Background
Deficiencies and challenges in the way states cooperate when faced with international challenges are evident to us every day: in the lack of cooperation to reduce climate emissions; the failure to eradicate poverty and hunger; the difficulties in agreeing on a common strategy to combat health epidemics and in many other ways.
The global institutions of governance developed in the period after World War II were based on a set of values and goals that were believed to be universal but that are increasingly challenged by new powers. Norway as a small country firmly committed to multilateralism and democratic governance has to adapt to a reality in which new actors with new visions of what global governance is and should be, gain influence.
The Academy
The University of Oslo seeks to contribute to confront these challenges. One means of doing so is through the inter-disciplinary Oslo Academy of Global Governance based at the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM). The Academy aims to become a leading arena for knowledge development and dissemination concerning global governance for sustainable development in all its dimensions. It further aims to generate and disseminate knowledge from and about the ideas and strategies of new actors in global governance from outside the USA and Western Europe. By bringing in new voices it seeks to strengthen the dialogue that can form a platform for overcoming the current crisis of global governance.
Goals
The Oslo Academy of Global Governance will:
- Promote and facilitate innovative, empirically-based insights into global efforts on key topics including climate change, energy, poverty reduction, food production and global health;
- Bring new voices into the global governance debate, including from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle-East and Eastern Europe.
- Encourage synergy and cross-fertilization of ideas between researchers working on these critical governance issues;
- Stimulate interest in global governance issues among students, and PhD candidates
- Connect the university more closely with policy-making by producing high quality policy briefs and providing an arena for policymakers to interact with researchers, civil society organisations and international actors.
How we work
The Oslo Academy of Global Governance operates in close dialogue and cooperation with relevant institutions and individuals in other parts of the university, as well as key practitioners in relevant ministries, politicians, international organizations, business and non-governmental organizations involved in global governance.
The Oslo Academy of Global Governance organizes master courses and PhD courses, and every semester a series of public lectures with invited high-profile academics and professionals in the field of global governance.