Topics Worldwide
Provocation Seminar Series: Report of the third Provocation
The third Provocation was held in Paris, France on 30 March 2011 in association with hosting partners Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) and Institut de Recherches et d Ápplications des Méthodes de developpement (IRAM).The Provocation was the third in a series of six being initiated by the IIED/Hivos Knowledge Programme: Small Producer Agency in globalised markets. The first was held in The Hague, Netherlands on 28 September 2010 on the topic Producer Agency and the agenda to “make ma...
Second Global Learning Network meeting April 2011
The second Global Learning Network meeting will take place from 4 th to 8 th April in Fort Portal, hosted by the Kabarole Research and Resource Centre (KRC), Uganda. Much has happened since the Learning Network last met in Geneva in April 2010 ( http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G02736.pdf ). The turbulence in the food and agriculture sector has gained particular attention from global leaders and dominates international agendas.› read more...
Tags: Worldwide, Small Producers Agency
Date: 4 April until 8 April 2011 Location: Ford Portal, Uganda
Tags: Worldwide, Small Producers Agency
Date: 4 April until 8 April 2011 Location: Ford Portal, Uganda
'Source it local'
Local sourcing is becoming an emerging way of doing business. Companies based in developing countries are sourcing from small scale producers and targeting the domestic market. Local sourcing is a business opportunity for companies who want to include sustainability, reduce costs by substituting imports, and at the same time supporting the local economy.› read more...
Tags: Worldwide, Small Producers Agency
Date: 20 April : Location: KIT Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam
Tags: Worldwide, Small Producers Agency
Date: 20 April : Location: KIT Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam
'Source it local'
Local sourcing is becoming an emerging way of doing business. Companies based in developing countries are sourcing from small scale producers and targeting the domestic market. Local sourcing is a business opportunity for companies who want to include sustainability, reduce costs by substituting imports, and at the same time supporting the local economy.
Second Global Learning Network meeting April 2011
The second Global Learning Network meeting will take place from 4th to 8th April in Fort Portal, hosted by the Kabarole Research and Resource Centre (KRC), Uganda.Much has happened since the Learning Network last met in Geneva in April 2010 (http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G02736.pdf ). The turbulence in the food and agriculture sector has gained particular attention from global leaders and dominates international agendas.
Citizen action matters!
Citizen engagement matters! That’s the three word conclusion from 10 years of research by the IDS Citizenship development research centre. Word of warning: Citizen action also sometimes backfires. Yet, the evidence from more than 150 case studies overwhelmingly demonstrates how citizen action makes a difference in processes on democratic development. Interestingly, the findings do not hold for stable contexts but also in fragile settings, topic for discussion in the remainder of this blog.
Digital Rights Blogathon
Last week, in light of the human rights celebration in South Africa, digital natives from different parts of the world have given use their view on the digital rights that need to be ensured in 20, 30 or even 50 years time. In this Blogathon they were asked to reflect on what should be right in the digital age.
The right to lurk
The right to lurk. Here we go blogathon: my right of the digital age is the right to lurk. I was reluctant to write this post, because I have been so busy lately that I didn't even imagine having the mental capacity to think of a right. But the right to lurk: that put me right back here. For Fieke writes eloquently about the right to unplug and Nishant about the right to be many, and I couldn't but nod my head silently (and get slowly dragged into thoughts of rights).
Maybe we have lost the right to not-know.
Therefore, we empower our right to information. This is the digital age. The world is one village.
I believe that free music should be a right in the digital age
It’s a dicey subject. Napster dealt with it and we all watched to see what would happen to our freedom to access the music we loved. And when it was over we were left in the rubble of copyright issues, intellectual property debates and a growing mechanism of workarounds. The internet is a sub world, still young, where people practice their most basic animal right of open access…to all…for everything. Even if it cannibalizes on the people who made ‘everything’ exist in the first place.
And who said that Gender does not matter in social Change?
“We are tired of hearing about Gender, What’s wrong with you Women?” These are some of the words that many people echo when you mention GENDER. As if gender means WOMEN!!
The right to be many
One of the fundamental units of any right based discourse, is the individual. The universe of rights revolves around the unquestioned idea of how each one of us is a single person. Sure we are allowed to have different personalities (if you have too many of them, you are also allowed to be commited in an asylum) and we are allowed to have different identities (Sexual, Religious, Political etc.). However, the person, the individual, the citizen, remains a singular, corporeal body that can be i...
