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.

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. This publication aims to explore what role - if any - external organisations, such as Hivos and NIMD, can play to further democratisation in the region. Hivos and NIMD are fully aware that the political s...

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.

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 provision...

Imitation of the West'? Civil society in the Arab world

On Thursday 28 January 2010, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi declared in a televised address to the General People's Congress that the idea of civil society "is a bourgeois culture and an imitation of the West that has no place here [in Libya]" . Gaddafi's statement last week drew particular media attention because it came on the eve of a proposal due to be announced by his son, Saif al-Islam, which would have permitted the creation of NGOs. Gaddafi's comments were grounded in Lib...

Claims to Success: ICT based Advocacy for the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa

How can the internet be used to promote the advocacy efforts by civil society organizations? In this paper, Karoline Kemp reflects on this question by examining the Solidarity for Women’s Rights Coalition (SOAWR) and their work towards promoting the Protocol for Women’s rights in Africa. The African Union adopted this protocol in 2005, but to date the ratification, popularization and implementation by member-states has been a slow process. SOAWR been instrumental in civic efforts to promote...

Human rights NGOs have to think more strategically

Do NGOs and other civic actors undertake the most effective measures to hold governments accountable to their international obligations to protect human rights, and in particular to protect vulnerable populations? Jeff Handmaker, ISS lecturer and member of the Hivos/ISS Civil Society Building Knowledge Programme team, explores this question in the book ''Advocating for Accountability, civic-state interactions to Protect Refugees in South Africa". The work of human rights organizations i...

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.