At the Catholic Chaplaincy, Edinburgh.
Odile is an international consultant in development policies/strategies and postal affairs. She has extensive experience built up over several years working as an academic and within the private and public sectors in several countries.
While working in retail financial services in Scotland in the nineties, post big bang, Odile started wondering about the assumptions behind decision-making in retail financial services. Weren’t a staggering number of people gradually excluded from access to financial services in one of the most sophisticated markets in the world ? Was tax avoidance morally acceptable even if it was legal ? Isn’t the rationale in mergers and acquisitions more often than not personal hubris ? Were decisions rational, as they were portrayed to be, or were they ideologically based ?
She then focused on how to make financial inclusion into an anti-poverty tool, before working for four years in the European Commission (Competition Directorate, State aid, public services and undertakings). Competition is a basic principle in the EU but states are entitled to entrust public services with specific entities. Where is the balance to be struck between public service obligations and competition? Are competition and liberalisation tools or ends per se ? Does public procurement really reach the objectives it is meant to achieve or, more counter intuitively, does it create more problems than it solves ? What about the procurement of public services ?
Subsequently, while employed by a UN specialist agency, she witnessed the harm that the Washington consensus had done to development and the increasing powerlessness of multilateral organisations vis-à vis multinationals and business interests. What can really be done in an interconnected world to reduce imbalances ? What can we, Christians, do when we play a part, however small, in supporting the decision-making process of international organisations so that they work towards the common good ?
In these three cases, Odile will try to illustrate how prayer and exchanges within dedicated groups can inspire those involved in the decision-making process choosing two examples of particular interest to our community in Edinburgh: the joint work of civil servants, NGOs and the Jesuit/Dominican groups in Brussels and the initiatives of the Observatoire de la Finance in Geneva.
She then focused on how to make financial inclusion into an anti-poverty tool, before working for four years in the European Commission (Competition Directorate, State aid, public services and undertakings). Competition is a basic principle in the EU but states are entitled to entrust public services with specific entities. Where is the balance to be struck between public service obligations and competition? Are competition and liberalisation tools or ends per se ? Does public procurement really reach the objectives it is meant to achieve or, more counter intuitively, does it create more problems than it solves ? What about the procurement of public services ?
Subsequently, while employed by a UN specialist agency, she witnessed the harm that the Washington consensus had done to development and the increasing powerlessness of multilateral organisations vis-à vis multinationals and business interests. What can really be done in an interconnected world to reduce imbalances ? What can we, Christians, do when we play a part, however small, in supporting the decision-making process of international organisations so that they work towards the common good ?
In these three cases, Odile will try to illustrate how prayer and exchanges within dedicated groups can inspire those involved in the decision-making process choosing two examples of particular interest to our community in Edinburgh: the joint work of civil servants, NGOs and the Jesuit/Dominican groups in Brussels and the initiatives of the Observatoire de la Finance in Geneva.
Any queries? Please contact Elizabeth Drummond Young: elizdrummondyoung@gmail.com
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