Topics Knowledge Platform
Civil Society Building
Promoting Pluralism
Small Producers Agency
Civil Society in West Asia
Digital Natives
Knowledge Management
Post-Conflict Participation
Urgency Required
Middle Eastern Perspectives on the Revolutions
The Arab uprisings have surprised and stunned almost everyone in the world, including the revolutionaries themselves. The conventional wisdom until January 14th - the day of the fall of Ben Ali - both in the region and beyond - was that Arab autocrats are ‘here to stay’ and the region is doomed to be governed by authoritarian regimes. Yet ‘missions impossible’ have turned out to be possible: the power of the people ousted dictators Ben Ali and Mubarak. Despite current crackdown on popular pro...› read more...
Tags: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Civil Society in West Asia
Date: 18 April : Location: Doelenzaal, Library of the University of Amsterdam Singel 425, Amsterdam
Tags: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Civil Society in West Asia
Date: 18 April : Location: Doelenzaal, Library of the University of Amsterdam Singel 425, Amsterdam
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...
The governance gap in Acholi
How do citizens exercise agency and claim their rights in post-conflict settings? This is the central question in a research project by Marjoke Oosterom, which is supported by IDS, Hivos and ICCO. Marjoke is working with remote communities in Northern Uganda and is now adding a documentary to share some of the emerging insights and impressions more widely. The documentary is made in partnership with the Refuge Law Project and documentary makers Tim van der Maden and Esther Kool to make...
Health and Equity
04/04/2011 Human history is replete with examples of the struggle between the two contradictory traits of human nature which differentiate us from all other species. At one extreme is greed which demands instant gratification regardless of the long-term consequence to self or others. And yet all prophets and wise men have preached the suppression of this unfortunate trait which leads to unhappiness and which now poses a threat even to the long term survival of our own and other species. Health in its w...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.
Activism: Unraveling the Term
After discussing Blank Noise’s politics and ways of organizing, the current post explores whether activism is still a relevant concept to capture the involvement of people within the collective. I explore the questions from the vantage point of the youth actors, through conversations about how they relate with the very term of activism.
Report Policy Seminar on Resilient Authoritarianism in Iran and Syria
On Tuesday, the Stimson Center hosted a discussion–organized by Knowledge Programme Civil Society of the Dutch organization Hivos that aims to gain insights on civic activism in authoritarian settings in Syria and Iran–on the future of non-democratic regimes in the Middle East and the policy implications of the unprecedented, and unexpected, recent popular uprisings in the region. Ellen Laipson, President and CEO of the Stimson Center made opening remarks and introduced Steve Heydemann,...
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...
Engaging the Faithful - debating the demolition of a mosque in Delhi
Faith based activism should not be seen as the antithesis of secularism, but as complimentary to it. The Patna Collective’s raison d’être is to initiate a dialogue between secular, democratic politics and ‘libratory’ religion both at the level of discourse but also at the level of practice. February 11-12 a debate took place that brought together the different stakeholders around the demolition of a mosque in Nizamuddin/Delhi and the Right to Education Act. Some information on the background...