The right to be read and heard by anyone
I like to be really optimistic and assume that huge progressive world-wide movements in this decade will successfully fight for net neutrality and the right for every person in the world to have access to the Internet. Having overcome that battle, the next challenge would be to promote the right for everyone to be read and heard over the Internet despite all language barriers and, thus, also enforce the technological mechanisms that allow that to happen.
New articleRights in the Digital Age: Freedom of Access
Think about this: we talk about digital natives and rights, flying to the moon and back, space-age technology and what not, but the problem still remains that a majority of us do not have access to technologies that connect us with ‘that’ digital world.
There's more to Digital Literacy than just mere skills - The right to digital literacy
I believe that Digital Literacy should be a right in the digital age. Digital Literacy, as perceived by many, scopes the basics of how to use different technologies and digital tools but I would argue that this is just the tip of the iceberg. I believe that the ‘digital’ is a mindset and not necessarily a thing. I base this belief on the fact that the ‘digital’ has changed the way we perceive things, the way we carry out different tasks and processes and to a large extent, the way w...
It's the Bandwidth
As someone who grew up breathing technology, my mind and fingers shoot up with rage faster than a dial-up connection loading Google's homepage whenever I find myself disconnected. And those YouTube videos that "isn't available in your country"? *nerve throbbing*
I believe that we have the right to hack.
Hackers? sounds like a bad term nowadays thanks to hollywood movies and the computer criminal myth, in general culture hackers are people who can get into your computer, steal information, get your bank acounts put you viruses and more evil stuff. But it was not always this way. The term comes from train modeling at MIT, they coined the term hackers to themself to identify the people that modified and tweaked the trains for better performance or appeal. Later on the term passed to the c...
Sharing is caring (The right to share)
I believe that sharing should be a right in the digital age because as human beings, we are entitled to share. We like to share our opinions, our work, to share questions and even complaints. It is a natural response, an impulse, you may think. This kind of exchange endorses our communication process. The digital age multiplies our possibilities of sharing with others; internet is certainly a good tool for this purpose.
I believe... (come to you, inside you)
At the recent Oscar Awards ceremony, a movie called The Social Network was racing to be the best picture of the year. About this film’ representation, Wikipedia says: “As of January 2011, Facebook has more than 600 million active users… According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account.” If you see these numbers, you probably think: “now, everyone gets involved inside internet… perhaps, all we are the social ne...
Women access to New ICT should be a right
New Information technologies have caused the world to change at a very fast rate than ever imagined before, say 30 years ago. The development has managed to make men develop and conquer the world in a manner never thought possible.In Africa and most third world countries, technology has become a boon for male advancement. Networking, business success, education and even fun have been redefined. These developments have unfortunately created and increased the knowledge and development gap betwe...
I believe being able to choose one's identity is a right
I believe that “being able to choose one’s identity” is a right in the digital age. This right relates to the idea that the internet can act as a window into worlds we could not have otherwise accessed. Many factors influence one’s identity, I like to think of identity as a complex system, the emergent property is the feeling of a unified experience of being “me”, yet the multiple variables are my culture, language, life experiences and so on. The internet allows us to play around with s...
The right to unplug!
I believe that the right to unplug should be a right in the digital age. Last week I was talking to some of my colleagues outside the ICT and Media team about Twitter. The international news attention on the ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ revolutions showed the digital media sceptic in them that Twitter can be more then just a tool to let the world now what you had for breakfast. However, the thought that they would have to use it and constantly keep up with this unstoppable stream of information a...
Blogathon
Rights have been on everyone's agenda lately. From the political revolutions that shook the Middle East and North Africa which sustained their motivation through an universal appeal to them, to questions of privacy, openness and access to information in the post-wikileaks world, human rights as a political, social and developmental framework for discussion is very much active. We want to get your opinions on the subject, in a cre...ative way: On March 21st, on the occasion of the Human righ...Does Big Philantropy Undermine Democratic Development?
On 3 March, Michael Edwards kickstarted our second Target 2020 debate by an inspiring talk on the role of philantropy in democratic development. Michael Edwards, former Ford-Foundation director, recently wrote 'Small Change, Why Business Won't Save the World'. In his presentation, he questioned whether the private sector, and its philantropic foundations, can play a positive role in democratic processes in developing countries. His main argument centred around notions of impact and accountabi...
Value Chain Financing, a concept of consequence
I lived for some time among the farmers in the uplands of the Philippines. Most of them grew hybrid maize, destined for the pig industry around Manila. A major feature of dally life was the constant indebtedness of the farmers with the local traders that supplied the farmers with credits for the seeds and fertilizer, in return for a high interest rate and obligatory delivery of the whole yield to the trader. Some farmers were trying to escape from the debt trap by returning to white maize, a...