NAPSIPAG's Tenth International Conference on 'Growth Patterns'
- Last Date: 15th September, 2013 -

Call for papers for the NAPSIPAG's Tenth International Conference/Workshop
hosted by the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
7th to 9th December 2013
on
"Locked in Growth Patterns: Rethinking land, water and disasters for the post-2015 Development Agenda for the Asia Pacific"

Concept note:

The Asia Pacific region is becoming increasingly vulnerable to a rising ferocity and frequency of disasters of many types, including floods, cyclones, storm surges, earthquakes,drought, hurricanes and tsunamis. Despite the warnings coming through the studies related to climate change impacts, the management of land has remained unaffected by the demands of carrying capacity, inter and intra-generational equity and justice concerns. During the past decade, on average, more than 200 million people were affected and more than 70,000 people were killed by natural disasters annually. With unsustainable changes being made in patterns of land use, catchment and coastal zones, increasing density of population and concrete structures occupying high-risk areas over mountains, migration patterns, consumer culture even in wilderness virgin ecosystem zones , the impact of disasters has increased manifold. The Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2011, EM-DAT: Emergency Events Database and UN Ecosystem Assessment Reports highlight the impending dangers embedded in the growth journey of today. Its high time that decision makers sincerely revisit the developmental agenda which has brought growth and prosperity at the cost of human security and sustainable development.

Development over land affects water table as it affects the flow of river water, its natural direction and catchments economics. This in turn disturbs the internal balance of rocks, triggering earthquakes,floods and tsunamis. The world has been caught unawares with the magnitude of devastation that followed the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004.The cause was the earthquake at the bottom of the Indian Ocean when the Indian Plate and the Burma Plate collided to trigger a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of Indonesia (with Sumatra as its epicenter), Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded in environmental history of this world killing 230,000 people in more than fourteen countries and inundating coastal communities with more than 30 meters high waves.

The region was yet to recover from this spectre of death , destruction and decay when a series of disasters struck the region one after the other with earthquakes in Pakistan (2005), Java (2006), Sichuan in China (2008) and deadly tropical cyclones and floods in Australia(Yasi 2011, 2006),Sichuan(2006), Pakistan (2010). The world clock of development came to a halt when in 2011 the Pacific Coast of Tohoku in Japan was struck by an undersea megathrust earthquake triggering powerful tsunamis travelling upto many kilometers and shifting the Earth on its axis by estimates of between 10 cms (4") and 25cms(10").It was not just loss of human lives but also a complete collapse of growth, development, power stations, roads, buildings, railways and drinking water. The worst which followed was the nuclear accident in Daiichi and Daini nuclear power plants which were the symbols of economic power and prosperity. To normalize whatever could be possible the total bank led recovery cost was USD 183 billion by the Bank of japan and USD 235 billion from the World Bank. This was over and above the insured losses at USD 14.5 to USD 34.6 billion.However, disasters still did not stop as cloudburst in the upper regions of Himalayas of Uttarakhand in India washed away thousands of clueless pilgrims, visitors and villages downstream the river Ganges in June 2013 this year.

The 2013 Human Development Report- "The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World" examines the profound shift in global dynamics driven by the fast-rising new powers of the developing world and its long term implications for human development. New countries have emerged as trend setters for a particular kind of high consumption based progress. China, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and India are currently high consumption based societies which are creating havoc with the most primary resource of development which is "land".

This form of growth pattern has been negligent of sustainable developmental planning. This economic progress is pushing the whole southern region into fatal natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods and tsunamis. Climate change is further exacerbating the disaster story. Each of these countries has a unique history and political framework of decision making despite the fact that they are interdependent and interconnected in as much as their land, rivers and coastline is shared and is common. As the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals approaches in 2015, these Asia-Pacific countries need to revisit and reinvigorate their 'land and water' planning in a manner that disasters do not wash away the progress attained so far. The December workshop is part of continuing efforts being made by the NAPSIPAG-JNU to create a platform for mutual learning amongst decision makers from government, academia and civil society groups belonging to the Asia Pacific region for sharing as well as replicating best practices and success stories.

