Search results

For 50 years, Palestinians have been vulnerable to various human rights violations, & their marginalization is viewed as a failure of the international community; here, the development & persistence of this circumstance is addressed. An interdisciplinary approach is taken to explore the historical & legal origins of the international refugee protection gap. Its impact on Palestinian refugees is traced to the 1922 British Mandate following WWI & the incorporation of the Balfour Declaration. The UN's involvement in the Palestinian case is described, highlighting the efforts of the United Nations Relief & Works Agency. Policy & institutional reforms required to redress the Palestinian case are considered, & particularly whether the UNHCR ought to get involved in the crisis & how such involvement might manifest. 2 Appendixes. J. Zendejas

An exploration of the success & stability of Soka Gakkai in Italy (ISG) focuses on its engagement in social causes; events that enhance the development of solidarity among members; & the organization's capacity to negotiate between the movement in Italy, the Italian state, & Soka Gakkai International (SGI). ISG's social justice work has included providing refugee relief & promoting reflection on human rights by organizing numerous conferences/seminars in various cities & presenting the exhibition, "Human Rights in the Contemporary World," at Rome's Museo Nazionale delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari. The enormous impact of the exhibition on both visitors & Soka Gakkai members is discussed, maintaining it was successful in achieving its goal of raising awareness. A look at the group's social activities includes a description of an elaborate 1988 garden party in Rome that involved a plethora of activities for both young & old, including music, dance, art, & drama. Other issues discussed include the impact of SGI's transition from a lay association to a Buddhist sect & current tendencies within the Italian movement. J. Lindroth

An exploration of the success & stability of Soka Gakkai in Italy (ISG) focuses on its engagement in social causes; events that enhance the development of solidarity among members; & the organization's capacity to negotiate between the movement in Italy, the Italian state, & Soka Gakkai International (SGI). ISG's social justice work has included providing refugee relief & promoting reflection on human rights by organizing numerous conferences/seminars in various cities & presenting the exhibition, "Human Rights in the Contemporary World," at Rome's Museo Nazionale delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari. The enormous impact of the exhibition on both visitors & Soka Gakkai members is discussed, maintaining it was successful in achieving its goal of raising awareness. A look at the group's social activities includes a description of an elaborate 1988 garden party in Rome that involved a plethora of activities for both young & old, including music, dance, art, & drama. Other issues discussed include the impact of SGI's transition from a lay association to a Buddhist sect & current tendencies within the Italian movement. J. Lindroth

"This chapter was borne out of a need to bring together two contending constituencies and their arguments about why and how to identify impact in peacebuilding initiatives in practice. The two constituencies, which the authoress calls 'frameworkers' and 'circlers', involve sets of people who blend across the lines of development and conflict transformation work and possess very different arguments about how to conceptualize and operationalize issues of impact and change in program design, monitoring and evaluation. The differences matter in a practical sense for workers in international and national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) because their views often clash during program design, monitoring and evaluation processes, and leave both sides dissatisfied. The groups also matter for conceptual reasons because they capture unspoken differences that hinder people's ability to talk clearly about impact and change, what matters, how people 'know what they know' about impact and change and, therefore, how they do their peacebuilding work. Unmasking the conceptual debates can improve our ability to speak about and achieve effectiveness and impact. The authoress receives diverse reactions to the arguments contained here. People who self-identify as circlers are often delighted to find an argument that recognizes them. For example, when one raises the topic in a course one co-teaches an peacebuilding monitoring, evaluation and learning there is a palpable sense of relief amongst some in the room who question linear causal logic and objective measures. Others, who are frameworker-orientated and work extensively in the field, tend to be open to the arguments below; they want frameworkers to be depicted positively but appreciate that different worldviews operate in the field and believe people need to be aware of differences and able to translate between them where possible. On infrequent occasions, academics steeped in positivist research have read the chapter and been appalled by the discussion regarding alternative worldviews, perceptions of reality and the questioning of causality; they find the suggestions disturbing and counter to their commitment to discover objective truths. Overall, these reactions reinforce for the authoress the importance of identifying and discussing assumptions at work in peacebuilding monitoring and evaluation; they also suggest that there are further issues to be addressed and that the authoress only begins to scratch the surface of the issues presented here. In this chapter, she begins by outlining the two basic constituencies: frameworkers and circlers. She briefly reviews the current status of peacebuilding monitoring and evaluation, which continues to grow and evolve. This is followed by an analysis of a series of topics that are debated between frameworkers and circlers; some of these topics are debated openly and addressed by other works that examine peacebuilding monitoring and evaluation, and some lie below the surface or are not articulated as debates. The tensions provide insights into the underlying issues that need to be identified in order to be fruitfully addressed. Finally, the authoress presents some concrete examples of ways that peacebuilding or other social change orientated programs have adopted to Bridge the positions in practice and identify practices that can strengthen particular areas that are currently under-developed and can benefit programs." (excerpt)