The purpose of this article is to analyze the interactions between water, energy, and food security, referenced in this study as the nexus between water, energy, and food, and the impacts of global ...risks using the World Economic Forum's, 2017 Global Risks Report as a guideline. In this analysis, the authors reveal that water, energy, and food are interdependent and essential resources demanding sustainable, integrated and intelligent management. These vital resources are susceptible to many global risks which are maximized by extreme weather events, mass involuntary human migrations, and other hazards that predominantly endanger the vulnerable communities of less developed countries. In conclusion, policies carried out by the international community, decision-makers, civil society, and the private sector, must align to target and mitigate global risks, specifically, water, energy and food security.
Are organizational projects for refugee and migrant inclusion always trapped with the logic of exclusion and inequality that they seek to dismantle? Existing literature on critical diversity and ...inclusion studies has demonstrated how the “doing” of inclusion in organizations tends to come with paradoxical effects: well-intended efforts to include migrants and refugees construct them as vulnerable, non-autonomous subjects who need help, within a hierarchical order that is taken for granted. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article explores how three civil society organizations (CSOs) navigate these paradoxical effects and the unduly constraining power relations involved through practices that we theorize as counter-conduct against the pastoral government of a national refugee and migrant integration regime. The analysis identifies three practices of counter-conduct through which organizations “do inclusion differently”: contesting constraining categorizations, problematizing hierarchical power relations, and questioning the assimilationist goals and principles of the integration regime. We argue that through continuous critique and renegotiation of the ways in which boundaries of inclusion/exclusion are drawn within the integration regime, organizations work toward conditions in which power relations remain fluid and allow for strategies to alter them.
...the Commission is somewhat inconsistent regarding the effect of political instability and conflict in the region, stating initially that SSA is in a period of strong economic growth and political ...stability, but then later briefly acknowledging the effect of conflict on cancer services. ...since South Sudan has no oncology facilities, cancer cases from that nation are referred to Sudan, thereby putting additional pressure on Sudan's cancer system. ...non-governmental organisations must be involved as key stakeholders in planning cancer control policy and programmes, including in the development and implementation of national cancer control plans.
The Changing Space for NGOs Toepler, Stefan; Zimmer, Annette; Fröhlich, Christian ...
Voluntas (Manchester, England),
08/2020, Letnik:
31, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In this introductory essay to the special issue on civil society in authoritarian and hybrid regimes, we review core themes in the growing literature on shrinking or closing space for civil society. ...We discuss the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) as agents of democratization and note the emergence of dual, at times apparently conflicting policy postures within authoritarian regimes (restriction and repression for some CSOs vs. financial support and opportunities for collaboration for others). We posit that different conceptual perspectives applied to civil society can help account for the duality of authoritarian postures and examine repercussions for three key subgroups of CSOs: claims-making (or advocacy) NGOs, nonprofit service providers and regime-loyal NGOs supporting often populist and nationalist discourses.
Amidst a global wave of democratic regression, civil society has often been the last line of defence against campaigns to undermine liberal rights and freedoms. In many cases, society activists have ...been able to mitigate, or even arrest, anti-democratic initiatives launched by political elites with a host of vested interests. But some countries have recently seen a weakening of this democracy defence potential embedded in civil society. Using Indonesia - the world's third largest democracy - as a case study, this article shows how escalating polarization can split civil society along primordial and ideological lines, eroding its ability to offer a united pro-democracy front. In the Indonesian case, the executive also used this polarization to justify increasingly illiberal measures. In combination, polarization and increased executive illiberalism have reduced Indonesian civil society's activist resources, accelerating the country's democratic backsliding in the process.
The PPR FIF could pave the way for such changes.6 A narrative that explains this strategy to governments and their taxpayers is also required.7 In our view, the most coherent approach that addresses ...these demands is the concept of global public investment (GPI).8 GPI is an innovative approach to international public finance, whereby all countries contribute, benefit, and make decisions on equal terms.9,10 Within a GPI framework, all countries contribute according to a proportional formula and are empowered as decision makers through well designed constituencies that are based on key criteria such as income level. ...since contributions would be tied to rules on debt and fiscal capacity, GPI would avoid aggravating indebtedness and contribute to sustainable funding that focuses on the longer term needs of countries and communities. (World Map Courtesy of NASA: https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=55167) World Map Courtesy of NASA: https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=55167/imaginima/Getty Images SR-H is the Director of the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen Mary University of London, Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, and a co-founder of the Global Public Investment movement.
A liberal-democratic society (from a political theory perspective) is self-governing in the sense that people, through their directly elected representatives, exercise sovereignty and decision-making ...authority. Through this process, elected officials should have the power and the responsibility to decide all policy matters. In the real world, however, this is not so easy since public policy is made by bureaucrats and not by elected officials. With the birth of the Welfare State, in fact, the question of how much control representatives elected by citizens should exercise over the Public Administration (PA) has become a topic of relevance. The presence of permanent officials in relevant administrative roles corrects some of the major shortcomings of democratic governance and contributes significantly to the success and stability of liberal democratic States. It is therefore necessary to begin a reflection that can give relevance to the normative dimension of the executive power with a deontological analysis on the role of the civil servant/public official. This paper aims to underline the importance of PA in a liberal-democratic political system and explain which are the limits of democratic legitimacy for public officials fulfilling their functions. In addition to this, an alternative approach will be proposed. A vocational model of accountability based on the neutrality of the public function and on a set of liberal values (efficiency, liberty and equality) as a healthy corrective to populism and illiberal democracies and an alternative to the democratic legitimacy.
This contribution aimed to examine the critical issues related to the export of cybersurveillance technologies by some European Union companies to Myanmar, a country with a history of instability and ...geopolitical tensions that have been exacerbated since the military coup of 2021. Non-governmental organizations operating in the country, in addition to humanitarian and development assistance, play a crucial role in the evolution of civil society, and, also thanks to some of them, it has been possible to find out some irregularities in the export of dual-use goods that may cause social impacts and infringe on the freedoms of Burmese civil society. Through a qualitative analysis of the literature, the main EU regulations, and related NGOs documents, the research uncovered some regulatory loopholes that allowed such exports while examining the practices of some European companies in Burma. The work carried out confirmed the need for stricter regulation: in this sense, the European Commission’s recent Delegated Regulation 2023/66 aims to ensure more effective control over this type of export by preventing the misuse of surveillance technology and promoting greater accountability of companies operating in authoritarian contexts.
Abstract
This review essay considers Jack Snyder’s Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times and explores the book’s key implications for human rights practitioners and their ...organizations.
Community development has many meanings. The strength of this conceptual openness is that it creates space for communities and their knowledges, values and interests. Its weakness is that, without ...general agreement on the nature of community development, the concept is applied inconsistently and becomes a "buzzword" which is high on application, yet low on meaning. This paper presents an analysis of community development as an essentially contested concept, highlighting descriptive and normative aspects of meanings and the role of context. It concludes with a range of actions that may assist in working through tensions between general definitions and conceptual openness.
