Why do some development projects succeed where others fail? This book looks at some macro and some less known micro success stories and considers what enabled them to bring change in some of the world's most deprived communities. Using case studies from ten countries across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, Tiwari's innovative approach offers a multi-layered understanding of poverty which provides insights into causal, enabling and impeding factors. While a macro level analysis of development is a common feature of the current literature, there has been little attempt to develop a micro level understanding of development at the grassroots. Tiwari's work fills this important gap while drawing attention to the importance of engaging local actors at an individual, collective, and state level, demonstrating how achieving a "convergence" of goals among all actors is a crucial component to a development project's success. Looking beyond the case studies to consider how this unique "convergence framework" might be usefully applied to other contexts, the book has profound implications for how we view fragile states and conflict zones, and the ability of the international agencies to take effective action. A unique study based on extensive empirical research, Why Some Development Works will make essential reading for students and researchers studying international development across the social sciences, as well as humanitarian and development practitioners and policy makers.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has a complex position in international relations, being the guardian of international humanitarian law but often acting discretely to advance human dignity. Treated by most governments as if it were an inter-governmental organization, the ICRC is a non-governmental organization, all-Swiss at the top, and it is given rights and duties in the 1949 Geneva Conventions for Victims of War. Written by two formidable experts in the field, this book analyzes international humanitarian action as practiced by the International Red Cross, explaining its history and structure as well as examining contemporary field experience and broad diplomatic initiatives related to its principal tasks. Such tasks include: ensuring that detention conditions are humane for those imprisoned by reason of political conflict or war providing material and moral relief in conflict promoting development of the humanitarian part of the laws of war improving the unity and effectiveness of the movement Fully updated throughout, the new edition will also include brand new material on: armed actors who do not accept humanitarian restrictions on their actions, including expanded coverage of the Islamic State (ISIL, ISIS), Al Shabab, and Boko Haram, among others Syrian internationalized civil war issue of drone strikes and targeted killings, and the continuing push for regulation of what is called cyber war the question of the field of application of international humanitarian law (what is the battlefield?). Particularly when states declare "war" on "terrorist groups" operating inside other states regulation of new weapons and new uses of old weapons

An unparalleled exploration of NOW’s trajectory, from its founding to the present—and its future A new wave of feminist energy has swept the globe since 2016—from women’s marches and the #MeToo movement to transwomen’s inclusion and exclusion in feminism and participation in institutional politics. Amid all this, an organization declared dead or dying for thirty years—the National Organization for Women—has seen a membership boom. NOW presents an intriguing puzzle for scholars and activists alike. Considered one of the most stable organizations in the feminist movement, it has experienced much conflict and schism. Scholars have long argued that factionalism is the death knell of organizations, yet NOW continues to thrive despite internal conflicts.  Fighting for NOW seeks to better understand how bureaucratic structures like NOW’s simultaneously provide stability and longevity, while creating space for productive and healthy conflict among members. Kelsy Kretschmer explores these ideas through an examination of conflict in NOW’s local chapters, its task forces and committees, and its satellite groups. NOW’s history provides evidence for three basic arguments: bureaucratic groups are not insulated from factionalism; they are important sites of creativity and innovation for their movements; and schisms are not inherently bad for movement organizations. Hence, Fighting for NOW is in stark contrast to conventional scholarship, which has conceptualized factionalism as organizational failure. It also provides one of the few book-length explorations of NOW’s trajectory, from its founding to the modern context.  Scholars will welcome the book’s insights that draw on open systems and resource dependency theories, as well as its rethinking of how conflict shapes activist communities. Students will welcome its clear and compelling history of the feminist movement and of how feminist ideas have changed over the past five decades.

