Global Sustainable Development News

Dr Marta Guerriero, Senior Teaching Fellow and Deputy Head of School, Global Sustainable Development, was asked to comment on the issues raised in a recent Oxfam report on global inequality.

You may find Marta's comment on the Warwick News&Event website - link.

Windrush Strikes Back: Decolonising Global Warwickshire (WSB) is a community-engaged history project facilitated by the Global Warwickshire Collective (GWC), which includes Dr Leon Sealey-Huggins of Global Sustainable Development.

The project is focused on uncovering the hidden histories written by British African Caribbean peoples in historic Warwickshire, including Coventry, Birmingham and the surrounding areas. Over the course of six months, the GWC will mentor and train descendants of the Windrush generations, as "Decolonial Detectives."

Through training and engagement, the intention of this project is to inspire community members to take more active ownership of and involvement in the production of our histories, and to challenge the exclusivity of historical scholarship in Britain. Together we will work towards decolonising the entangled "glocal" histories of Shakespeare's county, Warwickshire.

https://windrushstrikesback.com/

The Universitas Indonesia (UI) GreenMetric World University Rankings 2018 have placed Warwick in the world’s top universities for environmental sustainability.

A truly excellent result is the ranking in the 'education and research' indicator, where Warwick was placed 15th in the world and 5th in the United Kingdom.

You are all invited to the first seminar of the new term!

How do we campaign as activists and NGOs when we know that time is running out to tackle climate change? What role do NGOs play in the wider environmental movement and how do we maintain hope in changing times? How do we engage people and what does a movement look like? Hannah Martin will be speaking and facilitating a discussion based on her experience of organising at the grass-roots level and campaigning for Greenpeace on issues like fracking and wider energy issues including the Canadian tar sands and deforestation.

A new article by Dr Marco J Haenssgen in a special issue of the Antibiotics Journal casts doubt on global health action to fight superbug crisis in developing countries.

Dr Marco J Haenssgen has recently published the first paper in a special issue on social, economic, and policy perspectives on antibiotic resistance in the medical journal Antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance is regarded a global health priority that threatens the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. It is feared that the growing resistance of microbes to antibiotics and other antimicrobial drugs will cause 10 million deaths every year by 2050 – if left unchecked. (Combatting anitmicrobial Resistence to Achieve SDGS Goals).

Global action plans recognise that the broader problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has a social dimension, which is addressed through proposals of a “massive global public awareness campaign” (The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, 2016, p. 17;).The paper is entitled “The Consequences of AMR Education and Awareness Raising: Outputs, Outcomes, and Behavioural Impacts of an Antibiotic-Related Educational Activity in Lao PDR” and provides one of the most detailed accounts to date on the effects of antibiotic-related awareness-raising interventions in a low-income country context. Marco and his co-authors analyse the case study of two Lao villages, in which they implemented an antibiotic-themed educational activity to learn about villager’s conceptions and health behaviour, and to share ideas about antibiotic use and drug resistance. Fine-grained survey data with nearly 2,500 observations enabled the team to study interpretations of the activity within the villages, its outcomes on awareness and attitudes, and the impact on villagers’ healthcare access and antibiotic use. Finding positive effects on awareness and interpretations of drug resistance alongside limited and potentially detrimental behavioural outcomes, the authors contribute to, and challenge, the dominant communication-centric policy discourse in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. The paper was co-authored with the Southeast Asian social researchers Thipphaphone Xayavong, Nutcha Charoenboon, Penporn Warapikuptanun, and Yuzana Khine Zaw, and it is the first substantive publication from the interdisciplinary research project “Antibiotics and Activity Spaces” . The team used local media and concepts to share content based on educational material from the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and the World Organisation for Animal Health. The activity lasted half a day; it was designed for 25 to 40 participants and implemented in two villages in Salavan – the poorest province in Lao PDR. Survey data was collected from all villagers before and after the activity.

Dr Jessica Savage has been awarded £16,300 Catalyst Fund to undertake a research project titled "Protected Areas and People : Exploring perceived wisdoms surrounding natural resource management and sustainability". The aim of the research is to design and implement protected areas in Cambodia.

Dr Savage explained the importance of the project...

January will see the appointment of a new Director of the Institute for Global Sustainable Development (IGSD). The IGSD is hosted at the School of Cross-Faculty Studies and has been established to foster research that contributes to sustainable development across the global north and global south, in alignment with the 17 global goals set by the United Nations.

Professor João Porto de Albuquerque, who will assume the role from 1 January, 2019, will lead the IGSD and work across faculties to leverage transformative research with impact - working closely with both departments and Global Research Priorities (GRPs).

This is an important role for the University, and João will be instrumental in creating a strategic direction for the Institute ahead of its official launch in August 2019. The Institute will create links between researchers from different parts of the University to deliver enduring social, economic and environmental solutions, and act as a focal point for world-class research with transformative impact.

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A new short podcast mini-series from the School for Cross-fauclty Studies is now available. Featuring staff and students from the School's Global Sustainable Development and Liberal Arts divisions, each episode tackles a testing "global challenge", posing difficult questions and interdisciplinary solutions. Topics include human rights in Latin America, and our fascination with apocalyptic narratives. Three episodes are currently available to stream or download from the School's website via this link.

Marco J Haenssgen will join the School for Cross-Faculty Studies in January 2019 as Assistant Professor in Global Sustainable Development. Marco has a background in development studies and general management, and experience in development evaluation and management consulting. Prior to joining Warwick, he led research projects at the University of Oxford on the consequences of mobile phone diffusion on rural healthcare access in India and China, and on health behaviour and antimicrobial resistance in Myanmar, Thailand, and Lao PDR. The interdisciplinary environment at Warwick promises exciting new collaborations and will enable Marco to intensify his development studies research on human behaviour and social innovation in tropical medicine.

To contact Marco, please email marco.haenssgen@warwick.ac.uk

(Photo Credit: AIDF Asia Summit)