Online forum on ' Religion, Gender and Politics'

Religion is playing an increasing role in public life across the globe. Polarization and struggles over values seem to have come along. Pluralism Programme associates share their findings on the resurgence of religion in the public sphere and its effect on human rights with researchers and practitioners from AWID, UNRISD and the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Join the debate on openDemocracy.net!

Launch LANDac

LANDac is the IS Academy on Land Governance for Equitable and Sustainable Development and aims at bringing together researchers, policy makers and development practitioners in the field of land governance and development. LANDac is a partnership between several Dutch organisations and their Southern partners involved in development-related research, policy and practise. The partners share a concern for increasing land inequality and new land-related conflicts. How can land governance – rules and practices on access to land – be used to promote equitable and sustainable development in the Global South?

Video Changing perspectives in Latin America

Today, more than ever, after the food crisis of 2007 - 2008, governments and private sector are showing greater interest in agriculture and food supply for a fast growing and more urban world population. Today small scale farmers are facing great challenges. This video is a contribution for the debate by: IIED, Hivos and Mainumby.

Struggle over "killer law" by the Women’s Movement in Nicaragua

In February 2010 Nicaragua made the international news headlines for refusing cancer-treatment to 27-year old pregnant “Amalia”. For Amalia, who is also mother of a 10-year old, the treatment would be potentially life-saving but the current Nicaraguan law is placing doctors at risk of prosecution in providing cancer treatment to Amalia as it may harm the fetus.

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 provisions in India for workers in India's informal economy.

Indonesia: annul religious defamation law

Pluralism Knowledge Programma partner CRCS recommends the Indonesian Constitutional Court to abolish the 1965 law on defamation of religion. The law is still effectively used today to discriminate certain religious groups. Furthermore it is found to be in contradiction with the Constitution. However, most mainstream religious organisations defend the law. CRCS presents its arguments on exploring alternative instruments to deal with religious diversity and potential conflicts.

Iranian Green Movement as Civil Society and Nation Building Movement

The point of departure of this article is that a shift in the balance of political power has occurred in Iran since the June 2009 presidential election. In fact, the effort of the Iranian neo-conservatives to take advantage of the 2009 election to emerge as the undisputed political force in the ruling power structure led ironically to the shrinkage of the social base of the ruling conservative political camp, on the one hand, and the emergence of a vociferous opposition force, on the other. By the emergence of an opposition force, we do not mean the formation of a single political group or front with specific partisan agenda, but the spontaneous eruption of a social movement, known as the Green Movement, which has rallied a variety of social groups across political persuasions, social classes, religious beliefs and ethnic belongings, and which claims to represent the Iranian nation. As a supporter of Green Movement puts it, this movement, both qualitatively and quantitatively, is the greatest movement of ‘nation-building’ in Iran’s modern history.

Innovative Thinkers and Practitioners Looking Ahead

Farmer leaders, agribusiness entrepreneurs, researchers, nongovernmental organisations from across the world gathered near Geneva from the April 26- 29 to convene a new Learning Network on small-scale farmers, markets and globalisation. After four intensive working days in Geneva the Learning Network (LN) agreed on the main topics that they will work on over the next eighteen months. As the central pillar of the Knowledge Programme, the sixteen members of the LN discussed the dilemmas that small-scale producers are facing in the context of globalisation and looked forward over the next 10-20 years to the knowledge gaps that must be addressed in order for small scale producers to position themselves and informed choices.

Summerschool LANDac

This course is part of the IS-Academy on Land Governance, a partnership of IDS (UU), the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and several other knowledge institutions (ASC Leiden, CDS Wageningen, KIT Amsterdam) and NGOs (Agriterra, HIVOS) and the private sector (Triodos Facet). The IS-academy conducts research and training on how land governance may contribute to equitable and sustainable development in line with the Millennium Development Goals.

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 thinking. They searched for visions for alternative forms of economies, as well as new frameworks for sustainable human development.

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