Bridging theory and practice. Summer School participants reflect on month of learning and engagement

What happens when a group of Indians, Indonesians, Ugandans and Dutch – as different as can be - are locked up in a classroom for a month to talk about identity, religion, human rights and development? Read how it had an impact on how people think, work and relate to their social and political environment after going back to normal life – one month after the Yogyakarta Summer School.

How I see the Uganda riots

‘My argument is very simple, by virtue of demographic dictates; any development discourse that leaves out the voices of young people is likely to backfire’. Ambrose Kibuuka, linked to the Pluralism Knowledge Programme through the Yogyakarta Summer School, argues for more serious engagement with Ugandan youth.

Inclusive Improvement: Standards and Smallholders

Millions of smallholder families in tropical commodity chains can double their income through improved management (specifically to enhance waste recycling), through better control over green house gas emission (through regular methane production and composting), through decreasing external inputs and through a focus on improving product quality. This book argues that combining sustainable development and poverty reduction is feasible. But it requires efforts of such magnitude that all parties involved must have ample room to fully play and expand their role. Inclusive improvement can be achieved for small-scale producers, by reducing minimum requirements and by focusing on standardizing the process of improvement itself.

First actions of "small holder agency"

The knowledge programme Small Producer Agency in the Globalized Market made the first steps in the formation of its South-based Learning Netwok and the participatory design of its focal themes. Bill Vorley, the IIED chair of our programme, was interviewed by the El Comercio on August in Lima.

Dialogues of Knowledge

In August, the Civil Society Building programme organized a 'Research in Progress' seminar in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. This event brought together representatives of three major movements in the region: the Guatemalan Indigenous People’s movement, the Women’s movement from Nicaragua, and the Costa Rican Movement against CAFTA. The workshop provides a space for sharing and feedback on research progress, before the teams embarked on the last phase of finalizing their research reports, which can be expected before the end of the year.

Excellence and relevance in development research

The Platform MDG Profs, an initiative of Dutch research and higher education associations, councils, funding organisations and Dutch ministries, in cooperation with Hivos, is looking for examples of research which are demonstrably excellent academically as well as relevant to development cooperation.

Knowledge Management for Development Journal

The Knowledge Management for Development Journal is a peer-reviewed, community-based journal on knowledge management for development – for and by development practitioners, researchers and policymakers. The journal recently moved to Routledge and Volume 5 just came out.

Social Care

The processes of economic and social development going on in the era of globalization has led to the exodus from agriculture and village life of many hundred millions of people. While these processes already accelerated in the Western part of the world towards the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the transformation going on in Asia today takes a different shape.

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