Topics Civil Society Building

Researchers on the move

Each year, the Civil Society Building Knowledge Programme supports a number of ISS students to conduct research on issues pertaining to the main questions of the programme. This year, five ISS students were awarded a research grant. Last week, after extensive preparation at ISS and consultation with HIVOS staff and partners, they departed for countries ranging from Uganda to Nicaragua to do their field research. You can find summaries of the research projects here. During the next few months...

ICT & Citizens Agency

Since the late 1990s, the prospect of using ICT (Information Communication Technologies) to improve accountability, transparency, access to information, and monitoring authorities has attracted general optimism. However, early hopes that e-initiatives would be the panacea of all the problems have given way to more modest claims. An aspect that has not received much attention so far is the use of ICT in support to citizen agency; to involve and inform communities and interact with and influen...

A concise guide to the basics

The world is not working well. For more and more people, life is unfair and insecure. In fact, for years now the global future has looked less rather than more politically certain, financially stable and ecologically viable. CDC introduces novel ideas about citizen efforts that can turn this alarming reality around.

Twaweza

Twaweza, meaning “we can make it happen” in Swahili, is a ten-year initiative (2009-2018) that seeks to enable people in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to improve their quality of life through a bold, citizen-centered approach to development and public accountability.

Background & Objectives

This project 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 setting. It concentrates on different forms of social organisation, the crucial social-political factors for engagement, and the characteristics of state institutions that affect the available space for this engagement.

Column by Alan Fowler: Aided development is a language industry

Aided development is a language industry. This opening sentence draws on the important messages to be found in Paul Hoebink’s column for the previous Newsletter. It does so from a novel and challenging way of looking at development cooperation which is emerging from the civic driven change (CDC) initiative hosted by the Institute of Social Studies. Read the column here.

The Power of Civil Society

Hivos and ISS jointly organised a Network Seminar for the fourth time on 27 November and 9 December 2008. The case studies presented explored the diversity of roles and strategies employed by civil society organizations based on the recent field research of four ISS MA students supported by the Civil Society Building Knowledge Programme in 2008. The aim of these seminars was to better understand the power of civil society to influence the state around issues such as HIV/AIDS, women’s rights,...

Column by Alan Fowler: Aided development is a language industry

Aided development is a language industry. This opening sentence draws on the important messages to be found in Paul Hoebink’s column for the previous Newsletter. It does so from a novel and challenging way of looking at development cooperation which is emerging from the civic driven change (CDC) initiative hosted by the Institute of Social Studies.

Supporting Organisations

HIVOS Hivos, the Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries (in Dutch: Humanistisch Instituut voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking) is a Dutch non-governmental organisation inspired by humanist values. Together with local organisations in developing countries, Hivos seeks to contribute to a free, fair and sustainable world in which citizens - women and men - have equal access to the resources and opportunities for their development. And where they can actively and equally parti...

Civic Driven Change: A new Impetus to the Debate

This policy brief describes the thinking behind and motives for a group of Dutch private aid agencies to support and helpdesign the Civic-Driven Change Initiative.1
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