The Top 100 NGOs 2013.
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we will continue to keep these criteria in mind to better understand global politics. This year, our new leader in the Top 100 NGOs ranking is Bangladeshi development giant BRAC. More than the sum of its – substantial – parts, the organization has transcended its origins in the microfinance revolution of the 1970s to represent a model for how NGOs can continue to evolve and innovate while remaining true to their underlying social mission.
Speaking of wide-open eyes, historians seem to be back in business. If we believe that economists, occupying the forefront of the media scene for a decade now, deserve a say when it comes to our collective future, then why should historians, scientists, geographers, architects, philosophers, writers, poets, doctors and so many others not be granted a similar chance? There is a sense of fatigue with the dominance of the economic perspective in public life. Voices like those of David Armitage, at Harvard, or Mark Mazower at Columbia, dare to challenge mainstream views – the 25-word sound bites framing the world through numbers and fear. Economists are rarely joyful – their basic rhetoric is imbued with the detritus of doomed plans.
Let’s change our perspective and open ourselves to the Keeping Our Eyes possibility of identifying new patterns and paths to govern the planet by looking back to the lessons of the past. Plutarch and his twin-portraits of leaders would certainly have liked the Wide Open. idea. In part, the innovation we require to advance is rooted right there. Still with wide-open eyes, read Thomas Davies on the long and turbulent history of NGOs, and Jonathan Katz’s eyewitness account of how the world came to save Haiti and o see clearly is a difficult task. At night, or when there left a disaster. is too much light, when tired, or when too many people T are around, where the rush of events is clouding our Bearing in mind that a few great debates began or escalated ability to discern what is essential. As journalists, we should in the past year, in the fields of health, Internet governance, ask ourselves constantly: do we see well? climate change and energy policy, global politics is heading step by step toward a worldwide call to citizens. How do Take the non-profit industry. The second edition of our we make sure that the voice of the people is heard amidst Top 100 NGOs ranking is stronger, and we enjoy not only ever more complex disputes? The Global Journal works on a the fantastic outreach from the inaugural list, but the fact simple premise – in an honest and independent fashion – that that NGOs themselves pushed us to look at their sector in-depth journalism remains a great asset when it comes to in an improved way. This year, we have focused on the understanding the world we live in. three criteria we have used consistently since we began our media journey three years ago: innovation, impact Post-script: to celebrate 2013, our fourth year in publishing, and sustainability. Whether looking for projects with the I hope you will enjoy the changes to our design thanks to potential to address critical global issues over the next five Dimitri. I’m not sure where he sits at this very moment – years – to create a successful GLOBAL+5 festival – tracing whether in Australia, Mexico, the United States or elsewhere the development of stories on our website, or finding relevant – he is a globe trotter and a fantastic global designer. features to share with our readers in more than 30 countries, Bénédicte, our French designer, is now putting her hand to these three criteria have been omnipresent. our second publication, Global Geneva. Feel free to read it whenever you visit us. For anyone concerned with the future, innovation, impact and sustainability provide a good compass. As we maintain !",QWKHJURXQGEUHDNLQJ3LHUUH-DTXHW'UR]HVWDEOLVKHG*HQHYD·VÀUVWHYHUZDWFKPDNLQJIDFWRU\#" our unwavering focus on the corporate world, governments, Jean-Christophe Nothias academia, social business, NGOs and simple citizens, Editor in Chief
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CONTENTS FEATURE
Conserving Resources Protecting the Climate
Science For A Better Life
17 29 36
Climate change represents one of the major global challenges of our time. That’s why Bayer wants to act to reduce its “climate 92 100 110 footprint”, a symbolic expression of the negative impact of human actions on the environment. CONTENTS Through the Bayer Climate Program the company is driving forward its activities to protect the climate and respond to climate 10 GLOBAL VOICES: Mark Mazower change. The Bayer Climate Check, for exam- ple, is a new tool for reducing CO emissions How To Do Good (Better): The Future Of Philanthropy 2 17 OPEN VOICES: in production processes. 22 SHORT ESSAY: The ‘International Turn’ In Intellectual History With the aid of modern biotechnology we are increasing the stress tolerance of crops 29 FEATURE: NGOs : A Long and Turbulent History towards heat and drought, giving agriculture 36 SPECIAL FEATURE: Top 100 NGOs 2013 a chance to overcome the consequences of climate change. 92 FEATURE: How The World Came To Save Haiti and Left A Disaster To reduce energy consumption in offices 100 FEATURE: A Dictatorship’s Success Stories and industrial buildings we have cooperated 110 PHOTO ESSAY: Rediscovering Iran with partners to develop the “EcoCommercial Building”. Based on highly efficient polyure- 122 THE GLOBAL REVIEW thane insulation and regenerative energies 130 5 QUESTIONS: Isabelle Quéhé it can meet its own energy needs – a global concept for zero-emission buildings that can be implemented in various world climate
COVER IMAGE COURTESY OF NASA zones. www.climate.bayer.com
THE GLOBAL JOURNAL + JANUARY & FEBRUARY 2013 THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 4 5 CONTRIBUTORS
CONTRIBUTORS
JONATHAN M. KATZ DANIEL BLAUFUKS ALEXIS KALAGAS
Jonathan M Katz is a former Associated Daniel Blaufuks has been working on the Originally from Melbourne, Alexis Kalagas Press reporter and editor, and was the only relationship between photography and is the Deputy Editor of The Global Journal. full time American news correspondent literature since My Tangier, a collaboration He has worked previously as a foreign policy stationed in Haiti during the 2010 with the writer Paul Bowles. His Collected advisor in the Australian government, for earthquake. He was awarded the 2010 Short Stories includes several photographic a number of international peacebuilding Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism and diptychs in a kind of “snapshot prose,” where NGOs headquartered in Geneva, and on an the 2012 J Anthony Lukas Work In Progress visual fragments suggest private stories on urban recovery project in post-Hurricane Award for his new book The Big Truck That their way to becoming public. He works Katrina New Orleans. Passionate about cities Went By. Other recognition has included mainly in photography and video, presented as sites of both innovation and conflict, he a National Headliners Award, and finalist through books, installations and films, and has pursued this interest in urbanism during recognition by the Livingston Award and his documentary Under Strange Skies was extensive travels throughout Asia, Europe Michael Kelly Award. screened at the Lincoln Center in New York. and Latin America.
DAVID ARMITAGE THOMAS DAVIES LAURENT VINATIER
David Armitage studies states and empires, Thomas Davies is a Lecturer in International Laurent Vinatier has been working as a ideas and arguments, as a means to better Politics at City University London, where researcher and consultant on the former understand history’s hold on the present he runs the Project on the Evolution Soviet Union for the past decade, authoring and to loosen its grip on the future. He is of International Non-Governmental several books, notably on the Chechen the Chair of the Department of History at Organizations (www.ingoevolution.org). conflict and Russia’s domestic politics. He Harvard University, and the author or editor He is also the author of two books on also writes as a journalist on various “non- of 12 books. These include The Ideological international civil society: The Possibilities mainstream” issues (www.borderlines.ch), Origins of the British Empire, which won the of Transnational Activism: The Campaign for and participates as a freelance specialist Longman/History Today Book of the Year Disarmament Between the Two World Wars and in political consulting missions for NGOs, Award, and The Declaration of Independence: NGOs: A New History of Transnational Civil private companies and governments. Based A Global History, chosen as a Times Literary Society (to be published by Hurst & Co in in Switzerland, he is affiliated to the Thomas Supplement Book of the Year. April 2013). More Institute, a leading Paris think tank.
THE GLOBAL JOURNAL
Editor in Chief: Jean-Christophe Nothias Thanks: Raphael Briner, Lars Borg, Bernd The Global Journal is published by Société des Deputy Editor: Alexis Kalagas Breckner Van Damme, Tatjana Darany, Valérie Fondateurs de The Global Journal SA, Geneva, Advertising & Partnership: Sabrina Galante Fougeirol, Erich Inciyan, Martine Lamuniére, Switzerland. Digital Editor: Nicoletta Zappile Pascale Lemoigne, Ernesto Morales, Axel Moulin, Art Director: Dimitri Kalagas Jim Mouille, Valérie de Palma Vincienne, Richard Palais des Nations Rue Adolphe Tschumi 6 Photographers: Rita Scaglia, Pascal Dolémieux Pottecher, Sophie Kalagas, Jo Guldi, Avenue de la Paix 8-14 1201 Geneva Copy Editor: Deborah Eve André Schneider, Thierry Soussi, Philippe Vignon, 1211 Geneva 10 SWITZERLAND SEO Manager: Florian Bessonnat Ernest & the Nothias Family Office SWITZERLAND Webmaster: Moowax Distribution (US & Canada): CIRC ONE/WRS Phone: +41 22 917 1297 Journalists & Contributors: Martina Castro, Thomas Smith, +1 917 226 9754 Kathryn Chelminski, Alex Haidar, Caitlin www.theglobaljournal.net Hannahan, Ziyoda Kurbanova, Alphée Lacroix- Distribution (Rest of the World): Export Press, September, Julie Mandoyan, Chiara Trincia Jean-Marie Eyquem, Alain Lecour, +33 140 291 451 Printer: Fry Communications, Mechanicsburg, US
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BB:LQJB[B*OREDO-RXUQH\ BB:LQJB[B*OREDO-RXUQH\ GLOBAL VOICES GLOBAL VOICES
Why did you decide to write central actor in any drama. Finally, I of governance. Initially, the term a history of the idea of world wrote a book about the Nazi occupation governance was not used for the global government, rather than a more of Europe, which I wanted to see not as arena at all. There was a lag. It was straightforward history of the UN? a military or diplomatic episode, but as used first of all for the corporate sector an episode in ‘world-making’ – where domestically, and then in domestic Coincidentally, one of my first teaching Nazi norms, Nazi values, were going to politics. Public-private partnerships jobs was in an international relations re-make the world. You could then see became part of that. The language of department. Otherwise, I’ve been in the 20th century as a kind of contest stakeholders became part of that. A history departments. But it means I between competing world-making whole language – a lot of which I loathe have read quite widely in the literature, systems. The Nazis saw it that way – because I think it is very euphemistic which is mostly post-1945, and mostly they were going to sweep away the world – became part of our daily vocabulary. quite contemporary. I’ve found it, of the League – and their opponents Then it was introduced through a kind on the whole, overly theorized and saw it that way – they were going to of ‘New Labour’ vision of the UN – if overly obsessed with turning itself sweep away the Nazis with the values of I can put it that way – that Kofi Annan into a science. So, the question of how the UN. The question was: how could came in wanting to push, focused on the historian would historicize the you think about doing an international stakeholders and reaching out to the international system, and its path into history of how people have wanted to corporate sector and NGOs. the present, has interested me make the world? The UN would be part since then. of that story. At a certain point, it would I suppose the good thing about the be quite a big part of that story. Most of idea of governance is that it recognizes Another thing was being interested the rest of the time, it would not be. the fact we live in a world in which in the Balkans, and finding that in governments share power domestically the 1990s everyone woke up to the One rarely hears talk of ‘world and internationally with other forces. importance of the region. One thing government’ now – rather, of The bad thing is that it is vague. Most that struck me was that in the period global governance. What do you importantly, it connotes a deep kind of the Yugoslav Wars, organizations see as the difference between of estrangement from the idea of the like Amnesty International and Human ‘global government’ and ‘global state and the efficiency of state action Rights Watch produced reports about governance’? that I think has probably gone too far. human rights violations. I remember Insofar as there are heroes in the book, reading those and thinking it was a very I think the semantic shift betrays it is the generation who were very active bizarre way to analyze what was going something very, very important, which in setting up the UN. Not necessarily on. They would systematically try to is that we moved from a world where because I share all their values – quite list individual violations. But it was a people had confidence in the idea of the contrary – but because they were war, and ethnic cleansing was a strategy government – or at least some did – to a very impressive in the way they believed about minorities – individuals were world that lost it. Having confidence in in the capacity of public institutions to © PASCAL DOLÉMIEUX FOR THE GLOBAL JOURNAL targeted because of their membership the idea of government, if you were what achieve change. They believed it for a of minority groups. We had lost the we might loosely call an internationalist very good reason – they had seen it work language of minority rights – or in the 19th century could mean one of in the toughest test of all, war. They collective rights – even though that two things. It could mean you were in transferred those lessons to the peace, language had been so important in the favor of a unitary world government of and thought the UN would be the Dreaming The 1920s. That got me thinking about some kind (the HG Wells version) – and vehicle. It might have in another world the relationship with the language of that was always a pretty small minority – on the whole it was not in this world. individual human rights, and about how position. Much more common was what But their confidence in public action is International Dream. you might tell the story of the transition you might call the Mazzinian version something we miss today. from the League of Nations rights (or Wilsonian version), which was that regime to its UN successor. It seemed international government must work How do you view the rise of like a story in which something had through and with national governments. powerful non-state actors like been lost as well as something gained. Internationalism was not a substitute the Gates Foundation, especially MARK MAZOWER Mark Mazower is an award-winning historian and writer, for nationalism; it was not going to in comparison to earlier CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY specializing in modern Greece, 20th century Europe and I began thinking about the UN slightly sweep it away. The nation as a basic philanthropists like John D differently. And then there was 2003, political community was something to Rockefeller who sought to bolster AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY international history. His most recent book, Governing and the war in Iraq. The following year be welcomed, and nations would work and work through established the World, tells the story of the rise of internationalism I began teaching at Columbia and it was together internationally. Nevertheless, institutions? still very much in the air. Everybody whether you followed the Wells or BY ALEXIS KALAGAS following the Napoleonic Wars, and how idealistic dreams was trying to work out, what do we Wilsonian version, each was confident What I have written is essentially a of world government and global harmony embodied in think of the UN? Two things were clear. in the capacity of governments to work of synthesis – I would always One, I had vaguely good intentions do things. look around when I had a question nascent institutions like the League of Nations and United towards the UN, and thought it had to see what other people had written. Nations (UN), met the reality of nationalist mobilization vaguely good intentions towards me, but I think that confidence was lost in the The literature on NGOs was not of found it very hard to articulate much 1970s and 80s. People stopped talking much use, because it struck me that and power politics in an age of increasing cooperation, but more than that. The other was the UN about the virtues of government, and ‘NGO’ was a really inadequate and enduring conflict. was no longer – if it ever had been – a started talking instead about the virtues imprecise label for the world today.
