State-civil Society Partnerships Research Articles

Understanding the emergence of ‘Communitization’ under India’s National Rural Health Mission (NRHM): Findings from two Witness Seminars

ABSTRACT India’s experience with the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) is notable on account of nationally formalising – at scale – community action in service delivery, monitoring, and planning of health services. A study was undertaken to document and create a historical record of NRHM’s ‘communitization’ processes. The oral history method of the Witness Seminar was adopted and two virtual seminars with five and nine participants, respectively, were conducted, and supplemented with 4 in depth interviews. Analysis of transcripts was done using ATLAS.ti 22 with the broad themes of emergence, evolution, and evaluation and impact of ‘communitization’ under NRHM. This paper engages with the theme of ‘emergence’ and adopts the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) conceptualised by John Kingdon for analysis. Key findings include the pioneering role of boundary spanning decision makers and the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA) in advocacy and design of ‘communitization’ structures, and the legacy of rights based social mobilizations and state-civil society partnerships in health during the 1990s influencing the ethos underlying ‘communitization’. Democracy, leadership from the civil society in policy design and implementation, and state-civil society partnerships are linked to the positive results witnessed as part of ‘communitization’ in NRHM.

Individual Actors Coping with Institutional Complexity Within a State-civil Society Partnership: The Role of Sensemaking

Individual Actors Coping with Institutional Complexity Within a State-civil Society Partnership: The Role of Sensemaking

Developing governance models and funding mechanisms of state–civil society partnerships for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention based on lessons from Ghana

The contribution of civil society organisations (CSOs) to national HIV/AIDS responses in sub-Saharan African countries, with Global Health Initiatives’ (GHIs) funding channelled through National AIDS Commissions (NACs), is well researched. Less well understood are the governance models and funding mechanisms being used to successfully engage CSOs in the HIV/AIDS response. Using data from government, donor, CSO and documentary sources, this article characterises the organisational principles and practices and unique funding models adopted by the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) to effectively and efficiently engage CSOs in the HIV/AIDS response. It found four major governance principles and practices that target: 1) strategic planning for service delivery; 2) focussed expressions of interest; 3) competitive tendering and contracting for service delivery; and 4) adoption of results-based management. It also identified three predominant funding models that illustrate the application of these guiding principles to harness the inherent strengths of CSOs to more effectively respond to HIV/AIDS, namely: 1) direct funding of locally-based CSOs; 2) funding international and national NGOs to engage local CSOs in partnership; and 3) funding umbrella organisations. These findings are significant for Ghana but they may also have relevance for other low- or middle-income countries (LMICs) that have limited experience delivering HIV/AIDS services through state–civil society partnerships, as well as broader debates on the role of donors, governments and CSOs working in partnership to fight HIV/AIDS.

State-civil society partnerships for improving safe water and sanitation coverage in the Northern region of Ghana: An exploratory qualitative study

State-civil society (CS) partnerships are increasingly common in the water and sanitation (W&S) sector of many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) as a means of expanding service coverage for ...

State-civil society partnerships for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention in Ghana: exploring factors associated with successes and challenges.

BackgroundThe past decade has seen an increased number of state-civil society partnerships in the global Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) response of many countries. However, there has been limited research carried out concerning the successes and challenges of these partnerships.MethodsIn-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 23 participants from 21 different state-civil society partnerships throughout Ghana including all three major geographical zones (Northern, Middle, and Southern zones) to examine the nature of these partnerships and their positive and negative effects in responding to the national HIV/AIDS epidemic.ResultsMajor themes included: 1) commitment by the government and civil society organizations to work cooperatively in order to support the development and implementation of HIV/AIDS interventions in Ghana; 2) the role of civil society organizations in facilitating community mobilization; capacity building; and information, resources and skills exchange to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of these partnerships for HIV prevention and treatment; and 3) significant challenges including funding issues and other structural barriers for these partnerships that need to be addressed moving forward.ConclusionsFuture research should focus on examining the impact of recommended changes on state-civil partnerships and studying the extent and nature of these partnerships in other countries in order to establish the generalizability of the findings from this study.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1598-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Moving from rhetoric into action: effectiveness of state–civil society synergy for healthcare delivery in rural Ghana

