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Civil Society

Regionalising African civil societies : lessons, opportunities and constraints

Upphovsperson: Millstein, Marianne
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Urban Dynamics | Uppsala
År: 2015
Ämnesord: Africa, Regionalism, regionalization, regional integration, Governance, Civil Society, nongovernmental organizations, Urban areas
<p>Report from the workshop 'Regionalising African civil societies : lessons, opportunities and constraints', held in Uppsala, Sweden in October 2014 and co-organised by the Nordic Africa Institute (Sweden), the West Africa Civil Society Institute (Ghana) and the Department of Human Geography at Stockholm University (Sweden).</p>

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? : Donor-civil society partnerships and the case of hiv/aids work

Upphovspersoner: Follér, Maj-Lis | Haug, Christoph | Knutsson, Beniamin | Thörn, Håkan
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Conflict, Displacement and Transformation |
År: 2013
Ämnesord: Mozambique, Rwand, a South Africa, Hiv, aids, aids prevention, International cooperation, Foreign aid, Civil Society, Partnership
Civil society organisations are today considered crucial indevelopment partnerships. This Policy Dialogue argues that current aid programs tend to turn such CSOs into businesses that are required to meet donor demands for reportable results, rather than to serve the needs of intended beneficiaries. Based on case studies drawn from HIV and AIDS work in Mozambique, Rwanda and South Africa, the report explores the methods donors use to govern development partnerships and their effect on the distribution of responsibility among partners. It further examines the responses by recipient organisations to these requirements, ranging from acquiescence to resistance. These case studies, drawn from the field of HIV/AIDS, are also invaluable in shedding light on wider issue of the governance of international development cooperation with civil society.

A democracy of chameleons : politics and culture in the New Malawi

Medarbetare: Englund, Harri
Utgivare: Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet; Christian Literature Association in Malawi
År: 2002
Ämnesord: Malawi, Civil Society, Culture, Democratisation, Human rights, politics, poverty, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP
After thirty years of autocratic rule under ”Life President” Kamuzu Banda, Malawians experienced a transition to multiparty democracy in 1994. A new constitution and several democratic institutions promised a new dawn in a country ravaged by poverty and injustice. This book presents original research on the economic, social, political and cultural consequences of the new era. The book engages with a culture of politics in order to expand the purview of critical analysis from the elite to the populace in its full diversity. A new generation of scholars, most of them from Malawi, cover virtually every issue causing debate in the New Malawi: poverty and hunger, the plight of civil servants, the role of the judiciary, political intolerance and hate speech, popular music as a form of protest, clergy activism, voluntary associations and ethnic revival, responses to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and controversies over women’s rights. Both chameleon-like leaders and the donors of Malawi’s foreign aid come under critical scrutiny for supporting superficial democratization. The book ends with a rare public statement on the New Malawi by Jack Mapanje, Malawi’s internationally acclaimed writer. Dismayed at the continuation of an ”oral culture of dictatorship”, Mapanje urges Malawians to confront their past in order to have a future that is free from fear and intolerance.Anyone interested in politics and culture in sub-Saharan Africa will find this book an important source of insight and detailed analysis for a comparative understanding of Africa’s democratization.

Contentious politics, local governance and the self : a Tanzanian case study

Upphovsperson: Kelsall, Tim
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2004
Ämnesord: Civil Society, democracy, politics, Social government, Arumeru district, Tanzania, Political science, Statsvetenskap
The Governance Agenda is the framework that currently organises the West’s relations with Africa. The present work is an attempt to see Governance through the lens of a contemporary, local history. The report analyses three periods of contentious politics at local level in Tanzania and two multi-party elections. It provides a window on mismanagement in local government, it examines the intervention by national and local elites in district conflicts, and it points to the difficulties ordinary people face in holding their leaders to account. The argument of the report is that current approaches to the study of Governance overlook an essential ingredient for its potential success: namely, the sociological conditions in which forms of collective action conducive to improved political accountability become possible at a grassroots level. The analysis aims to show that economic diversification and multiple livelihoods have given rise to a reticular social structure in which individuals find it difficult to combine to hold their leaders to account. People have fragmented identities formed in networks of social relations, which impedes the emergence of strong collective identities appropriate to effective social movements.