Dear All
Please find below details we have just received of another event taking place in London in March.
Many thanks
Laura
--
HPN Network Paper Launch Meeting - 'Accountability in Humanitarian Action'
Monday 19 March 2007 13.00-14.30 pm, Overseas Development Institute, 111 Westminster Bridge Road, London
One of the most frequently heard criticisms of humanitarian action is that it is unaccountable and unregulated. In response, a wide range of initiatives has been launched to improve quality and accountability. The Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN) invites you to a meeting to discuss the findings of HPN Network Paper 58, Concerning accountability in humanitarian action.
The paper by Austen Davis asks whether schemes designed to improve accountability really are the solution to the problems humanitarianism faces today. It proposes a more productive route for reform to ensure the conditions for building and maintaining authentic NGOs with a sense of mission, detailed internal accountabilities and open relations with the
general public and media.
Speaker: Austen Davis, former Director General of MSF Holland.
Moderator: Paul Harvey, Research Fellow, ODI.
Respondents to include:
* Nicholas Stockton, Executive Director, Humanitarian Accountability Project - International.
* John Mitchell, Head, Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP).
There will be time for informal discussion and networking after the meeting.
If you would like to attend, please send an email stating your name, organisation and contact details to: hpn@odi.org.uk
Monday, February 26, 2007
February
BRCS INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY BULLETIN
Bulletin on International Humanitarian News, Events and Publications
(2007:2, February)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
BRCS International Monthly Seminar Programme
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
March 29th 2007, 1-2pm Basement Room
The Politicisation of Humanitarian Action - Medecins Sans Frontieres
April 26th 2007, 1-2pm Basement Room
The Humanitarian Impact of Climate Change - Andrew Simms, New Economics Foundation (TBC)
May 31st 2007, 1-2pm Basement Room
Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment - a tool for the RC - Terry Cannon, University of Greenwich
Full seminar programme forthcoming!
Suggestions for topics and speakers for these or future seminars are very welcome - please contact Laura Walker, HPP PA (x7533).
------------------------------------------------------
NEWS
-------
HAP 2007 Standard in Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management adopted 30.01.07
After six years of research and consultations, the Standard is intended to exemplify quality management as "just a practical means through which continual improvements can be made in the accountability and effectiveness of humanitarian work" (Denis Caillaux, the Chair of the Board). It consists of principles of accountability, a binding humanitarian accountability covenant drawing on RC/RC fundamental principles, and benchmarks for quality management. A voluntary certification scheme will soon be launched, recognising effective humanitarian quality management systems.
The Standard and more information available at http://www.hapinternational.org/en/
--
Director of ODI sets out a 2007 global development agenda dominated by politics - but where is climate change?
The challenges of poverty, aid, trade, politics and human security will make 2007 a tough year, says Simon Maxwell, ODI Director, as in the aids and development sector itself '… [a]ttention will begin to focus on glaring and growing inequality between rich and poor, in a conversation dominated by ideas of social justice rather than the eradication of absolute poverty.'
Read and comment at: http://blogs.odi.org.uk/blogs/main/archive/2006/12/22/1432.aspx
------------------------------------------------------
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
-----------------------------
Launch of the inTERRAgate online global hazard database, Grange City Hotel, London, on Thursday, March 22nd.
Developed by the Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre and SARAID, and with financial support from UCL Futures, inTERRAgate is primarily designed to raise awareness of natural hazards that may lead to future disasters, thereby improving the preparedness and responses of humanitarian agencies and other first responders. InTERRAgate includes a hazard profile for each country, together with information on past events and future threats, and opportunities to upload your own contributions to the database. At present the site has basic hazard data on just 10 countries that are particularly hazard prone, although ultimately every country will be represented. InTERRAgate will be test-launched a few weeks before the formal launch, and in the meantime you can view flyers and elements of the site at: http://www.s176613701.websitehome.co.uk. Please note that this address may not always function due to continuing work on the site in the run-up to the launch.
--
Conference, 'Better Water for a Better Life'.
Wednesday 7 March, 16.00 to 18.00, Grimond Room, Portcullis House, Bridge Street, London SW1A 2LW.
Speakers: Gareth Thomas MP (DFID Minister), Norah Odwesso (Diageo Africa). Chair: Malcolm Bruce MP (Chair, International Development Committee). Due to a limited number of conference places please RSVP to Josephine Osikena, e-mail, josephine.osikena@fpc.org.uk or tel:
0207 729 7566.