The core concerns of this conference/workshop are;
o Disaster mitigation and control can be a sustainable policy only if it involves in source based planning of land and water bodies.
o Land use, management, acquisition and infrastructural development has a direct relationship to most environmental disasters.
o Sustainable human development is threatened due to increasing frequency of environmental disasters.
o Governance should be land based.
o Compensation and rehabilitation laws should be revisited in terms of resources which are geo-physical such as water table, topography, underground aquifers,indigenous wisdom, ecosystem damages, displacement, loss of livelihood, rehabilitation cost, genetic losses of flora and fauna and ethics of the nature of development. Compensation packages should reflect all the above tangible and intangible concerns.
o Judiciary can contribute to better land management by entertaining not just geo-physical evidences but also communitarian, symbolic and emotive evidences which lie behind human adaptability and emotional strength as a citizen of a country.
o Communities need training in disaster mitigation and prevention as much as in being important stakeholders in appropriate land management.

Workshop Strategy:

1. Land use, management and degradation , its Impact upon sustainable human development ie;loss of livelihoods, health and ecological sustenance, vulnerable groups.
2. River catchments and Coastal Zones development, law and regulations and its relationship to disasters.
3. Integrated Land and Water Management, administrative best practices, Innovations and civil society participation efforts.
4. Disaster Mitigation ,Prevention and Control
5. Applications of information and communication technology in land planning, early warning systems, training and community participation in Disaster Control, Rescueoperations.
6. Three special brainstorming sessions on:

a. Gender Concerns in disaster control planning ,
b. Disability and disaster control planning,
c. Vulnerable regions of Asia Pacific (Pacific Island states)
7. A special one day international student seminar "Leaders of Tomorrow", which would be organized, chaired and managed by CSLG-NAPSIPAG student Team . "Present your work on the Asia-Pacific issues of land and disaster governance".

Papers are invited on the following themes:
1. Evidence based studies on the relationship of land management ,disasters and development.
2. Policies and innovations in the sustainable management of land, rivers and coastal zones.
3. Critical analysis of 'Country specific strategies' in land management, disaster risk reduction and in building community resilience.
4. Administrative planning, preparedness and political response to disasters including successful practices..
5. Post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction.
6. Adopting technology support in disaster risk reduction and providing human security.
7. Role of Environment Impact Analysis before land acquisition for a mega project
8. Models of 'Ecosystem regeneration' and strengthening community resilience.
9. Concerns of gender, disability and vulnerable regions in the pre and post disaster planning.
10. Interrogating the capacity of laws to prevent mafias and vested interests in land grabbing, river bed control and coastal zone devastation.

B: Last date for receiving abstracts@ email: [email protected], 15th September 2013 (30th Sept. for Delhi based participants)
o Abstracts should be around 500-600 words, explaining in crisp notes the following sections:
a) The central theme of the paper in 50-80 words
b) Hypothesis in 50 words.
c) Central argument arguments in brief.
d) A brief baseline literature(books, reports, narratives and government experience) on which your paper would be based upon in 150 -200 words.
e) Methodology and theoretical foundations in 150 words
C: Abstracts would be peer reviewed by an international team and authors of selected abstracts would be informed by the 30th September 2013 to write a paper with suggested revisions if any.
D: Last date for receiving papers: 1st November 2013 @ email: [email protected]
Country Coordinator: Dr. Sylvia Yambem
CSLG Conference Organizing Team: Ms. Manika Kamthan, Ms. Shikha Chauhan, Mr. Ajay Arora and Mr. Devinder Jindolia can be contacted at [email protected] International Student Seminar Team: Binod, Adnan,Nishu
JNU Faculty Research Team: Prof. Sachidanand Sinha, Prof. Mondira Dutta, Prof. Vaishna Narang, Prof. Shashi Prabha Kumar, Dr. Milap Punia, Prof. Susan Vishvanathan, (faculty from Environmental Sciences and Science Policy invited to join)
Organization and Local Planning Group : Dr. Suman Sharma (Academic Council,Delhi University), Prof. B.N.Chattoraj(National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Sciences),Prof. Badrul Alam(Jamia Milia Islamia University),Prof. G.S.Bajpai (National Law University,Delhi), Dr. Girish Kumar (Indian Institute of Public Administration), Mr. Chetan Sharma(Datamation Foundation),Dr. Rajkumar Prasad(Commonwealth e-Governance Forum),Mr. D.C.Mishra (NIC) and Dr. Manveen Kaur (Haryana Institute of Public Administration).

For details: http://www.jnu.ac.in/Conference/