From October 5th to October 7th, ACEIR members attended the conference Reducing inequality – the great challenge of our time, organized by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in partnership with Universidad de los Andes (UNIANDES), in Bogotá – Colombia.
The group included ACEIR director Murray Leibbrandt, members of ACEIR’s Ghanaian and Kenyan nodes, Monica Lambon-Quayefio, Moses Muriithi and Germano Mwabu respectively (the latter two from Kenya). Members of the South African node included Takwanisa Machemedze and Fabio Diaz. The team was privileged to join ACEIR affiliate Anda David, and SALDRU associates Simone Schotte, Miquel Pellicer and Patrizio Piraino.
The conference proved stimulating and exciting. It enabled the sharing and discussion of the many negative impacts that high inequality has, and provided a forum to discuss innovative, theoretical, and empirical research on inequality, and its policy take-aways. The programme addressed major themes in inequality across keynote lectures, parallel sessions, and a policy dialogue event. ACEIR enjoyed the spotlight in a special session in which the team showcased its work on the World Income Inequality Database. This allowed ACEIR researchers to discuss the importance of reflecting about how different data sources can bring about different readings in the trends of inequality.
The sessions of the conference can be viewed on UNU-WIDER’s YouTube channel.
In addition to the academic engagement of sharing and discussing with colleagues and friends, one of the key highlights of the conference was the now famous “SALDRU tours” that took place in Bogotá and allowed Saldrupians and ACEIRites to experience the similarities between Africa and Latin America. Exploring Bogota’s historic centre allowed Saldrupians and ACEIRites to explore the role of informal trading in the Colombian economy, as well as witnessing the multicultural roots of Colombia.