--
Panel: Women and Men Preventing HIV & AIDS - Issues, Inequalities and Solutions'
08 March 2007, 3-5pm
Attlee Suite, Portcullis House, Westminster, London
ActionAid, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the All Party Parliamentary Groups on AIDS, and Population, Development and Reproductive Health present a panel and market place. Speakers include Mary Wandia (ActionAid International), Grace Mukasa (VSO) and a special guest from the documentary on PEPFAR presented by IPPF. Chair: Lord Chris Smith. The event is free, but you must RSVP to Aviva Bresky at breskya@parliament.uk or on 0207 219 6916.
NB - Cathy Stephen (NSSP PA) will be attending this event and reporting back.
--
Panel discussion: Women's Rights in the Age of Insecurity
08 March 2007, 6-9pm
The Library, Central Hall Westminster, Storey's Gate, London
While global politics today is dominated by the War on Terror, the growth of fundamentalisms - economic, political, cultural and religious - is undermining progress towards women's rights. Governments worldwide have committed to ending discrimination and promoting women's rights. How can we hold them to account to enable women to claim their rights and escape from poverty? Speakers include Rt. Hon. Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International Development and Noerine Kaleeba, HIV/AIDS Activist and Chair of ActionAid International.
Places are free, but you must RSVP to policyandcampaigns@actionaid.org, or by calling Labina Basit on 020 7561 7611.
--
DfID Launch of recent IDS Publications on Sexuality
Monday 19 March, 11.30 to 13.00 at DFID, 1 Palace Street, London SW1E 5HE.
Featuring brief presentations by: Sonia Correa (International Sexuality Policy Watch, Brazil), Pinar Ilkkaracan (Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies, Susie Jolly and Andrea Cornwall (IDS). Coffee will be available from 11.00, and a buffet lunch will follow.
RSVP to Elaine Mercer on E.Mercer@ids.ac.uk Please reply by 12 March if possible.
--
HIV/AIDS and other Infectious Diseases: lessons for a global future
Facilitated by Tony Barnett & Alan Whiteside
17-19 April 2007 at the London School of Economics
This is the latest in the global series of workshops on the social and economic implications of the HIV/AIDS epidemic facilitated by Professors Barnett & Whiteside. The main focus will be on HIV/AIDS, but the substance of the workshop will draw on a wider concern with infectious diseases. The HIV epidemic teaches us important lessons for thinking about long term social and economic effects of epidemic infectious diseases in general. The fee for this three day workshop is £1200 which included tea/coffee and lunches. Please enquire for further information. To apply for a place on this workshop, go to: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEAIDS/events/HIVAIDS%20Workshop%20Dec%202006.doc
or email us at Lseaids@lse.ac.uk
------------------------------------------------------
PUBLICATIONS
------------------
ODI Discussion Paper - Learning from cash responses to the tsunami: Final report by Lesley Adams.
This report by the Tsunami Cash Learning Project (http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/Cash_vouchers_tsunani.html) follows an earlier piece of Humanitarian Policy Group research by Paul Harvey on emergency cash transfers (http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/cash_discussion_paper.pdf). It sets out to record the experiences of agencies implementing cash-based interventions, and their results, and to develop guidelines for future emergency cash interventions. The project covers tsunami interventions in Aceh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India.
http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/BGP_Tsunamilessons.pdf
--
Humanitarian Exchange Magazine 36
The articles in this issue of Humanitarian Exchange investigate key issues of concern for the IDPs of Northern Uganda, including protection and livelihoods, to inform strategy development in response to this changing context. This edition also includes a range of general policy and practice articles. It looks at different approaches and methodologies for assessing and planning for food security, health and psychosocial interventions, the role of information technology in coordinating and planning humanitarian action, new thinking about the return and reintegration of refugees and issues around effectiveness, accountability and inter-agency collaboration.
http://www.odihpn.org/documents/humanitarianexchange036.pdf
--
UN Security Guidelines for Women
UN DSS has developed guidelines related to UN female staff, as a result of a specific requests from women who wanted tips to deal with security issues as the relate to women. The guidelines consist of three parts; travel in a foreign country, sexual harassment and rape awareness. Much of the material applies to both men and women, and copies are available from SCHR.
