It's the Future Calling

What do you do when the phone rings? You pick up, or let people leave a message on your voicemail and check it soon after. The phone has been ringing for a long time now in the development sector.What do you do when a caller starts conversing? You talk back - if only to say you're going to hang up. We talk a lot in the sector.What do you do when the caller starts shouting? You hang up, even if the other person has a valid reason to shout. In the development sector, we don’t like shouters. We...

Exporting Censorship and Surveillance Technology

Western companies turn a healthy profit by exporting their surveillance technologies and equipment to repressive regimes. This is what Ben Wagner concludes in the Hivos-commissioned report “Exporting Censorship and Surveillance Technology”.Wagner interviewed dozens of people from Europe and North Africa and found that governments there have relied heavily on Western censorship technologies in an attempt to quell the civil unrest during the Arab Spring. Earlier reports had already established...

Can Knowledge Trigger Change?

This Briefing Note argues that there is an acute and pressing need for new perspectives and knowledge on the changing terrain and dynamics of development and social change. It contributes to the debate on knowledge and change by sharing and discussing the insights emerging from Hivos’ experiences. Furthermore, it positions Hivos’ knowledge endeavours in the aid and knowledge for development  discourse, drawing on a mix of Hivos practice, policy and Knowledge Programme research.

Like a Bridge over Troubled Waters

In the Think Piece LIKE A BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS: Dialogues of policy, practitioner and academic knowledges the author Wenny Ho deals with Cross-domain Knowledge Integration (KI) in International Development Cooperation (IDC). KI is understood as processes of knowledge co-creation linking domains particularly those of policy-making, science and practitioners.

'Power, Knowledge and Pluralism' with Robert Chambers (IDS)

On Monday January 23, Robert Chambers, world renowned international  development scholar and research associate at IDS, discusses how power, professionalism, funding, methodologies and mindsets, influence and can distort and constrain the creation of knowledge.

New Donors – New Investments – New Development?

How do new donor relations and emerging economies influence the notion of development? What are the geopolitical implications of the new South-South and South-North relations? And, how to deal with these new realities in a post MDG world, do we need new development goals? These questions serve as the starting point of this year's Knowledge for Development Conference on January 27, organised by IDS, Hivos, FNV International, IOB, SID and LANDac. 

Unpacking Digital Natives from their Shiny Packaging

In this article, the writer supports that China, despite having a plethora of hacker talents, does not conform to the typical paradigm of liberal, usually anti-government, group of digital natives. She explains that the so-called “red hackers” are working hand-in-hand with the dominant ideology, fighting against the enemy abroad while hunting down the enemy within who disrupts the ‘harmony’ (of the nation). Focusing on China’s digital culture, Tsou demonstrates that digital natives, despite...