After a decade of political polarisation and international stand-off, the debate on Zimbabwe has finally been opened up to a wider reading public, thanks to Mahmood Mamdani’s ‘Lessons of Zimbabwe’ appearing in the London Review of Books (4 December 2008) and Pambazuka News (3 December 2008). (…)
Transnational Institute and 11.11.11, Land Policy Series 4, February 2009
This paper examines the policies and practices on land of the Department for International Development (DfID) of the United Kingdom. While DfID’s approach to land reform in the 1980s reflected the dictates of modernisation, formal registration and market-led distribution of land of the (…)
With the sudden end of the export era, East Asia may be entering a period of radical protest and social revolution that went out of style when export-oriented industrialization became the fashion three decades ago, writes Walden Bello.
As goods pile up in wharves from Bangkok to Shanghai, and (…)
What are the larger implications of the current ceasefire between Gaza and Israel and why do you think it happened right now?
The timing of the cease-fire agreement has two reasons. One, a cease-fire was necessary for Israel because there was a fear that what could be seen as a successful (…)
The World Social Forum ended its ninth edition on February 1 in Belém with its "Assembly of assemblies" adopting dozens of resolutions and proposals to be the subjects of a programme of mobilisations around the world in 2009.
The 21 thematic assemblies thus broke the apparent WSF taboo on (…)
A correspondent looks back at the deterioration across the country over the past three years: the resurgence of both the Taliban and the old corrupt elites, the failure of the occupation forces, and the worsening conditions of life for everybody else.
As the summer of 2005 faded, everyone in (…)
Zimbabwe is in a humanitarian crisis that is the result of a political crisis. A cholera epidemic has-as of January 12, 2009-left over 39,000 people infected and at least 2,000 dead, with the disease spreading to neighboring countries. This marks both the collapse of Zimbabwe’s healthcare system (…)
Nearly seventy years ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from (…)
Friends of the Earth International warned today that biotech crops are benefiting biotech food giants instead of small farmers and the world’s hungry population, which due to the food crisis is projected to increase to 1.2 billion by the year 2025. [1]
The warning was issued in a new report (…)
Major global retailers Carrefour, Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, and Walmart are seeing massive profits and increasing market share in the garment sector, as workers in their supply chains face increasing poverty, appalling conditions, and serious workers rights violations, according to a new report (…)
A human catastrophe threatens the Congo In Kivu, in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, war has broken out again, bringing atrocities and displaced persons in its wake. At stake: the control of the fabulous reserves of coltan, a highly prized mineral fought over by all the major (…)
FnWG, Forum for a new World Governance, January 2009, 31p.
Ever since it was established in the wake of World War II, the UN has asserted itself as one of the pillars of postwar world governance. It could even be said that at the institutional level, the United Nations constitutes the pillar of world governance: no other international organization comes (…)
Seminar organized by the Forum for a new World Governance and IBASE, Rio de Janeiro, May 2008
Although Amazonia is a concentrate of all possible dangers, not only to its inhabitants but also for the planet’s ecological balances, it also represents a territory for life and the future. The game is not over. In this dawning of the twenty-first century, it is poised to become one of those (…)
Xenophobia and racism are intellectual constructs that have taken root in the human mind over the centuries. Legal measures are proving inadequate, as they only touch the visible tip of the iceberg. An intellectual strategy is needed, in order to reach into the historical and cultural depths of (…)
Diseases that disproportionately affect the developing world cause immense suffering and ill health. Medical innovation has the potential to deliver new medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics to overcome these diseases, yet few treatments have emerged. Current efforts to resolve the crisis are (…)
It’s time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.
In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called (…)
This report examines the ICT sector, a relatively young sector that often portrays itself with a clean image of highly skilled jobs and ‘clean rooms’ where professionals work in a controlled and dust-free environment. Who could imagine that, behind this radiant representation of young (…)
Jenny Chan, Charles Ho, SOMO, Weed (World Economy, Ecology & Development), Procure IT Fair, December 2008
China is currently the world’s largest producer of electronic products. As in other developing economies, the transformation in electronics has been characterized by rapid upgrading from lowcost consumer goods to higher-technology items. Today, information technology (IT) is predominant – for (…)
Development in Practice, Volume 18, Numbers 4&5, August 2008
Participatory research approaches are increasingly popular with scientists working for poverty alleviation, sustainable rural development, and social change. This introduction offers an overview of the special issue of Development in Practice journal on the theme of ’operationalising (…)
Proceedings from the IRG/Ford Foundation international seminar, Paris, 17-18-19th of April 2007
Civil society actors throughout the world are increasingly involved in public policy making, on the national as well as the international level. Their strategies and impact was the theme of an international seminar held in Paris in 2007, jointly organized by the Institute for Research and Debate (…)