The first day of the conference has left me with a bunch of ideas to write about. Do I want to write about the new buzz for evidence in humanitarianism? Or what about the use of images in the humanitarian field and how we react to suffering? One c…

Humanitarian studies is receiving increased attention; this is already the second World Conference dedicated to humanitarian studies. Perhaps this is related to the common knowledge that emergencies are on the rise.1 The last couple of years saw e…

As a last blog on the ‘theory vs policy’ conference I thought it might be appropriate to write about the function of ‘blogging’ for improving the research and policy interface. This topic was given some serious dedication through a roundtable with…

Human development is definitely one of the topics to be discussed on an ISA conference. The panel on ‘Human Development – Influence on the Theory and Practice of International Development’ was not about painting an either positive or pessimistic p…

As is probably a common trend with large conferences that address similarly large questions, both policy and research are problematised a lot. Hence it becomes almost an inappropriate environment for optimistic stories. Although such stories would…

The panels that I attended so far confirm that the debate on theory vs policy is definitely on academics’ minds, perhaps much more so than many of us use to think. People from different sub-fields of international studies are all trying to address…

Arriving a few days prior to the conference provides us with an opportunity to get a sense of what New Orleans is all about. In contrast to the media attention that New Orleans got a few years ago, very similar to news coming from Haiti now, the c…

Marieke Hounjet is reporting live from the Brussels Forum for The BrokerThe last plenary of today was on: ‘Towards and MDG plus agenda?’ presenting a diverse range of talks. The first speaker, Louis Kasekende (Chief Economist, African Development…

Marieke Hounjet is reporting live from the Brussels Forum for The BrokerThe second plenary of the High Level Policy Forum today in Brussels was titled: ‘What are the key meta-processes shaping development over the next 10-15 years and what do they…

Marieke Hounjet is reporting live from the Brussels Forum for The BrokerIn his welcoming word Andy Sumner states that 2015 ‘is a line in the sand’ and that therefore it is good idea to have a discussion on the future of the Millennium Development…