Presentations and Notes on the workshop Microfinance at Risk

The workshop aimed to asses and discuss the impact of global crises on microfinance institutions.The panel consisting of Reynaldo Marconi, FOROLAC FR, Frank Streppel, Triodos Investment Management, Johan Bastiaensen, University of Antwerp and Harry Clemens (Hivos) discussed the impact of the financial crisis, economic crisis, and in context of development in the South: food crisis. Read the notes and the presentations. A paper by Reynaldo Marconi adressing the main theme will soon be publish...

Call for short essays

The developmental challenges facing the world are daunting. Extreme poverty and social exclusion persist at scale while socio-economic inequality and fundamentalism are even on the increase. Because of these and other dilemmas we are confronted with ever more questions. New knowledge on the changing terrain of development and social change are needed to get more insight into these dilemmas. But can knowledge also trigger change? If so, how? Is it about bridging the gap between research and p...

Announcement Hivos Knowledge Programme Dialogue

Over the last four years, Hivos together with its academic and civil society partners have explored the potential of academic-practitioner collaboration in five thematic knowledge programmes. This conference is organized to contribute to the debate on knowledge and change by sharing and discussing some of the emerging insights from our experiences.

The social question, who cares?

While the Shining India operation in the preceding years had increased the wellbeing of the already better-off, the United Progressive Alliance committed itself to ensure ‘the welfare and well-being of all workers, particularly those in the unorganised sector, who constitute more than 93% of our workforce'. A National Commission set up in September 2004 reviewed the status of the unorganised/ínformal sector in India. The Commission — chaired by Arjun Sengupta and with only two members (K.P....

Final Report of ‘Beyond Economics’

The final report of the three launches of Development 52.3 ‘Beyond Economics’ is now available. In 2009‐2010 the Society for International Development (SID), in partnership with the Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries (Hivos), responded to the financial crisis through a special issue of the SID journal Development on ‘Beyond Economics’, and three consecutive launches on three continents. The conversations focused on the critique of mainstream neo‐classical economic t...

Policy brief Gender Mainstreaming

Almost 15 years ago, governments committed themselves to achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995). This was to be realised through gender mainstreaming. Fifteen years later, the results of gender mainstreaming seem to be disappointing. However, a comprehensive and systematic study on the possible causes of andsolutions for this limited success was lacking. This Policy Brief aims to shed light on the current gender mains...

Iran: An (almost) revolutionary situation

The post-election revolt of June 12 in Iran created a `revolutionary’ potential for confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Almost all authoritarian electoral regimes ultimately produce several crises, like the lack of elite cohesion, crisis of ideological legitimacy, and inability to manage and control the country’s affairs.

New project on Social Security in India

The Long Road to Social Security: Assessing and Monitoring the Implementation of Social Security for the Working Poor in India's Informal Economy is a knowledge project on social security provisions for workers in the informal sector of the economy in India. This project is a cooperation between the Amsterdam School for Social science Research, the Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum, India, and Hivos. The project focuses on monitoring the implementation of minimal welfare provision...

Biodiversity, Livelihoods and Poverty Policy Brief

The complexities of the new food and ecological crises call for new approaches to development assistance, those that go beyond traditional technical or financial help. Assistance to small-scale producers should address social, ecological and socio-economic issues and look at both rights and skills, preferably in an integrated, holistic approach. Policy interventions based on this approach would involve grassroots civil society organisations (CSOs) – notably farmers’, small-scale producers’ a...

Biodiversity, Livelihoods and Poverty Publication

‘Biodiversity conservation’ to many conjures up an image of a wildlife reserve, in which rare species and fragile ecosystems are protected from human interference. While this approach has merit and is undoubtedly necessary in some situations, there are many more cases where biodiversity may be used in a sustainable way to support livelihoods, conferring benefits on both the ecosystem itself and the communities who live there.