UNRISD Director Sarah Cook was a keynote speaker during an International Poverty Reduction Center in China (IPRCC) seminar on 16 October in the Beijing Fraternal Cooperation Hotel.
The seminar, entitled “International Development Theories and Practices for Senior Officials of Provincial Poverty Reduction Agencies of China”, examined how to apply policy responses to China’s impoverished regions, in particular service delivery to the poor. Seminar participants included Gaspar Fajth of UNICEF and Shantanu Mukherjee of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Cook also spoke at the Poverty Reduction and Development Forum, “Transforming Development Pattern and Poverty Reduction”, on 17 October at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China. Hui Liangyu, Vice Premier of China, and Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of UN Women and former Chilean President, were guest speakers at the Forum’s opening ceremony.
At the Forum’s session, “Economic Structure Adjustment, Urbanization, Employment Promotion and Poverty Reduction”, Cook discussed the role of social policy in addressing inequality, drawing from UNRISD’s 2010 Flagship Report,
Combating Poverty and Inequality: Structural Change, Social Policy and Politics. Executive summaries of
Combating Poverty and Inequality were made available
in Chinese.
Participants in “Economic Structure Adjustment, Urbanization, Employment Promotion and Poverty Reduction”, included Su Ming, Deputy Director of the Research Institute for Fiscal Science of the Chinese Ministry of Finance; Shantanu Mukherjee, Policy Advisor for the UNDP; and Luiz Pedone, Professor of International Relations and Public Policies/Political Science at the Fluminense Federal University in Brazil.
On 18 October, Cook presented
Combating Poverty and Inequality at the IPRCC during a brainstorming workshop. Other speakers included Sabina Alkire, Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, and Cheng Enjiang, Chief Research Coordinator at the IPRCC.
For further information on the UNRISD report, visit:
www.unrisd.org/publications/povertyreport