Panel Speakers - IESE Blog Community - IESE Business School

Track 5
prominent Challenges and opportunities in Social Development
Code: 5.a
Can investments in agriculture be profitable and ensure positive Social impact?
With world population projected to reach 9 billion by 2050, food production will need to increase by 70%,
according to FAO estimates. A production increase of this magnitude will require the developing world
alone to invest over $200 billion per year in agriculture till 2050. The idea of this panel is to discuss the
future of investments in agriculture and the problems that we will face in ensuring positive impact of these
investments. Also there is a general impression that investments in agriculture are not profitable enough
to attract attentions of investors, especially in developing countries. However, agriculture has the potential
to be tremendously profitable business and to yield positive impact for such countries. We will also try to
spend some time to shed some light on agricultural investments as a tool for poverty alleviation.
Speakers: Sergio Dedominici - Syngenta
Helena Leurent - World Economic Forum
Alfonso López - Nestlé
José María Mateo - Cargill
panel coordinators: Junichi Kagaya (MBA 2011)
Code: 5.b
economic incentives and the role of the private Sector: is it Sufficient for achieving a
long-term Sustainable peace?
What is economic peace? Different scholars, academics and politicians have claimed that peace in a conflict
zone can be achieved through economic pressure and economic improvement of nations living in
conflict. These thinkers claim that the better the economic situation and the stronger the interdependence
of the groups engaged in conflict, the less incentive they have to engage in war. In this situation both sides
would compromise to achieve a peace agreement amongst themselves. However, once this interdependence
is broken, it is not unlikely that the peace will be kept.
In this panel, we would like to discuss the notion of economic peace and questions that derive by thinking
about such peace; mainly, does the economic status of people in a political conflict matter when the time
comes to negotiate peace? Can economic improvement of both or either sides in a conflict zone result in
a self-sustained, long-term peace between people? Or, is it necessary to have a mutual interest in the economic
offering of one side to the other? Finally, what role does the private sector have in achieving such
peace? Is it only the responsibility of the government to achieve and promote it?
Moderator: Prof. Alberto Ribera MD. PhD. - IESE Business School
Speakers: Maha Atal - Forbes
Shainoor Khoja - Roshan
Prof. María Prandi - Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB)
Andrea Vigevani - Instituto per la Cooperazione Universitaria (ICU)
panel coordinators: Jonathan Salomon (MBA 2011)
2011 Doing Good and Doing Well
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