Abstract:

This talk is motivated by increased efforts in ICTD to lower rates of violence against women (VAW) worldwide. Conventional wisdom in international development often cites women’s advancement as the key factor in sustainable development strategies, although overall, ICTD has historically done a poor job taking women’s unique development concerns into account. However, new anti-rape and anti-harassment ICT efforts combine gender and technology policy and activity, and raise interesting questions about design, agency and ethics. This discussion introduces these intersections as areas for future research and development.

Speaker Bio:

Revi Sterling is the founder and director of the first Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) professional master’s program in the United States, a program that places equal emphasis on technology, methodology, and development studies.  Previously, Sterling worked at Microsoft for 10 years where she spearheaded Microsoft Research’s efforts in gender equity in computer science. She has served on the leading gender and technology boards, and testified before the U.S. Congress about the need for more women in the technical workforce. She moved into the field of ICTD to research the impact of technology on women’s empowerment in underdeveloped communities. She is most concerned on the “hidden” barriers to ICTD use and access. Some of these topics include gender and power relations, development readiness, community expectation management and systemic disempowerment. Her current research explores the potential of ICT to establish and sustain mental health interventions in remote communities with a history of trauma and isolation. She is the recipient of the 2012 Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision award for Social Impact.

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This event is sponsored by: IJM, Bay Area Anti-Trafficking Coalition & the Stanford Program on Human Rights.

For more Information please contact:

Betty Ann Boeving   bettyann@baatc.org

Abstract:
Armed conflict causes profound and widespread adverse consequences for health and human rights. It directly causes death as well as physical and mental disabilities among combatants and increasingly among non-combatants. It damages the health-supporting infrastructure of society, including public health services and medical care. It forces people to leave the safety and security of their homes and communities. It diverts human and financial resources away from activities that benefit society. It leads to further violence. And, in these and other ways, armed conflict violates human rights.  This presentation will provide examples of these adverse consequences of armed conflict and what can be done to minimize these consequences and to prevent armed conflict.

Dr.Barry Levy is a physician and epidemiologist who has edited books, written papers, and spoken widely on these issues. He is an Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Tufts University School of Medicine. Previously, he served as a medical epidemiologist for the CDC, a tenured professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, USAID coordinator for AIDS prevention in Kenya, executive director of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and in other roles. He is a past president of the American Public Health Association and a recipient of its Sedgwick Memorial Medal. He has written more than 200 published papers and book chapters, many on the adverse effects of war. He has co-edited 17 books, including, with co-editor Dr. Victor Sidel and many contributing authors, two editions each of the books War and Public Health, Terrorism and Public Health, and Social Injustice and Public Health.    

Zainab Hawa Bangura of Sierra Leone is Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict at the level of Under-Secretary-General at the United Nations.

Prior to this appointment, Ms. Bangura was the Minister of Health and Sanitation for the Government of Sierra Leone, and brings to the position over 20 years of policy, diplomatic and practical experience in the field of governance, conflict resolution and reconciliation in Africa. She was previously the second female Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, including Chief Adviser and Spokesperson of the President on bilateral and international issues. Ms. Bangura has been instrumental in developing national programmes on affordable health, advocating for the elimination of genital mutilation, managing the country’s Peace Building Commission and contributing to the multilateral and bilateral relations with the international community. She is experienced in meeting with interlocutors in diverse situations, including rebel groups, and familiar in dealing with State and non-State actors relevant to issues of sexual violence while fighting corruption and impunity.

Ms. Bangura has on-the-ground experience with peacekeeping operations from within the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), where she was responsible for the management of the largest civilian component of the Mission, including promoting capacity-building of government institutions and community reconciliation. She is an experienced results-driven civil society, human and women’s rights campaigner and democracy activist, notably as Executive Director of the National Accountability Groups, Chair and Co-founder of the Movement for Progress Party of Sierra Leone, as well as Coordinator and Co-founder of the Campaign for Good Governance.

Ms. Bangura is a former fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute of London, possessing Diplomas in Insurance Management from the City University Business School of London and Nottingham University. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone.

Abstract:

This paper estimates the effect that successful cocaine interdiction policies in Colombia have had on violence in Mexico. We propose a simple model of the war on drugs that captures the essence of our identification strategy: aggregate supply shocks affect the size of illegal drug markets, which then increases or decreases violence. We estimate the effect of the interaction of cocaine seizures in Colombia with simple geographic features of Mexican municipalities. Our results indicate that aggregate supply shocks originated in drug seizures in Colombia affect homicides in Mexico. The effects are especially large for violence generated by clashes between drug cartels. Our estimates also show that government crackdowns on drug cartels might not be the only explanation behind the rise of illegal drug trafficking and violence observed in the last six years in Mexico: successful interdiction policies implemented in Colombia since 2006 have also played a major role in the worsening of the Mexican situationduring Calderon's sexennium.

Speaker Bio:

Daniel Mejia is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and Director of the Research Center on Drugs and Security (CESED) at Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia, where he has taught since 2006. He received a BA and MA in Economics from Universidad de los Andes and a MA and PhD in economics from Brown University. Prior to joining Universidad de los Andes he worked as a researcher at the Central Bank of Colombia and Fedesarrollo. Daniel he has been actively involved in a research agenda whose main objective is to provide an independent, economic evaluation of anti-drug policies implemented under Plan Colombia. His academic work has been published at the Journal of Development Economics, the European Journal of Political Economy, Economics of Governance and Economia: Journal of the Latin America Economic Association. In 2008 he was awarded Fedesarrollos´s German Botero de los Ríos prize for economic research. Also, in 2008, 2010 and 2012 he was awarded with research grants from the Open Society Institute for the study of anti-drug policies in Colombia. Daniel, together with Alejandro Gaviria, recently published the book “Políticas antidroga en Colombia: éxitos, fracasos y extravíos” (Anti-drug policies in Colombia: successes, failures and lost opportunities) at Universidad de los Andes, in Bogota. Between 2011 and 2012, Daniel was a member of the Advisory Commission on Criminal Policy and more recently he is the Chair of the Colombian Government´s Advisory Commission on Drugs Policy.

Kavita Srivatsava, one of India's leading activists will be joining us for an informal conversation on activism around hunger, peace and justice in India.  Kavita is Secretary of People's Union for Civil Liberties, that has been at the forefront of the struggle for civil, political and socio-economic justice in India.  She is the petitioner in the internationally renowned ‘Right to food’ litigation in the Supreme Court of India, one of the most impactful socio-economic litigations in India.  She has also played a prominent role in women's movements in Rajasthan and has worked on numerous cases of violence against women. 

In addition these core issues, Kavita has also worked on issues such as communal violence, landmines in the Indo-Pak border, election monitoring in Kashmir, supporting Dalits networks an on practically every major social issue in North India.  Come join us for an informal conversation on hunger, peace and justice with this versatile activist.

Time: 3 pm

Date: 12 Nov, 2013 (Tuesday)

Location: E008 Encina Hall (East)

Supported by:

Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law

Center for South Asia

San Jose Peace and Justice Center