Alumni news & careers

Isaack Otieno (MA Politics of Alternative Development 1998/1999) moved from being Director of the Democratic Governance Department for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA - Nairobi Office in Kenya) to Programme Head of the Pan African Institute for Security Studies, Cape Town in South Africa (www.issafrica.org). Otieno was founder and chair of the ISS Alumni-Kenya Chapter of the Netherlands Alumni Association of Kenya. He will continue to be active as their advisor.

After graduation at ISS Bilal Aurang Zeb (Governance and Democracy 2007/2008) started working for the United Nations in Southern Sudan.

Bilal did his Masters at ISS with specialization in Governance & Democracy in the 2007-08 cohort. After graduating from ISS, he did his second MA in International Public Policy from CEU, Hungary and later joined CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation at their International Headquarters in South Africa. He was the Country Support Person for Eastern and Central European Region and M&E Specialist for CSI Program in more than 57 countries around the world.
Currently, Bilal is working in Southern Sudan for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist where he’s looking after Global Fund’s grants for TB, Malaria and HIV/AIDS. He specializes in management of development projects including design; strategic and operational planning; implementation; as well as monitoring and evaluation. Bilal possesses strong knowledge of working with international NGOs, UN Bodies, and donor agencies, and has an extensive work experience with the Global Fund, United Nations, CIVICUS, World Population Foundation, and the Commission on S&T for Sustainable Development in the South.

Funmi Aderonke Abokede (Women, Gender, Development 2007/2008) got a new job as the General Manager for Osun state Agency for Community and Social Development Project. Osun State is in south west of Nigeria.

K.M. Joshi (India, Diploma Effective Social Policies for Human Development, 2002) has been awarded the " Hermes Fellowship", financed by the French Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of Education and Research, the Department of Human and Social Sciences of the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS), and the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH). Joshi is now Professor of Economics of Education of the Bhavnagar University in India.

ISS group on Facebook

Almost 1500 ISS alumni are now members of the ISS group on Facebook. A great way to keep in touch with ISS once you graduate, the FB group has members from all programmes, courses and years. If you want to join this group, which is restricted to ISS alumni only, click on the badge below.

Zimbabe ISS alumni group on Facebook

ISS alumnus Trevor Murai from Zimbabwe (MA Governance, Democratisation and Public Policy 2008/2009) has just started the group Zimbabwe ISS alumni in Facebook and he invites all ISS alumni in Zimbabwe to join. The start of this group is a spin off of the alumni gathering with Freek Schiphorst that was held in Harare recently. The purpose of the group is networking and sharing news on careers, vacancies and development as well as developing proposals for Refresher courses and lectures and visits to Zimbabwe by ISS Lecturers. Trevor Murai is also interested to start a Zimbabwe ISS alumni Association and ultimately a Netherlands Alumni Association in Zimbabwe (NAAZ).

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Alumni meetings

EUR invitation for 2009 graduates

On Thursday 25 March 2010 Erasmus University Rotterdam organizes its first Hats off to the grads party for all EUR, IHS and ISS alumni who graduated in 2009 (masters).
Did you graduate in 2009 then please join us on the 25th of March for this event on Woudestein Campus. For more information, please check the website: http://www.eur.nl/english/alumni/hats_off. Please register through alumni@remove-this.smc.eur.nl.

Symposium Brussels

As ISS is part of the Erasmus University Rotterdam now, ISS alumni are most welcome to attend a symposium in Brussels on 31 March 2010, starting 18.00 hours. The symposium is organised by the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) of Erasmus University Rotterdam and will be hosted for ISS by Dr. Johan van Dijk, Head of the Office of Research, Projects and Advisory Services (ORPAS).

Recent alumni meetings

On Wednesday 3 February 2010 the ISS Alumni in Ethiopia have met with Michel Wesseling who hosted the gathering of 22 alumni.

An ISS alumni gathering was held on Sunday 21 February 2010 in Harare, Zimbabwe and hosted by ISS' Dr Freek Schiphorst.

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Refresher course for NFP alumni on 'Globalisation and Labour'

ISS has joined hands with the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS) to perform a Refresher course on Globalisation and Labour in September 2010. The course aims at NFP alumni from the South and Southeast Asian region with relevant work experience and in a position to transfer acquired knowledge and skills within their organisation. Participation in the course will be sponsored by Nuffic. The application deadline is May 31, 2010. The selection committee will ensure that at least half of the participants are female.
ISS faculty involved are Dr. Freek Schiphorst and Dr. Karin Astrid Siegmann, while Professor E.A. Ramaswamy is invited as visiting staff. Dr. Nisha Arunatilake is the course coordinator on behalf of the IPS. The tentative dates for the course are September 10-24, 2010.
For more information and the application form, please check the ISS website: http://www.iss.nl/Alumni/Refresher-courses

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Alumni visits to ISS

Quite some ISS alumni have visited the Alumni Office in the past weeks.