--
Self-study tool on UN-Civil Military Coordination
Developed by OCHA 'to reinforce aspects of civil-military coordination from a humanitarian perspective', this self-study tool, called 'UN-CMCoord IMPACT', can be downloaded and burnt to CD-ROM from http://ocha.unog.ch/uncmcoord/.
--
Debating NGO Accountability by Dr. Jem Bendell
In the context of the current debates around NGO accountability, we need to ask what initiatives will improve the accountability of all institutions to the people whose lives they shape, and what initiatives could serve merely to undermine NGOs' useful and largely accepted role in holding business and government accountable for their actions. With this in mind, this new Development Dossier from NGLS puts democracy and human rights firmly at the centre of the debate about NGO accountability. The publication is available for free download from http://www.un-ngls.org.
--
IDS Policy Briefing December 2006 - Making Accountability Count
Accountability is now a buzzword in contemporary development debates. It is central to development policy, whether government accountability (as a central component of good governance), corporate accountability (promoted by a swathe of standards and codes), or civil society accountability (claimed by people and organisations from the bottom up). Yet with so many competing ideas, interpretations and practices, it is sometimes unclear how improved accountability is directly relevant to the lives of poor and marginalised people. In order to build accountable institutions that respond to claims by citizens, it is crucial to understand how accountability matters, for whom, and under what conditions it operates. This Policy Briefing looks at who benefits from improved accountability and focuses on how people claim accountability in practice.
http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/bookshop/briefs/PB33.pdf
--
Impact Measurement and Accountability in Emergencies: The Good Enough Guide
Developed by the Emergency Capacity Building Project (ECB).
What difference are we making? How do we know? The Good Enough Guide helps busy field workers to address these questions. It offers a set of basic guidelines on how to be accountable to local people and measure programme impact in emergency situations. Its 'good enough' approach emphasises simple and practical solutions and encourages the user to choose tools that are safe, quick, and easy to implement.
http://publications.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam/display.asp?K=_2006111410173391
--
We're Too Much in 'To Do' Mode: Action Research into Supporting International NGOs to Learn, by Maaike Smit
International development organisations are continually urged to do things better by learning more from their experiences. For this, organisational learning is crucial. But developing organisational learning capacity does not just happen: it requires a conscious effort, which at its core involves jointly making sense of experiences. This Praxis Paper, written by Maaike Smit of PSO, explores how action research, in which the researcher and respondents in an organisation jointly make sense of their organisational learning, can be a worthwhile way to support organisational learning. The paper concludes with practical implications for those involved in organisational learning processes in international development organisations: learners, managers, consultants and researchers.
Paper available for download from http://www.intrac.org/pages/PraxisPaper16.html.
--
Food Security in Southern Africa: Changing the trend? Review of lessons learnt on recent responses to chronic and transitory hunger and vulnerability. - Nick Maunder and Steve Wiggins, November 2006.
Commissioned jointly by OGB, Care, WVI and RHVP to benchmark progress in understanding and appropriately responding to, transitory and chronic food security in Southern Africa since 2001. It assesses the changes in the understanding of the problem, how this has been incorporated into policy, and how programming has subsequently changed in relation to these latter two points. Overall, although now accepted that the majority suffer chronic hunger, the transitory needs associated with drought and other climatic triggers continue to demand the most immediate and urgent action with little change in dominance of use of large scale food aid due to donor reluctance, lack of capacity, and lack of evidence of impact of alternative livelihoods support. Despite this continued focus on relief, interest in social protection with aim to achieve greater impact on chronic hunger has increased. Also increased interest in disaster risk reduction, although in practise there is still a long way to go in terms of integration into national policies and development programming.