THE GLOBAL JOURNAL + JANUARY & FEBRUARY 2013 THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 10 11 GLOBAL VOICES GLOBAL VOICES
I tried to get at this by drawing – a No, emphatically not. One of the things topic, I find myself very reluctant to then that was good. It would make the Chinese start to talk about the in existence. But even that kind of very probably crude – contrast between I think is quite positive in some ways add to the list. I think you can say a few the UN more relevant. But as some Responsibility to Protect in Gaza? definitive answer is not very an NGO like Amnesty International, about the rebalancing of power globally things, however, about an institution US Senate isolationists said about the That will be the test. often required. which has a mass membership base, is that many of the new powers, for like the UN. It was set up not to be League of Nations in 1919, the fact but rather weak ties to any particular their own historical reasons, have a terribly effective, because as long as the whole world might be calling for a You note in the book how it The lack of power of international government historically, and Human much less negative view of what the there was great power disagreement, it policy does not necessarily make it a is very rare for international organizations might be part of the Rights Watch, whose emergence was state can do. Maybe you can already see would not be able to do anything. But good one. organizations to die – they answer as to why it is so difficult to inconceivable unless you know what the that beginning to affect the behavior of for that reason, it was set up in a way either evolve, or endure in an reform them. There is just not enough State Department was thinking, and international organizations. It’s quite that would make participation always One of the potentially quite dangerous increasingly diminished form. at stake for most people. At the point – through the Ford Foundation – was striking. Perhaps it was going to happen attractive for great powers. So I don’t things about the UN is that there are Why do you think it is so hard at which the League was reformed – doing. Certain NGOs really conform anyway. The IMF starts sounding a see any reason why an increasingly few checks and balances. If leading to reform our international and the UN is essentially a reformed to the Vladimir Putin view of what an lot more Keynesian these days than prosperous China, for instance, should states determine on a certain course of architecture? League, not a new organization – it had NGO is – state policy by other means. it did ten years ago – it is a chastened do anything other than reinforce the action where a particular smaller state virtually ceased to exist. It was a tiny It is rife with ethical and real confusion. organization. But it also represents a UN, cement its role in the organization, is concerned, there is very little to stop rump shadow of what it had been, so I think we need a much more nuanced power shift. Of course, it helps that and continue the policy that it has them. Small states can do very little, you could start again. An organization view of what NGOs are – some are US policy is more Keynesian too. But pursued at least since the 1970s, if not because they know they would be worse ‘The desire to like the UN is there – it’s bigger than good, and some are not. They have I’m sure it also reflects the power shift earlier. What the BRICS may bring to off in a world without the UN. But from reform the UN is a ever. There is this wonderful figure, very different kinds of relationships to towards the BRICs and other countries. the UN and other agencies will be what the perspective of a number of small Robert Jackson, who pops up now political power. Yet, most of us, most of So no, I do not think it is a global you identified, a much less suspicious states, I think R2P must have looked kind of last vestige and again in the book. Somebody like the time, see NGOs as expressions of a phenomenon. I think you are right. attitude towards the state. very much like the regime of the 19th Jackson in the late 1940s – had he been kind of civil society, and sometimes that Globally, the position is much century, where Western powers were of the dream that allowed – could have had an impact. But is just not true. more nuanced. Of course, be careful what you wish for. constructing an international order by the late 1960s, when he was asked to A less suspicious attitude towards the that was premised on the idea that they so many people write a report on what it would take [to On foundations, I have no doubt that state may bring with it a whole host of were civilized, and were going to bring once had, of a reform the UN], he basically threw up some do great work. But, they have ‘I find it quite new difficulties. It is all very well to be civilization to others. What was the his hands in horror. I am not an expert very limited accountability. I think critical of human rights regimes, but key criterion of civilization? It was the single powerful on the UN, and better people than I they are the product of the mistrust troubling to think do we want a UN in which the human capacity and behavior of a state. You have spent years of their lives writing of government and the public sector I rights regime is completely defanged, or could see that in the way they treated organization that reform agendas. All I know is that identified as a problem in our time. I’m that a billionaire people stop talking about human rights the Ottomans, you could see it in the people have been talking about it for a old fashioned in these matters. I wish altogether? From one point of view, the way they treated the Chinese, and you would incarnate long time – it is symbolically important, we had a different tax regime so that can have a Chinese version of development aid could see it in the way they treated but not in practical terms. The desire to the wealth of foundations disappeared to Africa is much more acceptable to African peoples. If you did not have a humanity’s wishes. reform the UN is a kind of last vestige and states and public agencies were able decisive impact many African states than the Western state, woe betide you – people could do I think too many of the dream that so many people once to use it themselves. I think we would on the public IMF version. But it will turn out to have with you what they wanted. And if you had, of a single powerful organization have a more transparent and more its own strings attached, so I do not did have a state, but it was deemed to be people are beyond that would incarnate humanity’s wishes. accountable social policy as a result. I health regime of a think the Chinese ascendancy is going barbaric, then you would also very often I think too many people are beyond that find it quite troubling to think that a to usher in a world where there are no find yourself being told what to do in that dream now for dream now for it to really matter. billionaire can have a decisive impact on country, or on the powerful states that do what they like, the name of civilization. the public health regime of a country, or and weak states that feel much more it to really matter.’ Why do you think that is? on the educational system of a country – educational system constrained. That is going to remain. That was the story of the 19th and the that doesn’t seem to me something that early 20th centuries. It is only in the last Well, huge disillusionment exists about we should be particularly happy about. of a country.’ Interestingly, you also criticize 20-30 years that historians have started There are two questions really. Why how the UN has worked. But how When you look at the Balkans and the a concept that has been seen by to unpack that story. But once you do, don’t they die? And why is it difficult to people think about the international Middle East in the late 19th many as having the potential to you see that what started happening in reform them? I’ve never really thought is completely connected to how they and early 20th century, this was also In the final chapter of the book, bring new relevance to the UN the 1990s often looked rather similar. I about the question of why they do not think about the national. Concepts an era of great philanthropy. There you allude to how the rise of in the realm of security – the do not say this as an outright opponent die, but I guess one reason is that you shift from one sphere to the other were no social services. There were just the BRICS has the potential to ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) of intervention – I was somebody only kill off political organizations if very easily – I don’t think the two are charities that depended on the money breathe new life into the UN. – as evoking historic notions of a who believed there should have been they are a threat to you. The classic detachable. On the whole, people’s that would come from the very wealthy. How do you envisage this will ‘civilizing mission.’ intervention much earlier than there case would be the Allied mission to trust in politicians generally is very Well, that was fine as far as it went, but happen? And how could it impact was in the Balkans. But what worried terminate Prussia in 1947. You do that low. People’s trust in government is I think things improved in the course of other emergent forms of global Well, the problem was the concept me in the way these concepts were used because Prussia symbolizes a massive very low. Actually, people’s trust in the 20th century, and to a certain extent governance? became militarized very quickly for by Tony Blair and others was a kind of threat. What international agency ever organization is very, very low. We are are now going backwards. But that many people. It became attractive to thoughtless universal moralizing, symbolizes such a significant threat? in a kind of quasi-anarchistic age. Not probably makes me a bit of So firstly, a health warning. One always the leadership of the UN because they which was very reminiscent of the On the whole, they are just not that necessarily a left anarchism, but a a dinosaur. wants to know about the future, but understood it was attractive to the late 19th century. And there were two powerful. There was an amazing case kind of extreme individualism that is in a funny way the book is a history of Americans and British, but particularly problems. One was that it would lead where the UN was asked to adjudicate reinforced by a lot of idolatry about the Do you regard this contemporary futures. There seems to be something the Americans. Really, the UN has only you into unforeseen situations. in the late 1940s whether the League Internet – about forms of mobilization mistrust of government though about thinking about how the world is been effective historically when acting The second was that you took no of Nations minority rights regime still that require no organization. People are – and election season in the US governed that makes it impossible not to in sync with the world’s largest power. account of how this sounded to people prevailed, because nobody had actually not very persuaded of the benefits of certainly brought the sentiment wonder about what is going to happen I saw that as the Kofi Annan mission to who had a much better memory of the scrapped it. Clearly it could have gone organization in general. They can see to the fore – as a worldwide next. After one has been through 200 move the UN out of this oppositional 19th century than you did. either way, but fortunately lawyers gave the value of states in their own lives. In phenomenon? years of people pontificating about that relationship, and if that meant R2P, How will we feel about it when the right answer – yes, it was no longer countries like France, people just do not
THE GLOBAL JOURNAL + JANUARY & FEBRUARY 2013 THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 12 13 GLOBAL VOICES Banques centrales Global Health Relations transatlantiques question the state at all. International Environmental Policies Action humanitaire International organizations, that is much harder. And Affairs Intégration régionale International Governance Politique de coopération Humanitarian Law Inégalités yet, my guess is that if you asked most Climate Change Politique agricole Environmental Policies people whether they would like a world Droits de l’homme International Affairs Intégration régionale International Governance PolitiqueINNOVATIVE de coopération without the UN, they would say no. It is just that they do not expect that much Humanitarian Law Inégalités Climate Change Banques more from it than it is giving them. centrales Global Health Droits de l’homme Non-State Actors Organisations internationales Natural Resources Terrorisme Poverty Minorités EnvironmentalTHINKING Policies The world was in a very different Trade and Economic Integration Natural Resources situation in the 1950s and 60s – that Intégration régionale International Governance Politique strikes me as such an interesting de coopération Humanitarian Law Inégalités Climate Terrorisme Minorités moment, where there was enormous Change Poverty Executive Education Géopolitique International GovernanceFOR Microfinance WORLD interest in the UN. It was perhaps the Humanitarian Law Inégalités Climate Change Politique last moment – perhaps the only moment agricole Conflicts and Peacebuilding Relations transatlantiques – where you could say the UN really was Environmental Policies Action humanitaire International the place to be. It featured in Hollywood Affairs Droits de l’homme Natural Resources Terrorisme Poverty Minorités Executive Education OrganisationsCITIZENS internationales films for goodness sake! Natural Resources Terrorisme Executive Education Géopolitique International Governance Microfinance How can you rise to the challenges of Règlement des différends Pays émergents Diplomatie Ultimately, your book is about ‘the the 21st century? history an idea’ – can you envisage multilatérale Union européenne Conflicts and Peacebuilding Through a graduate or executive education, new thinkers emerging to take up Migrations Inégalités Climate Change Banques centrales Humanitarian Law Inégalités Global Health Droits de supported by quality research on global issues, the dream of world government? l’homme Non-State Actors Organisations internationales in the fields of international affairs and Or have developments like the Terrorisme Politique de coopération Natural Resources Poverty development studies. Internet, the rise of civil society Humanitarian Law Droits de l’homme Non-State Actors and underwhelming or failed Organisations internationales Natural Resources Terrorisme Bring your creativity to our cosmopolitan institute Poverty Gender experiments with international and develop your capacity to make a responsible governance put the idea to rest? impact on the world.
