Suchergebnisse

Civil society in China: historical evolution, ongoing transformation, and future prospects / Zixue Tai -- Reconsidering the concept of civil society: insights from the experiences of Thailand / Thorn Pitidol -- Re-emerging civic activism: restoring the "eco-system" of the Armenian civil society / Yevgenya Jenny Paturyan and Valentina Gevorgyan -- The changing roles and impacts of civil societies: NGOs in Nepal / Medani P. Bhandari and Krishna.P. Oli -- Civil society in Zimbabwe: continuity and change / Davison Muchadenyika -- The multiple faces of civil society in India / Sarbeswar Sahoo -- The coalescence of the displaced: Syrian civil society beyond borders / Tamara Al-Om -- Putting the T in LGBT: trans and gender diverse (in)visibility and activism in South Africa / Zaynab Essack, Natasha Van der Pol, Sandile Ndelu, Joshua Sehoole, L. Leigh Ann van der Merwe and Heidi van Rooyen -- "Menyicil keadilan" (installing justice): civil society and transitional justice in Indonesia / Sri Lestari Wahyuningroem -- Authoritarian neoliberalism and Islamist civil society in Turkey / Zeynep Atalay -- Symbolic power and Brazilian civil society in an age of globalism and populism / Vinícius Rodrigues Vieira -- Postcolonial perspectives on civil society in Mozambique: towards an alternative approach for research and action / Abdul Ilal, Tanja Kleibl, Ronaldo Munck -- Civil society in Mexico: from theory to practice / Alberto J. Olvera.

The volumes of debate on poverty suggest that there is no unanimously agreed definition of poverty that can be applied for everyone. Poverty is a political and highly contested concept because what commentators mean by poverty depends on what they intend to do about it. Given this context, Palash Kamruzzaman explores two key aspects of global poverty reduction. First, he asks, is it really possible to understand poverty for all poor countries through a ubiquitous definition? Why has a US dollar based definition of poverty been promoted by the international aid architecture for all poor countries? Second, the author assesses to what extent such an understanding of poverty contributed to poverty reduction in poor developing countries. This is of particular significance in the final year of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially to find out more effective ways forward for poverty reduction after 2015. Taking specific country-contexts into account, Kamruzzaman argues that national poverty lines should be the benchmark for future anti-poverty policies.

Machine generated contents note:pt. OneParticipation in theory --one.Participation: an iron hand in a velvet glove --two.Poverty reduction: discourse or a commitment to change? --three.Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: another brick in the wall --pt. TwoParticipation in practice --four.Participation: the evidence --five.Is a comprador class being created? --six.Think local, act local --seven.Conclusion.

This book analyses government relationships with international financial institutions (IFIs) to evaluate the role of citizen participation in formulating national poverty reduction policies in low-income countries.

A major international donor conference for sustained support for the Rohingya refugees was convened on October 22, 2021. It was a virtual conference organized and co-hosted by the Secretary of State of the United States of America, the High Representative of Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union and the Vice-President of the European Commission, the Minister of State for South Asia and the Commonwealth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. This article critically evaluates this important event and explores the extent to which this international aid donor conference was consistent with the main principles of international aid effectiveness. It provides a critical analysis of a large-scale donor conference which reveals gaps in the theories, promises and practices of international aid. The focus is on the ownership of aid policies and who determines the aid agenda in this case of the large number of Rohingya refugees who have fled persecution in Myanmar and sought refuge in Bangladesh.

Theoretically, the idea of participation might appear to be replete with grand-sounding promises of empowerment for the poor and marginalised. But, in practice, participation may often take the form of enlisting people in various social and community development projects to secure the compliance of local people. In this paper, I offer a critical review of theoretical promises of participation and contrast this with a number of real-world examples. I argue that participation can be used for validating external approach and incorporated in social as well as community development projects to make it more cost-effective. In theory, giving voices to the poor is important but tokenistic inclusion can often be found in practice for cost-effectiveness. However, giving voices and/or cost efficiency arguments are not coherent with the ideas of empowerment while practices of participation often fail to address the issues of power among various actors, such as decision-makers, participation-seekers and participants. When participation is used as a prerequisite to secure fund or make the project cost-effective, empowerment of poor people does not seem to be a genuine priority. Therefore, empowerment through participation may remain lip-service.

This article critically looks at the interfaces between the ideal notions of civil society and participation within the remit of Bangladesh's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) formulation process. On the one hand, the idea of civil society has been likened to a renaissance and is often considered to be the most likely route out of development 'problems', particularly in the poor countries. Dominant development discourses have scripted the liberal interpretation of civil society as the only game in town. However, on the other hand, as a consequence of growing criticism on the failure of top-down development approach in the late-1960s, and throughout most of the 1970s, there was a sudden upsurge of interest that ordinary citizens might have a part to play in the development process. A generalized consensus took shape that people's participation in projects is an important component of development programmes and a means to their success and hence participation has turned out to be a 'new paradigm' of development. The PRSP framework, that precepts a romantic marriage between civil society and participation, was foisted by two major International Financial Institutions (IFIs) as a condition of further debt and other development assistance for all poor countries. Participation from 'all relevant stakeholders' including civil society was trumpeted as a significant policy shift from previous development prescriptions of these IFIs. This article presents observation from 36 semi-structured interviews with civil society representatives including key people who prepared and finalized the PRSP of Bangladesh and the review of six daily national papers (September 2004 to October 2005). This piece argues that, in theory, participation can be manifested as the 'key' for development, but in practice, participation can be an iron hand in a velvet glove. Participation can turn into parroting and often resemble similar views that are 'expected' and required to validate external framework. Moreover, through such process of mainstreaming participation, an interest group within the civil society can emerge who has the technical knack of producing development policy according to donor recipe with some flavour of participation. This work therefore asks whether civil society and participation should be used as technologies of social control or as anti-hegemonic and anti-clientelistic forces in order to empowering marginalized members of the society.