http://newsite.irinnews.org/pdf/Changing-the-trend-FINAL-report-jan-29-2007.pdf
--
BRIDGE Bibliography 18: Women and girls living with HIV/AIDS - overview and annotated bibliography
Emily Esplen, Prepared in collaboration with the International Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (ICW)
Available for download from http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports/BB18_HIV.pdf
------------------------------------------------------
NEW PUBLICATIONS in the BRCS LIBRARY
Pick these up at the library (6th floor) or by contacting Bridget Andrews, Librarian (x7056)
------------------------------------------------
Positive lives : international responses to HIV & AIDS (Concern, 2006)
Positive Lives is an international project that photographs and documents the social and emotional impact of HIV/AIDS and works with local HIV organisations and international aid agencies to incorporate this resource into health and education programmes. This book contains images from around the world, with accompanying text, showing the lives of HIV positive people in different communities. Shelfmark: 4.11 POS
--
Humanitarian intervention : ethical, legal and political dilemmas / edited by J.L. Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane (Cambridge University Press, 2003)
Essays analysing humanitarian intervention in the context of state failure in many parts of the world, looking at fundamental issues of moral theory, processes of change in international law, and how conceptions of sovereignty are shifting as a result of changes in norms of human rights. Shelfmark: 11.5 HUM
--
Civilians in war / edited by Simon Chesterman (Lynne Rienner, 2001)
This book looks at international humanitarian law as it applies to the protection of non-combatants. It covers the context of evolving attitudes about civilians and belligerents; inducing compliance, including a case study of the ICRC work in Colombia; a discussion of how compliance can be enforced, and the issues around reevaluating the protection of civilians in the context of modern armed conflict. Shelfmark: 2.2 CIV
--
The place at the end of the world : essays from the edge / Janine di Giovanni (Bloomsbury, 2006)
A collection of pieces illustrating the lives of people in conflict areas by the foreign correspondent Janine di Giovanni, written between 1998 and 2005. Shelfmark: 3.23 DIG
--
States of denial : knowing about atrocities and suffering / Stanley Cohen (Polity press, 2001)
"Study of both the personal and political ways in which uncomfortable realities are avoided and evaded. It ranges from clinical studies of depression, to media images of suffering, to explanations of the 'passive bystander' and 'compassion fatigue'. The book show how organised atrocities - the Holocaust and other genocides, torture, and political massacres - are denied by perpetrators and by bystanders". Shelfmark: 13.4 COH
--
The new interventionism 1991-1994 : United Nations experience in Cambodia, former Yugoslavia and Somalia / edited by James Mayall (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
This book considers the reasons for the failure of the 'new world order' envisaged at the end of the Cold War by looking at the challenges faced by the international community in three major UN operations: the implementation of a previously negotiated political agreement in Cambodia, the need to devise a credible division of labour between the UN and the EU in former Yugoslavia, and the operation in Somalia to mount a humanitarian mission in a country without a government. In each case the authors look at common themes as well as contrasts and raise questions about the possibilities for and limits of international reform. Shelfmark: 11.5 NEW
--
Saving strangers : humanitarian intervention in international society / Nicholas J. Wheeler (Oxford University Press, 2002)
This book considers the extent to which humanitarian intervention has become a legitimate practice in international society. The author examines the legitimacy of intervention in seven cold-war and post-cold-war cases. The conclusion is that while unilateral humanitarian intervention continues to be viewed with great suspicion by international society, it can support a new solidarity among states based on reconciling the imperatives of order and justice. Shelfmark: 11.5 WHE
------------------------------------------------------
Contribute to this bulletin by e-mailing submissions and feedback to Laura Walker, HPP PA (x7533).
Bulletin on International Humanitarian News, Events and Publications
(2007:2, February)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
BRCS International Monthly Seminar Programme
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
March 29th 2007, 1-2pm Basement Room
The Politicisation of Humanitarian Action - Medecins Sans Frontieres
April 26th 2007, 1-2pm Basement Room
The Humanitarian Impact of Climate Change - Andrew Simms, New Economics Foundation (TBC)
May 31st 2007, 1-2pm Basement Room
Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment - a tool for the RC - Terry Cannon, University of Greenwich
Full seminar programme forthcoming!
Suggestions for topics and speakers for these or future seminars are very welcome - please contact Laura Walker, HPP PA (x7533).
------------------------------------------------------
NEWS
-------
HAP 2007 Standard in Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management adopted 30.01.07
After six years of research and consultations, the Standard is intended to exemplify quality management as "just a practical means through which continual improvements can be made in the accountability and effectiveness of humanitarian work" (Denis Caillaux, the Chair of the Board). It consists of principles of accountability, a binding humanitarian accountability covenant drawing on RC/RC fundamental principles, and benchmarks for quality management. A voluntary certification scheme will soon be launched, recognising effective humanitarian quality management systems.
The Standard and more information available at http://www.hapinternational.org/en/
--
Director of ODI sets out a 2007 global development agenda dominated by politics - but where is climate change?
The challenges of poverty, aid, trade, politics and human security will make 2007 a tough year, says Simon Maxwell, ODI Director, as in the aids and development sector itself '… [a]ttention will begin to focus on glaring and growing inequality between rich and poor, in a conversation dominated by ideas of social justice rather than the eradication of absolute poverty.'