I think we are at the end of these ideas http://graduateinstitute.ch that emerged in the 1820s and 30s. There is no question in my mind that was an incredibly fertile period – those © PASCAL DOLÉMIEUX FOR THE GLOBAL JOURNAL annonce_top100_worldcitizens_2.indd 1 13.12.12 15:50 ideas lasted well over a century and a half, and we are still playing them out. things happened. One was that the I feel we are entering a new kind of future was essentially privatized – TH era, when a lot of these ideas lose their a new corporate industry emerged hold. When terms like democracy or focused on predicting the future. Of government hide in themselves all kinds course, it would be nice if one could CONNEXION of assumptions and premises about reclaim the future for the public good, how things work that do not seem to and think about public futures. It tends THE CAREERS FORUM have much purchase in reality. We are to happen through crisis. Maybe the going to need a new kind of political crisis in Europe will become serious 10 ANNIVERSARY WEDNESDAY 6 – FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2013 vocabulary that we do not presently enough for that to occur. One of the possess. I don’t know where it will come very interesting things you see in from. I don’t see it in America. We Greece is a complete generational will end up with a new vocabulary, but shift, so that an entire way of thinking, whether people have the confidence in an entire political class – two entire BE AMONG THE 100 LEADING COMPANIES AND ORGANISATIONS ideas they had in the 1820s remains to generations – have been discredited. WHICH PARTICIPATE IN THIS EXCLUSIVE CAREER EVENT EACH YEAR! be seen – that was an age of faith in the What you have now is a lot of very power of ideas. We live in much more smart people under 30 who are trying Connexion is a unique occasion to disillusioned times. It is a very post- to figure it all out, and not all of them Meet highly skilled, multilingual cosmopolitan students with international work experience utopian age. – but a lot of them – tend to have quite a profound sense of social solidarity. Promote your organisation and advertise employment opportunities to well trained job seekers At the same time, it is very interesting So that is where I would look if I was Match your needs with our students and graduates’ expertise and education how historians have suddenly become interested in what people were thinking Learn more about what the Graduate Institute has to offer: Master and PhD degrees in International and interested in the future as a topic – about the future who do not fit into Development Studies, Executive Education, high-level research, multi-stakeholder dialogue and more everyone is writing about ‘does the any of the categories we have grown future have a future?’ What is the accustomed to. I don’t think it will be history of people’s imagining of the from established political parties – GOVERNING THE WORLD: THE HISTORY OF AN IDEA future? It is very clear that people were most have become very short- MARK MAZOWER happy to dream long-term, maybe until termist themselves. ALLEN LANE Contact: Carine Leu-Bonvin the 1950s and 60s. Then lots of £25.00 Tel. +41 (0)22 908 57 55 [email protected] http://graduateinstitute.ch/connexion http://graduateinstitute.ch THE GLOBAL JOURNAL + JANUARY & FEBRUARY 2013 14 annonce_top100_connexion_3.indd 1 13.12.12 17:26 SUR_Global_Advert_276x200mm_AW.pdf 1 13/12/2012 15:08
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A DARFURI CHILD PUSHES A HIPPO WATER ROLLER THAT HAS THE SAME CAPACITY AS THE JERRY CANS CARRIED BY HER COMPANION – AN INNOVATION MADE POSSIBLE VIA TARGETED PHILANTHROPIC INVESTMENT. © UN PHOTO/ALBERT GONZALEZ FARRAN
How To Do Good (Better):
Little Butterfly and her people, the Awá, The Future Of Philanthropy. are the most threatened tribe in the world. They are one of the last hunter-gatherer BY MARTINA CASTRO + PHILANTHROPIC CONSULTANT, LOMBARD ODIER & CIE tribes living in the Amazon. Their natural habitat is fast disappearing and they face extinction as they are killed by loggers t used to be easier. You would come this sort of giving is pointless, it does thorough, professional and transparent home, open the mailbox and find end up being relatively ineffective in process, which does not end with having and ranchers. I an anonymous looking envelope. achieving transformative impact. your name carved on a brass plate in a Inside, you would find a card with hallowed university courtyard, or on the despondent children, or cute tiger cubs, But times are changing in the world hand-painted sign of a rural hospital Please help save the Awá. and a prefilled check. Alternatively, of private philanthropy. Over the in Ethiopia. you could always count on your sister’s last few years, there has been much Watch Colin Firth on how to stop the Awá crochet friend to ask you for money for talk of ‘philanthropy 2.0,’ and We are moving away from responsive, the local group distributing meals to buzzwords like ‘venture philanthropy,’ opportunistic charity, and increasingly disappearing at www.survivalinternational.org/awa the homeless. And finally, you would ‘strategic philanthropy,’ ‘Silicon towards a thought-out, engaged and leave a bequest in your will to a couple Valley philanthropy’ and ‘philanthro- proactive form of giving, which is aimed of charities, usually an animal shelter or capitalism’ are becoming ever more at accelerating the pace of social change. To donate £10 some organization you had heard about common. Despite certain nuances, Donors tend to give at a younger age, throughout your life but had never had all refer to the same widespread to be personally involved in the causes text ‘SURV12 £10’ the chance to really investigate. For phenomenon: even if you are not they support, and often in conjunction to 70070 many, philanthropy would be just that. planning to give millions, philanthropy with friends and family. They wish Although it would be wrong to suggest has become a considerably more to understand, to learn and to see the
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Donors, as well as investors, are pharmaceutical companies to undertake in the development of technologies, beginning to explore the spectrum of research and development on neglected approaches, and ways of thinking that BILL GATES, CO-CHAIR OF THE BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION, possibilities that exists between these diseases, which the corporate sector could significantly change the world for HOLDS UP A VACCINE DURING A PRESS worlds, and are finding innovative would otherwise be unable or unwilling the better. CONFERENCE AT THE WORLD HEALTH ways to build bridges between the to pursue. ORGANIZATION IN GENEVA IN 2011. corporate and non-profit sectors. Certain donors – who today define © UN PHOTO/ALBERT GONZALEZ FARRAN Today, for instance, a foundation that Lastly, there is a key feature of the themselves as venture philanthropists supports medical research through philanthropic landscape that private – have also realized that money is not grants can also engage in mission- donors and foundations must keep in always the most valuable asset they related investment, by putting to work mind. One of the largest private grant- can give. In fact, in many cases these its capital in companies that are active making structures in the world today is individuals can help organizations and in the same field. The impact of their the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, projects grow by acting as a spearhead, investment, therefore, is aligned with which controls total assets of over by facilitating access, and by placing that of their grants. Similarly, a donor $30 billion. This is only a drop in the their time and skills, rather than dollars, interested in poverty alleviation in ocean, however, compared to the size at the disposal of their beneficiaries. A India can invest in a private-equity of equivalent public spending. Looking good example is the Shell Foundation, impact investment fund supporting which in many ways acts like an angel social entrepreneurs who use market- investor towards its partners, helping based solutions to address issues like ‘Much innovation them grow and improve with the education, housing or water ultimate aim of ensuring they become and sanitation. is being driven not financially stable, if not self sustainable.
The development of impact investment only by American Private donors enjoy the great luxury of is still in a nascent phase, although and – to a certain not having to respond to shareholders early pioneers emerged in the 1970s or voters when it comes to using their and 80s in the sphere of microcredit. extent – European money. This does not mean they are The sector has picked up markedly unaccountable. But it does mean they since – especially in the United donors, but also can take risks and action in fields that States – championed by dot.com era governments or corporations cannot, or entrepreneurs like Mitch Kapoor from actors have no interest in. and Pierre Omidar, as well as by established philanthropic actors such in previously Much innovation is being driven not as the Rockefeller Foundation. Impact ‘unconventional’ only by American and – to a certain results of their giving. Finally, they are inevitable evolution, which is ultimately as smart fundraising, marketing investment is estimated to represent extent – European donors, but also from ready to experiment, to try out new more positive than negative. Sadly, and capacity building. On average, $50 billion worth of investment capital regions like Asia.’ actors in previously ‘unconventional’ approaches and to bring more than just however, standards of reporting remain organizations dedicate approximately worldwide, of which approximately $40 regions like Asia. Although proxies for their money to the table. Because of this too low – a fact just as true of larger, 15 percent of their resources for such billion is held in microfinance funds. measurement are scarce, it is interesting shift, there are a number of changes more established organizations as for operational expenses. While this means The sector is growing, however, and only at the overseas development to note that within one year of its that are starting to appear in the smaller, volunteer-based groups. a portion of donor funds do not always new investments have doubled between assistance budgets of the 23 largest launch the Asian Venture Philanthropy philanthropic ecosystem – all of which flow directly to a specific project, it 2010 and 2011, with an overall market economies in a single year (2009), the network – based on the model of a will become vital in the years ahead. As always, there is a balance to be ultimately helps to enhance the overall potential forecast to reach $500 billion cumulative global spend was estimated similar European setup – already has struck: if you are giving $200,000 to efficiency of the organization, thus within the next five to ten years. at some $120 billion. One should over 110 members from 18 countries. The first trend, which has actually been an organization, the sophistication of allowing for even greater impact. similarly consider, in turn, all the public Part of this change is due to the fact that slowly taking off in the last decade or reporting you should expect as a donor Boundaries are also blurring in the money that goes into arts and culture, the majority of contemporary donors, so, is a growing pressure on those at is correspondingly more than for a one- The second trend is an expansion of field. Public-private partnerships education, social support, and scientific especially in emerging countries, have the receiving end of donor funds to off contribution of $200. In either case, the methods through which donors that see NGOs, public authorities and medical research. an entrepreneurial background rather become more professional, accountable, however, the donor is entitled to know can aim to foster change. As already and corporates working together than inheriting their wealth via ‘old transparent, and ultimately, more how the money was used, and what the emphasized, long gone are the days are a much-welcomed trend. While Does that mean private giving is money.’ Arguably, this contributes to efficient. Donors want to know how grant helped to achieve. On the other where writing a check to a charity was cooperation between such different inconsequential? The answer: definitely their taste for more out-of-the-box their money is being spent, and what hand, donors – even enlightened ones the only means to engage with a social entities cannot be taken for granted, not. Indeed, because resources are and strategic philanthropy, as well as impact it is having. Of course, there – still fail to grasp the importance of issue. Donors today have a palette the complementarity of skillsets and relatively modest in comparison to a desire to be cast as ‘change makers’ are certain downsides. Beneficiary funding the operational costs of their of options to choose from, and while resources these actors bring to the table public budgets, this makes it even rather than ‘do-gooders.’ organizations often complain about beneficiaries. Clearly, this conflicts with simple grants do remain the most can have tremendous repercussions more important that the ‘little money’ devoting too much time – and too demands for professional standards of typical approach, more sophisticated in terms of impact. A good example is available is used wisely. And by wisely, All things considered, this is an many resources – to writing proposals, administration and governance. philanthropists are now shyly dipping the ‘Medicines for Malaria Venture,’ a read anything other than conservatively. extremely interesting era in which to be filing reports and auditing accounts. their toes in an alternative and not-for profit public-private partnership It is about finding a niche where an involved in philanthropy. The sector is While it is true that answering the Slowly but surely, donors will have fascinating realm of strategic giving. We launched with modest seed funding individual’s money could have effects at a crossroads, and while many have growing demands of donors means an to understand that in order for an are moving away from an era of rigid of $4 million from the Swiss, United much larger than its nominal value, already pioneered a new path, the great additional investment, in a world of organization to blossom, grow, juxtapositions – where giving was seen Kingdom, and Dutch governments, where it could help leverage even majority of donors are still to take the shrinking philanthropic capital, the professionalize and achieve its full in opposition to investment, charities the World Bank and the Rockefeller greater funding, or help launch a leap out of their comfort zones required adapt or die rule applies. This may potential, it will have to invest in in opposition to companies, and social Foundation. The venture is focused on risky – but potentially revolutionary to really begin questioning whether be a hurtful process, but it is also an qualified and talented staff, as well impact in opposition to financial return. providing commercial incentives to spur – idea. In short, where it could assist what they do is more than just good.
