AGS Conference 2015: Participants from More than Ten Countries Discuss the Role of NGOs in Global Governance

The 10th edition of the AGS graduate conference was a success, with participants from all over the world gathered in Paris to discuss the Influence and Role of NGOs in Global Governance. Speakers from Canada, Hungary, Nigeria, India, Guatemala, Ireland, Austria, France, the US, New Zealand, and Haiti shared their research findings and experience on various aspects of the topic, with thematic panels on NGOs' impact on policy change, gender equality and LGBT rights, international development, and human rights.

A highlight of the conference was the keynote panel, featuring Jean-Marie Fardeau, Director of Human Rights Watch France, Susan Perry, Professor at AUP, and Rahel Steinbach, Programme Officer at UNEP, engaging in a stimulating and inspiring discussion on what NGOs can achieve locally and internationally.

"While NGOs can't change global governance, they can achieve crucial goals such as fighting violence against women and the issue of child soldiers," says Jean-Marie Fardeau. "Speaking from my experience at Human Rights Watch, we have the flexibility that enables us to catch new issues as they appear, such as that of killer robots, and put them on top of the global agenda." Rahel Steinbach adds: "Just seeing the life threats that NGO leaders receive tells you how useful they are and how much motivation they have."

By bringing in this practitioners' insight along with the scholarly exchanges, this conference aims at bridging the gap between academia and action in the field. "Some of us are planning to start our own NGO someday, and it is priceless for us to have this knowledge as we progress toward this goal." says Lucas Miglionico, M.A. candidate at AGS (class of 2016).

An innovation of this year's edition, the second day of the conference was devoted to workshops combining expert presentations with enhanced interaction and brainstorming. The four panels focused on NGOs in Democratic vs. Non-democratic States, NGOs and International Law, International Development, and Partnerships with Multinational Corporations. The discussions were led by Chiara Condi, Head of the Paris-based NGO LedByHer, Dr. Ruchi Anand, AGS Professor and Conference Faculty coordinator, and two AGS students: Sakshi Mishra, M.A. candidate, and Emirjona Cake, Ph.D. Candidate.

Ahmed Samy Lotf (class of 2016), who came from Egypt to complete his Master's in International Relations and Diplomacy at AGS after living in the US, in Turkey, says: "The discussions and ideas that came out of these workshops were much more informative to me than anything I could get from formal conference discussions. This was a great opportunity to bring together academics with their expert knowledge, practitioners with their real-life experience, and active learning students with their fresh minds and out-of-the-box thinking. This group diversity, along with the informality and freeness of the discussions, resulted in highly innovative ideas. It will be up to us, students, to develop those ideas and integrate them into future public policy-making."

In addition to the new ideas and increased awareness, another outcome of the conference was the rich educational and professional experience that it yielded to the AGS students who organized the event and to those who took part in the panels. For the AGS conference is entirely organized by the students, under the faculty supervision of Dr. Ruchi Anand and with a new student director every year – each one passing on the tradition to the next.

Rebecca Apperson, M.A. candidate (class of 2015) was the student director this year. She says: "Organizing an event from start to finish in itself is a challenge and a great source of learning in terms of vision, planning, logistics and... determination! The multiplicity of facets of this single event, from writing the call for papers, to reviewing the abstracts and putting together the panels, to coordinating the teamwork and marketing the event to outside participants, made it a highly relevant experience with highly transferrable skills for our future careers. This was also a great opportunity to network with professionals and other graduate students in our field. And the long days of work with a good mix of excitement, pressure and laughter made for lifelong memories!"

Dr. Ruchi Anand says: "What an amazing two days of intellectual festivities in Paris on our little planet AGS! Initiated by me a decade ago, the Graduate Student Conference at AGS reaffirms my undying faith in the power of dialogue to foster an exchange of ideas among like-minded young intellectuals in generating new and innovative ways of treating subjects of international relations. Discussing the role of NGO’s at all levels of global governance - local, national and global - on several problem areas, the panels and workshops, with a noteworthy participation from AGS students, achieved the goals of the conference. The theme of this year's conference was particularly timely for AGS as it launched the NGO Certificate program a year ago, which seeks to combine the academic and practitioner oriented perspectives on a very important, emerging-at-the-forefront, rich and complex field of study – NGOs & civil society in global governance.”

More on the Certificate in NGO management program

This AGS Graduate Student Conference 2015 was organized with the support of AGS's partners Fondation Alliance Française, Maison des Cultures du Monde, and Banque Populaire Rives de Paris.

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