Read and comment at: http://blogs.odi.org.uk/blogs/main/archive/2006/12/22/1432.aspx
------------------------------------------------------
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
-----------------------------
Launch of the inTERRAgate online global hazard database, Grange City Hotel, London, on Thursday, March 22nd.
Developed by the Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre and SARAID, and with financial support from UCL Futures, inTERRAgate is primarily designed to raise awareness of natural hazards that may lead to future disasters, thereby improving the preparedness and responses of humanitarian agencies and other first responders. InTERRAgate includes a hazard profile for each country, together with information on past events and future threats, and opportunities to upload your own contributions to the database. At present the site has basic hazard data on just 10 countries that are particularly hazard prone, although ultimately every country will be represented. InTERRAgate will be test-launched a few weeks before the formal launch, and in the meantime you can view flyers and elements of the site at: http://www.s176613701.websitehome.co.uk. Please note that this address may not always function due to continuing work on the site in the run-up to the launch.
--
Conference, 'Better Water for a Better Life'.
Wednesday 7 March, 16.00 to 18.00, Grimond Room, Portcullis House, Bridge Street, London SW1A 2LW.
Speakers: Gareth Thomas MP (DFID Minister), Norah Odwesso (Diageo Africa). Chair: Malcolm Bruce MP (Chair, International Development Committee). Due to a limited number of conference places please RSVP to Josephine Osikena, e-mail, josephine.osikena@fpc.org.uk or tel:
0207 729 7566.
--
Panel: Women and Men Preventing HIV & AIDS - Issues, Inequalities and Solutions'
08 March 2007, 3-5pm
Attlee Suite, Portcullis House, Westminster, London
ActionAid, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the All Party Parliamentary Groups on AIDS, and Population, Development and Reproductive Health present a panel and market place. Speakers include Mary Wandia (ActionAid International), Grace Mukasa (VSO) and a special guest from the documentary on PEPFAR presented by IPPF. Chair: Lord Chris Smith. The event is free, but you must RSVP to Aviva Bresky at breskya@parliament.uk or on 0207 219 6916.
NB - Cathy Stephen (NSSP PA) will be attending this event and reporting back.
--
Panel discussion: Women's Rights in the Age of Insecurity
08 March 2007, 6-9pm
The Library, Central Hall Westminster, Storey's Gate, London
While global politics today is dominated by the War on Terror, the growth of fundamentalisms - economic, political, cultural and religious - is undermining progress towards women's rights. Governments worldwide have committed to ending discrimination and promoting women's rights. How can we hold them to account to enable women to claim their rights and escape from poverty? Speakers include Rt. Hon. Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International Development and Noerine Kaleeba, HIV/AIDS Activist and Chair of ActionAid International.
Places are free, but you must RSVP to policyandcampaigns@actionaid.org, or by calling Labina Basit on 020 7561 7611.
--
DfID Launch of recent IDS Publications on Sexuality
Monday 19 March, 11.30 to 13.00 at DFID, 1 Palace Street, London SW1E 5HE.
Featuring brief presentations by: Sonia Correa (International Sexuality Policy Watch, Brazil), Pinar Ilkkaracan (Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies, Susie Jolly and Andrea Cornwall (IDS). Coffee will be available from 11.00, and a buffet lunch will follow.
RSVP to Elaine Mercer on E.Mercer@ids.ac.uk Please reply by 12 March if possible.
--
HIV/AIDS and other Infectious Diseases: lessons for a global future
Facilitated by Tony Barnett & Alan Whiteside
17-19 April 2007 at the London School of Economics
This is the latest in the global series of workshops on the social and economic implications of the HIV/AIDS epidemic facilitated by Professors Barnett & Whiteside. The main focus will be on HIV/AIDS, but the substance of the workshop will draw on a wider concern with infectious diseases. The HIV epidemic teaches us important lessons for thinking about long term social and economic effects of epidemic infectious diseases in general. The fee for this three day workshop is £1200 which included tea/coffee and lunches. Please enquire for further information. To apply for a place on this workshop, go to: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEAIDS/events/HIVAIDS%20Workshop%20Dec%202006.doc
or email us at Lseaids@lse.ac.uk
------------------------------------------------------
PUBLICATIONS
------------------
ODI Discussion Paper - Learning from cash responses to the tsunami: Final report by Lesley Adams.
