The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) at Stanford University and the Ban Ki-moon Foundation For a Better Future announced today the launch of an annual Trans-Pacific Sustainability Dialogue in Asia to accelerate progress on achieving the United Nations-adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The joint project will spur new research and policy partnerships between experts from the United States and Asia to expedite the implementation of the Agenda’s underlying 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by governments and non-state actors. The two-day inaugural Dialogue will be held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, on October 27 and 28, 2022, and will be free and open to the public.

The Dialogue’s co-organizers include the Natural Capital Project (NatCap) of Stanford University, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, Korea Environmental Industry and Technology Institute (KEITI), Korea Environment Corporation (K-eco), and Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-water). 

The first day will take place at The Plaza Seoul and will be co-hosted by the Korea Environment Institute. It will include a series of public sessions headlined by Ban Ki-moon, the eighth secretary-general of the UN, who will join a lineup of world leaders including Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia and chief executive officer and president of the Asia Society; Iván Duque, former president of the Republic of Colombia; and Gombojav Zandanshatar, chairman of the State Great Hural (Parliament) of Mongolia.

“This Dialogue is very timely and relevant as the climate crisis is deepening in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Sustainable Development Goals are becoming more difficult to achieve in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic,” says Mr. Ban Ki-moon. “Asia-Pacific countries should be more aggressive in the fight against climate change and more audacious in the role they play toward achieving the SDGs,” he noted.

In this spirit, expert discussions on the second day will bring together social science researchers and scientists from across the Asia-Pacific region, alongside policymakers and practitioners, to share local and global nature-positive solutions and new pathways of meaningful SDG acceleration actions. Co-hosted by and held at Ewha Womans University, the panel discussions will explore the making of livable, sustainable cities, such as Busan Metropolitan City, and the threats to them by climate change, disasters, and human security issues. To achieve systems transformation and sustainable development, discussions will turn to the need to value and invest in nature.

“Climate and sustainability solutions span disciplines and sectors and require collaboration with partners worldwide,” says Gi-Wook Shin, the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea at Stanford and director of APARC. “The launch of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability marks an opportune moment to scale up SDGs implementation by leveraging knowledge and expertise from across Stanford and the Asia-Pacific and engaging the next generation of scholars and experts,” Shin adds. “We are honored to join in this effort with Mr. Ban and his team, with whom APARC has an established relationship.”

Highlighting the role of youth in achieving the SDGs, the Dialogue includes student panels that feature young leaders from Stanford University, Ewha Womans University, Osaka University, and De La Salle University, among other Asian universities. Students’ research, applied work, and entrepreneurial endeavors across the region showcase innovations and transformations in green financing and sustainable investments, gender mainstreaming and climate governance, development cooperation for sustainable governance, and scaling environmental solutions through a business and social justice lens.

The Seoul Trans-Pacific Sustainability Dialogue is the inaugural event in APARC and the Ban Ki-moon Foundation’s joint effort to stimulate ambitious action to deliver the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. The annual Dialogue may rotate among different host cities in Asia to address different themes selected from the SDGs framework spearheaded by Mr. Ban Ki-moon during his term as the UN Secretary-General. 

Visit the event page to register to attend the Trans-Pacific Sustainability Dialogue in person in Seoul, as well as for the full program agenda and speaker list.

The event is also offered online via a live webcast: watch the live-streamed sessions on the event page or via the Ban Ki-moon Foundation’s YouTube channel.

About the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) addresses critical issues affecting the countries of Asia, their regional and global affairs, and U.S.-Asia relations. As Stanford University’s hub for the interdisciplinary study of contemporary Asia, APARC produces policy-relevant research, provides education and training to students, scholars, and practitioners, and strengthens dialogue and cooperation between counterparts in the Asia-Pacific and the United States. Founded in 1983, APARC today is home to a scholar community of distinguished academics and practitioners in government, business, and civil society, who specialize in trends that cut across the entire Asia-Pacific region. For more, visit aparc.stanford.edu.

About the Ban Ki-moon Foundation For a Better Future

The Ban Ki-moon Foundation For a Better Future follows and further develops the achievement and philosophy of Ban Ki-moon, the 8th Secretary General of the United Nations through upholding the values of unification, communication and co-existence, and dedication. It promotes three pillars of the UN including peace and security, development, and human rights and contributes to making a better future devoid of conflict and deficiency. In particular, the Ban Ki-moon Foundation actively collaborates with the UN, international organizations, and stakeholders toward achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and realizing the 2050 carbon net-zero of all state parties of the Paris Climate Accord of 2015. For more, visit http://eng.bf4bf.or.kr/. 