This study of Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) casts new light on the organization's founding principles, distinctive culture, and inner struggles to realize more fully its "without borders" transnational vision. Pioneering medical sociologist Renee C. Fox spent nearly twenty years conducting extensive ethnographic research within MSF, a private international medical humanitarian organization that was created in 1971 and awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1999. With unprecedented access, Fox attended MSF meetings and observed doctors and other workers in the field. She interviewed MSF members and participants and analyzed the content of such documents as communications between MSF staff members within the offices of its various headquarters, communications between headquarters and the field, and transcripts of internal group discussions and meetings. Fox weaves these threads of information into a rich tapestry of the MSF experience that reveals the dual perspectives of an insider and an observer. The book begins with moving, detailed accounts from the blogs of women and men working for MSF in the field. From there, Fox chronicles the organization's early history and development, paying special attention to its struggles during the first decades of its existence to clarify and implement its principles. The core of the book is centered on her observations in the field of MSF's efforts to combat a rampant epidemic of HIV/AIDS in postapartheid South Africa and the organization's response to two challenges in postsocialist Russia: an enormous surge in homelessness on the streets of Moscow and a massive epidemic of tuberculosis in the penal colonies of Siberia. Fox's accounts of these crises exemplify MSF's struggles to provide for thousands of people in need when both the populations and the aid workers are in danger. Enriched by vivid photographs of MSF operations and by ironic, self-critical cartoons drawn by a member of the Communications Department of MSF France, Doctors Without Borders highlights the bold mission of the renowned international humanitarian organization even as it demonstrates the intrinsic dilemmas of humanitarian action.

Environmental activism in contemporary Russia exemplifies both the promise and the challenge facing grassroots politics in the post-Soviet period. In the late Soviet period, Russia's environmental movement was one of the country's most dynamic and effective forms of social activism, and it appeared well positioned to influence the direction and practice of post-Soviet politics. At present, however, activists scattered across Russia face severe obstacles to promoting green issues that range from wildlife protection and nuclear safety to environmental education.

Based on fifteen months of fieldwork in five regions of Russia, from the European west to Siberia and the Far East, Red to Green goes beyond familiar debates about the strength and weakness of civil society in Russia to identify the contradictory trends that determine the political influence of grassroots movements. In an organizational analysis of popular mobilization that addresses the continuing role of the Soviet legacy, the influence of transnational actors, and the relevance of social mobilization theory to the Russian case, Laura Henry details what grassroots organizations in Russia actually do, how they use the limited economic and political opportunities that are available to them, and when they are able to influence policy and political practice.

Drawing on her in-depth interviews with activists, Henry illustrates how green organizations have pursued their goals by "recycling" Soviet-era norms, institutions, and networks and using them in combination with transnational ideas, resources, and partnerships. Ultimately, Henry shows that the limited variety of organizations that activists have constructed within post-Soviet Russia's green movement serve as a "fossil record" of the environmentalists' innovations, failures, and compromises. Her research suggests new ways to understand grassroots politics throughout the postcommunist region and in other postauthoritarian contexts.

Yemen has faced continuing crises since 2010. The fighting and divisions have destroyed much of Yemen's physical, political and social infrastructure, undermining its tribal traditions and religious tolerance, and impoverishing the country. The outbreak of war in 2015 caused the world's worst humanitarian crisis. In this book, Yemeni and international experts assess what political arrangements are required to overcome fragmentation and discord in Yemen. They look to understand how people from all parts of the county can work together to build a new Yemen, one that will give a voice to its young population and provide a full role for women. The contributors argue that Yemen's major resource is its population, but that Yemenis need to be motivated and trained to give them the skills to rebuild the economy and to prepare for long-term challenges such as water shortages and climate change. The volume also discusses how the international community will need to absorb the lessons of the past to find better ways of creating the institutions, mechanisms and transparency with Yemenis that will enable the flow of vital assistance to where it is most needed. The book provides an up-to-date analysis to help governments and international agencies who will have to work with Yemen and its neighbours in the post conflict situation.

