CSB in political crisis

Author(s): Julie Ferguson
Publication date: Wednesday 20 October 2004

Latin America is going through a political crisis in which states are weak or not present in a formal and functioning manner. The same can be said about certain regions in Africa. Comparing the two regions, can we identify which factors lead to this?

How these can be combated by CS, how does this affect CSB? What adverse effects do Hivos partners experience as a result of this political crisis, and how do they deal with this?

For example, some CSOs (willingly or unwillingly) take over the role of the state to compensate for the vacuum (e.g. in combating HIV/Aids). On the other side, in for example the WTO negotiations, they (have to) support their governments. Responsibilities become fuzzy, people aren’t sufficiently equipped to do this, both in terms of capacities and resources.