2022 Distinguished Alumni Award Lecture
Featuring Valerie Hickey (M.A. ’00), Global Director for Environment, Natural Resources and the Blue Economy, World Bank
Lecture: The Multiplier Effects of the Triple Environment Crises on International Peace and Development
Hickey’s talk will focus on the ways the triple environmental crises—climate change, nature loss, and pollution—are threat multipliers undermining peace and development outcomes. For example, just as COVID-19 wreaked havoc with public finances and public health, leading the Gates Foundation to report that the world lost 25 years of development in 25 weeks, climate change threatens to push 132 million people back into poverty by 2030, reversing long-term positive trends.
Hickey will propose good practices for integrating development, climate, and nature, especially in fragile and conflict affected countries and communities.
Valerie Hickey joined the World Bank over nineteen years ago as a specialist in East Asia and the Pacific, working on environment and rural development projects in Cambodia, China, and Laos. She has since worked across the Bank’s regions providing design and implementation support to a variety of operations, including in fragile states. After joining the World Bank's global team, Valerie became chair of the blue economy, biodiversity, and wildlife crime communities of practice and convened the Bank’s technical expertise group to provide policy advice and implementation support to accelerate the role of natural resource management in getting people out of poverty and into the middle class.
In addition to a Master’s degree from Notre Dame, Hickey holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Policy from Duke University.
Read more about Valerie’s career path and time at Notre Dame here »
The Kroc Institute’s Distinguished Alumni Award honors Notre Dame graduates in peace studies whose careers and lives exemplify the ideals of international peacebuilding. Each year the Distinguished Alumnus, who is selected by committee, travels to Notre Dame's campus to deliver a public lecture and meet with current peace studies students
This event is co-sponsored by the Pulte Institute for Global Development,