Southern Voice hosted its landmark conference on the 24th and 25th of October 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya. The conference was co-hosted with our network members in Kenya – The Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), Global Centre for Policy and Strategy (GLOCEPS) and the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA). It concluded the Southern Voice network’s 10th anniversary year celebrations.
About the conference
This conference aimed to mobilise commitment in participants from the Global South and North to rebalance power asymmetries within the global development community; enrich the visions of change of participants and create more informed views on the different nuances involved in guaranteeing truly sustainable development. It developed strategies to inform the objectives of the network in the upcoming years, that could also serve the goals of individual members and key partners; and enhanced linkages within the Southern Voice network and with key Northern and Southern partners by identifying common ambitions, challenges and complementary capacity for strategic cooperation in the next years.
You can read an overview of the conference with key observations and recommendations from each session in the synthesis document below.
| Day 1 – October 24, 2023 | |
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| 08:00 – 09:00 | Welcome and registration |
| 09:00 – 10:00 | Main session 1:
Southern Voice: the 10-year Milestone and the Opportunities ahead Why are we here? And what will we accomplish in the next two days? This session set the scene for the conference, with a brief overview of Southern Voice’s first decade, while setting up the opportunity to think big about what the next ten years can bring to the network. Speakers:
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| 10:00 – 11:15 | Main session 2:
Gaps in the Development Discourse: a Research and Action Agenda The global development agenda has become all encompassing, with myriad institutions and process taking place. In this session, we asked: What are the key challenges at the global level that require Southern perspectives? How can Southern experts become more influential? Speakers:
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| 11:15 – 11:45 | Tea Break |
| 11:45-13:00 | Parallel sessions 1:
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| 13:00 – 14:15 | Lunch |
| 14:15 -15:30 | Main session 3:
Locally led evidence generation: a dialogue with USAID This session focused on the potential opportunities for and barriers to greater partnership between Global North collaborators and donors like the US Agency for International Development and southern research organizations. Co-organized by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Center for Global Development, the session was anchored by a panel discussion featuring leaders from research organizations based in the Global South alongside a representative from USAID, providing a platform for constructive dialogue. In addition, a leading USAID evaluation official provided remarks detailing the agency’s efforts to promote locally led development and evidence-based policymaking. Speakers:
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| 15:30 – 16:30 | Power realigned: finding shared Visions
This interactive session touched on the core mission of Southern Voice. It explored how we seek to reshape the global development landscape by redefining the distribution of power. |
| 16:30 – 17:30 | Break |
| 17:30 – 18:30 | Public Event:
Sustainable Development Goals: what the next decade means for the Global South. This session incorporated a brief presentation of the research findings from the second edition of Southern Voice’s flagship initiative State of the SDGs (SVSS) entitled Global State of the SDGs: Leveraging Abilities to Navigate Inequalities. There was also a particular focus on the African continent, and how to navigate the next decade of its development based on lessons learned so far as the continent is also ten years into the African Union’s Agenda 2063. |
| 18:30 – 20:00 | Cocktail reception:
Southern Voice 10 Year Anniversary |
| Day 2 – October 25, 2023 | ||||
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| 09:00 – 09:30 | Going forward: reflections from Day 1 | |||
| 09:30 – 10:45 | Main session 4:
Shifting priorities through Brazil and South Africa’s G20 presidencies: a Dialogue with the next T20 leaders This session was geared toward contributing to the G20/T20 engagements. It focused on maximising the presence of a Southern-led agenda in the G20 with the transition to the next year’s presidency underway following the G20 Summit. Speakers:
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| 10:45 – 11:15 | Tea Break | |||
| 11:15 – 12:30 |
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| 12:30 – 13:45 | Lunch | |||
| 13:45 – 15:00 |
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| 15:00 – 15:30 | Tea | |||
| 15:30 – 17:00 | Building on collective strengths: a strategic vision for the next decade
This session both commemorated Southern Voice’s 10th Anniversary, and provided an opportunity for input towards the network’s strategic objectives for the coming decade. It highlighted some of the past ten years’ achievements and invited reflections from members and partners on the ways in which the network’s impact on knowledge asymmetry in the development space can grow going forward. |
