Hydro dams

To meet growing demands for food and energy, many large dams are currently being built in low-and middle-income countries. They are often promoted by investors and governments as a boost for economic development. Potential benefits of dams include energy generation, water storage for irrigation, flood protection and the facilitation of regional integration. However, large dams also come along with major environmental and social costs such as the disruption of surrounding ecosystems or the (forced) displacement of the reservoir population. Benefits and costs of dams are often unevenly distributed, which can lead to the exacerbation of existing inequalities. What is thus the role for large dams in development? Can they offer developing countries key solutions to poverty alleviation, or will they predominantly lead to environmental problems, conflicts and social injustice?

Keynote Harry Verhoeven is Assistant Professor at the School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Georgetown University and an Associate Member of the Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Oxford. His research focuses on hydropolitics, armed conflict, elite politics and the political economy of the environment in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes Region. He was founder of the Oxford University China-Africa Network (OUCAN) in 2008-2009 and remains a Co-Convenor of OUCAN. More about Harry Verhoeven.

Discussant Daniëlle Hirsch is the director of Both ENDS, a Dutch NGO that cooperates with environmental justice organizations from the Global South to gather and share information about investments that have a direct impact on people and to engage in joint advocacy thereof. Before joining Both ENDS, Daniëlle lived and worked as an international consultant in South and Central America, Central Asia and Bangladesh, specializing in integrated water and coastal zone management and environmental economics. More about Daniëlle Hirsch. Twitter: @Danielle_H_BE

Moderator Steven Van Passel is a senior lecturer at the Department of Engineering Management of the Faculty of Applied Economics at UAntwerp. His research concentrates on the economic and sustainability assessment of clean technology and agricultural systems and on the interaction between economy, technology and ecology. He is currently leading the research project ‘Systemic analysis of dam-driven transitions of downstream alluvial plains in Ethiopia’. More about Steven Van Passel.

Tuesday 17 October​ 2017
From 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
University of Antwerp - City Campus  
Rodestraat 14 - R.014 - 2000 Antwerpen (how to reach the city campus?)

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