This report describes my participation in two conferences in which I presented two different papers written from my Ph.D work during my stay in Aalborg University. Before proceeding, I would like first and foremost to thank Africalics for providing me with means to attend these conferences. Also, I am grateful toward Prof. Jesper Lindgaard Christensen and Dr. Daniel Stefan Hain for their mentorship that led to these results and specially to Dr. Margrethe for having well coordinated activities during our stay in Aalborg University.
Two ICABR conference organizers and a World Bank expert in the middle during a plenary session
The two conferences were held in the month of June in the USA. The first one, from 12th to 15th of June 2018, was the 22nd Conference of International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research (ICABR) whereas the second one which was the 27th conference of the International Association For Feminist Economist (IAFFE) was held from 18th to 21th June 2018.
The ICABR conference was based on the topic titled: Disruptive Innovation, Value Chains, and Rural development and that of the IAFFE was based on the topic titled: “Feminist debate on migration, inequalities and resistance”
I arrived in Washington DC, where the first conference took place, on Monday 11th of June 2018.
As mentioned above, the ICABR conference’s activities started from 12th of June 2018. Two main things are important to mention concerning this conference. Apart from the paper presentation, I was also selected to attend the Professional Speed Dating (PSD) which is an event during which the young scholars meet a number (5) of world bank experts and experts from other international institutions to introduced to each other in details within 10minutes. The purpose behind this event is to allow the selected young scholars to have an overview on how the World Bank operates as well as the way other international institutions run. So, I was able to participate in that event in the morning of 12th of June 2018 which was the conference’s first day.
In the afternoon of the same day, I presented my paper at the conference. The paper is titled “Lenders and borrowers’ collaboration-based risk mitigation credit market: factors influencing access to formal credit in agricultural sector in Benin Republic”. The remainder days allowed me to attend other presentations which are all based on agriculture and therefore, were very instructive to me. Especially, the disruptive aspects of the topics presented were stressed on, disruptive aspects of innovation. The 16th of June has been used for a visiting tour in the Washington DC district.
I left Washington DC on 17th of June to New Paltz in New York, where the second conference took place.
On the 18th of June, which was the pre-conference day, the YSI organized a pre-session to its members during which each participant presented briefly his/her paper before the due presentation day. That day was full with activities given that IAFFE also has organized on that very day a number of trainings on Feminist economics which I attended too. As far as my presentation during the YSI pre-conference is concerned, it has been raised the issue of indebtedness which measures the debt load of an individual. The answer was that one of the variable in the paper has already taken that phenomenon into consideration, the variable being “number of associations belonged to” and describes how dynamic is a processor in terms of participating in associations. Other papers presented in that YSI pre- session includ: “Increasing inequality in working time: An international trend”, “Cultural Values, Family Decision and Gender Segregation in Higher Education: Evidence from 26 OECD Economies” and “Structures of constraint: the sexual division of labour”.
The other IAFFE pre-conference and workshop were designed for scholars and activists new to feminist economics. So, established scholars provided presentations in the field. The presentations were based on specific topics such as feminist economics methodologies, caring labor, diversity in economics, and global perspectives on gender and economics.
YSI members present at 22nd IAFFE conference: just after the end of YSI pre-conference
The conference-self run from 19th to 21st of June2018. I presented my paper on 20th of June 2018. This second paper is titled “On the nexus between family dynamics and rural women’s access to credit in value chain financing system: the case of women rice parboilers and traders in Benin Republic”. The comments received are almost the same as that of the pre-conference.
21st of June being the last day of the conference, the remaining presentation and closing sessions were scheduled to cover only the morning. So, the activities of these morning were finished by the closing session at 12:30. It is important to mention that the session has been officially concluded by the incumbent president of IAFFE who called to the participants’ attention that the IAFFE’s next year conference will take place at Glasgow, In UK.
The participation in these two conferences was for me a great achievement I have done during my stay in Aalborg since, not only it allowed me to get insight on the recent development in the areas of focus of each of these conferences (e.g. the concept of disruptive innovation and allied issues from ICABR and the feminist economics methodologies from IAFFE) but also allowed me to extend my network since I it put me in contact with a number of experienced researchers.