ZEF's 10-year Anniversary Conference: An Alumna's Perspective

I was lucky to attend this year's 10-year anniversary conference of ZEF, the Center for Development Research, from October 04-05, 2007 in Bonn, as well as all side events for the alumni. On October 03rd, we, the alumni from various batches (even from as far as 1999) met with the International Board of ZEF, where some of us presented their current career paths, past experiences and how ZEF helped shaping these, as well as giving ideas for improvement. Furthermore, we spoke to the current batch of 2007, telling about how some of us dealt with the first arrival in Germany, the language (course), and gave suggestions for the alumni networking and doctoral program.

On October 04, we also had a chance to meet with the DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service, which funds most ZEF doctoral students. Here too, an exchange of ideas and cooperation was discussed.

Then the conference on "Global Change and Human Development: Research and Action" started in the afternoon, where we had the opportunity to hear such distinguished keynote speakers as Dr. Per Pinstrup-Anderson, a 2001 World Food Prize Laureate and Dr. Klaus Toepfer, former Executive Director of UNEP, Kenya. Parallel sessions on biodiversity, governance and knowledge, water and land use, gave the participants the occasion to attend topics of interest and discuss with the panel of guest speakers. The final plenary panel on "The interaction between development research, development policy, and development practice: Lessons learned & challenges" gave an interesting overview for current and future aspects.

Additionally, there was enough room for interaction with the different participants - alumni, current and former senior researchers, as well as guest speakers, even though the program was quite packed. For me it was additionally a great pleasure to meet my batch with whom I started four years ago, even though only a tiny fraction was able to attend. Of course, there was a ZEF birthday party in the evening of the last conference day, with a prize for the best ZEF birthday cake, lots of good music and dancing till late at night...

By Shilpi Saxena.

: Ms. Saxena conducted her PhD research at ZEF from 2003 - 2006.

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