Building the welfare mix or sidelining the state? Non-governmental organizations in developing countries as social policy actors

Author(s):  
David Lewis
Author(s):  
Nathan G. Johnson ◽  
Mark Bryden ◽  
Angran Xiao

Combustion of biomass in open fires and ad hoc unventilated stoves is the primary form of household energy for two to three billion people worldwide. These cookstoves have significant health, social, and economic impacts on poor families in developing countries. These impacts include disease, injury, excess time spent gathering fuel, deforestation, and high fuel costs relative to income. In an attempt to address many of these problems numerous non-governmental organizations have developed several biomass cookstove designs in the past five to ten years. These designs have generally focused on increasing fuel efficiency, and to a lesser degree, reducing particulate emissions. This emphasis has been driven largely by the availability of relatively straight forward fuel efficiency tests for biomass cookstoves developed 10–20 years ago and the ability of researchers to adapt current air pollution testing methods for stoves. In contrast there are no safety standards or hazard evaluations available for biomass cookstoves. Because of this the safety of the cookstove is seldom explicitly considered as a part of the design process. This paper addresses the basic safety issues that should be considered in the design of biomass stoves used in developing countries, describes the reasoning behind these safety issues, and proposes a set of safety guidelines for testing and evaluating stove safety. These guidelines are intended for testing and evaluating in the field as well as in the design lab.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yana Gorokhovskaia

Conventional wisdom holds that civil society is a sphere of activity separate from the state and the private realm. Due to a combination of historical, developmental and institutional factors, Russian civil society today is dominated by the state. While not all interactions with the state are seen as harmful, scholars acknowledge that most politically oriented or oppositional non-governmental organizations today face difficult conditions in Russia. In response to the restrictions on civil society and the unresponsive nature of Russia’s hybrid authoritarian regime, some civil society actors in Moscow have made the transition into organized politics at the local level. This transition was motivated by their desire to solve local problems and was facilitated by independent electoral initiatives which provided timely training and support for opposition political candidates running in municipal elections. Once elected, these activists turned municipal deputies are able to perform some of the functions traditionally ascribed to civil society, including enforcing greater accountability and transparency from the state and defending the interest of citizens.


2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjam Vossen ◽  
Lau Schulpen

Abstract This study investigates the relationship between media frames and public perceptions of global poverty. Building on a frame analysis, the paper reconstructs prevailing poverty narratives in British news articles and non-governmental organizations’ (NGO’s) advertisements between 2011 and 2013. Following this, these narratives are compared with the narratives that emerge from public opinion studies. The findings suggest that there is a strong connection between media frames and public knowledge and perceptions of global poverty. Both the media and the public define poverty in developing countries’ terms of destitute victims, lack of development and bad governance. Both suggest that the causes of poverty are internal to developing countries and imply that there has been little progress in reducing global poverty.


Author(s):  
Руслан Миколайович Хван

Annotation. The article examines the essence of municipal legal policy as a system of strategic management of self-government activities. The essence and characteristics of local self-government entities, their individual categories, patterns and development trends have been investigated. It is emphasized that territorial communities, directly or indirectly, their authorities, non-governmental organizations exercise their legal personality both within the state and outside it. The prospects of functioning, improving the status of local self-government subjects have been determined..


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Ahmed A. A. Shehab ◽  
Nurazmallail Marni

