Thank You to Ford Foundation

FacebookTwitterLinked-in
Latest News
Emily Jones et al quoted in UK Parliament Report on Scrutiny of the UK-Australia FTA
view
GEG submits evidence to the UK Parliament on the UK-New Zealand FTA
view
Emily Jones awarded over £44,000 in KE grants
view

In 2007, GEG was awarded the first of four grants from the Ford Foundation, which together total over 2.3 million dollars. This funding came to an end in March 2016.

Long-term funding is incredibly valuable for any research group. It certainly allowed GEG to do long-term research in a number of fields, and to have a number of researchers over a long period of time. The Ford Foundation grants have supported GEG to do research on trade, intellectual property, finance, aid, investment, health, climate change, and natural resources.

As we wrap up our research projects supported by the Ford Foundation, we wanted to reflect on some recent highlights.

 

Annual Lectures

Annual Lecture 2015: The Imperative of a Global Climate Deal

GEG hosted Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to deliver the GEG Annual Lecture 2015 for an audience of over 400 people. As Ms Figueres’ only UK public speaking engagement before the COP21 Paris summit on climate change, it was a unique opportunity for academics and students from the University of Oxford and around the United Kingdom to engage with a key figure in the negotiation process.

 

Annual Lecture 2014: Grappling with new global finance: Chile’s experience

Globalized finance poses major challenges for emerging economies. GEG’s Annual Lecture provided an exciting chance to hear from one of Latin America’s leading policy makers. Governor Rodrigo Vergara shared his experiences and insights on the most pressing opportunities and challenges facing emerging economies, particularly in Latin America.

 

Annual Lecture 2013, 10th Anniversary: Smart Governance: Solutions for Today's Global Economy

In the GEG 10th Anniversary Annual Lecture, Dr Nemat 'Minouche' Shafik, the then Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, discussed how smart governance can help us create a more resilient, prosperous and equitable global economy. With the global economy recovering from the sharpest downturn since the Great Depression, new institutional solutions are needed to deliver jobs, growth, and financial stability.

High-level Roundtables

Consolidating Africa’s Mobile Banking Revolution

In February 2016, GEG hosted a high-level expert roundtable at the Blavatnik School of Government. The roundtable brought together African central bankers, regulators, private sector executives of banking and telecommunications firms, and selected official from multilateral organisations international NGOs and senior academics. The roundtable built on the work by a GEG senior Visiting Fellow of Practice, former Central Bank Governor, Professor Njuguna Ndung’u on Kenya’s mobile banking revolution. There were three main objectives:

  • To critically assess and share experiences of regulating digital financial services in Africa;
  • To ascertain the main challenges and opportunities for regulators;
  • To distil practical lessons and specify areas for future policy-relevant research.

 

Africa and New Global Finance

Finance in Africa is undergoing a rapid transformation, changing the architecture of domestic financial systems and redefining their links with global markets. Many African governments have borrowed from international financial markets for the first time; there are signs that foreign direct investment is diversifying away from natural resources; pan-African banks are becoming an important presence in many countries on the continent, often replacing long-standing European banks; and mobile banking is having a substantial impact on financial inclusion. In March 2015, African regulators, policy-makers, private sector representatives and academics came together to discuss:

  • How are African regulators responding to these developments? How can they best manage cross-border capital flows?
  • What opportunities and challenges do the rapid growth of cross-border and mobile banking pose?
  • What have been the tangible impacts of global financial standards?

 

Monetary and Regulatory Spillovers

In February 2014 the Global Economic Governance Programme and the Blavatnik School of Government, in association with the programme on the Political Economy of Financial Markets, hosted a high-level roundtable on how monetary and regulatory spillovers are affecting emerging and developing countries, and what can (and should) be done about it. These questions - and the policy decisions they provoke – are urgently important for policymakers in emerging and developing countries. The effects of the US Federal Reserve’s recent tapering policies are being debated passionately in op-ed pages around the world. The workshop brought together participants from all sides of the debate, to identify the key dilemmas posed by spillovers and the tools available in response.

Publications

The Ford Foundation has supported many of our publications over the years. You can find our researchers' Working Papers, op-eds and policy briefs, and books (and where to buy the books).

 

Online Video Series: New Thinking on Investment Treaties

GEG partnered with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment to continue to produce a video series of short presentations by academics, practitioners, and civil society on key topics in international investment law. 

 

GEG is extremely grateful to the Ford Foundation for their lasting support.

Find out more about our new ESRC/DFID Research Project.