February Round-up: Infrastructure and Governance Groups at CDF

It’s been an exciting month for the Centre for Development Finance’s (CDF) Infrastructure and Governance groups, with staff spreading CDF work both far and near.

On February 9th, Rich Woodbridge (Researcher, Rural Infrastructure and Governance) presented interim findings from the Rural Market Insight team’s work on domestic energy consumption at the Rural Technology and Business Incubator’s (RTBI) 2-day workshop on “Redefining the Development Paradigm in the Post Industrial Revolution Era” at IIT Madras.

Rich’s presentation, entitled ‘Energy Consumption and Expenditure: A Fresh Perspective’ discussed India’s domestic energy market from the national level down to the rural household level and the implications for social entrepreneurs and policy makers.  At this workshop, Snehashis Sarkar from ESF presented findings from their new Environmental Sustainability Index for Indian States, and Dave Wallack from IFMR Trust gave a presentation entitled ‘Rural Energy: Challenges and Issues in Creating Access’.

On 11-13 February, David Fuente (Program head, Infrastructure and Governance) presented a paper entitled “Pro-poor Renewable Technologies and their Impact on Society” at the Asian Security Conference 2010: Asian Strategic Futures 2030 – Trends, Scenarios, and Alternatives. The conference drew a wide range of invited speakers from the US, UK, and across Asia. IDSA is currently compiling a volume from the conference proceedings, in which David’s paper will be profiled.

On 19-22 February, Chandrakant Pradhan (Researcher, Rural Infrastructure and Governance) presented a paper entitled “What Determines Adoption of a Clean Technology: Cost of the Technology or Cost of Production?” at the International Conference on Climate Change and Developing Countries organized by the Centre for Environment, Education, and Technology in Kottayam, Kerala.

And, there’s more to come…

In March, Nithya Raman (Senior researcher, Urban Infrastructure and Governance) will be presenting a paper she co-authored with Dr. Karen Coelho from the MIDS entitled “The Poor and the Objectionable: Habitat Negotiations in and around Chennai” at the International Conference on Urban Ecologies in Asia, being held at the Hong Kong Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences. This paper is part of a larger project that Nithya and Dr. Coelho are working on together, in which they document the history of organizing and collective action among the urban poor in Chennai.

And, on March 1st Selvan Thandapani and Pooja Bhatia (both researchers, Rural Infrastructure and Governance) will be giving a half-day workshop on design for social impact at the DJ Academy of Design in Coimbatore.  Leveraging insight from CDF’s Rural Market Insight team this workshop is in preparation for a day long workshop Selvan and Pooja will be leading with the design firm Deskala at the India HCI 2010 & Interaction Design for International Development Conference being hosted at IIT-Bombay on March 20-24, 2010.

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David Fuente, Program Head, Infrastructure and Governance, CDF, contributed this post.