Promoting sustainable development through civil society: A case study of the EU’s NSA/LA thematic programme in Kyrgyzstan

The article focuses on the contribution of the European Union (EU) in promoting sustainable development through the involvement of civil society in partner countries. More specifically, it analyses the main features and outcomes of the projects implemented by civil society organizations (CSOs) in Kyrgyzstan under the EU thematic programme Non‐State Actors and Local Authorities in Development (NSA/LA). Despite its importance—this is the only EU programme providing direct support to non‐state actors and local authorities engaged in poverty reduction—to date, there has been very little research on the functioning of this instrument on the ground. This article seeks to fill this gap in the literature by examining the EU’s contribution to sustainable development through a case study on Kyrgyzstan. The study is based on primary data: 10 semi‐structured interviews conducted with the EU‐funded organizations implementing the NSA/LA programme. The NSA/LA projects were analysed by considering two major fields of engagement of non‐state actors in the development process: as service providers and as advocates (Banks & Hulme, 2012). Overall, the organizations awarded EU support were not only focused on fulfilling short‐term needs but also sought to introduce new ways of dealing with poverty and inequality, positioning themselves between the “Big‐D” and the “little‐d” approaches to development (Bebbington, Hickey, & Mitlin, 2008). Nonetheless, the EU‐funded projects were too limited and fragmented to be able to sustain long‐term structural change. Therefore, the EU should place new emphasis on creating synergies between new and old structures at the grassroots level and establishing mechanisms and bodies that could merge and co‐ordinate their efforts. In addition, the calls for proposals could highlight the need to share the lessons learnt by “obliging” the beneficiaries to act as multipliers and to pass on their positive experience to neighbouring communities. Finally, the EU could stimulate the funded organizations to experiment with innovative mechanisms of involvement in the policy‐making process, by making this aspect a mandatory requirement of the projects implemented with its support.     

Asset Accumulation: An Alternative Approach to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are unlikely to be achieved by 2015, owing to conceptual flaws in their design as well as the structural and political constraints faced during implementation at the country level. While criticism of the MDGs is widespread, innovative ideas on addressing these operational challenges are still scanty. By reviewing a number of experiences, including those of the Foundation for the Promotion of Local Development (PRODEL) in Nicaragua and the Ministry of Cities in Brazil, this article highlights the importance of incorporating an asset‐accumulation perspective into MDG‐related policies and programmes as a way of generating an enabling environment that opens up new opportunities for poverty reduction in the cities of low‐ and middle‐low‐income countries.     

Enacting the Millennium Development Goals: Political Technologies of Calculation and the Counter-calculation of Poverty in Namibia

Abstract

This paper advances that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) act as a governmentality that brings with them assemblages of international and national policies and practices of poverty reduction. These assemblages are characterized by neoliberal rationalities that shape relationships and practices with and of the poor themselves by repositioning and deploying the values and norms of the market as the principal means for the establishment of development aid partnerships. Such rationalities, we argue, are exercised through political technologies that make visible and operable certain governing schemes such as calculative practices. Drawing on extensive interview, policy, programme, and archival documents, the paper advances the argument that the MDGs and the national development plan for Namibia, Vision 2030, shape ideas of poverty reduction through political technologies of calculation and via multi-scale partnership arrangements. These technologies emerge from diverse elements, subsume the shaping of social and political spaces, and have diverse effects on the lives of the poor. Our analysis also highlights an approach to poverty reduction in Namibia, that of BIG, a Basic Income Grant scheme. We view BIG as a potential counter-calculation of poverty, and counter-partnership to poverty reduction efforts, which can develop into a more socially just and sustainable means to reduce poverty and lead to an overturn of contemporary neoliberal assemblages of poverty reduction.     

人发大会:千年目标与生育健康深化

本文将对生育健康的研讨置于国际人口与发展大会和联合国千年发展目标的时空背景下,认为生育健康从提出、认同到履行的15年间,各国都在积极响应并努力践行,但伴随千年发展目标的确立与履行,对生育健康的认识还在不断深化。     

An exploratory analysis of community-based disability workers’ potential to alleviate poverty and promote social inclusion of people with disabilities in three Southern African countries

This article draws on accounts by community-based disability workers (CDWs) of their life and work experiences in resource-limited rural communities in Botswana, Malawi and South Africa. Using the World Health Organisation’s community-based rehabilitation (CBR) matrix and the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals as analytic frameworks, the article explores CDWs’ potential to contribute to improving the lives and increasing the levels of social, economic and political inclusion of people with disabilities, their families and communities. The article argues that CDWs’ knowledge, experience and understanding of disability in resource-limited communities may constitute an important local resource for helping to address the inter-related effects of poverty and disability in developing countries.     