Critically examines the role of humanitarian aid and disaster reconstruction Building Back Better in India: Development, NGOs, and Artisanal Fishers after the 2004 Tsunami addresses the ways in which natural disasters impact the strategies and priorities of neoliberalizing states in the contemporary era. In the light of growing scholarly and public concern over 'disaster capitalism' and the tendency of states and powerful international financial institutions to view disasters as 'opportunities' to 'build back better,' Raja Swamy offers an ethnographically rich account of post-disaster reconstruction, its contested aims, and the mixed outcomes of state policy, humanitarian aid, and local resistance. Using the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami as a case study, Swamy investigates the planning and implementation of a reconstruction process that sought to radically transform the geography of a coastal district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Drawing on an ethnographic study conducted in Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam District, Swamy shows how and why the state-led, multilaterally financed, and NGO-mediated reconstruction prioritized the displacement of coastal fisher populations. Exploring the substantive differences shaping NGO action, specifically in response to core political questions affecting the well-being of their ostensible beneficiaries, this account also centers the political agency of disaster survivors and their allies among NGOs in contesting the meanings of recovery while navigating the process of reconstruction. If humanitarian aid brought together NGOs and fishers as givers and recipients of aid, it also revealed in its workings competing and sometimes contradictory assumptions, goals, interests, and strategies driving the fraught historical relationship between artisanal fishers and the state. Importantly, this research foregrounds the ambiguous role of NGOs involved in the distribution of aid, as well as the agency and strategic actions of the primary recipients of aid-the fishers of Nagapattinam-as they struggled with a reconstruction process that made receipt of the humanitarian gift of housing conditional on the formal abandonment of all claims to the coast. Building Back Better in India thus bridges scholarly concerns with disasters, humanitarianism, and economic development with those focused on power, agency, and resistance.

Non-state actors are not new, but they have never before reached their present strength. Among the plethora of non-state actors are thousands, if not millions, of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which play a significant role in the global system and whose role is likely to increase in the future. The proliferation of NGOs is of such scale, scholars refer to it as a global associational revolution. By considering NGOs throughout much of the world, Kaloudis focuses on the reasons for the growth of NGOs particularly since the end of the Cold War, the functions of NGOs, assessment of NGOs, and their place in the global system. The author also shows the ambivalent and often paradoxical role of NGOs, which is reflected in the works of scholars and the actual behavior of NGOs themselves.

In 2015 the United Nations set out an ambitious plan under UN Resolution 70/1 to prioritize seventeen separate goals over a fifteen-year period to promote health, life, equality, and the environment. The Sustainable Development Goals include ending poverty and hunger; Reducing Inequality; promoting good health and well-being; quality education; gender equality; clean water and sanitation; affordable and clean energy; decent work and economic growth; industry, innovation, and infrastructure; sustainable cities and communities; responsible consumption and production; climate action; life under water; life on land; peace, justice, and strong institutions; and developing partnerships to achieve these goals. This book examines the way in which SDG initiatives have been disseminated by mainstream media, in government discourse and by NGO's, charitable organisations, and campaign groups. It questions to what extent sustainability narratives are being supported and how they represented; how saving the environment can be made pertinent to someone who has no access to clean food or running water; and why local initiatives (in which indigenous populations are making a real difference) are overshadowed by multinationals whose attempts to rectify the damage their goods have done gains more credible reportage.

In this book, Julia Berger examines internal meaning-making structures and processes driving NGO behavior, identifying constructs from within a religious tradition that forge new ways of pursuing social change. She evaluates the operation of a distinct rationality, arguing that action is guided not simply by beliefs and values, but also by a combination of elements so intrinsic as to constitute an "organizational DNA." These hidden structures and rationalities manifest themselves in new modes of engagement and agency; they help us to see the pivotal role of religion in shaping notions of peace, progress, and modernity. To demonstrate the operation and salience of such a rationality, Berger draws on the example of the worldwide Baha'i community. Emerging in 19th century Iran, the community's theological engagement with questions of justice, the unity of humankind, and the emerging global order, constitute one of the most distinct and compelling, yet least-researched examples of religious engagement with the pressing questions of our time. Analyzing events spanning a 75-year period from 1945-2020, this book provides a unique historical and contemporary perspective on the evolving role of religion and civil society in the modern world.

