Barbara Bedeschi-Lewando

Pacific policy innovation for the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals

Email: barbara.bedeschilewando@vuw.ac.nz

Supervisors: AProf Valentina Dinica. and Prof Alberto Costi (Faculty of Law)

Profile

Barbara has worked as international development practitioner in climate change, disaster resilience and sustainability in the Asia-Pacific region. Her experience covers international and regional organisations in the areas of climate change adaptation, poverty eradication, food security, gender, disaster risk reduction, sustainable development, infrastructure and natural resources vulnerability. She brings contemporary experience of the Sustainable Development Goals in the Pacific and broad understanding of human rights approach and international development in resilience.

She worked across various organisations to provide technical advisory roles to governments and regional and international agencies and for most multilateral and bilateral donors.

Qualifications

Masters in Global Environmental Protection and International Policies, Tuscia University, Italy Diploma in Development and International Cooperation, Institute of Politics and International Studies, ItalyBachelor of Science (Hons) in Political Science and International Relations, University of Bologna, Italy

Research interests

Barbara’s research arises from a strong desire and determination to contribute to the Pacific to build a resilient future experimenting with new policy methods to drive innovative and breakthrough policy and legislative approaches. Policy making based on experimentation is particularly important for new and emerging innovation domains, where the scope for learning and improvement is the greatest. Her research may challenge positivist framings of policymaking as an empirically driven decision process and propose innovative new approaches and methodologies.

She is currently interested in the role of transformative innovation policy hubs in international sustainable development, by focusing on SDG 13 - climate action, issues of human mobility in the context of climate change and the recognition that human-rights based strategies are central in addressing environmental migration and how they may serve as vehicle towards SDG 13 climate targets.