IDEX kicked off 2009 by encouraging staff, and volunteers to read development oriented books. The plan? To better inform ourselves, and just as importantly to get together after hours and review issues we work on daily. What better way to review and share current thoughts on international issues and development!

Last week IDEX held our inaugural book club discussion. For our first book we chose Making Globalization Work by Nobel Prize winner economist Joseph Stiglitz. Stiglitz argues that we can make globalization work for both developed and developing countries, but changes have to be made.

What stuck out was his acknowledgment of the need to take the environment into account, while also preserving traditional indigenous knowledge as corporations are trying to patent natural resources. Preserving traditional knowledge is something we do focus on at IDEX. Many of our partners practice sustainable agriculture. Our partners GRAVIS, in India, and ASHA, in Nepal, encourage local communities to save seeds to conserve local varieties.

Stiglitz dedicates a number of pages to the role of community. He says in his book: "what makes programs (such as BRAC and Grameen Bank) so successful is that they come out of the communities that they service and address the needs of the people in those communities." (p52) Stiglitz’s book also provided us a good platform to have discussions on the role of the IMF and The World Bank in poverty alleviation and the impacts of so-called free trade.

If you have read the book, or have comments to share with us about how Stiglitz’s book is relevant to supporting community development, we invite you to share your thoughts with us.

For more thoughts on globalization in 2009, a recent blog posting by Zarah Patriana discusses views on the future of globalization as a result of the recent World Economic Forum in Davos and World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil. What do you think the future holds for globalization?

We’ll be reading the book Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel for our next book club in March.

Photo credit: Jan Stürmann. Members of ASHA in Nepal demonstrate seed-saving techniques.

Labels: ASHA, Bookclub, Globalization, GRAVIS, Sustainable Agriculture

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