Sport has the incredible power to positively influence the world, and it is with this in mind that the field of Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) has seen tremendous growth over the years. Sport can strengthen social ties, advance human rights, aid economic development, promote inclusion, and more. In Sport for Development and Peace: Foundations and Applications, internationally-recognized SDP experts offer their insights, perspectives, and experiences on a range of topics within the field. The first part of the text focuses on the foundations of SDP, addressing its history, sociological aspects, specific goals-such as development, inclusion, sport participation, and conflict resolution-and political and economic implications. It closes with an evaluation and assessment of SDP programs. The second part examines the application of SDP by providing examples and insights into government involvement in SDP, not-for-profit organizations, and corporate and for-profit enterprises. Finally, the book concludes with a discussion of current trends and future implications of SDP. Written for current and future SDP managers, developers, and administrators, from the student to the professional, Sport for Development and Peace offers a comprehensive look at the many substantive and interconnected SDP topics in order to positively impact this fast-growing field.

This study examines and compares the important work on global human rights advocacy done by religious NGOs and by secular NGOs. By studying the similarities in how such organizations understand their work, we can better consider not only how religious and secular NGOs might complement each other but also how they might collaborate and cooperate in the advancement of human rights. However, little research has attempted to compare these types of NGOs and their approaches. NGOs and Human Rights explores this comparison and identifies the key areas of overlap and divergence. In so doing, it lays the groundwork for better understanding how to capitalize on the strengths of religious groups, especially in addressing the world's many human rights challenges. This book uses a new dataset of more than three hundred organizations affiliated with the United Nations Human Rights Council to compare the extent to which religious and secular NGOs differ in their framing, discussion, and operationalization of human rights work. Using both quantitative analysis of the extensive data collected by the authors and forty-seven in depth interviews conducted with members of human rights organizations in the sample, Charity Butcher and Maia Carter Hallward analyze these organizations' approaches to questions of culture, development, women's rights, children's rights, and issues of peace and conflict.

The Western world's responses to genocide have been slow, unwieldly and sometimes unfit for purpose. So argues David Patrick in this essential new contribution to the aid and intervention debate. While the UK and US have historically been committed to the ideals of human rights, freedom and equality, their actual material reactions are more usually dictated by geopolitical 'noise', pre-conceived ideas of worth and the media attention-spans of individual elected leaders. Utilizing a wide-ranging quantitative analysis of media reporting across the globe, Patrick argues that an over-reliance on the Holocaust as the framing device we use to try and come to terms with such horrors can lead to slow responses, misinterpretation and category errors - in both Rwanda and Bosnia, much energy was expended trying to ascertain whether these regions qualified for 'genocide' status. The Reporting of Genocide demonstrates how such tragedies are reduced to stereotypes in the media - framed in terms of innocent victims and brutal oppressors - which can over-simplify the situation on the ground. This in turn can lead to mixed and inadequate responses from governments. Reporting on Genocide also seeks to address how responses to genocides across the globe can be improved, and will be essential reading for policy-makers and for scholars of genocide and the media.

Les droits sociaux en Europe ne sont pas completement communautarises. La communaute a laisse a chaque etat la liberte d'assurer le niveau de protection qu'il desire. En revanche, l'Europe a tenu a pleinement communautariser les libertes de concurrence et de circulation. La resultante en est une protection des droits sociaux dependante des restrictions communautaires liees a la liberte du marche. Le deficit social ainsi cree, a pousse la societe civile a reagir vigoureusement, et a gagner la confiance du citoyen Europeen par rapport aux autres formes de representation politique classique. La societe civile a egalement pu gagner la reconnaissance des institutions europeennes qui lui font appel a travers le Comite economique et social europeen, le dialogue social et civil, ou dans les differentes consultations. C'est un collaborateur reconnu explicitement dans les traites europeens.C'est aussi un avocat qui plaide pour un changement du droit en vigueur et qui surveille le respect des obligations en vertu du droit international. Sa participation aux decisions est devenu un element de la legitimite democratique en Europe."

