Home Themes
The Knowledge Programme consists of an overarching programme and five thematic programmes. The five themes are Civil Society Building, Promoting Pluralism, Civil Society in West Asia, Small Holders Agency in the Globalized Market and Digital Natives with a Cause. These programmes are detailed below. You can also directly link to the different programme websites. The overarching programme is aimed at integrating the different thematic approached as well as stimulating academic-practitioner collaborations and knowledge management strateies. For these details see projects.
Themes
Civil Society Building
The Hivos-ISS Knowledge Programme on Civil Society Building (CSB) is an academic-practitioner cooperation to strengthen Civil Society Building efforts. It involves knowledge development, dissemination and application on CSB and aims to contribute to the wider debate on how to best strengthen civil society to empower the most margianalized groups in society, such as people with HIV/Aids, women and indigenous people. The programme focuses on Southern Africa and Central America but also include...
Promoting Pluralism
The Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme is an academic-practitioner collaboration that focuses on understanding pluralism in relation to fundamentalism. The programme will generate knowledge about different forms of fundamentalism and how this affects diversity in society. Bringing together academics and practioners around the issue of pluralism, the programme aims to develop civil society based strategies to increase spaces for pluralism in practice.
Small Producer Agency
Three-quarters of the world’s 1.2 billion poor people live in rural areas. Many are small-scale producers who depend on agriculture and natural resources for their livelihoods. International markets have been seen as a way out of poverty and food insecurity for small-scale producers. These markets comprise traditional food and fibre commodities, but also new markets for quality products, biodiversity conservation, and mitigation of climate change. Increasing volatility and stringent requir...
Civil Society in West Asia
In July 2008, Hivos and the University of Amsterdam initiated the Knowledge Programme Civil Society in West Asia (Syria and Iran).The core component of the collaboration centres around creating interaction between researchers and practitioners through theoretical and practical research aims at developing, disseminating, integrating and applying knowledge on civic engagement in West Asia (Syria and Iran).
Digital Natives with a Cause
The core element of the programme is to try to understand how citizen agency can be stimulated and power balances challenged by looking at these issues from the combined perspectives of technology, youth and engagement.
Themes
Civil Society Building programme aims to better understand and improve the contribution of CSB efforts to bring about changes in the unequal balance of power in favour of vulnerable and marginalised groups. The Promoting Pluralism programme has been initiated after several years of Hivos’ partners voicing concern about various forms of fundamentalism inhibiting their work. What are the roles and opportunities for civil society organizations in closed societies? The aim of the Civil Socie...Civic Driven Change
If states, markets and NGOs fail to bring about change and social justice, then who will? Can citizens come up with new perspectives on social change? Are civic driven changes a potential solution to global political problems? They might. In fact they are... The CDC initiative supported by some of the largest development and peace organizations in the Netherlands started from a conviction that the mix and nature of today’s global problems requires a wider range of solutions than those c...
Post-conflict Participation
This project delves into the possibilities for civil society participation in post-conflict settings. It focuses on forms of civic engagement and mechanisms that facilitate interactions between local level state institutions and social actors in the specific context of a post-conflict situation. It concentrates on how violent conflict has affected different forms of social organisation. It will single out the crucial social-political factors for engagement, and the characteristics of state i...
Inclusive Improvement
HIVOS is trying to achieve poverty reduction through quality improvement among groups of smallholders in coffee and vegetable production in Kenya and South Africa. These smallholders depend on markets for their livelihood. Main buyers in these markets increasingly demand compliance with a variety of standards. Therefore, in order to avoid being squeezed out of these markets, groups of smallholders need to respond to these demands. Our report analyses the daunting challenges for smallholders,...
Knowledge Management
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