Seminar Friday 25 May 2012
The future youth want - outcomes from national consultations with Youth on Rio+20 and sustainable development - a seminar presentation by speakers from UNICEF
VENUE: Railway Building, West Wing, Level 5, Room RW501
TIME: 12.30pm - 1.30pm
No RSVP required - all welcome

World leaders are meeting in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in June to consider the best pathways to making a safer, more equitable, cleaner, greener and more prosperous world for all.
Here in New Zealand, young people have been disconnected from these discussions and decision-making about what kind of a future they want to see. UNICEF NZ, in partnership with the NZ National Commission for UNESCO, and 350 Aotearoa, Generation Zero, Global Poverty Project, P3, and UN Youth New Zealand have hosted consultations with young people around the country in the lead up to Rio+20, in an effort to find out what young people think about sustainable development issues and what we should do about them.

An outcome document from these consultations is being shared with the NZ Government and at international forums like the World Youth Congress and the Major Group for Children and Youth in the lead up to Rio+20.

This seminar will share the outcomes of the consultations and have a look at what kind of future young New Zealanders expect of the future, and whether that matches what they actually want.

The NZ NGO Rio+20 Platform was formed in 2011 “To establish an inclusive NGO platform as the collective voice to work with all relevant NGOs and the NZ Government in preparation for Rio+20”. See www.angoa.org.nz/

Current Platform members include:

• ANGOA (Association of Non Government Organisations of Aotearoa-NZ)
• CHEQ (Commonwealth Human Ecology Council)
• CID (Council for International Development
• ECO (Environment and Conservation Organisations of Aotearoa-NZ)
• NWO (Network Waitangi Otautahi)
• RESPONSE (Response Trust NZ- Pacific Network)
• SANZ (Sustainable Aotearoa-NZ)
• UNANZ (United Nations Association NZ)
• UNICEF NZ (United Nations Children’s Fund - NZ)
• Yearly Meeting of Quakers (Yearly Meeting of Aotearoa New Zealand of the Religious Society of Friends)
• WWF-New Zealand

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Seminar Friday 1 June 2012
Better Public Services - Continuous Improvement or Continuous Restructuring - a seminar presentation by Tom Schneider, President, CEO and Founder of Restructuring Associates Inc
VENUE:Government Buildings Lecture Theatre Four
TIME: 12.30pm - 1.30pm
No RSVP required - all welcome

The government's focus on Better Public Services includes the need for government agencies to focus on continuous improvement in a time of fiscal constraint.  Dr Schneider provides a refreshing view and sound advice on achieving high performance organisations while managing change. 

Dr Tom Schneider is the President, CEO and Founder of Restructuring Associates Inc in Washington DC.  A former advisor to US Government Departments, he is a member of the Boards of the J, Craig Venter Institute, the Florey Neuroscience Institutes, the National Underground Railway Freedom Centre, the Citizens Development Corps and the American Australian Educational Leadership Foundation.

Over the past 30 years Dr Schneider as acted as management consultant for many of the largest companies and organisations in the USA, Canada and Australia, across industry, government, not for profits and healthcare.  He has published widely and lectured around the world on corporate competiveness, high performance organisations, change management, innovative industrial relations and on biotechnology. 

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Seminar Tuesday 12 June 2012
Competing Indices of happiness: will the best one win? - a seminar presentation
by Paul Frijters, University of Queensland
VENUE: Government Buildings Lecture Theatre One
TIME: 5.30pm - 6.30pm
No RSVP required - all welcome

Happiness is in an industrial boom phase: populations want it, politicians promise it, and statisticians measure it. But what is it and what is the main finding sofar? As with any boom phase, there are many competing measures of happiness on offer reflecting the wares of different statisticians: mood or reflection? Happiness or satisfaction? Well-being or welfare? Day Reconstruction Measure or Qualy? Composite index or single-item measure? Survey or blood pressure? The options arising from the world of measurement are many. The talk would give a brief outline of the frontier in the economics of happiness field, discusses a variety of new indices of happiness, and notes the most important lessons so far: life does offer second chances and happiness to a large degree comes from relative positions.

Paul Frijters is a Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland and an adjunct professor at the Australian National University's Research School of Economics. He has been with ANU since 2003 and UQ since 2010.

He is also a Research Director of the Rumici Project. The project monitors rural to urban migration in China and Indonesia.

Paul holds a Ph.D. on welfare and well-being in Russia from the University of Amsterdam. The thesis applies and extends psychological insights about the causes, definition and measurement of well-being into economics. He has a wide range of research interests, specialising in happiness, labour market, health economics and econometrics. His recent research into rural-urban migration in China produced new evidence and a prediction that China would be the largest economy in the world within the next 10 years.

In 2009, Paul was awarded the Economic Society of Australia's Young Economist Award. Paul is also a contributor to the Core and ClubTroppo blogs.

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