Rahim Kanani: Aleem Walji of the World Bank Institute’s Innovation Team on the Future of International Development

As part of an on-going series on social innovation, I recently interviewed Aleem Walji, Practice Manager for Innovation at the World Bank Institute. We discussed the intersection between innovation and development, the future of social enterprise, current initiatives and efforts underway in the Innovation Practice, challenges and opportunities moving forward within these sectors, and much more.

Aleem joined the World Bank Institute as Practice Manager for Innovation in November 2009. Previously, he was Head of Global Development Initiatives at Google.org and Chief Executive Officer of the Aga Khan Foundation in Syria. Aleem was trained as a social anthropologist and urban planner at Emory University and MIT.

Rahim Kanani: How would you characterize the intersection of innovation and development, and the emergence of social enterprise as a widely studied, taught, and advancing discipline?

Read at the source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com.

Profile Rahim Kanani: All the world’s a stage for dialogue | Western Alumni Gazette

Finding face time with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. One-on-one interview with Barrack Obama’s top advisors. Q & A with the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch.

How does Rahim Kanani, BA’06 (Philosophy), MSc (Global Politics, London School of Economics & Political Science) land such high profile interview subjects on his less than year-old “World Affairs Commentary” website?

A new narrative of empathy for the West and the Arab world? by Rahim Kanani – Common Ground News Service

Cambridge, Massachusetts – As people in the West continue to read about, listen to and watch the stories of ordinary citizens in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen, they are realising more and more that human desires, needs and wants – of people in North America, North Africa and the Middle East – are one and the same. Ordinary citizens in the West, enjoying their rights and freedoms, are now empathising with ordinary citizens in the Arab world, who are standing up to oppressive regimes for their rights and freedoms.

via http://www.commongroundnews.org – http://www.middle-east-online.com

Rahim Kanani: Aleem Walji of the World Bank Institute’s Innovation Team on the Future of International Development

As part of an on-going series on social innovation, I recently interviewed Aleem Walji, Practice Manager for Innovation at the World Bank Institute. We discussed the intersection between innovation and development, the future of social enterprise, current initiatives and efforts underway in the Innovation Practice, challenges and opportunities moving forward within these sectors, and much more.

Aleem joined the World Bank Institute as Practice Manager for Innovation in November 2009. Previously, he was Head of Global Development Initiatives at Google.org and Chief Executive Officer of the Aga Khan Foundation in Syria. Aleem was trained as a social anthropologist and urban planner at Emory University and MIT.

Rahim Kanani: How would you characterize the intersection of innovation and development, and the emergence of social enterprise as a widely studied, taught, and advancing discipline?

Aleem Walji: Governments alone cannot meet the service delivery needs of all their people. They need partners, expertise and access to pools of capital.

More: Rahim Kanani: Aleem Walji of the World Bank Institute’s Innovation Team on the Future of International Development.

Rahim Kanani » Jeff Skoll, Dr. Paul Farmer, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the 2011 Skoll World Forum

Recently, I attended the 8th Annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, an annual convening held in Oxford, UK, which brought together more than 800 distinguished delegates from the social, finance, private and public sectors to tackle the world’s most pressing social issues. A program of the Skoll Foundation and co-produced with the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, the three-day event was a tour de force of intellect, inspiration and innovation. Whether addressing tolerance and human rights, environmental sustainability, peace and security, or economic and social equity, the curation of speakers, panels, and breakout sessions were sure to excite the neurons of each and every delegate in attendance.

More at the source: http://www.rahimkanani.com.

An Interview with Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama

via Rahim Kanani: http://www.rahimkanani.com

To celebrate Women’s History Month, I sat down in the West Wing of the White House with Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama and Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls, to discuss Women in America, a report which, for the first time in recent history, pulls together information from across the Federal statistical agencies to compile baseline information on how women are faring in the United States today and how these trends have changed over time. This is the first such federal initiative since 1963, when the Commission on Status of Women, established by President Kennedy and chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, produced a report on the conditions of women. The PDF of the report is available here.

Rahim Kanani: Given that it’s been almost 50 years since a report this comprehensive was produced about the status of women and girls in the United States, what sparked another study of this magnitude?

Read at the source: http://www.rahimkanani.com/2011/03/28/an-interview-with-valerie-jarrett

RahimKanani.com » An In-depth Interview with Drew Faust, President of Harvard University

In a recent in-depth interview with Drew Faust, President of Harvard University, we discussed recent developments in teaching and learning, financial aid and accessibility, growing university-wide collaboration, leadership in higher-education, the advancement of women and gender equality, the role of religion in curriculum, bridging research to practice, and the future of the institution.