Media Contact

Journalists interested in covering the event should contact Shorenstein APARC’s Communications Manager, Michael Breger at mbreger@stanford.edu. For further information on the Trans-Pacific Sustainability Dialogue, please contact Cheryll Alipio, Shorenstein APARC’s Associate Director for Program and Policy at calipio@stanford.edu.

APARC is pleased to announce the appointment of Jacques Bertrand, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, and Reza Idria, an assistant professor in social anthropology at Ar-Raniry State Islamic University Banda Aceh, as our 2022-23 Lee Kong Chian National University of Singapore (NUS)-Stanford Fellows on Southeast Asia. Bertrand will begin his appointment at Stanford this coming fall quarter, Idria on February 1, 2023.

The Lee Kong Chian Fellowship is the core of the Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Initiative on Southeast Asia, a joint effort established in 2007 by the National University of Singapore and Stanford University to raise the visibility, extent, and quality of scholarship on contemporary Southeast Asia. The infrastructure for research pursued through the fellowship is provided by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at NUS and APARC’s Southeast Asia Program at Stanford.

Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford fellows spend three to four months at Stanford and two to four months at NUS, writing and conducting research on, or related to, contemporary Southeast Asia. Fellows have opportunities to present their research and participate in seminars and workshops organized by relevant campus units. Exposure to the two universities and their scholars and resources enriches and diversifies collegial feedback on the fellows’ research projects and facilitates intellectual exchange and networking on both sides of the Pacific.

Meet our new fellows:

Jacques Bertrand is Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, as well as director of the Collaborative Master’s Specialization in Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Studies at the Asian Institute within the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Affairs. He was the founding director of the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at the Asian Institute. He is also the co-founder of the Postcor Lab at the University of Toronto, a research hub for the study of civil wars and war-to-peace transitions. 

Professor Bertrand has worked for many years on issues of ethnic conflict, nationalism, and secessionism in Southeast Asia. His research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the United States Institute of Peace, as well as the International Development Research Centre. His most recent book, Winning by Process: The State and Neutralization of Ethnic Minorities in Myanmar, was published in July 2022 by Cornell University Press. Professor Bertrand is also the author of Democracy and Nationalist Struggles in Southeast Asia: From Secessionist Mobilization to Conflict Resolution (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Political Change in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 2013), and Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia (Cambridge, 2004).

He is also the author of numerous articles and book chapters and co-editor of two volumes: Multination States in Asia: Accommodation or Resistance (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Democratization and Ethnic Minorities: Conflict or Compromise? (Routledge, 2014).

Professor Bertrand is leading a new research team on a project entitled “Return to Civil War: Insurgent Groups and the Decision to Abandon Peace.” Funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the United States Institute of Peace, this project aims at understanding why rebel groups return to war after periods of relative peace. While the focus of civil war recurrence has often been on failures of peace agreements, this project will analyze rebel groups themselves and their strategic decisions to return to war or invest in peace. More specifically, it aims at better understanding how different legacies of war lead to varying trajectories in the post-war context. The bulk of the research involves a qualitative analysis of several cases in Southeast Asia. Bertrand builds on his vast experience of studying ethnic armed groups in Myanmar to lead new fieldwork focused on understanding variance among these groups.  
 

Reza Idria is an Assistant Professor in Social Anthropology at the Universitas Islam Negeri (UIN) Ar-Raniry (Ar-Raniry State Islamic University) in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. He holds an MA and Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Harvard University as well as an MA in Islamic Studies from Leiden University, The Netherlands. Born and raised in Aceh, the only province adopting Sharia Law in Indonesia, Reza’s research interests are at the intersection of legal anthropology and Islamic law.

During his LKC NUS-Stanford fellowship, he will turn his doctoral dissertation, “Tales of the Unexpected: Contesting Syari’ah Law in Aceh, Indonesia,” into a book manuscript. This work is an anthropological study that examines a wide range of social and political responses that have emerged with the state implementation of Sharia (Islamic law). The empirical data for this research project has been gathered in Aceh, the only Indonesian province that has adopted Sharia. Dr. Idria is also embarking on a new research project that focuses on the legal and socio-economic consequences of the local regulation on Islamic banking.  

Idria is a reviewer for the journals American Ethnologist, Asian Medicine, and Asia Pacific Studies. He publishes in national and international journals, edits and writes book chapters in scholarly publications, gives talks, and facilitates training on issues of his interests and expertise. Besides teaching and researching, Reza is renowned for his contributions as a human rights defender and a facilitator of several cultural communities and critical study groups in Aceh. He is the Chair of the Aceh Association of Oral Tradition, and a member of the Indonesian Young Academy of Science (ALMI).