Linked with New African Resistance to Global Finance, and with School of Development Studies – South Africa.
Patrick Bond is professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal where he has directed the Centre for Civil Society since 2004. His research interests include political economy, environment, social policy and geopolitics. In the period 1994-2002, Professor Bond authored/edited more than a dozen government policy papers, including the Reconstruction and Development Programme and the RDP White Paper. Professor Bond’s recent books include: Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society (2007, co-edited with Rehana Dada and Graham Erion); Enclavity in African Economies (2007); The Accumulation of Capital in Southern Africa (2007, co-edited with Horman Chitonge and Arndt Hopfmann) and Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation (2006). (wikipedia).
Patrick Bond has longstanding research interests and applied work in global governance and national policy debates, in urban communities and with global justice movements in several countries. He is professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies where since 2004 he has directed the Centre for Civil Society. His research focuses on political economy, environment (energy, water and climate change), social policy and geopolitics, with publications covering South Africa, Zimbabwe, the African continent and global-scale processes. In service to the new South African government, Patrick authored/edited more than a dozen policy papers from 1994-2002,including the Reconstruction and Development Programme and the RDP White Paper … // … Patrick currently also serves as visiting professor at Gyeongsang National University Institute of Social Sciences, South Korea. He is an external examiner at the University of Mauritius, and was also visiting professor in 2008 at State University of New York (Geneseo) … (full long text /BIO).
Watch the video: Prof.Patrick Bond Of South Africa Comments, CTMCA, 3.25 min, Nov 28, 2007.
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Patrick Bond – South Africa
… The challenge is to help channel this amazing energy and address the local grievances in a structural manner, so that society can quickly move to both a post-nationalist and post-neoliberal footing. The Zimbabwe situation has such an adverse balance of forces that getting to the first stage will be difficult enough, since Mugabe appears ready to cling to power at all costs – and the second stage may be foiled by the heavy hands of bumbling Western diplomats … (full interview text).
Zimbabwe’s Descent, March 27, 2007.
He writes: Whether we thrive in a future world without the Bretton Woods Institutions (the World Bank and IMF) very much depends on why and how we get rid of them (not to mention the WTO). The radicalization of development finance is crucial, so that: … (full text).
Find him and his publications on University of Kwazulu Natal (scroll down); on School of Development Studies (scroll down); on ZMag; on Google Video-search; on inauthor Google-search; on Google Book-search; on Google Scholar-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Blog-search.
… The capitulation was largely the fault of Indian and Brazilian politicians, according to geopolitical analyst Walden Bello of the Bangkok NGO Focus on the Global South. « In the end, » says Bello, « the developing country governments caved in, many of them motivated solely by the fear of getting saddled with the blame for the collapse of the organization. » Bello says Pretoria’s delegation was a problem this time only insofar as Mpahlwa feebly agreed to services privatization at the last moment … (full text).
From False to Real Solutions for Climate Change, Jan. 6, 2008.
The Google download books:
Fanon’s Warning, By Patrick Bond, 2002, 228 pages;
… Patrick’s talk, “After Bali: The Global Fight for Climate Justice”, March 4, 2008, (see also the video – 7/7 – of 9.41 min), and: (After Bali: The Global Fight for Climate Justice, 1/7 – of 7.49 min), focused in particular on Africa, where there is a growing wave of grassroots protests against the Kyoto Protocol’s “Clean Development Mechanism.” He showed that many CDM projects are at best scams, at worst ways to offload the north’s carbon enissions problems onto those least able to cope with them … (full text).
The embattled Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) will not go down without a fight. So vowed its director, Professor Patrick Bond, after a university announcement that the centre is to be closed. However, the university has back-pedalled and now says no final decision has been taken. « We will fight for survival and the centre will emerge strengthened and hopefully more autonomous within this institution, as recommended in a university research review, » Bond told the Mail & Guardian. « Since it opened in 2002, the centre has become important to Durban » … (full text, Aug 12 2008).
Carbon trading kills the forests and enriches the bankers, Sept. 16, 2008.
He says also: … « Multinational corporations are trying to commodify the air, really, and the pollution in the air. They want the right to do that, and they want to commodify it with the legal language of contracts and put a price on it and get credit for having already polluted » … (full text).
… All I really know about the CCS is that it is home to Patrick Bond, but Patrick Bond is a terrific development economist and certainly a right guy to be supporting against any politically-motivated witch hunts (the CCS is a top quality and very left wing academic think tank; it’s also very anti-Mugabe for the best of reasons, and Patrick himself is one of the most outspoken critics of the World Bank and IMF, all of which positions have the potential to be politically inconvenient). At present it looks like the battle to save CCS is on a knife-edge, so if any of my readers have colleagues who have influence in the development field and might not have heard of the problems at CCS, you could do a little good in the world by telling them … (full text).
… Our column in the July 8 Durban Mercury argued that these firms need a strong legal signal so they desist from investing in repressive regimes such as Burma, Zimbabwe and the Sudan. We raised this with deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad at a recent parliamentary seminar hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and he sounded concerned, but unable to dislodge Pretoria’s anti-reparations alliance with Bush, Brown, Merkel and the corporations. (full text).
FEATURES: Patrick Bond on the financial meltdown and new opportunities for African resistance to free trade. COMMENTS & ANALYSIS:
- Kwesi Kwaa Prah responds to Issa Shivji and makes a case for Pan-African inclusivity;
- Kambale Musavuli talks about our responsibilities to the Congo;
- Lawrence M. Mute evaluates the legislation of hate speech in Kenya;
- Ahmed Issack Hassan looks at the legal and administrative marginalization of Northern Kenya;
- Anat Ben-Dor on Israel’s mistreatment of refugee seekers;
- Savo Heleta on the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel group in Sudan;
- Joe Contreras looks at Afro-Latinos and a rising black consciousness movement.
… (full text).
links:
University of Kwazulu Natal, The Premier University of African Scholarship, South Africa;
A Tribute to Billy Nair: CCS and our associates salute Billy Nair’s exemplary life of liberation and civil society commitments;
Centre for Civil Society CCS: Number of items at this level: 104;
Centre for Civil Society to be shut down? 6 August 2008.