Suchergebnisse

Polens Außenpolitik ist seit 1989 auf die Stärkung der Kooperationsbeziehungen mit der CSFR und Ungarn ausgerichtet. Damit soll ein Beitrag zu einer neuen europäischen Ordnung geleistet, die Annäherung an Westeuropa durch ein gemeinsames Vorgehen begünstigt und größere Sicherheit gegenüber den Gefahren politischer Instabilität im Osten erreicht werden. Der Artikel stellt die in der Zusammenarbeit der "Visegrad-Allianz" auftretenden Probleme dar und geht näher auf die Reaktion des Westen auf die Politik der Vertragsstaaten des Visegrader Abkommens ein. (BIOst-Str)

The biofuel industry has received billions of dollars in support from governments around the world, as political leaders respond to new environmental and energy-security imperatives. However, a growing body of research highlights nontrivial costs associated with biofuel production, including environmental destruction and diminished food security, and questions the magnitude of perceived benefits. We discuss the ability of biofuels to accomplish climate change, rural development and energy-security objectives, and consider possible impacts on food production and environmental conservation. We also review methods for judging biofuels, consider how well they contribute to policy objectives, and compare policies that support biofuels.

Sustainable development is currently said to be an overriding development goal, also for development assistance. It requires new approaches that challenge not only economic rationality but also bureaucracies in ways that encourage political pluralism and the participation by civil society. As the gap between rich and poor increases and as the pressures on already strained systems constantly increase, the legitimacy of the development industry has increasingly been called into question. Development processes are nonlinear `open' systems that are extremely fluid, in which continuous learning is the sine qua non of being able to respond and intervene effectively. But superficial learning is common within the development industry, because real learning implies change and challenge, and many development failures are due to institutional rather than technical problems. Somehow, agencies and managers have largely allowed the indications of new and better approaches or opportunities go undetected. They seem not to understand that building people's capacity to learn and make connections becomes more important than accumulating information about lessons learned in the past, and that it is more important to target interesting (positive or negative) experiences for learning instead of `averaging' experience across the board. A revamping of policies is urgently needed. This paper tries to provoke a more productive discussion about development assistance which goes beyond pervasive blind faith and thoughtless mantras and discusses some ideological and structural foundations that have prevented the development industry from making progress towards sustainable development. It analyzes what can be done and asserts that it is clear that, if sustainable development is to be supported and realized, it has to be built on the consent and support of those whose lives are affected. Promoting sustainability and understanding and tackling the roots of poverty is a challenge that requires unlocking material resources and allowing people to take part in social, economic and environmental decision making. There is a need to draw on more diverse perspectives and to cut across sectoral boundaries to counter the monovalent approaches that have dominated mainstream development assistance practice. To that end, there is a dire need develop frameworks that can help actors understand the real meaning of sustainable development.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in 2015 have influenced the actions of international and intergovernmental organisations and governments around the world, and have dictated priorities for international aid spending. Culture, including heritage, is often presented as fundamental to addressing the SDGs: since 2010, the United Nations has adopted no fewer than five major policy recommendations that assert its importance as a driver and enabler of development. Yet, heritage is marginalized from the Sustainable Development Goals.0Rethinking Heritage for Sustainable Development constitutes a substantial and original assessment of whether and how heritage has contributed to three key dimensions of sustainable development (namely poverty reduction, gender equality and environmental sustainability) within the context of its marginalisation from the Sustainable Development Goals and from previous international development agendas.0Sophia Labadi adopts a novel, inclusive, large-scale and systematic approach, providing the first comprehensive history of the international approaches on culture (including heritage) for development, from 1970 to the present day. This book is also the first to assess the negative and positive impacts of all the international projects implemented in sub-Saharan Africa by a consortium of UN organisations that aimed to provide evidence for the contribution of heritage for development in time for the negotiation of the SDGs. The book?s conclusions provide recommendations for rethinking heritage for development, while reflecting on the major shortcomings of the selected projects