Indigenous protest,social networks,and ethnic stereotyping: some insights from the Peruvian Amazon

This article examines the nature of social protest undertaken by an Amazonian indigenous organisation against international energy companies working in Peru. It analyses the response of Peruvian and international NGOs to the indigenous group's activities and challenges certain stereotypes concerning the nature of indigenous collective action and perceptions of community. In particular, it focuses on the way in which NGO workers attempt to explain the failure of the indigenous organisation to mobilise and sustain collective protest. The article highlights the dissonance between romanticisation of indigeneity and the lived reality of the indigenous group. It advocates the use of anthropological studies and social-movement theory to explore the limits to indigenous mobilisation and suggests their use for more sensitive planning of initiatives with indigenous groups. As demand for oil and gas grows across the globe, and governments in developing countries seek to increase revenues from lucrative extractive industries, clashes between indigenous groups and energy companies are likely to increase. The need for sensitive engagement between NGOs and indigenous groups is therefore of the utmost importance.     

Solidarity economy and recycling co-ops in São Paulo: micro-credit to alleviate poverty

Lack of working capital hinders collective commercialisation of recyclables. Social exclusion and bureaucratic constraints prevent recyclers from obtaining official bank loans. As they continue to depend on intermediaries, the cycle of poverty, dependency, and exclusion is perpetuated. The article discusses collective commercialisation and the micro-credit fund created among 30 recycling groups in the Brazilian city of São Paulo. A committee of eight women recyclers manages this fund. The article contextualises reflections on empowerment and community-based development, applying the theoretical framework of social and solidarity economy. The author finally suggests that inclusive governance structures have the potential to generate greater justice and sustainability.     

Gender in Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction,Manila, October 2008

The Congress on Gender in Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction (held in Manila 19–22 October 2008) was the Third Global Congress of Women in Politics and Governance. Its purpose was to provide a forum for decision makers to formulate gender-responsive programmes related to climate change and disaster-risk reduction. More than 200 people participated, including parliamentarians, representatives of environmental and women's organisations, and donor agencies. Proceedings focused on the fact that climate change magnifies existing inequalities, and in particular gender inequality. The Congress issued the Manila Declaration for Global Action on Gender, Climate Change, and Disaster Risk Reduction.     

Oxfam Australia's experience of ‘bottom–up’ accountability

Oxfam's experience suggests that ‘bottom–up’ accountability can be an important mechanism whereby men and women living in poverty can hold others to account. The first section of this article illustrates this with two examples of Oxfam experience in Vietnam and Sri Lanka. The second section draws out some of the lessons from these examples and attempts to situate them within the broader debate about approaches to accountability. In the third section some suggestions are put forward about what would need to change if active citizenship and ‘speaking truth to power’ were to become the renewed focus of accountability.     

Mapping the road to development: a methodology for scaling up participation in policy processes

Understanding local variability in context and mobilising local participation to define development agendas are widely accepted development strategies. There remain, however, significant challenges to the systematic and effective inclusion of local communities and households. Projeto MAPLAN, a pilot project in Ceará, Brazil, is a joint effort of the public sector and civil society designed to create a process of participatory development planning which integrates local-level contextual variations. In this effort, the use of a Participatory Geographic Information System (PGIS) stimulates the participation of community members in analysing their needs, goals, and priorities. The visualisation of these factors through easily understood maps facilitates communication and contributes to a democratic and transparent planning process, thus permitting the articulation of local priorities with the state-level planning apparatus. MAPLAN represents part of a shifting paradigm for rural development planning in the state and provides the tools for the effective inclusion of citizen voice in development policy.     

反思金大中政府的对朝政策

1998年金大中政府执政后,在总结历届政府处理和解决对朝政策的经验教训、全面分析朝鲜半岛形势和国际形势的现状和发展趋势的基础上,提出了旨在维护和促进朝鲜半岛和平稳定的对朝"和解、合作"政策.在朝韩共同努力下第一次实现了两国首脑会晤,签署了<南北共同宣言>,使南北交流与合作得到一定程度的进展,并稳定了朝鲜半岛和东北亚地区的局势.     

发展吉林省中小企业金融支持政策论

融资困难已经严重影响了吉林省中小企业的发展,成为困扰振兴吉林省经济的一大难题.为此,吉林省出台了一些相关的金融政策,取得了一些成效,但还存在严重不足.参考国内外发达地区支持中小企业的做法,建议加大对担保机构的支持力度、加快组建与中小企业发展相匹配的中小金融机构、从财政与税收上对中小企业的发展予以支持、合理规范和积极引导民间金融等完善金融政策支持体系.     

俄格冲突与俄罗斯独联体政策的未来

俄格军事冲突是冷战后俄格矛盾的一次释放.透过这一事件,独联体建设的诸多问题凸显出来.独联体未来的命运成为人们关注的焦点,俄罗斯未来政策的转变将对此起决定性作用.为了使独联体这一组织形式更具吸引力和更具效力,俄罗斯有必要改变其对独联体国家关系的行为方式,加强独联体组织功能建设,健全联合治理机制,提供更多的公共物品,承担力所能及的责任.唯有如此,独联体组织机制的功能才会被激活,并最终有利于俄罗斯国家实力的全面提升.     

Robots,standards and the law: Rivalries between private standards and public policymaking for robot governance

This article explains the complex intertwinement between public and private regulators in the case of robot technology. Public policymaking ensures broad multi-stakeholder protected scope, but its abstractness often fails in intelligibility and applicability. Private standards, on the contrary, are more concrete and applicable, but most of the times they are voluntary and reflect industry interests. The ‘better regulation’ approach of the EU may increase the use of evidence to inform policy and lawmaking, and the involvement of different stakeholders. Current hard-lawmaking instruments do not appear to take advantage of the knowledge produced by standard-based regulations, virtually wasting their potential benefits. This fact affects the legal certainty with regards to a fast-paced changing environment like robotics. In this paper, we investigate the challenges of overlapping public/private regulatory initiatives that govern robot technologies in general, and in the concrete of healthcare robot technologies. We wonder until what extent robotics should be governed only by standards. We also reflect on how public policymaking could increase their technical understanding of robot technology to devise an applicable and comprehensive framework for this technology. In this respect, we propose different ways to integrate the technical know-how into policymaking (e.g., collecting the data/knowledge generated from the impact assessments in shared data repositories, and using it for evidence-based policies) and to strengthen the legitimacy of standards.