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ll that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is That reckoning amounted, for many learned people, to an profaned, and man is at last compelled to face overturning of cherished commitments. For much of the “A with sober senses his real conditions of life, and modern era, in most parts of the world, historians have his relations with his kind.” These words, taken from Karl been committed to nationalism. Like the majority of social Marx and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto, that scientists, they have assumed that history revolves around prescient analysis of proto globalization, prophesied an end nations – large groups living in the same location who share to boundaries that was driven to its extreme a century and a common ancestry, language, history or culture, and who a half later by Francis Fukuyama’s vision of markets and organize themselves politically into states. Accordingly, free-trade zones ending national and local identities for good. historians’ main tasks have been to narrate how nation-states Capitalism, liberal democracy and globalization had won, emerged, how they developed, and how they interacted with once and for all. Or so it seemed in 1992. one another.
No more. The dissolving boundaries of the Eurozone Even those historians whose work deliberately crossed the Crisis have called into question the promises of unlimited borders of national histories operated along similar lines. assimilation by capitalism. Around the world, a plague For example, diplomatic historians used national archives to of economic fracturing has split globalized capital. The reconstruct relations among states. Historians of immigration smoothly integrated globe predicted by Fukuyama has broken tracked the arrival and assimilation of new peoples into apart into Eurozone South and North, the Asian trading existing states. And imperial historians studied empires enclaves, and the socialist states of Latin America: what was as the extensions of national histories, even though they supposed to be solid has dissolved into air. generally maintained a strict separation between the histories of metropolitan states (mostly in Europe) and their colonies (mostly outside Europe). In all these fields, the matter of history concerned stability, not mobility – what was fixed, not ‘The first historians who what was mixed. argued for transnational spaces were deeply invested * * * * * cholars in many fields have more recently been moving © ILLUSTRATION BY DIMITRI KALAGAS in the Enlightenment towards studies they describe variously as international, + IMAGES COURTESY OF NASA S transnational, comparative and global. The scope, conception of a mind free subject matter and motivation of their efforts has not been identical – nor is there any consensus on how these non- from its body.’ national approaches to history should be distinguished from each other. The ‘International Turn’ In A new age of geopolitical exclusion and boundary-making as rampant as the 19th century spread of national governments The first historians who argued for transnational spaces were is upon us. Fractures between Europe’s old economic deeply invested in the Enlightenment conception of a mind Intellectual History. powerhouses and its new pauper states have compounded free from its body. They were historians of ideas. Early forms Turkey and Iceland’s exclusion from the European Union of the history of ideas were characteristic of the Republic of (EU). Fears about terrorism and the loss of traditional values Letters, a 17th and 18th century intellectual community in fan old prejudices into fresh anti-immigrant sentiments in Europe and the US that was self-consciously transnational. DAVID ARMITAGE the United States (US), France and the Nordic countries. As one of its citizens, the French scholar and litterateur CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY Unapologetic semi-fascists are gaining political ground in Bonaventure d’Argonne, wrote in 1699, the Respublica AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY Greece and Hungary. A new age of nationalisms threatens Literarum “embraces the whole world and is composed of all billions with exclusion from democracy, capitalism, credit, the nationalities, all social classes, all ages, and both sexes. All Internet and human rights law. Can this age of proliferating languages, ancient as well as modern, are spoken.” Within a In the first of a regular series inviting prominent members of academia to address boundaries be reversed? global community that extended from China to Peru, “ideas were colorless, ageless, raceless, genderless.” They were key questions of global governance, international politics and the evolution of the One hopeful story might be told about the fate of another placeless and stateless, too. international system, David Armitage – one of the world’s leading historians of political set of boundaries – those associated with nationalism – during the course of the 20th century. By the 1950s, Just like those global scholars and intellectuals who made up thought – traces the genesis of the ‘international turn’ in intellectual history. Closely Western intellectuals were confronted with growing evidence the Republic of Letters, we must think of categories beyond linked to parallel processes of empire and globalization, Armitage reflects upon how about the negative role of nationalism in generating the the national boundary. Most of the world’s population, for massacres of the World Wars. Boundaries were amassing most of recorded history, lived not in nation-states but in crucial developments during the last three centuries have shaped how we envision the a nasty record of genocide, and someone had to reckon empires – those far-flung, stratified polities that projected ‘international sphere’ today. with facts. various kinds of universalism in order to suspend differences
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among populations without striving for uniformity between indication that ideas lack material locations – that they peripheries as each alleged periphery earned a central place understanding of international relations by reference them. For a relatively brief period, between the early 16th need to be placed into contexts construed almost entirely in accumulating imperial archives, testing hypotheses, and to ethnographic descriptions of the state of nature; and and early 20th centuries, some of those empires were the as temporal and linguistic, not physical or spatial. Michel generating ideologies through inter-colonial exchanges. David Hume’s political economy owed much to his outgrowths of confidently national cultures, particularly in Foucault might have been speaking for intellectual historians Atlantic connections. Europe and Asia. But most were pre-national or supranational specifically (rather than all historians more broadly) when As a result, extensively elaborated connections linked in composition. Oceanic spaces connected elements of these he declared, “space was that which was dead, fixed, non intensively cultivated locations to create new maps empires in the modern period, but maritime arenas such as dialectical, immobile. On the other hand, time was rich, of knowledge and transnational canons through the the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic and the fertile, vibrant, dialectical.” transmission of ideas and information across continents ‘As the ‘Great Map of Pacific also segmented sovereignties and became cockpits of and oceans. Mankind’ was unrolled, in inter-imperial rivalry. Space can be understood intensively as well as extensively. In this regard, historians of science may have much to teach both These studies in what Pierre Bourdieu calls the “science of Edmund Burke’s resonant international relations scholars and intellectual historians. international relations with regard to culture” offer models for A ‘spatial turn’ in the history of science put in doubt the intellectual history that are more generally replicable. When phrase, truly global ‘In light of the long history universality of truth and insisted upon local knowledge: there conceptions of space expand, webs of significance ramify and of empire, the eternal world could be no view from nowhere when every view sprang from networks of exchange proliferate to create novel contexts and possibilities for thought somewhere. Ideas emerged from tightly defined spaces – from unanticipated connections among them. Shifting patterns of opened up for the generations of states posited by modern picturesque beaches as well as laboratory benches, and from sociability and correspondence, of the distribution of books public drinking-houses as well as royal academies. and the spatial organization of knowledge – in rooms and of thinkers writing after the ideas about international buildings, streets and squares, cities and regions, countries and continents, empires and oceans – forced thinkers to mid-18th century.’ relations seems fleeting, even ‘We need to understand rethink the nature of their audiences, the potential impact of marginal.’ their arguments, and the extent of their spheres of action. how ideas travel, who As the “Great Map of Mankind” was unrolled, in Edmund In light of such considerations, the questions posed by Burke’s resonant phrase, truly global possibilities for thought In light of the long history of empire, the eternal world of transports them, what intellectual historians have shifted. They once asked what opened up for the generations of thinkers writing after the states posited by modern ideas about international relations Enlightenment was. To answer that query, intellectual mid-18th century – among them Denis Diderot, Anne- seems fleeting, even marginal. Indeed, if by some estimates a baggage they carry on their historians attuned to space must now ask where Robert-Jacques Turgot, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, world of true nation-states, detached from empire, emerged Enlightenment was. This is only fully answerable in a global Johann Gottfried Herder, Jeremy Bentham and Burke only with the zenith of decolonization, soon to be swept away journeys, and how they context across what historians call the longue durée – a view himself. This had consequences for their constructions by the wave of transnationalism that erupted after the end of history that focuses on unchanging or very slow-changing of universalism and cosmopolitanism, as well as for their of the Cold War, then the heyday of the state lasted less than become domesticated and phenomena over the gradual march of centuries, rather than conceptions of culture and difference. a generation, from about 1975-1989. All history, before and naturalized on arrival.’ years or decades. after, was either pre-national or post-national history. Moving into the later 19th century, the compression of By simultaneously uniting and dividing, empires spurred space by technology – above all the steamship, the railway a contest between ideas and facilitated their circulation When viewed microscopically in this way, the seamless and the telegraph – made new forms of political community amongst diasporic peoples and across commercial web of abstract knowledge turned out to be a brittle mosaic ‘Changing conceptions of imaginable over the expanses of empire and across the world. routes. From such collisions and transmissions emerged of contingent concerns. If one aim of this literature was space expanded the contexts With due respect to Foucault, space was dynamic, not static. universalizing forces that were in competition – empire, to debunk the presumed universality of scientific reason, The contexts for thinking expanded to encompass the entire religion and political economy, for instance – as well as the another was to show just how fragments of knowledge were for ideas and, with them, the globe. Accordingly, modern intellectual historians have to expansive ideologies that countered or subsumed them: pan- accumulated and collected, and how their credibility was track ideas on ever-larger scales: continental, inter-regional, Islamism, pan-Africanism, nationalism, anti-colonialism, secured. We need to understand how ideas travel, who very possibilities for thought.’ transoceanic, and ultimately, planetary. As Martin Heidegger, and other forms of ‘colored cosmopolitanism’. Most of these transports them, what baggage they carry on their Carl Schmitt, and Hannah Arendt were among the first to movements were invisible as long as history was viewed journeys, and how they become domesticated and note in the mid-20th century, outer space may truly be the through nation-shaped spectacles. They returned to view only naturalized on arrival. Changing conceptions of space expanded the contexts for final frontier for intellectual history. when older experiences of space – more extensive, more fluid ideas and, with them, the very possibilities for thought. The and less confined by territorial boundaries – again framed This approach revealed the intricate mechanisms of most familiar example for European intellectual historians * * * * * questions about the past. information gathering that made scientific knowledge both might be the broader contexts that transoceanic exploration possible and plausible. Even the most physically isolated of and colonization generated for thinkers in early modern hile these thinkers explored the changing shapes The field is rife with spatial metaphors – of ideas as thinkers – like the land-locked Isaac Newton, who never saw Europe. Intercultural encounters and the proliferation of of empire, nation and people, another, more “migratory” and of books escaping the bounds of nations; the sea in his life – could become a global center of calculation empires around the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic world, and, W ancient variety of international utopianism, was of “horizons” of understanding and the public sphere; of by commanding a worldwide web of correspondents from the later, the Pacific, tested conceptions of nature, civilization, being revived. The first practitioners of the history of ideas “localism” and “provincialism” as adjectives for ideas; and of Gulf of Tonkin to the Strait of Magellan. Corporate bodies political community, property, religious diversity and – from Thomas Stanley in mid-17th century England, to conceptions of “containment” and critical “movement” in the such as the Society of Jesus and the English and Dutch toleration. John Locke – a voracious reader of travel Victor Cousin in post Napoleonic France – produced works reading and interpretation of texts. Yet such figures of speech East India Companies facilitated big science, in the sense literature – confronted instances of diversity in belief and that were strikingly cosmopolitan in character and content. do not necessarily indicate any substantive engagement with of the long-distance production of knowledge. And later practice drawn from accounts of five continents; Thomas Intellectual history was born international, and it remained questions of space and place. Instead, they are a shorthand ‘webs of empire’ dissolved distinctions between centers and Hobbes, a more modest consumer of Americana, shaped his so long after the rise of nationalism within and beyond the
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and institutions – “champions of the international turn as ‘Idealistic international well as vigorous proponents of intellectual and cultural lawyers, wielding the naïve history.” At the same time, intellectual historians are beginning to treat norms and interactions between peoples, constructs of international states and other corporate bodies historically, placing their new studies under the rubric of the history of international studies, conspired with thought. The stories created by this fusion are helping us think about the possibilities for internationalism in a imperial enterprises from the new light.
