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Though development was originally about addressing poverty, this focus was lost in the 1980s and when it re-appeared in the 1990s ‘the new anti-poverty agenda was and is still tethered to policies whose central preoccupation was not development, but stabilization and debt management,' according to Mr Thandika Mkandawire, the director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), based in Geneva.

Speaking at the opening of a major conference on international development in Dublin City University on Thursday (March 23^rd ), Mr Mkandawire said that ‘there are still no clear strategies tying together the various internationally agreed MDGs' or Millennium Development Goals.

‘Anti-poverty programmes are not necessarily pro-poor if they are badly designed and if they undermine the long-term development prospects of poor countries,' said Mr Mkandawire, who is originally from Malawi. ‘Combating the proximate causes of poverty does not always mean fighting its underlying structural causes. Indeed, some of the most successful cases of poverty reduction were not expressly designed to fight poverty, but rather to address issues of economic growth, structural change and social inclusion,' he said.

Mr Mkandawire was giving the keynote address at the conference on ‘Linking the Global and the Local: Education for Development in a Globalising World'. Hosted by the Centre for International Studies at Dublin City University, the conference was opened by Mr Conor Lenihan TD, the Minister of State for Development Co-operation. The conference includes speakers from all Irish universities as well as from Irish Aid, the European Commission and universities in India, Africa, South America, the US and Britain.

Topics being addressed include HIV/AIDS, globalisation, agriculture, the environment, education, information and communications technologies (ICTs), conflict, culture and civil society.

For information on the conference, visit the conference website at http://www.devedconference2006.com/

Further information from Dr Peadar Kirby, director of the Centre for International Studies, DCU, at 01-700 5671.