Rights

Advocacy communication is now a key action term in development discourse. Advocates are usually issue- or programme-oriented and do not often think in terms of an ongoing process of social change in general, or peacebuilding in particular. The resolution of an issue or the initiation of a programme are ends in themselves. Thus, the primary aim of advocacy is to foster public policies that are supportive to the solution of an issue or programme. Since public policies must be viewed as an integral part of development processes, the kind of advocacy we advocate is participatory.

From a food-supply standpoint, the 30 member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – the world's rich club – can reasonably claim to be self-sufficient. Issues of food access are met through publicly funded social safety nets, and, for those who fall through the cracks, the emergency food-aid system, increasingly institutionalised as charitable food banks. Despite its best intentions, charitable food banking is very much a part of the problem of hunger in rich societies.

This article examines the interdependence between corruption, violations of human rights, and conflict in the Niger Delta. It is argued that corruption-induced violations have triggered conflicts that have become cyclical. The article sets out a theoretical context against which to examine the interface between corruption, human-rights violation, and conflict in the Delta, and calls for the integration of the fight against corruption into the peace-building process in the Niger Delta.
 

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.

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.

Fashion, accessories, and homeware fall outside the regulations of Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), which certifies mostly food products. A handful of fashion-led Fair Trade enterprises are now providing ranges of high-quality desirable products, made by workers employed in urban enterprises as well as independent producers in cooperatives. Tabeisa, an NGO involved in Fair Trade retailing, has developed a new regulatory framework which uniquely starts by defining the relations of production between all actors in the chain.

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.

International development work has both reinforced and challenged inequalities related to sexuality and gender. The concept of heteronormativity is a promising frame for understanding these dynamics. This article starts with a description of the history of the concept and an exploration of its possible applications. It goes on to consider heteronormativity in development work, in relation to three areas in which struggles based on sex and gender orders have been most visible: in household models and family forms; HIV/AIDS; and efforts to combat violence against women.
 

Since 1996, CTA-ZM, a local Brazilian NGO, has been developing better ways to understand its work on pro-poor institutional transformation in Minas Gerais. It operates within a ‘messy partnership’ which includes farmer trade unions, associations, social movements, and academic institutions. The combined challenge of institutional transformation and messy partnerships has made it clear that mainstream monitoring is inadequate to trigger the diversity and depth of learning required within concerted action.

This article considers early lessons learned from the inclusion of disabled people, based on socially inclusive principles, in World Vision programming work in Angola, Armenia, Cambodia, and Senegal. Externally led reviews and evaluations conducted between July 2007 and April 2008 drew out seven key lessons. In summary: the substantial effect of stakeholders’ attitudes on practical implementation; the importance of authentic consultation with a range of disabled people; appropriate budgetary considerations; and a need for caution regarding livelihoods work.