In less than two minutes research fellow Yonas Alem spreads the word of University of Gothenburg, the Environment for Development initiative, and research related to sustainable development. Check out the video from the IGC Growth Week 2014 at the London School of Economics and Political Science:
Watch the video:
Yonas Alem on Sustainable Development
The IGC Growth Week is the International Growth Centre’s annual conference, which brings together a worldwide network of leading researchers and policy-makers, among them EfD Research Director Yonas Alem.
Yonas Alem is also a research fellow at the Department of economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg. The Environment for Development initiative (EfD) is a research capacity building program based at the University of Gothenburg and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida, since 2007.
Why are you participating at the IGC Growth Week 2014, Yonas Alem?
"This is an important platform to meet people from 14 developing countries, some of them are EfD countries as well, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. Growth Week is the International Growth Centre’s annual conference, which brings together IGCs worldwide network of leading researchers and policy-makers. It is an exciting opportunity to meet and discuss key growth issues affecting developing countries. Policy makers and researchers from the IGC countries and other collaborating Western institutions come together and discuss about research and policy."
How were you invited?
"I have been invited to attend based on my request. The IGC is doing pretty much what the Environment for Development initiative is trying to do, creating knowledge in collaboration and interaction among resident developing country researchers, policymakers and professional researchers from the West. This gave me an important opportunity to learn more on what to do to facilitate research coordination and interaction in developing countries. The EfD has a world-class family of researchers and we have been doing a great job in creating collaborative rigorous research based knowledge to make a difference in peoples’ life. IGCs practices add more to our practices."
What is the connection to University of Gothenburg?
"Two weeks ago the IGC awarded me a research grant of US$ 117,000 to conduct research in Tanzania in collaboration with EfD Tanzania. The project entitled “The Impact of Electric and LPG Stoves on Charcoal Consumption in Urban Africa: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Experiment in Tanzania”, aims to explore the role of modern cookstoves in reducing charcoal consumption and saving forest resources of Tanzania."
What do you think about the IGC Growth Week 2014 so far?
"It has been going very well. I think their ability to bring researchers and policymakers from developing countries, and researchers from the west together created an incredibly diverse and dynamic group which interacted very well on important development issues."
Yonas Alem completed his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Gothenburg in May 2011.
>> More info about the Sida-funded doctoral programme in Global Change and Climate Economics
>> PhD Day 2014 - interviews with students at the Department of Economics
>> More info about IGC Growth Week 2014
Karin Backteman
The International Growth Centre (IGC) is led by Executive Director, Jonathan Leape, in close collaboration with Directors Robin Burgess, Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and Paul Collier, Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford. The International Growth Centre (IGC) was established in 2008 with funding by the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID). It has developed an innovative model that focuses on developing an effective state, fostering private sector enterprise, enabling functioning cities and promoting access to energy – with the underlying aim of driving up living standards and lifting people out of poverty.