Rahim Kanani: What are some of the major evolutions of Harvard University in the last decade in terms of learning and teaching?

Drew Faust: First, let’s look at the college and the undergraduate experience. A number of changes have emerged in recent years focusing more attention on the undergraduate experience: for instance, the new general education curriculum requirements that update the foundations of a Harvard college education for the 21st century. We’ve also enhanced student services like advising, because we recognize that Harvard’s extraordinary intellectual resources are complex and that students, to have the full benefit of their time here, need good advice.

More at the source: RahimKanani.com » An In-depth Interview with Drew Faust, President of Harvard University.

RahimKanani.com: An Interview with Tony Blair on Interfaith Dialogue, Education, and Globalization

In a recent interview with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, we discussed his attendance at the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative held earlier this year, the work of his Faith Foundation, and the importance of understanding religion in a rapidly globalizing world.

Rahim Kanani: What brought you to the Clinton Global Initiative earlier this year and what was the Face to Faith initiative launched that week?

Tony Blair: My Faith Foundation shares a similar vision with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI); globalization is pushing different races, cultures and creeds closer together than ever before and there is an urgent need to build bridges of understanding between these communities to avoid tensions and conflicts arising and to shape a more integrated global community.

Click here to read more: http://www.rahimkanani.com.

Rahim Kanani: A Global Interfaith Initiative to Change the World

More than two thirds of the world’s population – over four billion people – identify with one religion or another. Imagine the motivational energy of these four billion people used as a positive force for global social change. Whether tackling issues of poverty, disease, health, energy, education, gender inequality or any urgent challenge facing our world today, the possibilities are endless with four billion minds and eight billion hands working together.

This is the potential power of faith.

via http://www.huffingtonpost.com.

Rahim Kanani’s Q&A with Her Majesty Queen Rania on the Education of Women and Girls

Rahim Kanani: What is the single biggest challenge facing women and girls in the middle east regarding educational access, and what do you think the most promising solution is?

Her Majesty Queen Rania: I think generally the Middle East and African Region is one of the biggest spenders on education. In 12 countries in the Middle East, more girls are in school, especially in universities, than we have males. Yes is some countries there is the challenge to access and that has a lot to do with entrenched mindsets that need to be changed, but I think more importantly, the bigger challenge for us is how to get women into the labor market.

via http://www.rahimkanani.com.

Rahim Kanani: An Inside Look at the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)

In advance of the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) being held later this month, I interviewed the Director of Commitments for CGI, Marilia Bezerra, on the founding, meaning, and vision of the Initiative.

Brief Background: In 2005, President Clinton established CGI to turn ideas into action and to help our world move beyond the current state of globalization to a more integrated global community of shared benefits, responsibilities, and values.

Click here to read: Rahim Kanani: An Inside Look at the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).

RahimKanani.com » Faith, Pluralism, Globalization and Higher-Education in the 21st Century: An Interview with John Sexton, President of New York University

I interviewed Dr. John Sexton, President of New York University, the largest private university in the United States, on the intersection of faith, pluralism, globalization, and higher-education in the 21st century

Rahim Kanani: When you look at the tension and controversy surrounding the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”, what strikes you as the root of this growing division?

John Sexton: It’s very interesting. There’s a slim volume that I read years ago by Albert Hirschman, it’s called The Rhetoric of Reaction. And I was just looking at it this morning because this afternoon, I am speaking to the 5,000 freshmen that are beginning class at NYU next week. He wrote this book in 1991—some 20 years ago—and in it he analyses political discourse in advanced democratic societies. He expresses what he calls, “A concern over the massive stubborn and exasperating otherness of others.” And he goes on to write of the unsettling experience of being shut off, not just from the opinions, but from the entire life experience of large numbers of one’s contemporaries and how citizens in advanced democracies array themselves in a few clearly defined groups. For example in America, the two-party system, each holding different opinions and easily becoming walled off from each other. And here, I quote again, “As the process feeds on itself, each group will at some point ask about the other in utter puzzlement and often with mutual revulsion, how did they get to be that way?”

via RahimKanani.com » Faith, Pluralism, Globalization and Higher-Education in the 21st Century: An Interview with John Sexton, President of New York University.

Broadening religious curricula will help | Rahim Kanani at Khaleej Times

-Excerpt-

With 70 per cent of the world’s population – or 4.8 billion people – identifying with a particular faith, education about the “other” must not be a choice, but rather a requirement in the pursuit of both safeguarding American ideals and building bridges of international tolerance. Such instruction is part and parcel of building respectful and stable societies – domestically and abroad. And if the United States wishes to continue to set an example in the arena of religious pluralism, it must enact a radical change to its education system.

