Event Date: March 18, 2014 - 2:30 pm
Location: University of Ottawa, Social Sciences Building, room FSS-4006, 120 University Private
BONNIE CAMPBELL, Université du Québec à Montréal.
Presented by CIPS and the International Political Economy Network (IPEN).
Free. In French with a bilingual question period. No registration required. Seating is limited and available on a first come, first served basis.
Audio:
[audio:http://web20.uottawa.ca/academic/socialsciences/cepi-cips/Campbell_20140318.mp3]
The increasing technicality of approaches in the field of international development, especially in the extraction sector, has contributed to the disappearance of certain key analytical dimensions related to influence and power – dimensions which are essential to understanding ongoing processes and their impacts, the problems they raise and the eventual appropriate solutions to these difficulties. The examination of reform processes for regulation in the African mining sector offers an excellent example. These reforms, from 1980 to the present, highlight a cumulative process of liberalisation which would have major implications for the economic and social development of the countries concerned. The presentation will outline the very present and very real challenges which face research in this sector, such as “traceability” in mining revenue and the importance of renewed approaches for overcoming certain conceptual barriers where political influence and optimal use of sector resources are concerned.
Bonnie Campbell (MA., DPhil, University of Sussex), is a professor of political economy at the Department of Political Science at the University of Quebec in Montreal where she is Director of the Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche en développement international et société (CIRDIS) and also the Director of the Research Group on Mining Activities in Africa (Groupe de recherche sur les activités minières en Afrique). She was a member of the Advisory Group named by the federal government for the National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the Canadian Extractive Sector in Developing Countries (2006-2007), and from 2007 to 2011 was a member of the International Study Group of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) on the revision of mining regimes in Africa. She has written extensively on issues related to international development, development assistance, governance and mining.