Pardee Researchers Publish Op-Ed on “New Deal For Development”

Prof. Adil Najam and Prof. Henrik Selin, both professors of International Relations at Boston University and researchers at the BU Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, published an op-ed titled “A New Deal for Development” in The Express Tribune (May 15, 2010) and in New Strait Times (May 19, 2010). The op-ed argued that the forthcoming negotiations for the 2012 Rio+20 Earth Summit provide an opportunity to truly put sustainable development in practice and get past lingering North-South divides.

In the op-ed Professors Najam and Selin argue that “as delegates prepare for Rio+20, they should seek to craft a global new deal for sustainable development. A deal that could finally help bridge the North-South divide by tackling poverty as well as over-consumption, environmental degradation, social justice and greenness of the economy along with sustainable livelihoods.”

This op-ed follows and different from another op-ed by Prof. Adil Najam on the Rio+20 negotiations publidhed on May 14, 2010 in TripleCrisis.

Read full op-ed here: Adil Najam and Henrik Selin in The Express Tribune on “A New Deal for Development“ and Adil Najam and Henrik Selin in New Strait Times on “A Global New Deal for Sustainable Development.“

The Pardee Center has been active as a research node in the run-up to these negotiations, including publishing a number of papers, holding a special Pardee Center seminar at the United Nations headquarters prior to the negotiation, and Prof. Najam working directly with Ministers and delegation leaders from Commonwealth countries on their priorities for these negotiations. Pardee Center research already focuses on many of the development issues that are at the Center of the Rio+20 agenda and will continue to do so (see here).