First ever ’‘U8’ summit at Cambridge this weekend

The student-led U8 borrows its name from the G8, the meetings between the world’s leading eight governments, and was founded by Cambridge and Oxford students in 2005. The summit will be attended by big names in the world of development such as the Director of Oxfam and Masood Ahmed of the Department for International Development (DfID).

The summit promises a packed two-day programme of discussion and debate about the problems of global poverty and development, held in a number of colleges and university departments.

The U8 links students from around the globe. It aims to raise awareness and enhance student understanding of key developmental problems. It also has the goal of finding solutions for possible future action and to influence long-term pro-development policies, from governments to multinational corporations.

The U8 was founded by Cambridge student Sheena Sumaria and Oxford student Natasha Hughes. It is supported by Emmanuel, St John’s and Pembroke Colleges as well as corporate sponsors.

Eight UK and European universities are participating in online discussions and research on this year’s theme of equality. Each university works on one of four sub-themes: gender, social, income and global inequality. Cambridge is tackling the sub-theme of global inequality, proposing and researching several questions on the subject.

In the lead up to the summit students have been sharing their research, which will be concluded upon at the summit. Student participants from the UK, Europe and Africa are undergraduates and postgraduates from a variety of socio-economic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. The organisers say this allows "for many perspectives to be considered and situational realities to be taken into account, ensuring that any consensus is applicable in the modern world".

A U8 publication will promote the conclusions from the summit.

The high-profile speakers and panelists include:

• Director of Oxfam, Barbara Stocking

• Director General of the Department for International Development (DfID), Masood Ahmed

• Director of Ethical Events Ltd, Benny Dembitzer

• LSE economist, Professor Danny Quah

• Director of the Shell Foundation, Kurt Hoffman

• Managing Director of Actis Africa and former Trade and Industry Minister of Zimbabwe, Dr Nkosana Moyo

It is hoped that the U8 website, which has played a large role in facilitating inter-university discussions, will evolve into a ‘U-World’ forum. This is intended to operate on both an international and more local level, with, for example, separate university summits between African, Asian and South American universities within their localities.

There are two events open to the public on Saturday 4 March: at the Law Faculty at 4pm (presentation and debate by academics) free of charge, and at the Cambridge Union Society at 7pm (talks by core speakers listed above) £2. All other events are for summit delegates only.