American Non-governmental Organizations Research Articles

Sovereign Limits and Regional Opportunities for Global Civil Society in Latin America

AbstractIn this article, we evaluate whether Latin American participation in international arenas reinforces traditional divides between state and society in global politics or transforms state-society relations in ways compatible with the concept of global civil society. We examine the participation and interaction of Latin American nongovernmental organizations and states at three recent United Nations conferences: the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights, and the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women. We conclude that Latin Americans are full participants in any emerging global civil society. Their experiences at the 1990s issue conferences closely track those of NGOs of the Northern Hemisphere, notwithstanding the much more recent appearance of NGOs in Latin America. At the same time, Latin Americans bring a regional sensibility to their participation in global processes that reflects recent political developments and debates in the region.

Reinventing NGOs and Rethinking Alternatives in the Andes

Many Latin American nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) emerged as part of a movement committed to the idea of an alternative development that would differ from the dominant exclusionary, top-down, and often repressive forms of development. Yet today, after two or three decades of work in rural development, NGO activities appear to have had relatively little impact on dominant conceptions of development. Indeed, in the current economic and policy context, many of their alternatives appear impractical or simply obsolescent, challenging them to rethink their ideas of viable forms of alternative development, and their roles in development. In addition, their own institutional crises require them to rethink the way in which they relate to other actors and the ways in which they finance themselves. This article considers how conceptions of alternative development might be refashioned and how NGOs are beginning to reinvent themselves in order to carry forward new notions of development alternatives. It closes with a discussion of the implications for foreign aid.

United Nations Relations with the United States: The UN Must Look Out for Itself

With the end of the fiftieth anniversary year of the United Na tions, UN relations with the United States are troubled yet full of promise?broad, enthusiastic, and rapidly expanding yet likely to break down in acrimony over narrow issues. Many in the United States expected that this anniversary would confirm the renewal and begin the fulfillment of the hopes of 1945. Instead, celebrations were marred and overshadowed by congressional attempts virtually to wipe out peacekeep ing and to micromanage the administration and organization of the UN. The majority in Congress believes, with some justification, that this is what the public wants. Indeed, as seen in foundations, talk shows, and militias, many U.S. citizens reject both the government of the United States and the UN as remote, uncontrollable, and sinister outside forces in their lives. In response, the Clinton administration has abandoned aggres sive multilateralism for harassed, sometimes panicky, damage control. At the same time, at the end of the twentieth century, Americans par ticipate in the work of the UN in numbers and in ways that would have dumbfounded those solemnly gathered in San Francisco fifty years ago. We the peoples was a nice initial flourish in the UN Charter in 1945. Now, as Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has noted, it describes the reality of worldwide popular participation in virtually all of the UN's activities.1 This movement was largely created by American nongovern mental organizations (NGOs). They are likely to remain among the move ment's leaders as it expands and intensifies in the future. Through their NGOs, millions of Americans have participated in the conferences on environment, population, social development, human rights, and women convened by the UN at the millennium's end. These conferences have sharply affected domestic debate in the United States and thus placed the UN in the consciousness of almost every American who cares about these issues. The contrast among official U.S.-UN relations, congressional behav ior, and this private American support for and commitment to UN pro grams and issues is part of the UN Secretariat's perception of the United

Improvement of neonatal care in Zhejiang Province, China through a self-instructional continuing education programme.

Major upheavals have taken place in medical education in the last three decades in China. This has meant that at every level there are personnel with a wide range of training backgrounds. Continuing education programmes to ameliorate the situation have been seen as a priority of the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH). However, many of the training courses offered are too academic in approach and do little to raise standards of clinical care. The shortcomings in neonatal education are particularly acute and this is reflected in the relatively high neonatal mortality rate. At the request of Zhejiang Provincial Bureau of Public Health (BOPH), Project HOPE, an American non-governmental organization (NGO), collaborated with Zhejiang Medical University (ZMU) on the development of a neonatal outreach programme. The programme was self-instructional in approach with individual hospitals having autonomy in the mode of implementation of the programme. There were 225 participants in four county level hospitals. Cognitive knowledge test scores improved by an average of 56%. Observation of clinical practices showed that 54% improved following the programme, with 34% meeting the criteria set by the modules. An inventory of facilities showed that of a list of essential items an average of 38% were present before the programme compared with 76% after completion of the programme. As a result of the success of the programme it is being expanded into a comprehensive teaching and evaluation package for use throughout Zhejiang Province and Eastern China.