This report by the Tsunami Cash Learning Project (http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/Cash_vouchers_tsunani.html) follows an earlier piece of Humanitarian Policy Group research by Paul Harvey on emergency cash transfers (http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/cash_discussion_paper.pdf). It sets out to record the experiences of agencies implementing cash-based interventions, and their results, and to develop guidelines for future emergency cash interventions. The project covers tsunami interventions in Aceh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India.
http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/BGP_Tsunamilessons.pdf
--
Humanitarian Exchange Magazine 36
The articles in this issue of Humanitarian Exchange investigate key issues of concern for the IDPs of Northern Uganda, including protection and livelihoods, to inform strategy development in response to this changing context. This edition also includes a range of general policy and practice articles. It looks at different approaches and methodologies for assessing and planning for food security, health and psychosocial interventions, the role of information technology in coordinating and planning humanitarian action, new thinking about the return and reintegration of refugees and issues around effectiveness, accountability and inter-agency collaboration.
http://www.odihpn.org/documents/humanitarianexchange036.pdf
--
UN Security Guidelines for Women
UN DSS has developed guidelines related to UN female staff, as a result of a specific requests from women who wanted tips to deal with security issues as the relate to women. The guidelines consist of three parts; travel in a foreign country, sexual harassment and rape awareness. Much of the material applies to both men and women, and copies are available from SCHR.
--
Self-study tool on UN-Civil Military Coordination
Developed by OCHA 'to reinforce aspects of civil-military coordination from a humanitarian perspective', this self-study tool, called 'UN-CMCoord IMPACT', can be downloaded and burnt to CD-ROM from http://ocha.unog.ch/uncmcoord/.
--
Debating NGO Accountability by Dr. Jem Bendell
In the context of the current debates around NGO accountability, we need to ask what initiatives will improve the accountability of all institutions to the people whose lives they shape, and what initiatives could serve merely to undermine NGOs' useful and largely accepted role in holding business and government accountable for their actions. With this in mind, this new Development Dossier from NGLS puts democracy and human rights firmly at the centre of the debate about NGO accountability. The publication is available for free download from http://www.un-ngls.org.
--
IDS Policy Briefing December 2006 - Making Accountability Count
Accountability is now a buzzword in contemporary development debates. It is central to development policy, whether government accountability (as a central component of good governance), corporate accountability (promoted by a swathe of standards and codes), or civil society accountability (claimed by people and organisations from the bottom up). Yet with so many competing ideas, interpretations and practices, it is sometimes unclear how improved accountability is directly relevant to the lives of poor and marginalised people. In order to build accountable institutions that respond to claims by citizens, it is crucial to understand how accountability matters, for whom, and under what conditions it operates. This Policy Briefing looks at who benefits from improved accountability and focuses on how people claim accountability in practice.
http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/bookshop/briefs/PB33.pdf
--
Impact Measurement and Accountability in Emergencies: The Good Enough Guide
Developed by the Emergency Capacity Building Project (ECB).
What difference are we making? How do we know? The Good Enough Guide helps busy field workers to address these questions. It offers a set of basic guidelines on how to be accountable to local people and measure programme impact in emergency situations. Its 'good enough' approach emphasises simple and practical solutions and encourages the user to choose tools that are safe, quick, and easy to implement.
http://publications.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam/display.asp?K=_2006111410173391
--
We're Too Much in 'To Do' Mode: Action Research into Supporting International NGOs to Learn, by Maaike Smit
International development organisations are continually urged to do things better by learning more from their experiences. For this, organisational learning is crucial. But developing organisational learning capacity does not just happen: it requires a conscious effort, which at its core involves jointly making sense of experiences. This Praxis Paper, written by Maaike Smit of PSO, explores how action research, in which the researcher and respondents in an organisation jointly make sense of their organisational learning, can be a worthwhile way to support organisational learning. The paper concludes with practical implications for those involved in organisational learning processes in international development organisations: learners, managers, consultants and researchers.
Paper available for download from http://www.intrac.org/pages/PraxisPaper16.html.
--
Food Security in Southern Africa: Changing the trend? Review of lessons learnt on recent responses to chronic and transitory hunger and vulnerability. - Nick Maunder and Steve Wiggins, November 2006.
