demand for Crude Palm Oil (CPO) as the cheapest vegetable oil, oil palm plantations are sometimes devastatingly causing deforestation in Southeast Asia. CPO is used not only for cooking oil, but also for various usages including bio-diesel. This has sparked serious debates between pro-expansion (the government and business sector) and anti-expansion groups (environmental NGOs and indigenous communities). The Indonesian government and business sector shrewdly moved to define plantations as forests, so that the expansion of oil palm plantations is no longer deforestation but rather “re”forestation. If a REDD++ scheme is implemented, plantations could even obtain carbon credit as forests.

    Of course, global NGOs are harshly criticizing this movement and the contention is becoming sharper and sharper, as CPO is very lucrative for the government and business sectors in Indonesia, while NGOs view the movement as environmentally devastating. This talk will cover the development of this contentious discourse and present the emergence of a strange but positive dynamic equilibrium or consensus among stakeholders.

  • 2012 Mar 29

    Recovery in Chile: A Panel Discussion

    4:00pm

    Location: 

    Fainsod Room, L324, Littauer Building

    About the Seminar
    This panel discussion will feature presentations from students who participated in the 2012 Kennedy School J-Term Course “Community Recovery: Rebuilding Disaster Damaged Communities in Chile.” Led by Doug Ahlers, HKS Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and Faculty Affiliate of the Program on Crisis Leadership, the course gave 20 graduate students the opportunity to directly engage in disaster reconstruction in communities affected by the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Chile in 2010. The panel will include 4 students from 3 HKS degree programs. Representing each of the project teams, they will share their experiences and give key insights into lessons learned.... Read more about Recovery in Chile: A Panel Discussion

  • 2012 Mar 26

    Challenges and Opportunities in Tunisia's Democratic Transition

    4:30pm to 6:00pm

    Location: 

    Nye A, Taubman Building, Fifth Floor, Harvard Kennedy School

    Moncef Cheikh-RouhouGovernance and Economics
    Moncef Cheikh-Rouhou, Leading Member of the Tunisian Progressive Democratic Party
    Co-Sponsored by the Moroccan Studies Program at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies

    About the Speaker
    Moncef Cheikh-Rouhou is a member of the Tunisian constituent assembly, representing Tunis. He is from the Progressive Democratic Party, arguably the most important opposition party. Cheikh-Rouhou is also one of Tunisia’s most prominent economists. He holds a MBA and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and is a professor of international finance at HEC in Paris. Although he is a member of the opposition, the Nahdha minister of regional development has sought his guidance on economic policy. Before teaching and politics, Cheikh-Rouhou managed a Tunisian-Saudi investment bank and chaired the first merchant bank in the Maghreb.... Read more about Challenges and Opportunities in Tunisia's Democratic Transition

  • 2012 Mar 26

    Creating an Organization in Which Innovation is the Norm, Not the Exception

    4:10pm to 5:30pm

    Location: 

    124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge, MA

    David OsborneDavid Osborne, Senior Partner of The Public Strategies Group

    About the Seminar
    In most bureaucratic public organizations, innovation is possible but difficult. Those who innovate swim upstream, against many obstacles. “Reinventing” – or “transforming” – government is about changing the organization so that innovation becomes the norm, rather than the exception. It creates an organization in which innovators swim with the current, rather than against it. David Osborne will discuss the strategies that are most powerful in provoking this kind of fundamental transformation.... Read more about Creating an Organization in Which Innovation is the Norm, Not the Exception

  • 2012 Mar 22

    Telemedicine Center to Support Sexual Assault Evidence Collection

    3:00pm to 4:30pm

    Location: 

    Online Webinar

    Office for Victims of Crime and the National Institute of Justice

    About the Seminar
    This informational session – hosted by the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), and facilitated by the Government Innovators Network – is designed to help potential applicants learn more about the OVC solicitation, “Sexual Assault Forensic Medical Examination Telemedicine Center: An Innovative Pilot Project.”

    The goal of this project is to develop a live 24-hour telemedicine center to help Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) and other forensic medical examiners collect evidence from a victim of sexual assault. The recipient of this $3.5 million award will issue a separate solicitation, in partnership with OVC, to set up the four pilot sites that will use cutting-edge audiovisual technology to walk a health-care provider through a forensic medical examination. Register for this Webinar to learn more about the solicitation and OVC’s and NIJ’s ultimate goal of creating a national center that serves all jurisdictions on a fee-for-service basis.... Read more about Telemedicine Center to Support Sexual Assault Evidence Collection

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