The long road toward influence: Canada as an American interest group

In reading the literature about Canada-U.S. environmental relations with respect to acid deposition over the past decade, several things stand out. First, underlying these interactions is the daunting aspect (for the Canadians) that the relationship is based upon dependency and asymmetry. As Stephen Clarkson (1985), John Carroll (1982, 1986), and Don Munton (1981) have so often pointed out, factors such as the total emissions of pollutants, meteorology, the prevailing weather, geology, and the varying capacity of the terrain to neutralize damage have established a multidimensional problem whereby the U.S. benefits much less from Canadian actions than Canada does from American actions. Second, Canada used a multifaceted foreign policy approach in hopes of gaining its single most important environmental policy objective - U.S. reductions in emissions which are the primary cause of transboundary flows of acid pollutants. At one time or another, Canada attempted to influence U.S. policy decisions through quiet diplomacy (formal diplomatic avenues), interventionist public diplomacy (going public), international diplomacy (agreements and conferences), personal diplomacy (interactions between the Prime Minister and the President), and strengthening its own domestic environmental programs (Munton and Castle 1992:322-327). Third, Canada went far beyond its normal diplomatic activities and directly intervened in the American political process. Disregarding a long tradition of non-interference in U.S. domestic policy making, Canada (at both the national and provincial levels) extended its efforts to directly lobby the American public, media, non-governmental organizations and Congress. In essence, Canada resorted to a lobbying effort clearly in line with any other U.S. lobby. This effort was not only substantial [millions of dollars were spent (Spears 1990:C6)], it was clearly out of line with what Canadians hd previously perceived as normal behaviour in the Canada-U.S. bilateral relationship (Munton and Castle 1992:322). The purpose of this particular case study is to examine these Canadian efforts to influence the development of U.S. acid rain policy, with an emphasis on the lobbying process. Specifically, it looks at efforts by Canada to directly influence members fo the U.S. Congress. The idea is not only to provide insight into how and why Canada approached this effort, but also to provide a reading of what impact this effort had.

Tug-of-War: American Voluntary Organizations in the West Bank

American private voluntary organizations (PVOs) operating in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip confront not only the challenge of social and economic development symptomatic of the Third World, but also a highly-charged political environment in which the constituents are Palestinians, final authority is in the hands of the state of Israel, and the US Congress is a major provider of program funding. This article will examine the role of American PVOs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the context of changes brought about by the Israeli occupation of June 1967, with emphasis on the US government program in which several have participated since 1975. American non-governmental philanthropic, educational, and religious organizations have been active in the Middle East for almost two centuries. After early unsuccessful attempts by Protestant missionaries to convert Turkish and Arab Muslims to Christianity, most American missionaries in the area settled down to a constructive role of providing education, medical care, and small-scale village assistance in Turkey, Syria (including Lebanon and Palestine), Egypt, Persia, and elsewhere. US-chartered universities were established in Cairo and Beirut, and private secondary schools, run mainly by missionaries, sprang up throughout the region. Because of its importance in the life of Jesus and therefore as a major site of pilgrimage, Jerusalem and what is now the occupied West Bank attracted many westerners, including Americans. The American Colony Hotel in

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights and Violations of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

International concern for human rights was in the minds of many who were involved in the drafting of the charter for a new world organization in the closing days of the Second World War. This concern for human rights found its expression in a number of provisions of the United Nations Charter. However, proposals to incorporate in or annex to the Charter a definition or an enumeration of fundamental human rights did not commend themselves to the San Francisco Conference. Similarly, attempts to make provision in the Charter for the implementation of human rights also met with opposition. The Great Powers in particular were afraid that the world organization would actively impose human rights on the individual countries. Consequently, a certain degree of disappointment prevailed among the advocates of effective international protection of human rights. A last-minute move by American non-governmental organizations, whose representatives were attached in an advisory capacity to the United States delegation at the San Francisco Conference, resulted in enlisting the United States' support for an express reference in the Charter to the creation of a commission for the promotion of human rights. The United States, on its part, succeeded in obtaining the backing of the other three Sponsoring Powers (China, UK and USSR) for this idea. As a result, Article 68 of the Charter provides that “The Economic and Social Council shall set up commissions in economic and social fields and for the promotion of human rights, and such other commissions as may be required for the performance of its functions”. Among the functional commissions subsequently created by the Economic and Social Council, the Commission on Human Rights is the only one specifically referred to in the United Nations Charter.