The MDG Conundrum: Meeting the Targets Without Missing the Point

The MDGs are being misappropriated to gain support for a specific development strategy, agenda or argument, mostly being used as a call for more aid or as a Trojan horse for a particular policy framework. As relative benchmarks, they are extremely difficult to meet in countries with low human development. Their misinterpretation as one‐size‐fits‐all targets is leading to excessive Afro‐pessimism, begging the question whether Africa is missing the targets or whether the world is missing the point. The global MDG canon is dominated by a money‐metric and donor‐centric view of development, and is not ready to accept that growing disparities within countries are the main reason why the 2015 targets will be missed.     

Doing Biopolitics Differently? Radical Potential in the Post-2015 MDG and SDG Debates

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been critiqued as an ambitious project which sought to produce entrepreneurial neo-liberal subjects. From this perspective, the opportunities and dangers of the post-2015 debates acquire a more urgent importance than the cynical dismissal of the MDGs as ‘minimum development goals’. This article identifies two potentially radical shifts in development discourse offered by the proposals for global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): first, that they might be genuinely global and hence destabilise long-standing divisions between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ societies; and second, that they might challenge existing growth paths of resource-intensive development. Two scenarios are offered through which these potential shifts are manifesting: first, a status-quo and growth-orientated outcome to the post-2015 agenda, and second, a more radical revisioning of development as a transformative project of global sustainability. However, even such an apparently attractive prospect as the latter has potential dangers, whether or not it is possible, which this article highlights. Whatever the outcome of the negotiations over the post-2015 SDGs, therefore, the process can tell us something about the opportunities and limits of processes of reform. The stakes could not be higher: whether a renewed and reshaped development project can drive future developmental governmentalities in radically new directions.     

Sexual Violence and the MDGs

ABSTRACT

Sexual violence is multi-faceted. Three (overlapping) categories can be distinguished: violence that is sexual in nature, gender-based violence, and sexuality-based violence. The latter refers to violence against persons because of their sexuality and/or their (presumed) sexual behavior. Being female, young, poor, and living in a sexually conservative culture and/or in conflict areas appear to be important risk factors for sexual violence. Sexual violence is widespread (one in five girls worldwide are sexually abused in childhood and up to three-quarters of women in some countries have been victimized by a partner), but prevalence figures around the globe are hard to compare. Both the individual and society suffer from sexual violence. The eradication of sexual violence is directly relevant to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to infant and maternal health and mortality, and combating HIV/AIDS. And certainly no less important, it is very closely linked to the MDGs related to gender equality and the empowerment of women, poverty, and primary education for all. Campaigning against sexual violence against women has been presented as one of the ‘quick wins’ in progress towards achieving the MDGs by the UN Millennium Project. Many good practices have been employed in political-legal, awareness raising, prevention, and health care domains, but important setbacks are noteworthy as well. Priority number one for the World Association for Sexual Health now seems to be to adequately and strategically contribute to the continuous efforts to integrate sexual health into the Millennium Development framework.     

Millennium Development Goals: Impact on national strategies and spending

This study reviews the post‐2005 national development strategies of 50 countries from diverse income groups, geographical locations, human development tiers and official development assistance (ODA) levels to assess Millennium Development Goal (MDG) absorption into development planning. Reviewing Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and non‐PRSP national strategies, the majority of the development plans have either adopted the MDGs as planning tools or ‘localized’ them in a meaningful way, using diverse adaptation strategies. A high correlation is detected between the income group, PRSP status and ODA reliance of countries, and their propensity to incorporate MDGs in their planning instruments. However, MDG alignment is not coterminous with greater pro‐poor or MDG‐oriented policies. Countries that have not integrated MDGs into their national plans were as likely to allocate government funds to social sectors as MDG aligners.