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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.

Current Status of Agriculture and Future Challenges in Sudan

Upphovsperson: Mahgoub, Farida
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Agrarian Change, Property and Resources | Uppsala, Sweden
År: 2014
Ämnesord: Sudan, Agricultural projects, Water resources, Water management, Irrigation, Agricultural development, Food security, Climate change
Urbanisation and long-lasting civil wars and conflict mean that the demographic pattern in Sudan is changing drastically. Nevertheless, 60%–80 % of Sudanese engage in subsistence agriculture. Agriculture remains a crucial sector in the economy as a major source of rawmaterials, food and foreign exchange. It employs the majority of the labour force, and serves as a potential vehicle for diversifyingthe economy. However, no rigorous studies have explained productivity in this sector inrelation to food security. The situation has worsened because agriculture in particular has been neglected sincethe advent of oil production in the early 2000s. Moreover, Sudan’s agricultural growth has been unbalanced, with the majority of irrigated agriculture concentrated in the Centre and ahuge disparity in development indicators between the best- and worst-performing regions. Thus, studies show that the vast majority of Sudanese are reported to be food insecure,especially internally displaced persons and in conflict regions such as Darfur, Kordofan and other regions.

Costly not to consider local resistance : Advice on agricultural investments in Africa

Upphovsperson: Beyene, Atakilte
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Agrarian Change, Property and Resources | Uppsala, Sweden
År: 2013
Ämnesord:
Failures in considering and properly addressing local resistance have become costly for both the local people and the investors. Land acquisition policies need to be accompanied by mechanisms that address local grievances and conflicts. These aspects are crucial not only to alleviate unjust practices, but also to enhance confidence of investors and performance of the investments.

Just like couscous : Gender, agency and the politics of female circumcision in Cairo

Upphovsperson: Malmström, Maria Frederika
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Göteborg : University of Gothenburg
År: 2009
Ämnesord: anthropology, identity, gender, agency, embodiment, senses, body, sexuality, female circumcision, politics, Social change, performativity, practice, Political islam, Egypt, Middle East, North Africa
This dissertation explores how female gender identity is continually created and re-created in Egypt through a number of daily practices, of which female circumcision is central. In order to do so, the study inquires into the lived experiences and social meanings of female circumcision and femininity as narrated by women from lower class neighbourhoods in Cairo. The study seeks to understand how the experiences of femininity and female circumcision are shaped and challenged by the social and political changes that impinge on these women’s lives. Female circumcision has become a global political minefield with ‘Western’ interventions affecting Egyptian politics and social development, not least in the area of democracy and human rights. The global human rights discourse brings about change by portraying female circumcision as mutilation. These discourses and other political and social changes both in Egypt and elsewhere, such as modernization, the aftermath of 9/11 and regional instability have together begun to dis-embed female circumcision from its socio-cultural context. This thesis focuses upon the way in which these women understand and respond to these complex changes and it looks particularly at how different actors, in their construction of female identity, contest, resist, subvert or embrace female circumcision. The study explores how the subject is made through the interplay of global hegemonic structures of power and the most intimate sphere, which has been exposed in the international arena. The need to understand agency as the capacity to act according to the exigencies of the specific sociocultural forms the main premise of this dissertation; the Egyptian context comprises the complex interaction between the local and a variety of wider global forces.

Making migrants responsible for development : Cape Verdean returnees and Northern migration policies

Upphovsperson: Åkesson, Lisa
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, African International Links
År: 2011
Ämnesord:
In recent years, there has been a surge of “Northern” policy documents concerned with increasing the positive effects of international migration in countries of origin. This article contrasts some basic assumptions in policies on migration, return and development with an anthropological study of Cape Verdean returnees, and it reveals some important disparities between the returnees’ experiences and the ideas underpinning policy documents. The article analyses the role returnees’ savings and skills play in local change in Cape Verde, and in particular it looks into entrepreneurial activities. This is related to a discussion of the conditions that must be fulfilled in order to make it possible for return migrants to contribute to positive social change. In conclusion, the article shows that structural conditions have a fundamental impact on individual migrants’ abilities to support development, a perspective often left out of contemporary policies.

Building a Police Force "for the good" in DR Congo : Questions that still haunt reformers and reform beneficiaries

Upphovsperson: Nlandu Mayamba Mbuya, Thierry
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Conflict, Displacement and Transformation |
År: 2013
Ämnesord: Congo DR, Police, Armed forces, Security sector reform, Administrative reform, Organizational change, Civil rights
The police in DRC are indeed a permanent domestic risk. The lack of policy, service or management regime for the acquisition of equipment explains the deficient, dilapidated, obsolete and very often inappropriate equipment. Moreover, police units have very weak operational capacity and police officers lack self-confidence and pride in their profession. These shabbily dressed men and women in faded uniforms daily develop an indifferent attitude towards their profession and work in general. Inefficient and ineffective, the Congolese policeforce is wholly demoralised and unprofessional. This has negatively affected the relationship between police and population. It has led to the withdrawal of people’s cooperation, a must for successful police work and for meeting people’s expectations.

The Role of Food Banks in Food Security in Uganda : the Case of the Hunger Project Food Bank, Mbale Epicentre

Upphovsperson: Watuleke, Joseph
Utgivare: Uppsala
År: 2015
Ämnesord: Food security, Food supply, Smallholders, Farming, Agricultural production, Food storage, Livelihood, Sustainable development, Uganda
This study addresses the role the food bank plays in food security, sustainable livelihoods and building resilience to climate change among smallholder farmers in Uganda, and in particular eastern Uganda. Currently, it is difficult to measure the socioeconomic impact of the food bank on smallholder farmers in eastern Uganda due to the difficulty of isolating its contribution from that of interrelated programmes and farmer activities. It is, however, evident that the food bank plays a significant role in improving the smallholder farmers’ food production and incomes. The food bank is actively engaged in training smallholder farmers in modern farming methods, providing improved seeds and safe storage facilities for farmers’ produce, helping farmers to diversify their livelihood sources and providing climate-related information. Prolonged drought and lack of access to sufficient seeds of good quality are the main sources of food insecurity among smallholder farmers. Distance from the food bank and lack of access to information are among the other factors that affected many farmers’ ability to participate in food bank activities. Community ownership of the food bank is still lacking, and this is a long term threat to the sustainability of the project. There is therefore an urgent need to establish community-managed food banks at lower levels that ensure community ownership; equitably distribute benefits among target farmers; encourage seed-saving among farmers; initiate community-supported agriculture programmes to improve access to farm credit; and invest in rainwater harvesting for irrigation.

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