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Thematic meeting 2005

Title:
"The Millennium Development Goals as a challenge for scientists and development practitioners."

Organisation:
The thematic meeting took place during the CERES Summer School that was organised by the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague. Convenor of the meeting was Prof. Dr Ton Dietz, Director of the CERES Research School and co-founder of the DPRN with support of the DPRN Task Force.

Date and venue:
Date: 28 June 2005, 3.00 - 5.00 p.m.
Venue: Institute of Social Studies, Kortenaerkade 12, The Hague (The Netherlands)

The topic:
The Directorate General for International Cooperation (DGIS) of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and many other development agencies have adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as their prime 'driving force' for international cooperation.

The present Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation, Agnes van Ardenne, has decided to focus on the MDGs in the field of education, HIV/AIDS, reproductive rights, the environment and water. For an effective Dutch contribution to these MDGs, the Minister is promoting partnerships with civil society organisations, enterprises and knowledge institutes in poor and rich countries alike. Under this approach, she is also stimulating more fruitful contacts with the Dutch scientific community, after ten years of rather problematic relationships. DGIS is currently promoting an 'IS (international development) academy', linking parts of DGIS with specific Dutch research centres, in which the MDGs are given a prominent place.

The Netherlands Development Assistance Research Council (RAWOO) was commissioned to make an inventory of Dutch development-related research institutions and to assess their strengths and weaknesses. The RAWOO inventory lists a large number of knowledge centres, organised according to scientific domains. DPRN supplemented this inventory by explicitly relating each of the MDG targets with the knowledge network in the Netherlands and the key players therein.

Against this background, the Board of the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO) has recently decided to strengthen its partnership with DGIS (its main donor) and to enhance the contribution of the Dutch research community to the MDGs.

This step raises, however, several strategic questions that will guide the debate during this thematic DPRN meeting:

  • What are the high-quality knowledge centres for each of the specific MDGs in the Netherlands?
  • What are strengths and weaknesses of the Dutch knowledge infrastructure as far as their contribution to achieving the MDGs is concerned?
  • What are the existing funding arrangements for MDG-oriented research and what role will the IS-Academy play therein?
  • What are WOTRO's niches? Where can it support high-quality research of major social relevance for the achievement of the MDGs, without overlapping too much with other funding arrangements? Are there ways in which WOTRO's contributions be applied in a synergetic way?

Output
This meeting has resulted in a policy brief plus annexes to the Dutch Minister of Development Cooperation and an inventory of MDG expertise in the Netherlands.

For more information view the meeting report.