Advocacy

GLS

Apologies for any cross-posting

UNAIDS invites joint bids from coalitions and networks of civil society organizations to come together to form a year long mechanism to support national civil society and community groups in maximising the impact of the 2008 UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AIDS.

Have you, upon finishing an assignment in the developing world, maintained contact with an NGO where you served, helping them with fund-raising, advocacy or pro-bono consulting advice? What was that experience like?

The abduction and detention by the Taliban of 23 Korean aid workers in Ghazni, Afghanistan is recieving wide news coverage at the moment. This mass abduction is the latest in a stream of actions taken against humanitarian personnel in Afghanistan.

Aidworkers rely on cell phones to call headquarters, field offices, security, etc., but what are some other ways you use cell phones or handheld networking tech as part of your work -- or even better, that cell phones or handheld networking tech are used as part of development activities by local people themselves?

United Nations Good Works

UN Good Works is a project of the U.S. Committee for UNDP, an independent non-profit organization that strives to educate the U.S. public about UNDP’s role in international development, provide a forum to discuss how the United States can best provide support and leadership to the UN development system, and help coordinate that support.

In a case that every aid/development worker should be following, Libya's Supreme Court today upheld the death sentences of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of infecting more than 400 children with the AIDS virus.

July 10, 2007

The Cambodian Rural Development Agency has notice today, the conflict between people and land investors under the process of rural development project in the Saang community, the issue will be blocked to the implementation of project in rural areas for the community economic growth , policy for environment health and water management system.

This Newsletter is a summary and analysis of the most important trends in economic co-operation and development policy around the world. Information on Training, Publications and Websites is grouped. Distribution is by email. If you wish to subscribe from another account, send a blank email to: subscribe@weitzenegger.de. Current and back issues may be accessed at http://www.weitzenegger.de/new/

Today, The Cambodian Rural Development Agency calls on the Commune Council to solve land violation in Saang commune, Kandal province, Cambodia.

56 farmer were threaten by land business broker and authorities, the farmers will face with losing land to make farms if NGOs and authorities will not take actions and interventions about this issue.

Peacebuilding and the “Triple Threat”

The two questions below will be more meaningful for readers with some familiarity of the range and depth of the challenges associated with the “triple threat” of widespread resource depletion, climate change, and the “peaking” of our finite supplies of oil. Even so, I do believe that most readers will understand this writer’s intention is to affirm his belief in the serious nature of the challenges of our times, and suggest some fields of activity which need to be much more developed than they are now.

Introduction

As a way of opening lines of communication with members of this Aid Workers Forum, I am providing some information about my work (The IPCR Initiative), and offering the Spring 2007 issue of The IPCR Journal/Newsletter (free)-- which includes a "Building Caring Communities" Questionnaire (60 Questions) I believe the use of questionnaires-- and other approaches of The IPCR Initiative-- can help build bridges between diverse communities of people, and help build consensus for collective action towards higher common ground. For these reasons, I have chosen the following tags: peacebuilding, capacity building, education, conflict resolution, livelihoods, environment, assessment. I believe this information will be useful to people working as aid workers 1) as proactive steps to prevent conflict 2) as creative steps to build caring communities (from wherever they are at now) 3) as a way of mitigating the destabilizing effects of the “energy descent” paths which are on the horizon-- the energy constrained future which directly follows from the implications of ecological footprint analysis, climate change, and the “peaking” of our finite supplies of oil.

Download reports of AWN's income and expenditure for:

1. Year ending 31 December 2004 (pdf, 11kb)

Religious Civil Society in Afghanistan

This project sets out to examine the role and significance of religious groups and networks in the development of Afghan civil society in the post-Taliban era and seek to identify potential lines of tension and collaboration among secular and religious civil society actors. To this end the following main questions will be addressed:  What religiously associated civil society groups and organisations exist in Afghanistan? What are their roles and functions and how do these interact with the government of Afghanistan?  How are religiously associated groups and networks viewed by Afghan and international development actors?  How do religious civil society actors position themselves in the changing organisational environment? The project intends to bring the role of religious actors to the centre of the civil society debate in Afghanistan's peace, reconciliation and development processes. The project will draw concrete policy recommendations from its findings and will produce a working paper and a policy brief that will be shared widely with policy makers and other interested actors in Afghanistan, Norway and internationally, as well as an article in a policy journal.

25/2/07 Biral/Dinjapur Bangladesh

Compared to SE Asia, Bangladesh is such a hard, tough and male dominated society. I find it saddens me because of the lack of reaction you get from giving a simple smile- blank empty eyes. But just thinking about it now, this kind of environment makes love and kindness seem so amazing, so strong when it is revealed. When someone does smile, it is so much more to appreciate here. Today, out in the field visiting the ladies groups as a part of the HRDP project, they really touched me. Not their stand-offish fascination with white people, but their deep and expressive eyes and smiles which cover up lives we couldn't even imagine. Struggling to find somewhere enough food to give their families at least one meal a day; working hard to keep the house spotless in case God comes and their house isn't found messy; trying to save their kids from dying from simple curable health conditions like diahorrea and dehydration. This was before ADRA came to their villiage. They still struggle but their condition of living had improved so much and they are not living a hand-to-mouth lifestyle any more. They are able to save minute amounts of money, well, in our eyes, to prepare for a crisis in the future so they are not left bound to a high charging money lender.

Techniques and Practices for Local Responses to HIV/AIDS:
UNAIDS Toolkit
by M. Wegelin-Schuringa and G. Tiendrebeogo (eds.)
This toolkit was created to help strengthen the capacity and competence of people addressing HIV/AIDS. The key intended audience includes national facilitators for local responses, as well as district support teams or umbrella organisations whose task it is to motivate, facilitate, and support communities in planning their own responses. "This is, briefly, what we have learned from effective local responses, the responses by people where they live and work. How can one foster such effective responses at large scale?..."

[weitzenegger.de] May 2007

This Newsletter is a summary and analysis of the most important trends in economic co-operation and development policy around the world. Information on Training, Publications and Websites is grouped. Distribution is by email. If you wish to subscribe from another account, send a blank email to: subscribe@weitzenegger.de. Current and back issues may be accessed at http://www.weitzenegger.de/new/

The Yayori Award (the Women's Human Rights Activities Award) is granted to women activists, journalists and artists (individuals or groups) who work at the grassroots level with socially marginalized peoples with the objective of creating a 21st century free from war and discrimination against women. For the submission of candidates,

Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) in Practice: a Training Manual

This training manual produced by UNFPA/UNIFEM and authored by Debbie Budlender and Nisreen Alami is aimed at capacity building in the application of gender budget analysis. The manual seeks to build understanding of GRB as a tool for promoting gender equity, accountability to women's rights, and efficiency and transparency in budget policies and processes. To view the training manual and CD Rom of handouts and annexes:

French photographer is working on an exciting photography project. “Malaria- A forgotten pandemic” is the first malaria focused advocacy photography project.

The photographer is looking to travel to Southeast Asia and the DRC.

Early 2006, the Commonwealth Women's Network (CWN) secretariat was moved to Uganda from Trinidad and Tobago. The CWN is a network bringing together women's and gender-focused civil society organisations from around the 53 Countries of the Commonwealth.