Belgian Congo to the Bay Proponents of the new international history have urged their of Pigs.’ colleagues to ‘internationalize international history’ – and challenge nationalist histories – by studying non-state actors in the international realm: corporations, non-governmental a realignment of research during the last two decades, she organizations, transnational social movements, and bodies now sits below the salt.” In the same volume, Charles Maier such as the World Health Organization or the United offered a similarly downbeat assessment of international Nations. If we were to tell a story of the 20th century that © ILLUSTRATION BY DIMITRI KALAGAS + IMAGES COURTESY OF NASA history: “the history of international relations… [has] little emphasized these types of institutions, we would end up with sense of collective enterprise, of being at the cutting edge of a very different 20th century. historical scholarship.” International scholars and historians That blithe optimism about the power of ideas to unify of ideas had little to say to each other. We might, for example, begin to imagine a world in which the ‘The term ‘international peoples did not last. During the course of the 20th century, road to the EU’s mandate to include Greece was paved by the thought’ was originally intellectual historians and international historians drew The skepticism of the late 20th century produced a climate of international precedents of the Institut de Droit International, further apart. The separation between the domestic and the pessimism, where historians of ideas regarded international the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the an invention of British international sharpened. With the triumph of behavioralist governance and the spread of ideas as feckless utopian visions League of Nations. We would also start to tell a new history of social science in the US, ideas and ethics moved from of a bygone age, while international scholars increasingly human rights – a field now in its second wave, as it has moved publicists and litterateurs the center to the margins of the study of politics and ignored history altogether. Idealistic international lawyers, from its phase of telling just-so stories into a more critical international relations. In the era that followed, a war wielding the naïve constructs of international studies, period alert to context and discontinuity. Such a story would sympathetic to the League erupted between historians – who were newly convinced of conspired with imperial enterprises from the Belgian Congo leave us with a very different picture of the world we live in, bodiless transnational Enlightenment – and international to the Bay of Pigs. Buoying their advice were artificial, semi- as well as its opportunities for change. of Nations and nascent relations scholars, which was seemingly invented to protect historical concepts promising “modernization” and “political international institutions in nationalism’s respectable face. Disciplinary boundaries stability” as timeless truths, easily manufactured by following hardened and were more fiercely defended. distilled rules of international engagement. the inter-war period.’ The term ‘international thought’ was originally an invention This kind of thinking amounted to poor policy as well as of British publicists and litterateurs sympathetic to the poor history. No date was more foundational for the field of historical profession. The logic of territorial statehood marked League of Nations and nascent international institutions in international relations than 1648 and the Peace of Westphalia. intellectual history much less than other areas of historical the inter-war period. Its original purpose had been to denote The demolition of the ‘myth of 1648’ as the origins of a world inquiry, and it became an article of faith amongst historians a usable past rather than to create a critical history. It received of mutually recognizing, non interfering sovereign states was of ideas that their objects of attention escaped national support from equally committed internationalists across the a relatively straightforward process. It relied on a reading of boundaries. As Frederick Jackson Turner noted in 1891, Atlantic, notably the American international lawyer James the treaties of Munster and Westphalia, the recognition that “ideas, commodities even, refuse the bounds of a nation… Brown Scott, who created the earliest historical canon of empires, federations and other kinds of layered or divided this is true especially of our modern world with its complex works of international thought – from Balthazar Ayala to sovereignty were more characteristic of political authority commerce and means of intellectual connection.” Richard Zouche – in the series sponsored by the Carnegie than any alleged ‘Westphalian’ sovereignty, and attention to Endowment for International Peace, Classics of International the world beyond northern Europe, to see how little respect As international thought reckoned with the shape of empires Law (1911-50). was paid to the putative sovereignty of many of the world’s and nations after the close of the World Wars, historians of peoples under the sway of empire. ideas like Arthur O Lovejoy were often methodologically Meanwhile, intellectual historians moved further and further cosmopolitan and politically internationalist in outlook, away from scholars in the emergent field of international * * * * * prophesying a moment when the exchange of ideas would relations, as a resurgent social history pressed both disciplines meld the peoples of the world into one. Historically-minded to the margins of the historical profession, especially in the ut for every intellectual action there is a reaction. students of international relations such as Arendt, Raymond US. What one clerk said to another clerk was as unfashionable Nationalist history has been broken down, and many Aron, Herbert Butterfield, Hans Morgenthau, Reinhold as what one philosopher wrote about another philosopher. B conceptions linked to international studies have been FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN INTERNATIONAL THOUGHT Niebuhr, Schmitt, Kenneth Waltz and Martin Wight As Robert Darnton observed gloomily in a 1980 collection utterly debunked. As so often, intimations of obsolescence DAVID ARMITAGE dealt openly in ideas rather than abstract models or published on behalf of the American Historical Association, have proven to be spurs to innovation. International relations CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS positivist methods. “[a] malaise is spreading among intellectual historians… after scholars are becoming more interested in culture, ideology £17.99
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NGOs: A Long And Turbulent History.
BY THOMAS DAVIES
THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY CONVENTION, 1840, BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON (1841). © NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON
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PUHUY, A PATAXO INDIAN AND HEAD OF THE INTERNATIONAL INDIGENOUS COMMISSION, IS INTERVIEWED AT THE NGO GLOBAL FORUM HELD IN RIO DE JANEIRO PARALLEL TO THE Like economic globalization, transnational civil society is often seen as a recent 1992 EARTH SUMMIT. © UN PHOTO/RUBY MERA phenomenon. From the worldwide protests of the Occupy Movement, to environmental advocacy campaigns ahead of RIO+20, and multi-faceted development programs implemented on a global scale, it is tempting to assume we live in an entirely new era of NGO activity. Yet in contrast to conventional wisdom, international NGOs have a long and turbulent history, which has often placed these actors at the center of key transformations shaping international society over the last two centuries.
he diversity and reach of the Indeed, the wave of protests in 2011 disseminate new techniques of more than 20,000 international – from the Arab uprisings, to Indian resuscitation, another humanitarian T NGOs operating today is difficult anti-corruption demonstrations and NGO, the Royal Jennerian Society, to overestimate. It encompasses the Occupy Wall Street – are evocative of was established in 1803 to ensure human rights activism of Amnesty the much earlier wave of revolutions that “Small-pox may be speedily International in 150 countries, the in the Atlantic world, encompassing exterminated… ultimately from the development work of the 120,000 the American, French and Haitian whole earth,” by promoting newly- staff of BRAC touching the lives of revolutions. Activists such as Tom discovered methods of vaccination. 126 million, and the participation Paine, and international networks of Within two decades, the society had of approximately one billion people masonic and secret societies, helped attracted an impressive array of patrons, in the member organizations of the promote revolution from one country including 14 European monarchs, the International Co-operative Alliance. to another. A Universal Confederation Ottoman Sultan, the Mughal of India, The breadth of activities stretches of the Friends of Truth was established the Pacha of Baghdad, the American from the settlement by the Court in revolutionary Paris in 1790, with President and the Pope. It was claimed of Arbitration of the International affiliates not only in France, but also at the time that “by its efforts… Chamber of Commerce of more in London, Philadelphia, Hamburg, nearly all parts of the world” had disputes than the International Court Geneva, Genoa and Utrecht. The received vaccinations. of Justice, to the alternative confederation was one of many globalization envisaged by the World groups at the time to describe its Amongst the most influential NGOs of Social Forums and pan-Islamic activism goals as “universal.” European the late 18th and early 19th centuries of the Muslim Brotherhood. revolutionaries were inspired not only were the many anti-slavery groups by Enlightenment ideals of liberty and established in the Atlantic world in Yet, international NGOs have far equality, but also by reports of uprisings the decades following the formation of deeper roots than is commonly in Muslim territories – amongst the the Pennsylvania Society for the Relief assumed. The term itself – ‘non- texts of the French revolution was a of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in governmental organizations’ – entered ‘Republican Koran.’ Bondage in 1775. These organizations common usage via the United Nations influenced not only national legislation (UN) Charter at the end of World War In contrast, nascent humanitarian such as the British Slave Trade Act II. But even before the onset of the organizations of the period built of 1807, but also international modern era, religious orders, missionary upon Chinese experience. Since the negotiations. Abolitionist lobbying groups, merchant hanses and scientific 13th century at least, humanitarian contributed, for instance, to the issuing societies engaged in activities crossing associations were active along Chinese of international declarations on the continents. Many of these bodies – rivers. Following the establishment slave trade in the peace congresses including Roman Catholic monastic of a Society for the Recovery of the following the Napoleonic wars. Another orders and Sufi tariqahs – survive to the Drowned in Amsterdam in 1767, group, the Quakers, had been critical present day. It was in the context of the ‘Humane Societies’ specializing in to the development of the abolitionist Enlightenment idealism, revolutionary the rescue and resuscitation of victims movement, and were also central to the upheavals and East-West contacts of of drowning and shipwreck had been formation of some of the earliest peace the late 18th century, however, that the founded in every continent by the societies that developed in Great Britain sphere of international NGOs was to be onset of the 19th century. Whereas and the United States (US) from 1815. truly transformed. the ‘Humane Societies’ aimed to
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Red Cross movement for the provision With hindsight, the years immediately palace’ (now a car exhibition space), of neutral assistance to the wounded preceding the onset of World and survives to the present day as in conflict. War I represented a period where the principal data repository on internationalist idealism reached a international civil society organizations, In the period from the 1870s to World denouement. Mass campaigns were publishing the annual Yearbook of War I, there was a massive expansion in launched around The Hague peace International Organizations. the number and variety of international conferences of 1899 and 1907, with a NGOs parallel to the second industrial global petition circulated by women’s Many groups failed to survive the revolution. Among the more than organizations in 1899 amassing one devastating effects of World War I. At 400 bodies established at this time million signatures. This sentiment was the same time, the vast destruction were organizations as diverse as the also reflected in the proliferation of wrought by the conflict also spurred the Universal Scientific Alliance, the World associations dedicated to the promotion formation of myriad new organizations League for Protection of Animals, of international languages such as to address its humanitarian the International Council of Women, Esperanto, whose inventor, Lejzer consequences. The Save the Children the International Federation of Trade Ludwik Zamhenhof, referred to himself Fund, for example, was established in Unions, the International Cooperative as ‘Dr Hopeful.’ By 1911, numerous 1919 to provide relief for children in Alliance, the International Olympic international NGOs had danger of starvation as a result of war- Committee, Rotary International and been created for Esperantists of induced food shortages. In the same the International Socialist Bureau. different backgrounds, ranging year, the organization now known as the from police employees to teachers, International Federation of Red Cross The achievements of international and Red Crescent Societies emerged as NGOs in the decades preceding the another critical actor in the provision war included successful campaigns ‘With hindsight, of post-war famine relief. for new treaties, such as by the International Literary and Artistic the years Although most NGOs found it DISUSED OXFAM WATER Association in respect of international impossible to hold international TANKS IN THE DESERTED copyright, and by the International immediately conferences during the war, an MUGUNGA CAMP IN GOMA Abolitionist Federation in relation to sex important exception was to be BEING DISMANTLED FOR USE trafficking. In addition, women’s groups preceding the found in the convening in 1915 of ELSEWHERE IN 1996. were crucial in the dissemination of onset of World an international congress of more © UN PHOTO/UNHCR/HJ DAVIES suffrage activism around the world. than 1,000 women at The Hague, New Zealand, for instance, was the War I represented who were later to form the Women’s first country to grant women the International League for Peace and The peace movement has the distinction uniting the benevolent of all countries.” recognize the Confederacy in the 1860s, right to vote in 1893. There, the a period where Freedom. Peace activists also played of being responsible for the earliest It proved hugely successful in collecting playing a part in the abolition of slavery suffrage movement was stimulated by a key role in promoting the idea of a recorded organization to actually large subscriptions from members, in the US. Similarly, the organization’s the American traveling envoy of the internationalist League of Nations, the establishment of describe itself as international. The and was run from Place Vendôme 16, international Anti Slavery Convention Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, which in 1919 was to transform NGOs’ International Association created in next door to what is now the Paris Ritz. held in London in 1840 was to spark a Mary Leavitt. idealism reached a activities. Despite its well-known Scotland in 1834 claimed to consist “of The society potentially contributed to wave of private international congresses ineffectiveness as a security institution, those who desire to find just grounds the spread of more than 150 lifesaving leading to the establishment of NGOs in The late 19th century was an era in denouement’ the League worked in conjunction with for mutual esteem and respect, – who societies across every continent, and many fields in subsequent decades. The which the pan-nationalist ideas that NGOs on a huge array of international cherish peace, – and will act upon published a journal, The International, barring of women from the event also were to have considerable influence bankers, postal workers, and even an issues in the 1920s and 30s, including the grand principle of collecting and marketed as “the intelligent organ of spurred two of the excluded delegates on international politics in the 20th International Union of Esperantist refugees, sex trafficking, children’s disseminating such information as tends all civilized people.” Its activities were – Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia century began to be promoted by Vegetarians, which, remarkably, has rights, and economic reconstruction. to meliorate the individual and social not to last long, however: in 1842 it Mott – to convene a women’s rights new NGOs such as the Pan-German managed to survive to the present day. This collaboration was to provide condition of their fellow creatures.” was revealed that Godde – who turned convention at Seneca Falls in 1848, League, the Pan-African Association, an important precedent for the In the same year, Italian republican out not to be a count, but in fact a a key moment in the development the Asia Association, the Pan Islamic Of all the international NGOs to be contemporary role of NGOs within Giuseppe Mazzini established provincial doctor from the village of of the international movement for Society and the World Zionist established before the war, none was the UN system. Young Europe for the promotion Liancourt – had been using the society women’s suffrage. Organization. Widespread belief that more ambitious than the Union of of nationalism, and communist to line his own pockets. national self-determination could lead International Associations founded in Strikingly, twice as many international revolutionaries united in their first Few individuals were to play a more to a more peaceful world was reflected 1910, which described its goals as no NGOs were founded in the 1920s as international organization – the League Whereas most of the international critical role in the development of in the creation in 1911 of a ‘Central less than “the representation of all… in the entire 19th century. Although of the Just – based in Paris. associations of the 1830s were to prove international NGOs, however, than Office of Nationalities,’ which aimed international associations in a federated few issues at the time could unite short-lived, the British and Foreign Swiss philanthropist Henri Dunant. to promote “universal and perpetual body.” Its leaders laid ambitious plans new groups as diverse as the Muslim In the context of the proliferating Anti-Slavery Society established in In 1855, he spearheaded the creation peace” through its work on behalf of for an “international palace” based in Brotherhood and the Labour and associations of the 1830s, a young 1839 has survived to the present day of the World Alliance of Young Men’s nationalist groups. More ominous was Brussels, “worthy of the importance Socialist International, one that Frenchman introducing himself as as the oldest international human Christian Associations, notable for its the development of organizations like of the organizations that created it.” came close was the promotion of “the Count of Liancourt,” Caliste- rights organization, now Anti-Slavery pioneering structure as an international the International Society for Racial Although its objective of uniting all international disarmament in the hope Auguste Godde, decided to set up an International. Its significance extends federation of national NGOs. More Hygiene in 1905, and International international NGOs in a single global of avoiding another bloody world war. ‘International Shipwreck Society’ in beyond this achievement. British famously, after witnessing the carnage Eugenics Committee in 1912, revealing federation was to be cut short by Large coalitions of women’s, peace, 1835, modeled on the earlier Humane anti-slavery sentiment was one factor of the Battle of Solferino in 1859, the growing popularity of racist and mass conflict in Europe, the union Christian, ex-servicemen’s, labor, Societies and established “with a view to underpinning Whitehall’s failure to Dunant went on in 1863 to found the eugenicist theories. succeeded in building its ‘international students’ and other international
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NGOs were formed around this goal, oriented organizations such as the Afro- World Conference on Women held in with some estimates of their combined Asian People’s Solidarity Organization Mexico City in 1975. Groups like the UN SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON MEETS WITH membership as high as 50 percent of the in 1958. It could also be seen in the International Feminist Network and the KENNETH ROTH, EXECUTIVE entire global population. The world’s transformed self-awareness of European International Women’s Tribune Center DIRECTOR OF INFLUENTIAL largest international petition was based groups, which had previously were marked by more horizontal, ADVOCACY NGO HUMAN circulated in support of disarmament by considered their role in global terms. networked forms of organization, RIGHTS WATCH IN 2011. women’s NGOs in the early 1930s. The European broadcasters, for instance, compared with the hierarchical © UN PHOTO/MARK GARTEN campaign was to achieve little, however, replaced the ‘International Broadcasting structures of their predecessors. and was even considered by Winston Union’ with the ‘European Churchill to have contributed to the Broadcasting Union.’ The emergence of new development unpreparedness of Western Europe in NGOs in the 1970s and 80s – including the face of the Fascist challenge later in Created in 1961 to “mobilize public Africare in 1971, BRAC in 1972 and the decade. opinion in defense of those men and Islamic Relief Worldwide in 1984 – also women who are imprisoned because reflected the growing diversity of the World War II had a similar impact their ideas are unacceptable to their non-government sector in the final upon the development of international governments,” Amnesty International two decades of the Cold War. In the NGOs, its destructive consequences was an early leader in pioneering a novel 1980s, for instance, the Consumers spurring the establishment of many of method for bridging the East-West and Association of Penang played a vital today’s best-known relief NGOs, such North South divides. The organization role in the development of multiple as Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services South based networks, such as the and CARE International. NGOs were Pesticide Action Network in 1982 and also influential in shaping aspects of ‘Although the Third World Network in 1984. the post-war settlement, especially the Other groups formed in this period, insertion of human rights references the number of such as the International Baby Food in the UN Charter, which took place international Action Network established in 1979 after consultants to the US delegation in the context of the Nestlé boycott, to the San Francisco conference in NGOs was pointed to the growing importance of 1945 announced “it would come as transnational corporations rather than a grievous shock if the constitutional to increase governments as the objects of attention framework of the Organization would for campaigning NGOs. fail to make adequate provision for the exponentially in ultimate achievement of human rights Nevertheless, government-focused and fundamental freedoms.” Three the post-war era, organizations remained influential years later, the drafting of the Universal during this period – in fact, they Declaration of Human Rights took place their activities arguably contributed to some degree with the assistance of NGOs. were constrained towards the ending of the Cold War. on Human Rights were the focus as the Internet Society, and in turn From the promotion of revolutionary While the campaigns of anti-nuclear of significant NGO lobbying early made possible the activities of some ideals in the late 18th century, Although the number of international by the hardening groups such as International Physicians in the decade, while in subsequent of the most influential international through addressing the humanitarian NGOs was to increase exponentially in for Prevention of Nuclear War shaped, years the apparent influence of the NGOs of the contemporary era, such consequences of two World Wars and the post-war era, their activities were Cold War in part, the negotiating environment of International Campaign to Ban as the Wikimedia Foundation and the East-West and North-South divides constrained by the hardening Cold War the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty Landmines on deliberations leading campaigning network Avaaz. of the Cold War era, international environment. The international trade environment’ in 1987, the work of organizations such to the Ottawa Landmines Convention NGOs have both shaped and been union movement, for instance, divided as Helsinki Watch (now Human Rights of 1997 prompted claims that NGOs The creation of large umbrella bodies shaped by the principal historical along partisan lines, with the secession developed the ‘threes network’ by Watch) to expose the human rights had become a new “superpower.” The of NGOs such as CIVICUS in recent developments of the last three of the International Confederation of which Amnesty groups would work in abuses of Soviet bloc governments was growing economic power of the sector years may be evocative of the ambitious centuries. The history of international Free Trade Unions from the World support of prisoners from each of the credited by Vaclav Havel as significant in the post-Cold War era was plainly efforts towards global coordination NGOs has not been a simple story Federation of Trade Unions in 1949. first, second and third worlds, thereby in the 1989 revolutions toppling evident in the increased scale of non- attempted by the Union of International of expansion from a single part of The establishment of numerous ‘front emphasizing their impartiality. Amnesty communist rule in central and governmental development assistance, Associations shortly before the First the world outwards, but instead organizations’ was a key feature of this International was one of many new eastern Europe. which expanded five-fold after 1990. World War, and by the disarmament must be understood as the result of period, such as the pro-communist international NGOs established amidst movement before the Second. However, interactions amongst all continents that World Federation of Democratic Youth the 1960s proliferation of ‘new social As superpower tensions eased, Indeed, some of the largest international there are important differences. have intensified since the Industrial formed in 1945, which found itself movements,’ such as for women’s international NGOs multiplied at NGOs now operate with greater aid Now, unlike the past, there is Revolution. Periods of crisis have been in competition with the pro-Western rights and the protection of the an exceptional rate, numbering budgets than many developed countries. considerable emphasis upon the both a challenge and opportunity: World Assembly of Youth created three natural environment. approximately 18,000 by the turn of In 2008, for instance, it was reported development of horizontal organization, whereas some organizations failed to years later. the millennium. Aside from changing that the funds at World Vision’s rather than the top-down structures survive, others have emerged or taken In the 1970s, NGOs birthed by these geopolitics, the undermining of disposal exceeded the total overseas common to earlier NGOs. And now, on new roles to address entrenched or With the waves of decolonization societal shifts were to play an important government capabilities in the face of development assistance of Italy and unlike in the past, international unforeseen issues. Indeed, confronted in Asia and Africa from the 1950s, part in the development of even larger accelerating economic globalization Australia, while Save the Children’s NGOs are increasingly aware of their with the challenges of economic crisis international NGOs became transnational networks, especially appeared to open up considerable exceeded that of Austria. At the same limitations, and bringing forward and fragmented authority in the increasingly divided along North-South following related UN gatherings such opportunities for civil society actors time, the communications revolution initiatives to address these limitations, contemporary era, international NGOs as well as East-West lines. This was as the Stockholm Conference on the during the 1990s. The UN’s Rio Earth of the last two decades has in part been such as the International NGO are adapting again with new approaches reflected in the creation of regionally Human Environment in 1972, and the Summit and Vienna World Conference the work of international NGOs such Accountability Charter. and forms of organization.
