News
Claiming Citizenship: rights, participation and responsibility
On the 21st of March, the Institute of Social Studies, Hivos and ICCO will host prof. John Gaventa and dr. Rosemary McGee for a presentation and discussion of the most recent findings in the ZED book series on Claiming Citizenship.
Civic Driven Change
Civic Driven Change is an emerging framework for analysis and promotion of civic action for social change. Originating from a think tank of activists and academics in 2008, Civic Driven Change has attracted widespread international attention. But what exactly has it got on offer for practitioners and policy makers?
New! ISS Debate Series: Target 2020
New economic powers are emerging, development cooperation is under fierce critique from many corners, and the international development community wonders what to focus on after the MDGs. In a series of debates ISS will continue its public debate on development cooperation, following the WRR debate of 2010. The following questions are tackled: Who are these new international players in development and how will they change the field of development? Will development aid be replaced by...
Citizenship participation: what difference does it make?
Quicksand is a central feature of the evidence base underneath qualitative development approaches. Citizen participation is a case in point. Since the mid nineties of the last century, citizen participation has become widely accepted as a strategy for improving governance processes and for attaining development objectives such as improved governance, democratization and the millennium development goals. To date however, its impact has proven difficult to assess. Does citizenship participation...
Dissident Voices: Dev-Blogs
Development workers and academics are usually quite vocal people who have opinions about their work field, regarding strategies, happenings, politics, policies and the lot. However they can not always be critical through official channels as their institutions have interests and ideologies to defend. Also, sometimes they just have things to say that do not necessarily feed into development work or thinking, but express their personal interests, dilemmas and insights. For them, the blogosphere...
Debating Civil Society Building Dilemmas from a Southern Perspective
Civil Society Building continues to figure prominently in the development policy realm, and so too does its northern bias. Through the MA-research grants, the Hivos-ISS Civil Society Knowledge programme enables researchers and civil society organizations from the South to develop and share their views on key issues in the Civil Society Debate.
Open Access Publication: Participation for What?
Hereby we present you the digital version of the book: "Participation For What, Social Change or Social Control?". The publication is special, both content-wise and process-wise, as it is entirely produced by (alumni and present) ISS PhD students, and Open Acces available. The book contains seven articles that were carefully selected out of the contributions for the Development Dialogue, which was held at ISS in 2008. All the articles question participatory processes and practices i...
Seminar: Mining in Paradise?
Large-scale mining and oil extraction by transnational companies have expanded enormously under the current neo-liberal government in Peru. Many of these extraction projects have had a negative impact on local communities and the environment and have generated social, economical and political conflicts.
New Video: Women's Movement in Nicaragua
The women’s movement and the struggle for their rights in Nicaragua, 1998 – 2008 From 2008-2010, Hivos and ISS facilitated a research programme to analyze Nicaragua’s women’s movement and the strategies developed during the last ten years to defend and extend women’s rights. This tier of the knowledge programme involved academics, practitioners and activists from Hivos, ISS, Movimiento Autonomo de Mujeres and Centro de Investigacion de la Comunicacion.
New Video: Talking Knowledge?
The Hivos-ISS Civil Society Building Knowledge Programme aims at a better understanding of civil society dynamics in order to facilitate changes in the unequal balance of power in favour of vulnerable and marginalized groups. But how useful is this effort? And who benefits from it in practice? We asked our colleagues, researchers and activists at seminars, meetings and forums how they have experienced their participation in this Knowledge Programme. Watch the video (with both English and Span...