A peine la Seconde guerre mondiale terminee, un nouveau conflit larve se fait jour opposant l'Union sovietique aux Etats-Unis d'Amerique. Comme les partis politiques, les syndicats d'Europe s'adaptent a la nouvelle donne. En France, la CGT subit une scission qui donne naissance a Force ouvriere, laquelle rejoint la Confederation internationale des syndicats libres (CISL) creee par la puissante American Federation of Labor. La CGT reste dans une Federation syndicale mondiale (FSM) dominee par l'Union sovietique et la CFTC participe a la reconstruction de la Confederation internationale des syndicats chretiens (CISC). Ainsi, la logique des blocs impregne-t-elle la vie des travailleurs francais jusque dans leur adhesion syndicale. Quelle est la place des syndicalistes francais dans ces organisations internationales? Et comment les evolutions geopolitiques vont-elles influer sur le panorama syndical hexagonal? Cette these exploite les archives des confederations francaises mais egalement les archives des organisations syndicales internationales disseminees en Europe et aux Etats-Unis.

Why cities often cope better than nations with today's lightning-fast changes.The British Empire declined decades ago, but London remains one of the world's preeminent centers of finance, commerce, and political discourse. London is just one of the global cities assuming greater importance in the post-cold war world even as many national governments struggle to meet the needs of their citizens. Global Political Cities shows how and why cities are re-asserting their historic role at the forefront of international economic and political life. The book focuses on fifteen major cities across Europe, Asia, and the United States, including New York, London, Tokyo, Brussels, Seoul, Geneva, and Hong Kong, not to mention Beijing and Washington, D.C. In addition to highlighting the achievements of high-profile mayors, the book chronicles the growing influence of think tanks, mass media, and other global agenda setters, in their local urban political settings. It also shows how these cities serve in the Internet age as the global stage for grassroots appeals and protests of international significance. Global Political Cities shows why cities cope much better than nations with many global problems and how their strengths can help transform both nations and the broader world in future. The book offers important insights for students of both international and comparative political economy; diplomats and other government officials; executives of businesses with global reach; and general readers interested in how the world is changing around them.

A career in the non-governmental organization (NGO) sector is an ideal and ambitious choice for anyone who is committed to applying their skills and professional effort to identifying, examining, and helping to resolve the problems confronting the world around them. From combatting human abuses, alleviating famine, working to save the environment, protecting animals, ensuring a safe world for children-locally, nationally, or internationally, a career within the NGO sector can make you a part of the solution. This book walks you through the steps of deciding whether an NGO career is right for you and understanding the types of roles available within the sector. It also explains the educational requirements you will need to fulfill as well as how to plan your academic track, as well as get your career started after graduation. A career within the NGO sector is an exciting one. A competitive field, it offers the opportunity for life-long learning and challenge.

Cet ouvrage a pour objectif de faire ressortir au mieux la realite actuelle de la relation en perpetuelle evolution entre la Commission Europeenne (CE) et les organisations non-gouvernementales (ONG). Les ONG sont reconnues comme etant des contributeurs cles dans le secteur de l'aide humanitaire et du developpement. Pour agir, les ONG ont besoin de fonds et tres peu parmi elles peuvent pretendre a l'autonomie. La CE, un des plus importants bailleurs de fonds (9,8 milliards dedies a l'aide exterieure en 2004), se doit de controler les ONG subventionnees. Ce travail presente et critique tout d'abord les organismes qui agissent dans le cadre de cette relation entre la CE et les ONG ainsi que leur methodologie de controle. Ensuite, des solutions et des recommandations sont proposees pour repondre aux problemes rencontres. Afin d'aller au-dela d'une analyse qualitative de methodologie, le travail veut egalement approcher une autre dimension plus politique et economique. C'est pourquoi cet ouvrage se penche sur une autre question qui est de savoir quelles sont les veritables intentions de la CE au sujet de la cooperation au developpement ?"

Civil society is often seen as male, structured in a way that excludes women from public and political life. Much feminist scholarship sees civil society and feminism as incompatible a result. But scholars and activists are currently trying to update this view by looking at women's positions in civil society and women's activism. This book contributes to this new research, arguing that civil society is a contested terrain where women can negotiate and successfully challenge dominant discourses in society. The book is based on interviews with women activists from ten women's organizations in Turkey. Foregrounding the voices of women, the book answers the question "How do women's NGOs contribute to civil society in the Middle East?". At a time when civil society is being promoted and institutionalised in Turkey, particularly by the EU, this book demonstrates that women's organisations can help achieve women's emancipation, even if there are significant differences in their approaches and ideas.