Pakistan-US relations: examining sustainable bilateral cooperation via civil society collaboration

The main challenge for a sustainability transition is to scale up successful solutions. Upscaling requires coalitions of public, private, and civil society actors who align their motivations. Pathways to upscaling may involve leveraging a dominant player's market power, integrating successful initiatives into public policy, or reinforcing government-led change with private efforts. Various actors agree to collaborate to take advantage of their complementary capabilities, e.g., government policies facilitate private action, market incentives reward progressive actors while government sanctions punish laggards, actors take up different tasks of the policy cycle, and large players absorb and disseminate pioneer efforts. To achieve durable impacts, the upscaling of solutions to reach sustainability must continually maintain a balance of incentives among key actors. We identify general lessons for successful upscaling that provide insights on the importance of motivating actors, designing collaborations for lasting success, and incorporating concerns of developing countries.

In recent decades, civil society organizations (CSOs) have ostensibly attained increased access to the United Nations (UN) and other intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and, in turn, increased opportunities for collaboration with IGOs. However, in most cases, CSO access to IGOs remains limited and highly regimented. Little scholarship has been undertaken to examine barriers to effective CSO–IGO collaborations. Virtually, no empirical research has examined the degree or nature of the interaction between the UN and international civil society via the dynamic of the flagship programme designed to facilitate such collaborations—the consultative status framework. This exploratory study partially addresses the latter gap in the scholarship by undertaking a qualitative macro-scale examination of CSOs within the UN Economic and Social Council’s (ECOSOC) consultative status programme, the primary vehicle in the UN–civil society dynamic. Specifically, the study sought to identify barriers to UN–civil society collaboration within the consultative status programme as perceived by participating CSOs. Findings of a survey sent to a random sample of 10% of CSOs holding UN–ECOSOC consultative status revealed that barriers to participation in the programme varied with some obstacles far more common than others. The degree of barriers reported by CSOs also strongly reflected the level of accreditation they held within the programme. Additionally, survey respondents offered insight as to how impediments in the collaboration could potentially be addressed.

Along the Academe‐Policy Frontier: A Tribute to Aileen S.P. Baviera

Restricting NGOs: From Pushback to Accommodation

Author's Introduction Civil society has become one of the most popular concepts within international development discourses. But, what is civil society? Civil society is defined as an arena of collective social interaction situated between the state, market and household, encompassing a range of non‐state organisations, groups and associations, including non‐governmental organisations (NGOs). The article assesses the range of different interpretations of civil society highlighting its diverse makeup at local, national and transnational scales. Why has civil society become so important within international development? Democracy and delivery of services . As people organised collectively against totalitarian regimes in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Global South, civil society emerged as a manifestation of democratisation processes. The neoliberal agenda also wanted to capture and channel civil society to foster democracy, but also to take on service delivery functions as the role of the state diminished. This article outlines how these roles relate to two theoretical viewpoints – the Marxist or Gramscian that sees civil society as a site of resistance and counterhegemony, and the liberal democratic that views it as a beneficial force for good. Civil society in practice. In the 1990s, development agencies championed civil society from an undertheorised liberal democratic viewpoint as a saviour or ‘magic bullet’ as it channels more and more funds via NGOs. But, civil society has increasingly been criticised as undemocratic, unable to reach the poor and unaccountable. This article describes this evolution. The emergence of global or transnational society . In these days of globalisation, global civil society is increasingly important. This is neither civil society at a global level, nor is it a unified global force for good, lobbying and challenging the neoliberal order. Instead, viewed as ‘transnational civil society’, it is a complex mix of competing, overlapping and intersecting groups that operate beyond national borders for a range of reasons. Especially important actors in transnational civil society are diasporic civil society groups in the form of migrant associations. This article argues that as international migration increases, these groups are growing in economic, social and political importance, yet we do not know very much about them. Author Recommends Anheier, H., Glasius, M., and Kaldor, M. (eds) (2004). Global civil society 2004/5. London: Sage. This book is one of the annual reports on the nature of global civil society produced by the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics. It has a range of interesting articles and is available to download at http://lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/yearbook04chapters.htm Howell, J., and Pearce, J. (2001). Civil society and development: a critical exploration. London: Lynne Rienner. This book provides an excellent overview of the theoretical and empirical debates about civil society at a national level. It provides a range of examples from around the developing world. Lewis, D., and Opoku‐Mensah, P. (2006). Moving forward research agendas on international NGOs: theory, agency and context. Journal of International Development 18, pp. 665–675. This article is an engaging review of the main themes revolving around civil society and development in relation to international NGOs in particular. Mercer, C. (2002). NGOs, civil society and democratization: a critical review of the literature. Progress in Development Studies 2, pp. 5–22. This article is an excellent state‐of‐the‐art review of the relationships between civil society and democratisation from a development perspective. It outlines the main theoretical approaches and assesses them in relation to development policy. Mitlin, D., Hickey, S., and Bebbington, A. (2007). Reclaiming development? NGOs and the challenge of alternatives. World Development 35 (10), pp. 1699–1720. This article outlines the issue of why NGOs have been so popular with development agencies and why this popularity is on the wane. Mohan, G. (2002). The disappointments of civil society: the politics of NGO intervention in northern Ghana. Political Geography 21, pp. 125–154. This article outlines the main thinking about civil society and then illustrates it with an interesting case study from Ghana. Munck, R. (2007). Global civil society: royal road or slippery path? Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 17, pp. 325–332. This article is one of the most‐up‐to‐date accounts on the advantages and disadvantages of global civil society. Useful Links http://www.jhu.edu/~ccss/ website of the Centre for Civil Society, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. This site reports on policy‐related research on civil society and other more practically oriented projects. http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CCS/ website of the Centre for Civil Society, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK. This site publishes a range of research papers on civil society and runs academic events. http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/</jats:ext-lin

