Launch Publication Beyond Orthodox Approaches

Within the framework of Knowledge Programme Civil Society in West Asia, Hivos in collaboration with NIMD ad University of Amsterdam, will launch on 26 March 2010 the policy paper ‘Beyond Orthodox Approaches, Assessing Opportunities for Democratic Support in the Middle East and North Africa. The launch will take place at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This publication aims to explore what role - if any - external organisations, such as Hivos and NIMD, can play to further demo...

Book on Value Chain Finance

In large parts of the world, small-scale farmers, traders and processors are constrained in their business operations due to a lack of finance. Farmers want to be paid immediately, but traders do not have the ready cash to buy their produce. Traders need working capital so they can buy and transport produce, but lack the collateral to get loans. Processors cannot get the money they need to buy equipment or ensure a steady supply of inputs.

Uganda Riots Revisited.

Violent confrontations rocked Kampala in September 2009. This interview with knowledge programme coordinators Emily Drani and John De Coninck sheds light on the background of the unrest and its possible implications for the work of the pluralism knowledge programme in Uganda.

Instruments for Promoting Pluralism

Pro-pluralism activists in Indonesia tend to be too elitist and limit themselves to intellectual discussions, Farid Wajidi argues. In this working paper, he suggests that the pluralism movement needs to develop new strategies that could also reach common people, youth in particular. As an example, he describes the efforts of the NGO LKiS to create youth communities where high school students can personally experience pluralism instead of only talking about it.

The Hidden Dimension of the Secular.

Humanists should reconsider their often anti-religious stance, argue Henk Manschot and Caroline Suransky, researchers of the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme at the University for Humanistics. There is a special relationship between modernity, secularism and humanism. However, the project of modernity has increasingly come under siege. Therefore, modern humanism too is challenged to rethink its own relationship with modernity and secularism.

Rethinking the Secular

Religious difference has been posited as a crucial factor in international conflicts and increasingly challenges existing political settlements that define the relationship between the state and religion. Considering the ways in which politics and religion currently intersect one may argue that religion has become an increasingly important consideration in global politics. In this paper, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im discusses his ideas on Islam and the secular state as presented during the Plura...

Framing and Claiming Reproductive Rights: A Case Study of Civil Society Actors in Tanzania

How do grassroots organizations engage with, understand and use human rights discourses? In the current development context many civil society actors have adopted a ‘rights based approach’ (RBA). However, ‘human rights’ are often articulated at the international level, but understood, experienced and practiced in a local context. What does this dynamic imply for the way local civil society actors lobby the state to implement global human rights at a national policy level?

Seizing and Stretching Participatory Space: Civil Society Participation in Tanzania’s Policy Processes

Civil society participation in PRSP processes has become part and parcel of modern aid modities. Assumed benefits include stronger checks and balances, inclusion of marginalized interests, and a broader support base for implementation. This hints at transformative potential. Yet, where governments or donors drive the process, participation hardly ever surpasses a mere consultative role and risks of cooption loom large.

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.