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Special Feature: The Top 100 NGOs 2013 Edition.
© HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INTERNATIONAL
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© IDE
n the pages that follow, we are global scheme of things, why do BRAC is ultimately accountable only expanded even further in the period new developments today. As the lines have resulted in a climb up the ranking. pleased to present the second NGOs matter? to its donors – and in that regard, due since. Some may bristle at any mention between NGO, social enterprise and For others, a no doubt unwelcome slide. Oedition of The Global Journal’s to an astute foray into social business of an ‘NGO industry,’ but what cannot social business blur, the questions In either case though, we return to the Top 100 NGOs ranking. In introducing To come up with an answer, we need ventures, will only find this a less and be disputed is the critical role that of what an NGO should be, which same point as last year: despite our best the inaugural list, we began by look no further than our top-ranked less onerous burden to bear. NGOs play in the context of numerous interests it should serve and how it efforts to ensure the ranking is based asking: just what is a non-government NGO for this year, the Bangladeshi national economies around the world. should be regulated by the state, will on concrete information fed through a organization? On this, our definition giant BRAC. While undoubtedly a Turning to the sector as a whole, Profit margins may be non-existent, become more and more relevant. rigorous, objective process, there is no remains the same – an operational- deserved winner, the sheer size and the numbers continue to speak for but the influence of the financial flows science in the measuring. or advocacy-focused non-profit influence of the organization gives one themselves. A Johns Hopkins University involved is undeniable. But back to this year’s ranking. As organization active at the local, national pause for thought. This is an entity study from a decade ago revealed you will see, there have been changes We invite you to read the feature that or international level. that reaches 138 million people directly that the global non-profit sector was And, of course, this does not even afoot. We have continued to refine our follows for what it is – a fascinating through its programs, that provides estimated to be worth $1.3 trillion account for the fact the sector is in the evaluation methodology, which this global snapshot of an often-overlooked This time around, however, in a climate health care to 92 million people, that in the five largest economies alone midst of a fundamental transition – a time around focused on what we believe sector. Like last year, we hope this list of financial crisis, reduced aid budgets employs a growing staff of 122,000, and – equivalent to the total GDP of the transition catalyzed, arguably, by the are the three key criteria relevant to will inform, stimulate debate, inspire and economy-wide fiscal austerity, it is that has lent $5 billion in micro-loans to United Kingdom (or the combined earlier microfinance revolution of the the activities of any NGO – impact, and shine a light on one hundred probably more appropriate to ask a more over six million borrowers. Yet, for all GDP of the 50 low-income countries at 1970s. BRAC was part of the vanguard innovation and sustainability. For organizations worthy of your time. fundamental question: in the broader its benevolence and clear social value, the time). One can only imagine it has then, and remains at the forefront of some organizations, these changes
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© BRAC © BRAC
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BRAC 3
THE AGILE GIANT OF THE DEVELOPMENT WORLD HQ LOCATION: BANGLADESH
fter landing at a more than but steadily, diversified into a wide catalytic social enterprises – a clear respectable fourth place suite of activities, from agriculture trend positioning the organization in A in our inaugural Top 100 and food security to education, legal an enviable position of financial and NGOs ranking, BRAC (formerly aid, climate change risk reduction, programmatic sustainability. the Bangladesh Rural Advancement livelihoods support and maternal and Yet rather than taking this as a cue Committee) – the largest non child health. Rather than spreading to rest on its laurels, BRAC has at government development organization BRAC’s resources too thin, this strategy the same time used its considerable on the planet – has claimed this has instead remained faithful to resources and in-house human capital year’s top spot. A member of the era- founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed’s vision to build an expansive and dedicated defining 1970s wave of Bangladeshi of a holistic, sustainable approach to monitoring and evaluation apparatus, microcredit and microfinance pioneers poverty reduction. Indeed, BRAC is in a with positive flow on effects for the alongside the Grameen Bank and ASA, unique position to use its microfinance entire sector. BRAC has since gone on to outpace base as a social platform to deliver its old counterparts and assume an innovative scaled up services aligned to Ultimately, BRAC has evolved into unparalleled position in the crowded a principled, rights-based philosophy. a giant of an NGO in a way that field of international development. As we noted last year, BRAC is in some could see as problematic – a many ways a microcosm of the entire non-public entity that touches the From the perspective of our ranking international development sector in lives of more than 110 million people. criteria – impact, innovation and one organization, albeit gaining in Reassuringly, however, while size is not sustainability – BRAC ticks every box. independence from donor influence often an indication of quality, BRAC While still involved in the microfinance each year as it covers almost 80 percent represents a welcome outlier and a space – to the tune of approximately $5 of its $572 million operating budget continuing force for good at the © BRAC billion – the organization has carefully, through a burgeoning portfolio of global level.
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© LANE HARTWELL © ACUMEN FUND
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Wikimedia Foundation 1 Acumen Fund 26
CROWD-SOURCING KNOWLEDGE WORLDWIDE HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES THE ALTRUISTIC FACE OF VENTURE CAPITALISM HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES
n 11 short years, Wikimedia In practical terms, Wikimedia asset, but also an essential dimension n 2011, New York-based Acumen Partnering in projects estimated to have The greatest testament to Acumen Foundation’s flagship Foundation – which topped our in building an engaged citizenry at the Fund celebrated a decade long benefited over 86 million people to date, Fund’s influence is the trail of I initiative – ubiquitous online inaugural ranking – exists as perhaps societal level. I experiment in 21st century charitable the key to Acumen Fund’s pioneering imitators that have sprung up in encyclopaedia Wikipedia – has the most influential non-government giving. Conceived with seed capital philosophy is its application of venture its wake – more than 200 impact revolutionized the way knowledge actor in the field of education today. Ultimately, the Wikimedia Foundation from the Rockefeller Foundation, capital principles in the pursuit of social investment organizations now operate is collected and shared. By now, Operating with a shoestring staff of represents a path-breaking example Cisco Systems Foundation and value, albeit with a higher tolerance worldwide, focused on driving social most are familiar with the Wikipedia 142, the organization is responsible for of what an NGO can achieve in the three individual philanthropists, the for risk and longer time horizons than change by supporting developing model, which is based around managing the platform facilitating the Internet era. Working with relatively organization was – at last count – its for profit brethren. The result is an world entrepreneurship. With its open access for all Internet users, a largest collection of shared knowledge meagre resources and committed responsible for a diverse portfolio of innovative – and successful – sustainability assured, and its ‘patient’ commitment to multilingualism, in human history – currently 23 to a funding model based on mass over $81 million worth of approved market-based challenge to traditional approach demonstrating deepening and constant edits and updates million articles and counting. To date, private donations as opposed to large investments in 72 countries worldwide. modes of grant-driven development impact as portfolio enterprises reach carried out by an army of Wikipedia is available in 285 languages, institutional grants, the organization Firmly committed to a belief that and philanthropy. maturity, Acumen Fund looks poised to approximately 100,000 eager and is visited by more than 470 continues, through an innovative social enterprises, emerging leaders continue to redefine the possibilities of volunteers. Most striking, however, million people per month. Central to application of new technologies, to have and breakthrough ideas hold the key to To complement its angel investor role, international development as it moves in an age of multi-billion dollar Wikimedia Foundation’s future strategy a deep and abiding impact on the lives successfully tackling the challenge of the organization has also continued to into its second decade. Facebook IPOs, is the organization’s is the continued expansion of Wikipedia of millions around the world. global poverty, Acumen Fund focuses expand its Global Fellows Program, bedrock belief in the notion that in the languages of the developing on transformative loan or equity-based building a networked “corps of leaders information should never represent world, where access to information investments, recycling returns to feed a with financial skills, operational know- a profit-driven commodity. is seen to represent not only a personal growing pool of ‘patient’ capital. how, and moral imagination.”
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Danish Refugee Council 5 Partners In Health 3
SETTING THE STANDARD IN COMPLEX EMERGENCIES HQ LOCATION: DENMARK MEDICINE THROUGH A MORAL LENS HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES
ormed after the devastation of Council has developed an enviable As an umbrella body comprising ften linked in the public mind the economic and social burdens of disease. All fuelled by a simple credo: World War II and the European reputation for itself as a leading actor 30 members, the Danish Refugee with the critical voice of poverty that exacerbate diseases “whatever it takes.” F refugee crises triggered by the in insecure environments, including Council’s network and impact is O high-profile co-founder Paul like HIV/AIDS and multidrug- Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, through the respected conflict expansive. Perhaps more importantly, Farmer, Partners In Health has, since resistant tuberculosis. The results, in collaboration with the Danish Refugee Council has been zone work of the Danish Demining the organization’s strong commitment its beginnings as a community-based longstanding partners Harvard Medical a constant, trusted presence in the Group, the organization’s dedicated to partnership and collective action is health project in the mountainous The game-changing Partners in Health School and Brigham and Women’s humanitarian sphere for over 50 years. humanitarian mine action unit. At the symbolized in collaborative innovations Central Plateau of Haiti, come to be approach encompasses five key elements Hospital, are impressive in scope. At the Serving a dual role, the organization’s same time, consistent with the trend like the Joint IDP Profiling Service, recognized as perhaps the pre-eminent focused on addressing intractable and beginning of 2012, Partners in Health activities revolve around the protection toward increasing diversification of which has become a one-stop shop for public health NGO globally. The neglected conditions: universal access was providing direct medical care to of refugees and internally displaced activities amongst major humanitarian data-driven humanitarian planning organization is guided by the same to primary health care, ensuring health 2.4 million people in 12 countries, the persons from immediate persecution in groups, the Danish Refugee Council throughout the sector. Ultimately passion that drove those young adults and education services are free to the bulk through local community health acute emergency situations, as well as also works across a number of ‘non though, one need look no further responsible for its conception – namely poor, hiring and training community workers. Meanwhile, the dream of the promotion of lasting solutions for traditional’ recovery-focused sectors, for evidence of the Danish Refugee an overwhelming sense of solidarity, health workers, improving access to transformational change embodied in conflict-affected populations (including including: housing and small scale Council’s reputation amongst those that rather than charity, when dealing food, shelter, clean water, sanitation, the post-earthquake Stand With Haiti via targeted international advocacy). infrastructure, income generation, count than the pattern of significant with the world’s poorest and most education and economic opportunities plan was realized with the opening of food security, displacement-related law increases in institutional donor funding underserved populations. In practice, and partnering with local and national a state of the art teaching hospital in Currently operating in over 35 and information, social rehabilitation it has enjoyed in recent years. this vision is manifest in Partners in governments to guarantee the system- Mirebalais, with long-term implications countries in service of more than 1.5 and NGO networking and capacity Health’s holistic model of patient care, wide scale-up and adoption of new for the capacity of Haiti’s public health million people, the Danish Refugee development. which emphasizes the need to alleviate approaches to treating infectious system and future medical personnel.
