Summer 2004

GW Hosts Major NGO Conference

Empowering and encouraging non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to meet eight benchmarks set by the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was the topic of a two-day conference hosted by a new interdisciplinary team of GW faculty members, researchers and doctoral students.

The GW International NGO Team (GW INGOT) fostered this gathering in mid-May as a vehicle for academics and professionals to meet, share ideas and build consensus about future development goals across the globe, most notably those set forth by the United Nations. These eight goals, which all 189 UN member states are slated to accomplish by 2015, include eradicating poverty and hunger, achieving basic education, reducing child mortality, and ensuring environmental sustainability.

“It’s undeniable that the gaps between the poor and the rich are widening,” said Jan Vandermoortele, principal adviser for the UN Bureau for Development Policy. “I think it was the realization that we were lagging and failing to reach the poorest that made the people in the UN and intergovernmentally to say, ‘Let’s do something about it. Let’s reenergize our commitment to those things.’ That is where the millennium development goals came from, this was the motivation.”

The role of NGOs in meeting these goals was discussed during the two-day conference through the lenses of economics, public administration, globalization and health, among many of the breakout session discussions.

GW INGOT was founded by Jennifer Brinkerhoff, associate professor of public administration and international affairs; Stephen Smith, professor of economics and international affairs; and Hildy Teegan, associate professor of international business. Their goals, explained Donald R. Lehman, executive vice president for academic affairs, center around a common research focus of how NGOs impact development and poverty alleviation.

“Given the complexity of the problems we find in our global society today, it is clearly essential that the intellectual capital that is available in all the relevant disciplines be involved in developing solutions,” Lehman said.

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