Resources

This book focuses on civil society's role in international policy debates and global problem solving. Increased citizen action over the last 10 years has enabled citizens groups to be a major force in nonstate participation in the global system. Against this background, case studies from a number of movements and NGO networks are presented, including: campaigns to reform the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; the Jubilee 2000 Campaign, the movement against Free Trade, the Landmine Campaign as well as several other human rights, social justice and environmental movements. The book finishes with a section on lessons learned and challenges for the future. A synopsis of the book and abstracts of each section can be viewed at http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/particip/research/citizen/globcitact.pdf

This article is about a workshop for Oxfam partners in the Yemen. Its key objectives were to introduce community participation as a tool for sustainable development work; to develop and understanding of the role of Oxfam partners for community mobilisation/participation; to introduce participants to PRA tools and show the relevance to their work; and to enhance mainstreaming gender analysis in Oxfam partner's work. Most participants at the workshop represented local NGOs who receive funding form foreign donors, including Oxfam. They represented diverse fields of work, such as women's development, marginalised communities, disability and Social Fund for Development.|The workshop involved discussions around the concepts of community and participation and the changing roles of the partners in the light of using participatory approaches and tools. It includes a discussion of PRA for people with disabilities including methodological innovations.

This working paper details a new community-led approach to sanitation in Bangladesh. Access to latrines in rural areas is less than 15 per cent. Despite many agencies having been involved in the provision of subsidised latrines and toilets over the last three decades very few villages are totally sanitised. This new approach concentrates on empowering local people to analyse the extent and risk of environmental pollution caused by open defecation, and to construct toilets without any external subsidies. The Paper details the background to the work, the process of participatory total community sanitation, the impact of the project, it's national and international spread, how it differs from other sanitation programmes and limits to the approach. Finally it provides a list of recommendations, which have implications for policy makers and require institutional change. This project has had a huge impact: open defecation had been stopped in over 400 villages in Bangladesh and the methodology is being adopted in parts of India and elsewhere in Asia and Africa.

This paper analyses the role of civil society in advocating for the adoption of the Bill on the Right to Education in India. The author argues that recent successes in civil society mobilisation could form a good basis to implementing the right to education with the active collaboration and participation of the Indian government. Thus she demonstrates how civil societyûgovernment collaborative approaches have been able to tackle child labour and contribute to increasing access to educational opportunities for girls. In doing so, the author recommends: that there be an increase in sensitisation, mentoring, awareness-building, and in developing the participatory governance capacities of rights-unaware communities, while mobilising the masses to achieve reforms through advocacy; that there be a requirement for state bureaucracy to train staff in reforming legal and regulatory frameworks, and implementation systems; that at the local level designing methods of participation that incorporate new bargaining tools e.g. Public Interest Litigation (PIL); and working with women in æpositions of powerÆ as potential agents and champions of change. Some of the observations that have been made in the interim period following the passing of the Right to Education Bill include: a call from representatives from civil society to government to set up a 'National Commission on Education' comprised of experts, which would ensure a participation through involving civil society actors as an integral component in any planning and delivery to ensure implementation of the Constitutional provision; and the formation of state-level networks of civil-society organisations several Indian states to lobby the state governments to implement the principles of the Bill on the ground.

Este paquete de información sirve para dar una introducción al género y ciudadanía. Contiene tres documentos: un informe general, una colección de recursos de apoyo, y el Boletín de Bridge, EnBreve, edición 14 sobre género y ciudadanía. El informe examina la importancia de ciudadanía y género en la teoría y la práctica del desarrollo. Discute los discusiones dominantes en la literatura sobre género y ciudadanía y procura ilustrar cómo mirar la ciudadanía de una perspectiva del género puede introducir las derechas más amplias y la participación política como metas del desarrollo. También subraya cómo entendiendo las maneras en que diversos grupos definen y experimentan la ciudadanía puede permitir a agentes del desarrollo y a los ciudadanos con cuales trabajan para hacer tales derechas y la participación una realidad. La colección de recursos de apoyo se compone de resúmenes de textos claves, estudios de caso, herramientas, pautas y otros materiales referente al género y ciudadanía. Además, se incluyen detalles sobre contactos y enlaces para recursos en Internet. El boletín mira las maneras de trabajar con ideas de la ciudadanía puede ayudar a promover igualdad del género. Un procedimiento al desarrollo que empieza con la perspectiva de la gente como los ciudadanos puede permitir a agentes del desarrollo de apoyar a luchas de derechos y participación en la toma de decisiones para aquellos marginados en base de género. Esto implica re-enmarcar las derechas y responsabilidades de la ciudadanía para incluir las necesidades de mujeres y de asegurar su acceso a la política y a las instituciones. Los estudios y los artículos de caso incluyen experiencias de Egipto, de Bangladesh, de México, de Namibia, de la India, del Brasil, de México, de Sudáfrica y de Rwanda.

Research shows that the more resources reach the family through women, the greater the impact on poverty reduction. Therefore, if the main objective is to reduce poverty, CCGD (Collaborative Centre for Gender and Development) of Kenya, argues that there is a need to mainstream gender equity in the budget to ensure that more resources reach the households through women. This paper examines the task of CCGD to ensure that gender is taken on board in the National Economic Policies, e.g. PRSP (Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper) and the subsequent national budgets. The CCGD project of engendering budgetary policies is built on recommendations made at a workshop organised by the CCGD in 1997 where a dialogue between the government and other stakeholders in order to influence budgetary policies and processes to mainstream gender was launched. Since then and after a recommendation from the at the time Director of Planning in the Ministry of Planning and Development to focus where the distribution of resources takes place, women NGOs in Kenya have been concentrating their efforts on the activities of the Ministry of Finance and Planning. For the last three years the project has been implementing the programme on engendering the national budget and economic policies. The paper analyses the project and its implementation and lessons learned, and gives recommendations for the future.