The issue of extending healthcare to marginalized underserved rural population remains a cardinal rhetoric policy of the Ghana Government. Meanwhile we note a growing inequity in terms of access and utilization of quality and affordable healthcare between urban and rural areas of the country. The Government of Ghana through its various policy initiatives in 2002 collaborated with civil societies with the aim of bringing healthcare to the doorsteps of rural folks in the country. Using a mixed method approach through a semi structured interviews and questionnaire administration, and focusing on the Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) programme in Nsanfo community in the Mfanstiman municipal area, this study assesses the effectiveness and challenges confronting state–civil society partnership in co-producing a public good (healthcare). We found that synergy between the state (Mfanstiman Municipal Health Directorate) and the civil society (community health volunteers) has yielded positive results in bringing healthcare to the door steps as well as improving the health conditions of the local people in the study area. Nonetheless, certain challenges such as lack of volunteer motivation, deplorable state of the CHPS compound and logistics threaten the very existence of this collaboration. Our study has far reaching implications for healthcare planning in Ghana.

The ambiguities of the ‘partnership’ between civil society and the state in Uganda's AIDS response during the 1990s and 2000s as demonstrated in the development of TASO

ABSTRACTThis article critically investigates state–civil society relations in the Ugandan AIDS response by tracing the history of Uganda's ‘multisectoral’ and ‘partnership’ approaches, particularly as it pertains to The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO). It finds that the Ugandan government's reputation for good leadership on AIDS is more ambiguous than commonly supposed and that the much-vaunted ‘partnership’ approach has not enabled strong critical civil society voices to emerge or prevented the harmful impact of a socially conservative agenda. By the 1990s, TASO had become the most important provider of medical and psychosocial support services to HIV/AIDS patients, but was less effective in influencing policy or holding the state accountable (because the political context prevented a more activist stance). The effectiveness of civil society has been constrained by an authoritarian political culture and institutions that discourage vocal criticism. Despite these limitations, however, state–civil society partnership did contribute to the emergence of a relatively effective coalition for action against HIV/AIDS. Donors were essential in encouraging the emergence of this coalition.

Civil Society and the State in Uganda's AIDS Response

This paper investigates state-civil society relations in the Ugandan AIDS response through a critical exploration of the history of Uganda’s ‘multi-sectoral’ and ‘partnership’ approaches, particularly as it pertains to The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO). It finds that the Ugandan government’s reputation for successful prevention campaigns is not necessarily deserved, and that the effectiveness of civil society is limited by an authoritarian political culture. Despite these limitations, however, state-civil society partnership did contribute to the emergence of a relatively effective coalition for action against HIV/AIDS. Donors were essential in encouraging the emergence of this coalition, but have also inadvertently undermined the emergence of strong and independent civil society voices able to hold the Ugandan state accountable.

Human development, the state and participation

Human development should be seen as a broad, emancipatory and social process, rather than the mere expansion of individual choices or ‘capabilities’. In post-colonial nations, a strong ‘human development enabling’ state is necessary to build basic human capacity, such as in health, education, shelter and nutrition; and then to promote popular participation. This requirement can be seen in a range of historical experience and is reflected in the declaration on the right to development. A wider view of human development, deepening democracy with active state-civil society partnerships, might be seen as a social democratic project in a neoliberal era.

Retheorising Civil Society in State-Civil Society Partnership in Welfare : A Critical Review of the Partnership Literature

In recent years, partnership has become a central strategy for welfare provision worldwide. Particularly, civil society organisations have obtained considerable attention as the most accountable and democratic partner for public welfare delivery. Yet the mainstreaming of civil into welfare policies challenges the conventional nature of civil society as an independent sector, and brings into critical question, how the political position of the civil society sector could be redefined in the new era of multi-sectoral partnership. The purpose of this study is to explore the rurrent debates of state-civil society partnershio and to propose three theoretical viewpoints mainstream, critical and alternative regarding the role of the civil society sector in partnership. in doing so, artcle introduces the key literature and scholars in partnership debates and provides analytical frameworks that researchers can uss in examining state-civil society partnership cases.

Parallel Structures of Decentralisation in the Mega City Context of Urban India: Participation or Exclusion?