The western China, especially near the Wenchuan region witnessed a terrible earthquake in the year 2008, which led to some severe damage in the country. Several interviews and studies are conducted to explain the impact of this Sichuan earthquake on the development of the various grass-root associations present in the country.

What kind of ways are there for research and civil society to improve climate safety together? This presentation examines how academics and civil society actors can co-design research-based solutions for supporting a safer climate. The term &amp;#8216;climate safety&amp;#8217; is used instead of the more commonly used &amp;#8216;climate security&amp;#8217; to highlight the human security aspects of the matter, as well as to refer to the concept of &amp;#8216;safer space&amp;#8217; aiming to create a safe environment for a more inclusive climate change discussion and action.In addition to scientific data, sustainability transformation requires action, political will and cultural change. Therefore it is important to study and create new theoretical and physical spaces at the intersection of science, art and civil society, and to emphasize two-way communication. Civil society plays a key role in strengthening society's crisis resilience in general, which is also important for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Civil society&amp;#8217;s versatile role extends from large-scale assistance to authorities in (climate) crisis situations to creative and independent solutions of local communities. By strengthening civil society&amp;#8217;s understanding of science and their voice regarding climate change, we are able to strengthen society&amp;#8217;s crisis resilience in terms of climate change and related direct, cascading and transition impacts on security.The presentation is based on and showcases practical examples from the work of the Initiative for a Safer Climate, a new network that brings together researchers, civil society organizations and arts. The network is based in Finland and it is part of the outreach activities of the Atmosphere and Climate Competence Center consisting of University of Helsinki, Tampere University, University of Eastern Finland and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

