At the most basic level people are poor because they don’t have access to resources. On a broader level, in today’s increasingly globalized world, poverty is closely tied to global systems and what happens in the board rooms and government chambers of developed nations can have profound implications on the lives of the poor in every nation. Globalization, the increasing movement of goods, peoples, and ideas across national boundaries, brings with it a host of new challenges and opportunities for anyone interested in development and poverty alleviation.
To that end, The Advanced Graduate Workshop in Poverty, Development and Globalization was initiated through a joint effort by the Initiative for Policy Dialogue and the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester, with the purpose of creating a space for a select interdisciplinary group of development scholars in the advanced stages of their PhD work to collaboratively engage in these issues. Beginning this year, the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, the Azim Premji University, and the Institute for New Economic Thinking will collaboratively hold The Advanced Graduate Workshop in Poverty, Development and Globalization in Bangalore, India. The focus of the workshop will be on the complex global interactions that influence poverty and development as well as strategies for development that have proven successful in promoting growth and reducing poverty. A series of lectures given by leading academics and practitioners from around the world will deal with a range of economic, political and social issues pertaining to development and poverty. Past speakers have included Nicholas Stern, Ravi Kanbur, Ajit Singh, Michael Lipton, Robert Wade, Tim Besley, Adrian Wood and Ha Joon Chang discussing topics related to the most pressing issues in development from both a topical and regional perspective. AGW participants are expected to present their research in small groups as well as to the larger class of development scholars.