Civil society

A framework for understanding civil society in action

The past 30 years have seen a proliferation in the use of the phrase ‘civil society' linked to international aid, resulting in the creation of official donor ‘civil society departments’. At the same time there has been growing understanding that international development has become commercialised into the ‘aid industry'. The result is an explosion of ‘aided', globalised and tamed civil society at the expense of the naturally occurring, local, less predictable and more politicised‘unaided' variety.

 

Author: 
Beauclerk, John
Page: 
870

Development for whom? Homosexuality and faith-based development in Zimbabwe

This article reviews some of the main arguments advanced by scholars operating at the interface of religion and development. It then seeks to expand the current literature on religion and development to include more ‘uncomfortable’ subject matter, such as homosexuality and discrimination. Using the 1995 Zimbabwe Book Fair as a case study, the author argues that international religious NGOs engaged in evangelical activity must show greater attention to the contexts in which they operate. In particular, they must take an explicit stand against homophobia and discrimination.

Author: 
Connor, Jonathan
Page: 
860

Agricultural cooperatives and social empowerment of women: a Ugandan case study

This article presents a case study of Manyakabi Area Cooperative Enterprise in south-western Uganda, which shows that benefits from agricultural cooperatives can extend beyond monetary tangibles. We discuss several social factors that women members claimed have improved since they became members of the cooperative, including their confidence, their negotiating skills, the ability to be of service to their communities through transferring skills to non-members, and the ability to take control of certain household decisions when dealing with men.

Author: 
Ferguson, Hilary
Author: 
Kepe, Thembela
Page: 
421

No visible difference: a women's empowerment process in a Cambodian NGO

The lives of female Cambodian NGO staff are characterised by the contradictions of apparent freedom and multiple invisible constraints on their behaviour and choices. An empowerment process facilitated by an expatriate did not produce the expected responses of sisterhood and group action. Through a series of workshops, learning emerged about the context-dependent nature of concepts of empowerment, and the irrelevance of many Western models for other cultures.

Author: 
Pearson, Jenny
Page: 
392

Working with children as stakeholders in development: the challenges of organisational change

This article considers the challenges of promoting children's participation in development programming. It argues against the tendency to see the main obstacle to achieving this aim as technical. Instead it explores the institutional dimensions of change that may be required.

Author: 
Hart, Jason
Author: 
Paludan, Marianne Bo
Author: 
Steffen, Lene
Author: 
O'Donoghue, Geoff
Page: 
330

Problematising the community-contribution requirement in participatory projects: evidence from Kyrgyzstan

This article examines the extent to which the World Bank-funded Village Investment Project in Kyrgyzstan promoted empowered participation of citizens in co-financing arrangements. It is based on in-depth qualitative interviews and focus-group sessions in 16 rural communities. The study found that the poor and marginalised did not always have the ability to engage in the processes of consensus building, influencing local decision making, and exercising free choice with regard to the contribution requirement.

Author: 
Babajanian, Babken V.
Page: 
317

Good intentions are not enough: French NGO efforts at democracy building in Cameroon

NGOs have traditionally had little scope to bring about political reform in developing countries. This was certainly true of French development NGOs (NGDOs) operating in Cameroon during the early post-colonial decades. This situation changed in 2002 when French NGDOs, with support from the French state and Cameroonian civil society, initiated a multi-actor consultative programme (the PCPA), aiming to build democracy in Cameroon. This article traces the origins of the PCPA, assesses its achievements, and explains why the programme failed.

Author: 
Cumming, Gordon D.
Page: 
218

The potential of Corporate Social Responsibility to eradicate poverty: an ongoing debate

This article focuses on one of the assumptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR), namely its usefulness as a tool for eradicating poverty. The claims that business and CSR strategies can be effective in fighting poverty face major challenges, in particular the wide divergence of understandings about the notion and implementation of CSR, and the absence of clear understanding of underlying ideological bases concerning business and poverty.

Author: 
Merino, Amparo
Author: 
Valor, Carmen
Page: 
157

Micro-insurance through corporate-NGO partnerships in West Bengal: opportunities and constraints

This Practical Note examines the nascent micro-insurance sector in West Bengal, paying particular attention to the corporate–NGO partnership model for micro-insurance distribution, which has been enabled by India’s unique regulatory framework. We challenge the popular construction of this model as a ‘win–win’ for all parties by analysing conflicting understandings of micro-insurance schemes and their purposes by insurance companies, NGOs, and poor villagers.

Author: 
Véron, René
Author: 
Majumdar, Ananya
Page: 
122

Publishing for social change

This is the text of a talk given at a conference for Publishing for Social Change in Oxford. It explores the effect of literature on political consciousness.

Author: 
Rausing, Sigrid
Page: 
118
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