“What is the definition of an educated person today? Does that definition include some basic knowledge about the [Muslim] world or not? If it doesn’t, perhaps that needs to be corrected,” stated His Highness the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of the world’s Shia Ismaili Muslims, on National Public Radio. In our forever-globalising world, the content of our education system must reflect the local, regional, national and international societies in which we will ultimately find ourselves.

The system must also prepare us with the knowledge and background to avert crises of understanding each other’s history, culture and religion, cementing our social structures as one grounded in intelligent discourse and voluntary engagement, rather than superficial knowledge and willful ignorance. The latter, we cannot deny, has proven disastrous.

via http://www.khaleejtimes.com.

RahimKanani.com » The Not-at-Ground Zero Mosque Will Define U.S.-Muslim Relations for the Next Decade

In response to my original article condemning Gingrich, I received a very thoughtful and insightful email from one of my readers. She eloquently conveyed her personal connection to 9/11; for she herself was at the World Trade Center, and had witnessed the first plane explode. “I understand how raw that wound is for so many people,” she wrote. “And yet, I do not know how that wound can ever fully heal if we are determined to condemn an entire people for the acts of a few, and not commit to move forward to mutual understanding and reconciliation.” Such voices of pluralism and peace from those who were intimately affected are crucial to this discussion, for even a coalition formed by family members who lost loved ones on 9/11 wish to turn the tides of intolerance and misunderstanding, and are in full support of building this mosque and cultural center.

via RahimKanani.com » The Not-at-Ground Zero Mosque Will Define U.S.-Muslim Relations for the Next Decade.

RahimKanani.com » The Crisis of Religious Understanding: Redefining the ‘Educated Person’

How can the United States guarantee multi-religious understanding, pluralistic tolerance, and strong social cohesion amongst its citizenry of different faiths for generations to come? The answer is simple, radical, urgent and necessary: incorporate the teaching of world religions into the curricula of secondary and post-secondary educational institutions. Such instruction should be mandatory, and alongside mathematics, science, English, and the humanities.

A so-called educated person in today’s society is uneducated if they do not have a basic grasp of, at minimum, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism.

–snip–

“What is the definition of an educated person today? Does that definition include some basic knowledge about the Islamic world or not? If it doesn’t, perhaps that needs to be corrected,” stated His Highness the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of the world’s Shia Ismaili Muslims, to National Public Radio.

Read at the source: http://www.rahimkanani.com.

Rahim Kanani: The world’s mothers need our help | Ottawa Citizen

“I have learned that it is mothers who keep families together — indeed, who keep entire societies intact. Mothers are society’s weavers … no woman should have to pay with her life for giving life,” proclaimed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon earlier this year.

Paying the ultimate price of life to deliver the ultimate gift to humanity — the promise and hope of a newborn child — is both “shocking and shameful” in the words of British Prime Minister David Cameron. With 3,500 participants from nearly 150 countries attending the Women Deliver conference earlier this month in Washington, “we have the world’s attention,” declared Melinda Gates in her keynote address. “Now, the world is changing.”

Read more at the source: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion.

Rahim Kanani: Islam and Maternal Mortality in Afghanistan: A Religious and Cultural Approach to Saving Lives

“When Afghan people are given instruction based on their religious values, they will listen and accept,” explained Maulawi Amanudin, an official in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Religious Affairs. Using religious values is essential when trying to change behavior in a devout society like Afghanistan. “The Afghan people believe in resolving issues from a religious perspective,” said Mawlawi Saddiq, a senior Supreme Court official. Religious teachings can serve as a tremendous lever for societal change, particularly for convincing men to promote women and children’s health. “Having a healthy mother and a healthy family is what it means to have a healthy marriage in Islam,” Saddiq noted. “Our religion clearly states that there should be 30 months between births to protect the health of children and mothers. When our religious leaders and communities understand that this is what the prophet Muhammad says, then all the misconceptions that exist within families can be resolved and dealt with.”

via Rahim Kanani: Islam and Maternal Mortality in Afghanistan: A Religious and Cultural Approach to Saving Lives.

Rahim Kanani: The ICC Review Conference, the Crime of Aggression, and International Criminal Justice

Starting Monday, May 31st, the International Criminal Court (ICC) held its first-ever Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda, affording the opportunity for States Parties to amend the Rome Statute since its creation in 1998. Up to 2,000 participants from around the world–key actors in international relations, high-ranking government officials, court leaders, non-state actors, United Nations representatives, and more than 500 NGO representatives–will assess the ICC’s impact on communities and victims plagued by mass atrocities, its influence on developing and strengthening domestic justice systems, its ability to punish effectively and resolve conflict, and both member and non-member State cooperation towards the Court.

