Conferences & Symposia

Driving Change, Shaping Lives: Gender in the Developing World

This conference will bring together leading experts from different fields, countries, and perspectives at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study to explore the complex roles of gender in the developing world. Academic scholarship will be interwoven with practical experience as scholars, practitioners, organizers, and political leaders engage with one another in panel sessions on health, education, shifting populations, politics, and technology and media. Discussions will investigate intersections among these topics, crossing boundaries both conceptual and geographic.

The conference is presented in cooperation with the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School.

Schedule 

Thursday, March 3, 2011
1:00 pm

Welcome

Barbara J. Grosz, Dean, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Brigitte Madrian, Senior Advisor to the Social Sciences Program, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Aetna Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Management, Harvard Kennedy School 

1:10 pm

Artistic Performance: Siyabulela Lethuxolo Xuza '12

1:15 pm

Shifting Populations Panel

Moderator:
Swanee Hunt, Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; President, Hunt Alternatives Fund; Chair, The Institute for Inclusive Security

Panelists:
Valerie M. Hudson, Professor of Political Science, Brigham Young University
"Sex Selective Abortion in Asia: Issues and Policies"

Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Professor of Sociology, University of Southern California
"Migration as Indentured Mobility: The Moral Regulation of Migrant Women"

Amy O'Neill Richard, Senior Advisor to the Director, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, United States Department of State
"The Feminization of Modern Slavery" 

2:45 pm

Break

3:00pm

Health Panel

Moderator:
Paula A. Johnson, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Executive Director, Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology; Chief, Division of Women's Health, Brigham and Women's Hospital

Panelists:
Joyce Banda, Vice President, Malawi
"Community-Based Responses to Improving Maternal Health in Malawi"

Mirai Chatterjee, Coordinator of Social Security for Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), India
"Acting on the Social Determinants of Health: Some Experiences of the Self-employed Women's Association of India"

Kirk R. Smith, Professor of Global Environmental Health, University of California at Berkeley
"The Hearth Kills More than the Sword" 

Friday, March 4, 2011
9:00 am

Welcome Back

Iris Bohnet, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Women and Public Policy Program, Harvard Kennedy School 

9:15 am

Technology Panel

Moderator:
Margo I. Seltzer, Harvard College Professor and Herchel Smith Professor of Computer Science, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Panelists:
Taryn Dinkelman, Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Princeton University
"Electrification and the Household"

Robert Jensen, Associate Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Los Angeles
"Information Technologies and Women's Status in India"

Kristine Pearson, Founder and CEO, Lifeline Energy
"Energy—the Missing Millennium Development Goal: Empowering Women Through Power"

11:05 am

Artistic Performance: Harvard Sangeet

11:15 am

Education Panel

Moderator:
Fernando M. Reimers, Ford Foundation Professor of International Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Panelists:
Thuwayba Al Barwani, Dean, College of Education, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
"Education and the Redefinition of Women's Empowerment and Development: The Case of Oman"

Jishnu Das, Senior Economist in the Development Research Group, World Bank
"Education and Gender: What Do We Know from Around the World?"

Cecilia María Vélez, Former National Minister of Education, Colombia 

12:45 pm

Lunch and time to visit Technology and Schlesinger exhibits

02:20 pm

Artistic Performance: Harvard Bhangra

2:30pm

Politics Panel

Moderator:
Asim Ijaz Khwaja, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Esther Duflo, Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Aloisea Inyumba, Senator, Rwanda Parliament
"Garnering Support for Gender Balance"

Humaira Awais Shahid RI '10, Journalist and Provincial Parliamentarian, Pakistan
"Hunkering Down for the Long Haul" 

4:00 pm

Summation

Jacqueline Bhabha, Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Lecturer in Law, Harvard Law School; Director of Research, François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights; Lecturer on Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; University Adviser on Human Rights Education to the Provost, Harvard University 

Radcliffe Gymnasium
Thursday, March 03, 2011 to Friday, March 04, 2011