IT IS WIDELY EXPECTED THAT SOMETIME IN 2001 there will be a review of Canadian foreign aid policies. In anticipation, Canadian non-government organizations (NGOs) are mobilizing to do what they can to ensure that there is no substantial retreat from the putative humanitarian objectives of Canadian aid. Now is perhaps a good time to ask how much success civil society groups have had in the past in promoting a more ethically responsible Canadian foreign policy. A partial answer can be found by looking at their sustained efforts over several decades to influence Canadian policies on two major foreign policy issues in which one might expect that ethical considerations would play a significant role - Canadian policies toward apartheid South Africa and toward foreign aid.In recent years, two theoretical approaches have dominated the scholarly literature on Canadian foreign policy: statist and dominant class.(f.1) Neither approach suggests that ethical considerations have been a significant component of the dominant world view of senior Canadian foreign policy decision-makers or that lobbying from within Canadian civil society has forced the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to become more engaged with issues such as sustained oppression and severe poverty beyond Canada's borders. Both approaches reckon that such 'soft' policy objectives as promoting human rights or helping the world's poorest peoples are filtered out within the decision-making process. Dominant class theorists emphasize the role of the dominant ideology within Canadian decision-making circles in sifting out such objectives, while statist theorists identify the interests that act as the sieve in less ideological and more narrowly bureaucratic terms. However, both clearly imply that civil society efforts to promote more ethical foreign policies have had little impact.A closer look at the development of Canadian foreign aid policies and Canadian policy towards apartheid South Africa, two policies that have long been the focus of sustained ethical lobbying by the Canadian churches, the NGO community, and many other civil society public interest groups, indicates a need for a more nuanced reading of civil society efforts to secure a more ethically responsive Canadian foreign policy.ETHICAL VALUES AND CANADIAN FOREIGN AID(f.2)The literature on the determinants of Canadian aid policies mentions a surprisingly wide range of influences, including, among others, the politics of the cold war, the example and influence of other major donors, the importance attached by the Canadian government to Canada's primary alliances, Canada's historic links with the Commonwealth and la francophonie, bureaucratic politics within the Canadian government, and the government's particular responsiveness to Canadian trade and investment interests. Canadian ethical values, in contrast, are rarely emphasized.(f.3)At its inception, Canadian development assistance was very much a product of cold war alliance politics. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, only the United States, France, and Britain had significant foreign aid programmes. Because the purpose of the aid was to counter the expansion of Soviet influence, the United States pressed its allies to assume part of the burden. Canadian aid thus began, timidly and somewhat begrudgingly, as an obligation arising from its major alliances rather than directly from the ethical values of Canadian society.An exceptional confluence of factors and events over the next ten years, at most, produced a rapid expansion of the aid programme and a sustained effort to ensure that it reached and helped the poorest people and countries. The most fundamental factor was the upsurge of deep rooted public support for strong social welfare programmes in Canada.(f.4) This essentially ethical development within Canadian public philosophy created an intellectual and ideological environment in Canada that made foreign aid seem a particularly appropriate way to contain communism. …

Civil Society Collaboration with Business: Bringing Empowerment Back in

Reviewed by: Civil Society Organisations, Governance and the Caribbean Community by Kristina Hinds Mayra Vélez Serrano Kristina Hinds. 2019. Civil Society Organisations, Governance and the Caribbean Community. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 200 pp. ISBN: 978-3030043957. The literature of regional integration and multilevel governance has mostly focused its attention on the case of the European Union. The process of societal cross-regional interactions is less studied in areas which have a long history of regionalization without formal regional organizations, or what Hettne and Söderbaum (2000) call the Regional Complex. The book Civil Society Organisations, Governance & the Caribbean Community by Kristina Hinds provides a much-needed analysis of the role that civil society has in the processes of regional integration in the Caribbean. This book is divided into eight chapters and three themes. First, the author introduces the concept of civil society for the Caribbean and a description of the Caribbean political culture, governance, and participation. The book later delves deeper into the areas in which civil society has been involved in regional governance in two regional organizations: the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). Finally, Hinds uses two countries as a case studies to draw insights from the connection between civil society and governance in the countries of Barbados and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. In chapter two, Hinds provides a clear conceptualization of what the term Civil Society Organizations (CSO) means, especially in the context of the Caribbean. She clarifies that civil society organizations must be treated separately from those organizations that lie between the state, the market and civil society, such as organizations that receive funding from corporations or the state. Hinds explains the historical development of civil society in the Caribbean at the end of the Cold War. While civil society has been seen as the key to bringing about democracy, she argues that what we have observed is the “NGO-ization” of civil society. It is precisely these organizations that become the focus of the international development efforts in the 1990s. Organizations such as the United States Agency for International Development, the World Bank and the United Nations focused on providing assistance to these NGOs as a way of supporting economic development and good governance. However, such NGO-ization [End Page 176] requires the professionalization of civil society into highly technical and bureaucratic entities, undermining other manifestations of civil society. Caribbean civil society tends to lack the high degree of technical expertise that international agencies expect. One reason lies behind the development of society in the Caribbean, where the majority of the population was enslaved, and thus excluded from membership in “civil society.” However, other forms of less formal but vibrant expressions of civil society date back to resistance movements against slavery. Hinds explains that civil society in the Caribbean has challenged the notion of formal organizations or even “polite-civil” expectations. Meanwhile, formal CSOs represented the white planters and merchants’ interests. Hinds explains that during the colonial era, civil society functioned as a community-based organization to support formerly enslaved people. Labor unions were prescribed during colonial rule and trade unions did not emerge until early 20th century. However, early on, local movements engaged with wider international movements, such has the Garveyite Movement (which expanded from Jamaica, through the Caribbean and later Latin America), the United Negros Improvement Association, Pan-Africanism, and Black Power in United States. In the same vein, there was a development between local women organizations and regional organizations, such as the Caribbean Women’s Association. Hinds clarifies that civil society in the Caribbean varies greatly among the region’s countries. However, these descriptions apply mostly to the English-speaking Caribbean. In chapter three, Hinds provides a theoretical framework by which we can analyze the involvement of CSO in decision-making. Furthermore, she explains the historical context in which the incorporation of CSOs into governance has evolved. Hinds argues that CSOs are fundamental for a participative and collaborative style of governance. Since the 1990s, the international community has equated good governance with broader inclusion of civil society. For example, she posits that there are four stages of participation of CSOs in governance. The...