Commissioned jointly by OGB, Care, WVI and RHVP to benchmark progress in understanding and appropriately responding to, transitory and chronic food security in Southern Africa since 2001. It assesses the changes in the understanding of the problem, how this has been incorporated into policy, and how programming has subsequently changed in relation to these latter two points. Overall, although now accepted that the majority suffer chronic hunger, the transitory needs associated with drought and other climatic triggers continue to demand the most immediate and urgent action with little change in dominance of use of large scale food aid due to donor reluctance, lack of capacity, and lack of evidence of impact of alternative livelihoods support. Despite this continued focus on relief, interest in social protection with aim to achieve greater impact on chronic hunger has increased. Also increased interest in disaster risk reduction, although in practise there is still a long way to go in terms of integration into national policies and development programming.
http://newsite.irinnews.org/pdf/Changing-the-trend-FINAL-report-jan-29-2007.pdf
--
BRIDGE Bibliography 18: Women and girls living with HIV/AIDS - overview and annotated bibliography
Emily Esplen, Prepared in collaboration with the International Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (ICW)
Available for download from http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports/BB18_HIV.pdf
------------------------------------------------------
NEW PUBLICATIONS in the BRCS LIBRARY
Pick these up at the library (6th floor) or by contacting Bridget Andrews, Librarian (x7056)
------------------------------------------------
Positive lives : international responses to HIV & AIDS (Concern, 2006)
Positive Lives is an international project that photographs and documents the social and emotional impact of HIV/AIDS and works with local HIV organisations and international aid agencies to incorporate this resource into health and education programmes. This book contains images from around the world, with accompanying text, showing the lives of HIV positive people in different communities. Shelfmark: 4.11 POS
--
Humanitarian intervention : ethical, legal and political dilemmas / edited by J.L. Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane (Cambridge University Press, 2003)
Essays analysing humanitarian intervention in the context of state failure in many parts of the world, looking at fundamental issues of moral theory, processes of change in international law, and how conceptions of sovereignty are shifting as a result of changes in norms of human rights. Shelfmark: 11.5 HUM
--
Civilians in war / edited by Simon Chesterman (Lynne Rienner, 2001)
This book looks at international humanitarian law as it applies to the protection of non-combatants. It covers the context of evolving attitudes about civilians and belligerents; inducing compliance, including a case study of the ICRC work in Colombia; a discussion of how compliance can be enforced, and the issues around reevaluating the protection of civilians in the context of modern armed conflict. Shelfmark: 2.2 CIV
--
The place at the end of the world : essays from the edge / Janine di Giovanni (Bloomsbury, 2006)
A collection of pieces illustrating the lives of people in conflict areas by the foreign correspondent Janine di Giovanni, written between 1998 and 2005. Shelfmark: 3.23 DIG
--
States of denial : knowing about atrocities and suffering / Stanley Cohen (Polity press, 2001)
"Study of both the personal and political ways in which uncomfortable realities are avoided and evaded. It ranges from clinical studies of depression, to media images of suffering, to explanations of the 'passive bystander' and 'compassion fatigue'. The book show how organised atrocities - the Holocaust and other genocides, torture, and political massacres - are denied by perpetrators and by bystanders". Shelfmark: 13.4 COH
--
The new interventionism 1991-1994 : United Nations experience in Cambodia, former Yugoslavia and Somalia / edited by James Mayall (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
This book considers the reasons for the failure of the 'new world order' envisaged at the end of the Cold War by looking at the challenges faced by the international community in three major UN operations: the implementation of a previously negotiated political agreement in Cambodia, the need to devise a credible division of labour between the UN and the EU in former Yugoslavia, and the operation in Somalia to mount a humanitarian mission in a country without a government. In each case the authors look at common themes as well as contrasts and raise questions about the possibilities for and limits of international reform. Shelfmark: 11.5 NEW
--
Saving strangers : humanitarian intervention in international society / Nicholas J. Wheeler (Oxford University Press, 2002)
This book considers the extent to which humanitarian intervention has become a legitimate practice in international society. The author examines the legitimacy of intervention in seven cold-war and post-cold-war cases. The conclusion is that while unilateral humanitarian intervention continues to be viewed with great suspicion by international society, it can support a new solidarity among states based on reconciling the imperatives of order and justice. Shelfmark: 11.5 WHE
------------------------------------------------------
Contribute to this bulletin by e-mailing submissions and feedback to Laura Walker, HPP PA (x7533).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