Paulo T. Kyama (Uganda, PPA, 1989/1990) visited ISS with his friend Fred Kouwenburg and briefly met the Rector of ISS, professor Louk de la Rive Box.

Also George Landau (Brazil, Diploma in Public Administration 1957) came to see his alma mater. He met with the Rector, Johan van Dijk and Sandra Nijhof.

Thomas Magura (Agricultural and Rural Development 1987/1988) and Manfred Smotzok (Agricultural and Rural Development 1990/1991) visited the ISS and have met several people. Manfred Smotzok is looking for classmates. Please contact him at M4Smotzok@AOL.com

Adhish Haldar from India (Diploma in Social Welfare Policy, 1961/1962) and living in the Netherlands, has visited the alumni office. He is looking for other alumni who where at ISS in the same time. He can be contacted at adhish@remove-this.haldar.nl

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ISS news

New appointments

ISS has recently appointed 6 new professors, bringing the total number to 18:

• Karin Arts - Professor of International law and development
• Des Gasper - Professor of Human development, development ethics and public policy
• Wil Hout - Professor of Governance and international political economy
• Peter Knorringa - Professor of Private sector and development
• Max Spoor - Professor of Development studies in particular regarding economies in transition
• Irene van Staveren - Professor of Pluralist development economics

ISS history

For those of you who studied in the Palace Nordeinde, we have recently uploaded some photos from that time on the website. Click here to see them.

Sad news

We are sorry to announce the passing away of Wirte Boelman on Saturday 16 January 2010, at the age of 78.

Wirte joined ISS in September 1968 and retired in November 1997, at the age of 65. He was in the Department of Public Administration together with Sipko de Boer, Jim Bjorkman, Paul van der Wel and Vasant Moharir, amongst others. For a number of years during the 1970s, Wirte worked on a major ISS project with the University of Cape Coast in Ghana as Deputy Director. He was also Dean and Interim Dean of ISS several times. He will be sadly missed by many of us.

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New publications

A selection of recent staff and alumni publications can be found here

New working papers

• Working Paper 489: An assessment of the effects of the 2002 food crisis on children's health in Malawi / by Renate Hartwig and Michael Grimm
• Working Paper 490: Evaluating India's national rural employment guarantee scheme: the case of Birbhum districts, West Bengal / by Subhasish Dey
• Working Paper 491: Child labor, agricultural shocks and labor sharing in rural Ethiopia / by Zelalem Yilma Debebe
• Working Paper 492: Remittances and competitiveness: the case of the Philippines / by Veronica Bayangos and Karel Jansen
• Working Paper 493: How can power discourses be changed? Contrasting the ‘daughter deficit’ policy of the Delhi government with Gandhi and King’s transformational reframing / Manisha Sinha and Des Gasper
• Working Paper 494: Challenging Women’s Vulnerability: Feminist Representations of Rape in Sexto Sentido, a Nicaraguan Soap Opera for Social Change / by Stefania Donzelli

MA research papers 2008/09 now online.

The 2008/09 theses are available at the EUR Thesis Repository. For more information please follow this link:
http://www.iss.nl/Library/News/MA-Research-Papers-2008-09-now-online

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Doctoral defences

11 Feb 2010: Mr Syed Aamer Abdullah defended his thesis entitled 'Political Economy of Conflict. The Social Contract and Conflict in Pakistan'. Promotor Professor Dr Mansoob Murshed. For more information and to watch a video of the event click here

On 8 April 2010 Ms Wambui Rose Wamunthenya will defend her thesis entitled "Economic Crisis and Women's Unemployment in Urban Kenya" Promotors: Professor dr A.S. Bedi, Professor dr M.E. Wuyts. For more information: http://www.iss.nl/News/Events/Public-Defence-Ms-Wambui-Rose-Wamunthenya

As reported in the last newsletter, ISS awarded it's 100th Doctorate on 22 December 2009 Sailaja Nandigama from India. A video of the event can be viewed here.

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EADI prize for development studies 2010

The European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) announces the 2010 prize for excellence in development research. The prize, worth €1 000, will be awarded for an essay on an issue of development studies in any field of the social sciences submitted and written by a postgraduate student from an EADI member country or attending a programme at an institutional member of the Association. For more information follow this link: http://www.eadi.org/training/eadi-for-students/eadi-prize-2010.html

2009 Highlights of the European Journal of Development Research (EJDR) free for a limited period

In 2009 EJDR published more than 50 cutting-edge articles on a variety of topics in development research. These included articles from a special issue on China in Africa, guest
edited by Olusanya Ajakaiye, African Economic Research Consortium, Nairobi, Kenya and Raphael Kaplinsky, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. Click here for a list of ten of the
most downloaded articles in 2009: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ejdr/2009_highlights.html

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Contact the Alumni Office at alumni@remove-this.iss.nl for any questions, address updates, suggestions etcetera. Click here to view the newsletter archive.

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