Last week, Bilkent University hosted Anis Chowdhury, professor of economics at the University of Western Sydney (Australia) and former director of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. Prof. Chowdhury’s talk, “Seven Decades of the United Nations and Global Economic Challenges,” provided an interdisciplinary perspective that brought together scholars and students of international relations, economics and political science.
After an introduction by FEASS Dean Erinç Yeldan, Prof. Chowdhury opened his lecture with an overview of the UN as an international organization and discussed its multifaceted impact in the developing world. Noting that the UN promotes sustainable development goals vital to developing countries, he discussed the concrete ways in which the organization has contributed to the world economy over the decades. As a scholar of political economy and an economics researcher, he emphasized the critical role the UN plays in policy debates on global development and offered a cogent analysis regarding the contemporary challenges of development, trade and inequality.