The international treaties are among the most important sources of international law. Recent years have witnessed an exaggerated interest by the international community in the development of the international legal system through the legislation of treaties and the implementation of international commissions, bodies and non-governmental organizations. The State is no longer bound by the national Constitution and domestic legislations, but also by a series of international treaties and their obligations and responsibilities at the international and national levels. In order to ensure the validity of these procedures, the treaty requires the parties to regulate procedures for the accession to treaties within the national legal system and to determine the legal value of the international treaty in national law and the mechanism of integration and harmonization, whether by an independent law or by texting in the Constitution on the validity of the signing of treaties and its ratification. There is no doubt that the legal position in the Palestinian legislation is unclear regarding the procedural and substantive provisions of international treaties and their application in the legal system, compared to other laws that deal strictly with the legal organization of international treaties. This study aims at separating the procedural and substantive provisions of the accession to international treaties and their applications in the State of Palestine including the identification of the competent authority to sign the Convention, the mechanism for its ratification and the legal value accorded to the international treaty in Palestinian legislation by using the analytical descriptive method, the historical method, and the comparative method. تعد المعاهدات الدولية من أهم مصادر القانون الدولي، ولقد شهدت السنوات الأخيرة اهتماما مبالغا من المجتمع الدولي في تطوير المنظومة القانونية الدولية، من خلال تشريع المعاهدات وإعمال اللجان والهيئات الدولية، والمنظمات غير الحكومية، ولم تعد بذلك الدولة ملزمة بالدستور الوطني والتشريعات الداخلية فحسب، بل بمجموعة من المعاهدات الدولية أيضا،ً وما يترتب عليها من واجبات والتزامات ومسؤوليات على الصعيد الدولي والوطني. ولضمان صحة هذه الإجراءات توجب المعاهدة على الأطراف تنظيم إجراءات الانضمام المعاهدات ضمن المنظومة القانونية الوطنية وتحديد القيمة القانون للمعاهدة الدولية في القانون الوطني وآلية الإدماج والمواءمة، س واء بإصدار قانونٍ مستقل، أو النص في الدستور على صلاحية عقد المعاهدات والتوقيع والتصديق عليها. ولا شك أن الموقف القانوني في التشريع الفلسطيني يتسم بعدم الوضوح فيما يتعلق بالأحكام الإجرائية والموضوعية بإبرام المعاهدات الدولية وتطبيقها في النظام القانوني، مقارنة بقوانين أخرى تتناول بدقة التنظيم القانوني لإبرام المعاهدات الدولية، وتهدف هذه الدراسة لبيان الأحكام الإجرائية والموضوعية للانضمام للمعاهدات الدولية، وتطبيقاتها في دولة فلسطين بما يشمل تحديد السلطة المختصة بالتوقيع على الاتفاقية، وآلية التصديق عليها، والقيمة القانونية الممنوحة للمعاهدة الدولية في التشريعات الفلسطينية. وذلك باستخدام المنهج الوصفي التحليلي، والمنهج التاريخي، والمنهج المقارن.


Author(s):  
Matthew Waritay Guah

Many studies have looked at leadership during disasters and emergencies in a number of countries but hardly any has concentrated on developing countries and the implications of these nations' infrastructure, culture, and control systems. This chapter attempts to examine the leadership of Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first female president on the African continent, who led a global medical epidemic response during Liberia's recent Ebola crises. It identifies lessons to be learned by future leaders of developing countries as well as executives of non-governmental organizations frequently working on disaster relief projects around the globe.


Author(s):  
Mete Yildiz ◽  
Kamil Demirhan

This chapter examines the social media use by local governments, and other policy actors (government agencies, non-governmental organizations and citizens) after the 2011 Van Earthquake in Turkey. This study is different from others examining social media use of just one policy actor after a disaster; as it compares and contrasts the performance of different policy actors with that of local governments. To this end, contents of the messages posted on selected Facebook pages after the earthquake are analyzed. The findings include examples of effective social media use for disaster relief and recovery, as well as detailed information about the nature and functioning of “multiple/parallel systems of public service/information delivery”, more than one electronic channel of communication and coordination simultaneously connecting people and organizations. The findings suggest that, if institutional arrangements conducive to collaborations are present, social media platforms can be effective means of disaster relief and recovery, especially for communication among citizens after a disaster.


Author(s):  
Alexander Osterwalder ◽  
Mathias Rossi ◽  
Minyue Dong

The bridging of the so-called digital divide is an important issue in today’s development efforts of international and non-governmental organizations and developing countries. This does not only concern access to new information and communication technology (ICT) such as the Internet, but also access to the knowledge how to use these technologies for economic development. This chapter outlines the business model framework and the business model handbook that shall help to develop a knowledgeable class of e-entrepreneurs that are able to use ICT and to detect the opportunities of the Internet era.


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