More: Rahim Kanani: The ICC Review Conference, the Crime of Aggression, and International Criminal Justice.

Rahim Kanani: Investing in Women and Girls: A Focus on Health, Advocacy and Innovation

French poet Victor Hugo once remarked that “there’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” Today, that idea is unmistakable: addressing the political, economic, social, and cultural challenges facing women and girls worldwide. It’s no coincidence then that in less than two weeks — strategically ahead of the G8 Summit to be held in Canada — the world’s leading voices on advancing the lives and livelihoods of women and girls around the world will come together in Washington, D.C., for the 2010 Women Deliver Summit. And if the list of featured speakers, plenary sessions, and concurrent discussions are any indication, this convening promises to be a fire-starter of global action as we enter the second decade of the 21st century.

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rahim-kanani.

Rahim Kanani: The 2010 Global Philanthropy Forum: Harnessing Technology for Change

Just a few weeks ago, the 2010 Global Philanthropy Forum convened in San Francisco. The three-day forum highlighted a number of key international challenges and opportunities facing investors and grant makers, NGOs and civil society, and multi-sector partnerships both public and private, as the industry of giving and receiving enters the second decade of the 21st century. While the overarching themes of the conference were not explicitly related to technological advancements or solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, having attended a variety of sessions over the course of the conference, one of the most prominent threads was exactly that: harnessing mobile and internet technology for change, social impact, and accountability.

More: Rahim Kanani: The 2010 Global Philanthropy Forum: Harnessing Technology for Change.

Rahim Kanani: Unreasonable Ambition: The Clinton Global Initiative University Meeting in Miami

Under the leadership, mission and vision of former U.S. President William J. Clinton, an admired global symbol of lifelong public service, this past weekend marked yet another milestone in inching the world towards a more peaceful and prosperous future for generations to come.

Modeled after the wildly successful Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) held in New York City since 2005 during the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, President Clinton launched the third annual Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI-U) at the University of Miami last Friday.

Read at: Rahim Kanani: Unreasonable Ambition: The Clinton Global Initiative University Meeting in Miami.

Rahim Kanani: Guiding U.S. National Security and Military Policy: Whose Opinion Matters?

Time and again, I’ve clashed with friends and colleagues over the following question regarding the nature of authority and guiding U.S. security policy: who has the right to say what? The fact of the matter is that the explosion and reach of citizen journalism and commentary, made possible by the advent of the Internet, has unquestionably democratized the decision-making processes of the U.S. government.

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rahim-kanani/guiding-us-national-secur_b_526198.html

Rahim Kanani: The ICC and Afghanistan: A Moment of Opportunity for Justice

In today’s International Herald Tribune, Candace Rondeaux and Nick Grono of the International Crisis Group argued that the International Criminal Court (ICC) should formalize their investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, now that the Taliban’s military chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has been arrested in Pakistan. I believe formalizing such an investigation at this particular stage would be catastrophic in consequence, and would ultimately harm both the development of Afghanistan and the standing and status of the International Criminal Court.

via Rahim Kanani: The ICC and Afghanistan: A Moment of Opportunity for Justice.

Article by Rahim Kanani: A Lesson in Realism and Resolve

A Lesson in Realism and Resolve: What President Obama Can Learn From Lady Gaga

It’s no secret that President Obama has spent much of his first year in the Oval Office attempting to build consensus across party lines, compromise with his critics, and put the united back into the United States of America. After pushing for collective action and progress, however, it turns out that while inspirational in ambition, the President’s bipartisan fantasy may ultimately prove to be aspirational in reality.

Continue at the source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rahim-kanani/a-lesson-in-realism-and-r_b_497697.html

Article by Rahim Kanani on international women’s day

Maternal Mortality in Afghanistan: A Way Forward – Today, when we think of Afghanistan, a cauldron of chaos comes to mind: massive international counterinsurgency and counternarcotics operations, countless NGOs struggling to maintain neutrality and operational integrity amidst the militarization of aid and development, and the sheer deprivation of dignity suffered by the overly-occupied Afghan people, among other such indictments of the international community’s historic and present-day involvement. While these issues continually make above-the-fold headlines, today is International Women’s Day (IWD), and I wish to highlight yet another travesty in Afghanistan: maternal mortality.

Read here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rahim-kanani/maternal-mortality-in-afg_b_490107.html