SIDA Conference at The Dynamic Earth Science Museum

A quick post to acknowledge and reflect on the SIDA’s Annual Conference at the Dynamic Earth Science Museum. An impressive venue is well placed to host Scotland’s International Development Alliance (SIDA) and an exploration of “The Power and necessity of collaboration in order to create a fairer world for future generations”.  Within the Dynamic Earther and opposite the New Scottish Parliament speakers shared insights, experiences, challenges and ambitions. Each speaker made a valuable contribution and the staff at SIDA made a conscientious and friendly team.  The speakers that resonated most from Uniform November’s perspective were Othman Moqbel the CEO of Action for Humanity and his team, Dr Goran Zangana THET, NHS, Dr Philile Mbatha, Deputy Director of Ocean Hub, Craig Dalzell, Head of Policy &Research at Common Weal, Lord Jack McConnell founder of the McConnell International Foundation and Frances Guy CEO of Scotland’s International Development Alliance. I encourage you to reach out and learn more about their practice and projects. The door has opened for more research concerning the Blue Economy, Global Citizenship, Global Health,  Social Care, Malawi Education schemes for Girls, Tools for Life, Lived Knowledge and The Future of Sustainable Development Goals .

The Event’s Intro: We all know that we can achieve more together, and joined-up thinking (and doing) gets better results. But still we see silo-ed approaches across our sector, in programming and policy-making. How can we unify to be more coherent in the service of global sustainable development, and work to remove the contradictions in our approaches? Was an excellent question to set the scene.

After an engaging day of learning and reflection, I try and employ a reflexive practice – (From where am I learning, processing and reflecting, what are my learnt biases and social conditioning, what have my memories, experiences and education shaped with regards to perception and interpretation, what are my cultural influences, strengths and weaknesses).

Often a creative practice of reversal is useful–

For Example: As an open-minded peacebuilding professional, I am often asked to visit post-conflict states, observe and give analytical reports on social cohesion, adaptive resilience and frictions that might negatively impact progress and the processes of recovery through peace and place building. I try to address polarised views, the temptation to ‘other’ those unfamiliar, and recognise the problems of competitive victimhood, complacency, opportunism and scapegoating whilst mindful of trauma and the entanglement of emotions that take hold of individuals in ways unique to them. So how would one's observations compare if they were focused on a home context of international development rather than an international one.. ?

Three things that are often missing from events of this kind are the acknowledgment of the everyday, the power of place and a clear understanding of peacebuilding within communities. However the most important is the bravery to self-reflect and recognise weaknesses as well as strengths