Speaker Events - Friday, January 11, 2008
The Bottom Billion and the Conflict Trap: A Discussion with Paul Collier
The International Peace Institute, in cooperation with the Peacebuilding Support Office, held a policy discussion on poverty and conflict with economist Paul Collier, director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University.
Collier's recently published book, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, explores the links between poverty and violent conflict in about fifty of the world's failing states (the so-called "bottom billion"). He proposes a set of guidelines for donor nations, postconflict governments, and international organizations aimed at solving problems that defy traditional approaches to poverty alleviation.
Participants discussed the feasibility of Collier's proposals, and whether the UN Peacebuilding Commission was the appropriate forum to advance such an agenda.
Collier was introduced by H.E. Mr. Yukio Takasu, Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations, and Ms. Carolyn McAskie, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support, offered closing remarks. The panel was chaired by Michael W. Doyle, IPI board member and Harold Brown Professor at Columbia University in the School of International and Public Affairs and Columbia Law School.
The Global Observatory
Interview with John Prendergast, Co-Founder, Enough Project
Mr. Prendergast discusses the international justice system and the new ground forged by Invisible Children's Kony2012 campaign.
Key Global Events to Watch in May
A list of key upcoming meetings and events with implications for global affairs.
The Global Observatory is a new website by IPI, providing timely analysis on peace and security issues, interviews with leading policymakers, interactive maps, and more.
Recent Events
May 10, 2012
Arbour: What the Rule of Law Means
“In my understanding of the rule of law, fundamentally, what the rule of law means is that it embraces the principle of equality before the law,” Louise Arbour, president of the International Crisis Group (ICG), told an IPI audience on May 10, 2012. Ms. Arbour outlined that this means that no one is above the law and everyone has both equal protection and equal benefit of the law. 
May 03, 2012
Shachtman: Cyber Threats Akin to South Bronx, Not Pearl Harbor
“There’s not a danger of a cyber Pearl Harbor… it’s more like the South Bronx circa 1999, where there’s a danger that it becomes such a tough neighborhood that no one wants to set up shop there and people move out,” Noah Shachtman, editor of the Danger Room blog at Wired magazine and non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, told an IPI audience at a panel on cyber security on May 3, 2011.
April 27, 2012
Preventing Conflicts in Africa: The Role of Early Warning and Response Systems
An April 27th roundtable discussion at IPI titled “Preventing Conflicts in Africa: The Role of Early Warning and Response Systems” examined the progress, prospects and challenges of regional and international early warning and response mechanisms to monitor, anticipate, and mitigate potential conflict situations in Africa.