Column by Shobha Raghuram - Valuing Development Knowledges

Knowledges about development present to the publics unique multidimensional theories and narratives about the struggles of people world over to attain social justice, to set right the inequalities, and, resolve the contradictions that beset our lives. These knowledges underscore the inseparability of precepts and practices. Paul Hoebink and Alan Fowler raise foundational issues about development work, development aid and the politics of being faithful to one’s mission. I continue here the dialogue with some existential impressions. Is it knowledge that is the compass or is it action that is the guiding compass? It is both, and both inextricably need to be woven as one compass... Do we want to sound politically correct or do we want to build on the real with the imagination of that future? How can we make this workable, for who and why? These are the questions we want to ask ourselves as development workers. Shedding the myths, developing the uncompromising ability and the will to see and speak the truth, nurturing the political instinct to know what will be the challenges both at the grassroots and in the macro-context, sharpening the sense of strategising to get to where we need to be, as soon as we can, and, as accountably as we can...for me all this and more is at the heart of development.

Iranian Civil Society Speaks - Elections turning into a Quiet Revolution

"Where is my vote?"; "I want my vote back" are slogans from Tehran streets with which we have been familiarised over the past few days. What is the role of the Iranian civil society in the current protests against election results? Read the report prepared within the framework of the Knowledge Programme Civil Society in West Asia.

State must be secular so that society can be religious

In many parts of the world religion is on an upsurge. Religious revivalism and emergent forms of fundamentalisms challenge the capacity of the state to deal with religious diversity. The Hivos-Kosmopolis conference 'Rethinking secularism' (25-26 May, Utrecht, NL) brought together academics, activists, legal experts and policy makers from various parts of the world to debate the future of secularism. Among them: Sudanese thinker and activist Abdullahi An-Na'im and Justice Aftab Alam, sitting judge of the Supreme Court of India.

New research: The LGBT movement in Peru

What are the dynamics of the Peruvian LGBT movement and what has been the influence of national and international actors in its functioning? This is the main question that Marten van den Berge, hosted by the Programme for Democracy and Global Transformation (PDGT) in Lima, will explore in the next 9 months.

Civic Driven Change – Emerging narrative, new practice?

Hivos has been part of the core group of Dutch private aid agencies that drive the emerging narrative of civic driven change. In October 2008, a first seminar explored the theoretical framework of CDC. Last week, ISS hosted a follow up seminar to explore the practice of CDC by examining a number of civic driven change case studies. In the words of Alan Fowler: ‘cdc needs to be bashed and questioned, in order to gain more robustness’ A lively series of debates followed. Civic Driven Change touches the key questions of the Civil Society Building Knowledge Programme and injects new perspectives and questions.

ICT & Citizens Agency

Since the late 1990s, the prospect of using ICT (Information Communication Technologies) to improve accountability, transparency, access to information, and monitoring authorities has attracted general optimism. However, early hopes that e-initiatives would be the panacea of all the problems have given way to more modest claims. An aspect that has not received much attention so far is the use of ICT in support to citizen agency; to involve and inform communities and interact with and influence authorities. There are quite a few examples of successful smaller projects in this realm, also in developing countries. But new emerging technologies (e.g. mobile phones) create new momentum for strengthening citizen agency at larger scale. This paper focuses on the how ICT is already being used for this, and where the possibilities for the future lie.

Pressure-cooking for progress

Knowledge is needed to effectively serve poor and marginalised groups by making grounded choices for strategies and projects, and to timely adapt to change. How can development organisations acquire this knowledge? Hire more consultants? Go to the university? Development organisations need to build their own knowledge base and their own strategies to make this base grow. Development organisations need more tools and interactions to drive their own, practice-based forms of learning. A key element of such learning is that the organisation’s own experiences need to be confronted and blended with those of their peers and with academic knowledge.

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