. This paper attempts to understand how decentralisation unfolds in the mega city context of urban India as a result of shifts in policy and practice since the 1990s through a study of recent civil society organisation partnerships with the urban local bodies in Mumbai. Using the cases of Advanced Locality Management (ALM) groups and Local Area Citizens' Groups (LACGs) as instances of parallel structures of decentralisation, it argues that such civil society organisations have usually been spearheaded by the professional middle classes and have transformed the public sphere in mega cities. However, a closer look reveals that many of the features of these state–civil-society partnerships are inherently exclusionary of lower socioeconomic city residents. Resultantly, these go against the letter and spirit of democratic decentralisation as envisaged in the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act 1992, which provides the framework for urban decentralisation in India. New initiatives in decentralisation under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission—a major urban development programme launched in 2005—have further rendered the space for decentralised participation extremely fragmentary.

State-civil society partnership: issues for debate and new researches

In this paper we look at the literature related to partnership between state and civil society, especially partnership between public and non-for-profit organisations. We discuss the differing perspectives of partnership and attempt to identify some of the main theoretical concerns about partnership between state and civil society in the governance context. In this paper, we argue that the historical background of partnership has not been included among factors used in explaining the resort to partnership in governance. In spite of existing analyses showing that partnership brings social benefits in their own right, we try to show that there is no evidence that this ‘social technology’ contributes effectively to bringing power to powerless people and social groups. Most of the literature shows that partnership tries to make relationship between local people and local governance stronger and improve the possibilities for powerless people and social groups to participate in local governance. However, we do not find clear evidence in the literature that partnership allows for a shift in political power. Finally, we show that it is unclear whether the interaction between ordinary people and the state through a participatory process has successfully helped to build social cohesiveness for different social groups. The main contribution of this paper is to expand the understanding of the factors that influence the process of partnership between state and civil society (positively and negatively) for local development.

Importing Western Childhoods into a Chinese State-Run Orphanage

Since the early 1990s the Chinese government has allowed foreign humanitarian non-governmental organizations to aid children residing in official state-run orphanages. As one aspect of a larger research project on child abandonment and forms of orphanage care in contemporary China, this article examines an innovative state-civil society partnership of a Western infant special care unit housed within a large official state-run institution. The “Tomorrow’s Children” special care unit, funded and managed by middle-class Western volunteers, uses First World medical practices and universalistic ideologies of children and childhood to care for the institution’s most severely ill and disabled children. This article utilizes ethnographic methods to discuss conflicts over children’s best interests that arise between Western volunteer employers and the local working-class and poor Chinese caregivers who are expected to implement the imported practices. I contend that disagreements over appropriate childcare hinge on cultural and class-based understandings of childhood and differential access to social and financial resources. This research grounds discussions of globalization in a detailed case study by exposing the tensions and negotiations that occur at the local level in processes of transnational exchange.

State-Civil Society Partnership in Poverty Reduction in Uganda

The growing partnerships between the state and civil society organizations (CSOs) in the development process of aid-dependent states are largely explained by the New Policy Agenda, which put emphasis on a minimalist state and the enhanced role of civil society. The article observes that the partnership has been derailed by conflicting interests, approaches, suspicions and competition for aid and legitimacy. It also points out that the partnership has been affected by the state's goal to co-opt CSOs while CSOs also suffer from dependency, lack of downward accountability and linkages to grassroots organizations, which compromise their autonomy and legitimacy. The article argues that unless a framework is established in which terms of collaboration are spelled out for purposes of coordination and conflict resolution, the partnership in poverty reduction may not achieve significant gains.

State-civil society partnerships and sustainable urban development: Lessons from Kibera, Nairobi

Development scholars have consistently focused on the role of non-state actors in the development process. In sub-Saharan Africa, this concern became increasingly important due to the inability of many African states to effectively guide the development process. Consequently, non-state actors have progressively assumed a central role in initiating and maintaining diverse development initiatives, particularly since the 1980s. This paper examines the activities of non-state agencies in low-income urban settlements with specific reference to one non-governmental organisation involved in mobilizing the local community to promote self-reliance in the development and maintenance of community water and sanitation projects in Kibera, Nairobi. The paper advocates the development of models of urban service delivery systems in low-income urban settlements that involve partnerships between governments and non-state agencies such as NGOs and community-based organisations. LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research Vol.3 () 2006: pp.251-265

Institutional efficacy in resource management: temporally congruent embeddedness for forest systems of western India