Many features in civil society in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh date back to structures developed during colonial times, and the organization of relief organizations, workers’ unions and political parties up to the Independence in 1947 meant that the independent governments of Pakistan and India initially had a positive attitude towards civil society organizations. These attitudes have changed due to political developments in each of the three countries, while Bangladesh became independent in 1971. On the one hand, civil society organizations have changed due to the liberalization of the Keynesian state, which has changed the structure of civil society into state-sponsored charities, with the added effect of suppressing many critical organizations in civil society. On the other hand, each of the countries has developed new legal frames, which have the effect of controlling these critical organizations in different ways. That is regards women’s organizations as well as workers’ unions and other critical voices.

Reflections on BDS

Формування соціально-інституційного конструкту цифрової дипломатії

Research Problem: The intersection of religion, civil society, and public policy is an increasingly relevant area of study, particularly in the context of environmental degradation. In Bangladesh, the impacts of climate change, industrialization, and globalization have created significant environmental challenges. These challenges necessitate a critical examination of the role of civil society, including religious organizations, in addressing environmental issues. The key question is: How effectively is civil society, in conjunction with religious institutions, contributing to the environmental movement and influencing policy reform in Bangladesh? Research purposes: This paper aims to explore the role of civil society, including the influence of religious organizations, in the environmental movement in Bangladesh. It seeks to understand how civil society organizations engage in advocacy, lobbying, stakeholder pressure, environmental impact assessments, and grassroots mobilization. The goal is to evaluate how these efforts shape public policy on environmental governance in a religious and sociopolitical context. Research methods: : This study uses a qualitative, review-based approach, relying on secondary data from existing literature, media reports, and policy documents. It critically examines the involvement of civil society organizations in the environmental movement, with a focus on how religious values and institutions intersect with public policy efforts in Bangladesh’s environmental governance. Results and Discussion: The findings suggest that civil society organizations, including those with religious affiliations, play an important role in influencing environmental policy in Bangladesh. Through advocacy, lobbying, and public mobilization, these organizations have brought attention to critical environmental issues, facilitating public participation in environmental governance. However, challenges remain, including political biases and limited resources, which affect their ability to fully shape policy. Religious organizations have also been shown to contribute moral and ethical dimensions to environmental activism, aligning their values with sustainable development goals. Research Implications and Contributions: The research underscores the importance of integrating religious organizations into the broader framework of civil society engagement in environmental governance. It highlights how religious values can complement public policy efforts, contributing to a more holistic approach to sustainable development. The paper provides recommendations for policymakers to strengthen collaboration between civil society, religious institutions, and government bodies to make environmental policy more effective and inclusive, aligning with the journal’s scope of exploring the intersection of religion and public policy.

ABSTRACTThis article examines the evolving foreign policy roles of four sets of civil society actors – youth, women’s, labour and human rights groups – in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia during the Arab Spring and beyond. Our findings demonstrate that civil society groups initially flourished in the Arab Spring, with the region’s average ‘civil society rights score’ registering positive increases in 2011 and 2012. The period of 2013 to 2018 witnessed a deterioration in this average score, as civil society faced an authoritarian backlash from illiberal (authoritarian) and liberal (democratic) North African regimes. An examination of individual civil society organisations further demonstrates a range of influence on foreign policy. Youth groups exert the least impact on North African foreign policies, despite high expectations associated with their central role in revolutionary protests and change associated with the Arab Spring. In contrast, women’s, labour and especially human rights organisations have played more influential if still limited foreign policy roles. Finally, the impact of civil society on foreign policy is strongly mediated by a country’s level of democracy. Only in Tunisia, which made a successful transition to democracy, have civil society organisations in the post-Arab Spring continuously enjoyed the freedoms to organise, protest and provide input into policy, including foreign policy.