Workshop in Hue, Vietnam

From February 22-26, 2009, the DFG Research group 756 „Impact of shocks on the vulnerability to poverty: consequences for development of emerging Southeast Asian economies“, of the Leibniz Universität Hannover together with the Universities of Göttingen, Giessen and Frankfurt , organized a workshop in Hue, the old imperial city of Vietnam. The Research group is sponsored by the DFG with a total amount of 1,1 Mio. Euro and consists of eight Professors and 12 Phd candidates from different areas of economics. The theme of the project is to assess the consequences of shocks on the vulnerability to poverty of households in six rural provinces in Thailand and Vietnam.
The workshop aimed to document and assess the results of the research after two years together with national and international scientists and experts of development economics. The programme contained thematically structured plenary lectures, and invited comments by external experts, and detailed plenary discussions. In addition, during the first day, an excursion took place to selected sites where the project had collected its data.
Among the 70 participants were, the scientists participating in the research group of the German universities, i. e. 8 professors from the Leibniz University Hannover (six from the Faculty of Economics and Management and two from the Institute of Economic Geography) one from the Justus von Liebig University of Giessen and one from the Goethe University of Frankfurt. Further, the workshop also included representatives from international organisationensnamely  The World Bank, the Fulbright Programme of the Harvard University, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), as well as scientists from Vietnamese und Thai universities and research centers. Also representatives and experts from the DFG, and one representative of the German Embassy in Hanoi participated in the workshop. The participation of high level representatives of policy makers  from Vietnam underlines the relevance of the research group for development policy.
The results presented at the workshop made clear, that the data of over 4000 households, assembled in a panel questionnaire 2007 and 2008, are an excellent base for the analysis of  relevant questions in development economics. In view of the upcoming worldwide economic crisis, important issues related to agriculture, financial institutions, migration and rural development could be found.

Read more at: www.vulnerability-asia.uni-hannover.de .