Our understanding of the role of institutions and property-rights regimes in natural resource management has matured through the work of new institutional economists and common-property theorists. Even so, this literature has yet to establish clear connections between successful resource management, and a given property regime’s spatio-temporal fit. Examining people–forest interaction within a state-managed forest regime in India’s Western Ghats, this paper argues that regime efficacy in satisfying user needs, hinges on appropriately reflecting particular sociospatial contexts and incorporating temporal flexibility into its normative structure. To these ends, this study analyzes institutional structure regulating forest use and management, and examines data collected through extensive fieldwork, in-depth interviews and informal conversations with local villagers and foresters. The results suggest that user responses to access conditions, and their rationales for engaging in particular extraction practices, vary based on caste/class-based perceptions of regime legitimacy, distributional equity, and historical proprietorship rights. Furthermore, the analysis questions the viability of locally managed regimes under such heterogeneous social settings. Rather, this research recognizes the state’s vital role in mediating resource access. It suggests that regime efficacy can be fostered through state–civil society partnerships, widely distributed stakeholder-ship and firmly embedded regimes that adapt to changing sociospatial contexts through modifications to conditions of use and access. Based on the analysis, this paper explores an initial set of sociospatial and temporal parameters that promote institutional efficacy in management, and thus lays the groundwork for future studies in institutional and political ecology.

The mutuality of risk and community: the adjudication of community notification statutes

Although it has drawn significant attention in the legal literature, the adjudication of community notification statutes (often referred to as 'Megan's Law' in the United States) demonstrates a centrality of both risk and community that deserves attention from a governance perspective. In this paper, I focus on the ways in which concepts of risk and community are mutually constitutive, and how the adjudication of community notification statutes relies on particular visions of 'community' to engage particular ways of conceiving of 'risk', much of which relies on a rejection of expertise and a focus on 'common sense'. This focus on 'common sense', opens up new problematics of government: courts adjudicating community notification cases are working to define the particular mechanics of a state-civil society partnership, and thereby operationalize the preventive state without rendering the state redundant or obsolete, and without opening the state to new forms of legal and political accountability. While providing a case study in the move to advanced liberal governance in the area of criminal law, this adjudication also reveals the contingent nature of risk, and the ways in which judicial invocation of 'risk' and its management can constitute liberal subjects who continue to rely on the state, while no longer expecting the state to be accountable for crime or its control.

Exploring State–Civil Society Collaboration: Policy Partnerships in Developing Countries

This article examines state–civil society partnerships for policy implementation, focusing on the basic factors partnerships need to deal with to be effective. These include specification of objectives and degree of convergence, mechanisms for combining effort and managing cooperation, determination of appropriate roles and responsibilities, and capacity to fulfill those roles and responsibilities. Four cases are presented, three from Africa and one from Eastern Europe. The cases are analyzed in an effort to identify the situational variables that influence state–civil society partnerships, effective partnership mechanisms and processes, and management techniques and tools for supporting cooperative action. The article considers the applicability of strategic management approaches and tools to policy partnerships. Finally, it suggests a series of steps for governments to consider taking that hold the promise of strengthening the successful pursuit of state–civil society partnerships.

Some Observations on States, World Orders, and the Politics of Sustainability

This article is intended to initiate a dialogue on strategies for understanding the roles of states in relation to sustainability. The contributions and shortcomings of the two most influential and provocative approaches-nomothetic theories of states stressing the tendencies of capitalist states to exacerbate environmental destruction and embedded autonomy! state-society synergy theories of the conditions under which state-civil society partnerships can lead to sustainability innovations-are discussed. It is suggested that neither of these traditions can satisfactorily address the central contradictions of states and sustainability-that states are simultaneously a foundational force underlying environmental destruction and the principal agent of sustainability reforms. It is suggested that this contradiction can best be addressed through a modified world-order perspective based on global regimes of development and accumulation. The limits of state policy making and sustainability are currently being defined by the attempt to construct a neoliberal-globalization order and its attendant international policy regimes. The author concludes with some speculative thoughts about the role that market-oriented environmental tax institutions could play in the evolving world order.

The Shadow State: Government and Voluntary Sector in Transition. Jennifer R. Wolch

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsThe Shadow State: Government and Voluntary Sector in Transition. Jennifer R. Wolch Howard GlennersterHoward Glennerster Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Social Service Review Volume 66, Number 3Sep., 1992 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/603937 Views: 5Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1992 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: 김수영 Retheorising Civil Society in State-Civil Society Partnership in Welfare : A Critical Review of the Partnership Literature, Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies 44, no.11 (Mar 2013): 267–302.https://doi.org/10.16999/kasws.2013.44.1.267