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What are Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and where did they come from? What is their role in the protection and promotion of human rights? What are their strengths and weaknesses? And what are the information, technology and training needs of these organisations? Answers to these questions can be found in new research (2005) conducted by Fahamu and the Centre for Adult Education.
This inventory of civil society resources and tools contains 3 sections on Civil Society (strengthening): background and theory, including a number of case studies; processes, indicators and tools, on organisational development and support mechanisms for advocacy and media; and an elaborate references and resources section.
The starting point for this paper are some of the key texts relating to the question of promoting ‘pro-poor’ political participation and organisation, which were written or circulated within the British government’s Department for International Development (DFID) in preparation for a retreat organised to discuss the issue in October 2002. I incorporate into this some of the concerns I believe we are addressing within the Crisis States Programme. In this paper I demonstrate how paying attention to politics challenges some of the assumptions within programmes pursued by donors involved in the promotion of ‘good governance’ and economic reform.
Development agency Hivos and the Institute for Social Studies (ISS) launched a partnership to expand and share knowledge on civil society building in developing countries. The network kicked off with a two-day seminar, bringing together Hivos staff and counterparts, ISS researchers and students, and the broader community of development thinkers and practitioners. This report explores strategies employed by civil society organisations in various political contexts with the aim of influencing and strengthening the performance and responsiveness of the state.
Development for security: a critical review of counter-terrorism measures, international aid and non-governmental development organisations
We cordially invite you to a public lecture by Prof Dr Alan Fowler of the University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. The lecture will take place on October 24 2005 at the ISS in The Hague.
Fowler will address three questions:
Is interational aid being progressively located within a peace and security agenda?
If so, where does civil society fit in and why?
And, from within civil society, what are potential implications of 'development for security' for non-governmental organisations that are involved with the aid system?
Les ouvriers, le visage masqué, racontent comment, dans une chaleur intense, ils doivent enchaîner les heures de travail supplémentaire sans compensation. Certains ont les mains bandées : ils se sont blessés en maniant des presses d'imprimerie mal protégées, en fabricant des livres pour enfants de Walt Disney dans deux usines de la province du Guangdong, dans le sud de la Chine.
Tourné en secret par des activistes de Hongkong et confié à un mouvement altermondialiste américain, le National Labor Committee (NLC), le film a eu un retentissement certain lorsqu'il a été montré à la presse américaine, en août, juste avant l'ouverture du nouveau Disneyland de Hongkong.
On paper, the countries of the world have committed themselves to reducing poverty and to realizing human rights, including a right to development. The premise of this conference is that these commitments can be realized only if accountability, responsibility, and integrity prevail. The conference will bring together key thinkers, educators, policy-makers, and development workers to clarify the values as well as mechanisms that are required to enhance accountability, responsibility, and integrity in development, especially in the African context. Considerations of gender equity will be mainstreamed throughout. The practical goal of this conference is to strengthen and enhance the network of African researchers, educators, policy-makers, and other development workers who concern themselves with these issues, and in particular to enhance the teaching and knowledge exchange of development ethics and the ethics of public management. The conference will provide an historically unique opportunity for some of the foremost African and international thinkers on ethics and development to learn from each other, with a view to transforming thought to practice.Conference Themes. Six themes will be highlighted. Discussion of gender issues in each theme is welcome, even where gender has not been identified specifically as a subtheme.
NGOs remain the leaders in trust, but they also have to contend with some decline. In 10 of 17 countries for which data is available, trust in NGOs has fallen since 2004, in some cases sharply (e.g., Brazil, India, South Korea).
These findings are based on a global public opinion poll involving a total of 20,791 interviews with citizens across 20 countries, conducted between June and August 2005
This new field manual provides a well tested approach for promoting citizen participation. It breaks down the traditional boxes separating human rights, rule of law, development, and governance, and reconnects them in order to create an integrated approach to rights-based political empowerment.
A New Weave of Power, People & Politics combines concrete and practical action "steps" with a sound theoretical foundation to help users understand the process of advocacy planning and implementation.
written byLisa VeneKlasen with Valerie Miller
One hundred and thirty community workers, researchers, donors and policy-makers, and representatives from government, civil society organisations and community groups, from 33 countries across the European Union and beyond, met March 25-28 2004 at an international conference, to prepare for the accession of ten new countries to the EU. The conference - focused on building civil society in Europe through community development - was sponsored by the International Association for Community Development, the Combined European Bureau for Social Development, and the Hungarian Association for Community Development under the patronage of the President of Hungary.
