Keyword: civic
Civic Driven Change
If states, markets and NGOs fail to bring about change and social justice, then who will? Can citizens come up with new perspectives on social change? Are civic driven changes a potential solution to global political problems? They might. In fact they are...
Deep Democracy
The Broker devoted a special report to the Civic Driven Change Initiative (Issue 10). It also created a platform for discussion on CDC on its site. The responses thus far to the special report have helped to launch a public and international conversation with far-ranging implications for the work of democracy building and development.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.Post-Conflict Participation Blog
Marjoke Oosterom (Institute of Development Studies, UK) carries out her PhD research on civic participation in local government structures in Northern Uganda in cooperation with ICCO and Hivos. In July and August she is in Uganda for a preliminary scoping visit. In this blog she tells about her experiences based on interviews carried out in the capital and in Gulu and Kitgum districts.
Winds of Change: does development intervention help or hinder community action?
Are capacity development projects needed that support local leaders to enable social action to demand citizen rights? "Yes!", argue the organizers of the roundtable 'Winds of Change: Will they Bring a new paradigm to Development Assistance?'. Indeed, we wrote before that citizen action matters. But research findings from the Participation, Power and Social Change research team from IDS, Sussex, say that international (outside) actors at best can play a facilitat...
Public event: Arab spring, summer of protest: A next generation of social activism?
There is something brewing underneath the surface. Recent months have seen a surge of drastic forms of citizen action in various parts of the world. The 'Arab spring' was followed by a summer of protest followed touching countries like Greece, Spain, Israel and other parts of Western Europe. Are we witnessing the awakening of a new generation of social activism, and if so, what are the new strategies, agenda's, structures and emerging connections?
Civic action for poverty eradication
04/11/2008 Poverty reduction is paramount to the present aid agenda. The renewed focus on poverty issues is a response to failures of aid strategies in the past, including the structural adjustment programmes, the huge build-up of debt in many developing countries, and the failure by many governments in the South to ensure welfare and prosperity for their citizens. New aid mechanisms have been arranged in a series of international agreements, including the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), the...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...
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.
Why bother to work on governance
Marjoke Oosterom (Institute of Development Studies, UK) carries out her PhD research on civic participation in local government structures in Northern Uganda. In 2010, she will do her field research in the districts Kitgum and Apac. In this blog she tells about her experiences based on interviews carried out in the capital and in Gulu and Kitgum districts.
Civic Pluralism
There are many ways to think and talk about pluralism. ‘Civic pluralism’ may be helpful to find practical solution to approaching diversity in society. Within the Indonesian Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme this concept will be further explored by the academic partners and civil society organisations. This has to result in improved strategies and activities to deal with diversity in society, in such a way that it is conducive to development.