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© CERES © EVELYN HOCKSTEIN
6 7
Ceres 20 CARE International =
SHAPING THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABLE CAPITALISM HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES LEADING THE FIGHT AGAINST GLOBAL POVERTY HQ LOCATION: SWITZERLAND
udging by the direction of competitive advantage promised by Just some of Ceres’ achievements to n the world of emergency relief and approach to fighting global poverty its commitment to international contemporary debate, it can appear sustainable strategies. date include the wide uptake of its international development, there are and enhancing human dignity, with a standards of accountability and J at times that the environment and Global Reporting Initiative – a de-facto I a handful of organizations that have special focus on female empowerment. institutional learning. sustainability have fallen off the edge Key to Ceres’ deep impact is the group’s international standard used by more transcended their inter-war or post- of the map as salient issues of public unique position at the nexus of the than 4,000 companies for triple bottom war roots and built a global reputation In part, CARE International is able to Looking to the future, CARE policy. All the more impressive then to business, investment and advocacy line reporting – successful advocacy for effectiveness despite a broadening deliver large-scale impact based purely International is likely to become an see how since 1989 Boston-based NGO communities. The Ceres Coalition, campaigns requiring companies mandate. Without doubt, CARE on its size and reach. To see this as the increasingly vocal presence in high-level Ceres has managed to lead a parallel which comprises more than 130 and insurers to provide climate risk International fits within this category. full story, however, would be to discount international debates around strategies normative shift in the corporate world institutions, public interest groups and disclosure in financial filings and the Originally formed in 1945 as a symbol the true scope of the organization’s to address enduring challenges like when it comes to climate change, clean investors, the Company Network, which use of the Company Network as an of American empathy for the exhausted activities. With a long-term presence maternal health, hunger, gender energy, water scarcity and supply connects over 80 leading corporations, incubator for new best practices in populations of war-torn Europe (hence, in many of the world’s most vulnerable equality and climate change mitigation chain sustainability. and the Investor Network on Climate corporate sustainability. ‘care packages’), the organization has countries, CARE International is well- and adaptation. This change-focused Risk (INCR), which includes in excess grown into a diverse confederation placed to implement a comprehensive advocacy represents an important Through an innovative and effective of 100 investors collectively managing Ultimately, Ceres stands alone in the of 12 national members working in approach, involving pre-emergency complement to the on-the-ground work approach based on leveraging the more than $11 trillion in cumulative non-profit world as an environmental 84 countries to the benefit of 122 resilience and preparedness projects, of the organization, particularly in a undeniable power of business and assets, together allow Ceres to engage NGO able to work collaboratively in million people. Still a first responder immediate relief operations and global environment where financial capital markets, the organization has in a robust dialogue with powerful partnership with the private sector to in the event of natural disasters or longer-term recovery and community crisis has exacerbated flagging interest succeeded in influencing corporate decision-makers in order to mobilize spur significant and lasting reforms. conflict, CARE International has also rehabilitation. The organization has in the Millennium Development Goals. governance practices to value the meaningful corporate commitments. shifted its mission to embody a holistic also been a sectoral leader in
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© ROBIN MELDRUM © CURE VIOLENCE
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Médicins Sans Frontiéres = Cure Violence 21
FIERCELY INDEPENDENT EMERGENCY CARE HQ LOCATION: SWITZERLAND TREATING THE CONTAGION OF VIOLENCE HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES
aunchpad for the now inescapable organization is presently active Nonetheless, never in question is the hile the tragic school shooting infectious diseases share similar strategies with an evidence-based ‘without borders’ movement, in 68 countries, with operations impact of the organization’s operations, in Connecticut has added patterns of contagion. By this logic, it method – Cure Violence has achieved L Médecins Sans Frontières has encompassing close to 32,000 staff. which range from addressing the W further fuel to the gun control becomes possible to apply a common proven results, with 16-34 percent developed, over the course of its 41-year ravages of armed conflict, to emergency debate in the United States and beyond, public health strategy: stopping reductions in shootings and killings history, an enviable – or infamous, A key factor in the ability of Médecins action to stem the spread of epidemics it has also diverted attention from an transmission at the source and altering directly attributed to its programs, depending on one’s viewpoint – Sans Frontières to “bear witness” and in situations of state incapacity. even greater tragedy – the enduring norms and behavior so fewer people and 41-73 percent overall. Already reputation for combining unparalleled take sometimes controversial ethical cost of ‘everyday’ interpersonal become ‘infected’ in the first place. In implemented in over a dozen American medical assistance in the most stands against governments and other Médecins Sans Frontières has also been violence globally. Aligned with fellow practical terms, Cure Violence achieves cities, the model has also been exported fearsome conditions with an outspoken actors is its funding model, which innovative in its approach to dealing peacebuilding NGOs in spirit, if not this goal by identifying those most successfully to deal with election commitment to principled activism in unlike most major humanitarian NGOs with operational challenges, establishing in practice, groundbreaking Chicago- at risk and treating this core group violence in Kenya, community violence the face of perceived rights violations, is predominantly based around private the ‘Access Campaign’ to reduce based organization Cure Violence via a staff of highly-trained ‘violence in South Africa and inter-tribal violence dereliction of duty by the international donations rather than institutional prices for medicines, diagnostics and (formerly CeaseFire) is focused on interrupters’ – former perpetrators in Iraq. community or threats to the neutrality grants (the former representing 89 vaccines and stimulate the development addressing this challenge through employed to disrupt conflicts of humanitarian space due to the percent of total income in 2011). This of improved treatments, setting up an innovative model developed by its before they erupt and educate the Drawing upon cutting edge research merging of civil-military missions. independence, which often extends to affiliated organization, Epicentre, to founder, epidemiologist Gary Slutkin. community about the consequences in social psychology and neuroscience a tendency to avoid collaboration in the conduct epidemiological research and of violent behavior. to refine ‘interruption’ techniques, Founded in 1971 by 13 doctors – context of its strategic interventions, has assessments, and partnering in the Key to Cure Violence’s success – Cure Violence’s ultimate aim is no less including former French Foreign at times led to criticism of a pervasive Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative. and scalability – is the notion that By reframing the fundamental problem ambitious than the end of violence as a Minister, Bernard Kouchner – the ‘lone crusader’ attitude. the trajectory of both violence and – and applying traditional mediation learned behavior.
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© MIGUEL SAMPER FOR MERCY CORPS
10
Mercy Corps 1
THE BRIDGE BETWEEN RELIEF AND RECOVERY HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES
ometimes you see too much effective activities across a range of to foster indigenous entrepreneurship, in this business, resulting in program areas and locations. re-building social capital and “S horror fatigue,” says Mercy stimulating markets. Corps co-founder Dan O’Neill. “But What sets the organization apart is its you use the nightmare for fuel.” The leadership in using social innovation as Convinced of the value of taking organization he first established as the an engine for sustainable development ‘responsible risks’ – backed by rigorous Save the Refugees Fund in response to – and unlike other actors focusing on monitoring and evaluation – Mercy the atrocities of Pol Pot’s Cambodian entrepreneurial strategies in ‘stable’ Corps focuses especially on engaging killing fields has certainly matched operating environments, Mercy partner communities to identify that ethos, growing into one of the Corps works in this way with affected solutions proven to work in specific pre-eminent international development communities as a means to accelerate contexts and bring these to scale. As NGOs in the world today. the process of post-disaster or post- such, the organization’s greatest collapse recovery. From helping restore impact is arguably linked to its ability Based in Portland but active in over 41 local economies in the aftermath of the to strengthen the resilience countries, Mercy Corps’ pioneering Haiti earthquake via a mobile banking of communities with a view to commitment to using relief and solution, to fighting malnutrition in future shocks, beyond the millions recovery programs to strengthen civil Indonesian slums through a micro- of lives touched through immediate society for the long-term has seen the franchise system of vendor-managed relief efforts. diversification of its high-impact, cost food carts, the NGO consistently looks
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The Top 100 NGOs: - CARE INTERNATIONAL - DANISH REFUGEE COUNCIL - MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES - GAIN - TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL - INTERPEACE - LIBERA A Global Picture. - GENEVA CALL - ICJ - DIPLO FOUNDATION - TERRE DES HOMMES - TRIAL - IBJ - FRIENDS OF THE EARTH MIDDLE EAST - INJAZ AL-ARAB - GENERATIONS FOR PEACE - SKATEISTAN - INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP
- AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL - RIDERS FOR HEALTH - MERLIN - FREE THE CHILDREN - BAREFOOT COLLEGE - MARIE STOPES - AKSHAYA PATRA FOUNDATION - IPPF - WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION - GRAM VIKAS - SAVE THE CHILDREN - ACUMEN FUND - PRATHAM - PLAN INTERNATIONAL - PARTNERS IN HEALTH - OPERATION ASHA - CONCERN - CERES - PLANETREAD - WORLD VISION - CURE VIOLENCE - INTERNATIONAL ALERT - MERCY CORPS - BORN FREE FOUNDATION - BRAC - ROOT CAPITAL - DHAKA AHSANIA MISSION - IRC - LANDESA - DIGITAL DIVIDE DATA - ASHOKA - FRIENDS-INTERNATIONAL - FONKOZE - CHAI - KROUSAR THMEY CAMBODIA - HEIFER INTERNATIONAL - HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH - ESCUELA NUEVA - RARE - ROOM TO READ - SAUDE CRIANCA - IDE - TOSTAN - HELEN KELLER INTERNATIONAL - VIVA RIO - YCAB FOUNDATION - WATER FOR PEOPLE - CENTER FOR DIGITAL - HANDICAP INTERNATIONAL - SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND INCLUSION - PLANET FINANCE - OPEN SOCIETY FOUNDATIONS - LUZ PORTATIL BRASIL - INSTITUTO DA CRIANCA - AFLATOUN - IMC - FRED HOLLOWS FOUNDATION - WITNESS - ZOA - CYFI - CAMBIA - COMMON GROUND - MOVEMBER FOUNDATION - HABITAT FOR HUMANITY - GREENPEACE - KICKSTART INTERNATIONAL - ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY - ARC - ICTJ - CIVICUS - RAINFOREST ALLIANCE - CODE FOR AMERICA - APOPO - ASYLUM ACCESS - GLOBAL FOOTPRINT NETWORK - AKILAH INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN - PROJECT WET FOUNDATION - SEND A COW UGANDA
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© SYLVAIN PIRAUX/APOPO © ROOT CAPITAL © WILLIAM DANIELS/HANDICAP INTERNATIONAL © PETER BIRO / THE IRC
11 12 13 14
APOPO Root Capital Handicap International IRC
TRAINING RATS TO SAVE LIVES INVESTING IN THE ‘MISSING MIDDLE’ PROTECTING THE DIGNITY AND RIGHTS OF THE DISABLED LIFESAVING ASSISTANCE TO REFUGEES
15 12 9 HQ LOCATION: TANZANIA HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES = HQ LOCATION: FRANCE HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES
© SYLVAIN PIRAUX FOR APOPO © ROOT CAPITAL © SYLVAIN PIRAUX FOR APOPO © ROOT CAPITAL
n the popular imagination, the link between rats and hile the global ‘credit crunch’ has shifted the magine living through the devastation and debilitating ounded in 1933 at the request of none other than Albert human well-being is a negative one, shaped by fears of playing field in recent years, there was a time when burden of conflict or natural disaster. Now imagine Einstein, the New York-based International Rescue I disease. In the hands of APOPO, however, the equation W it seemed the world was awash in easy capital. As I the same scenario through the eyes of a person with F Committee offers lifesaving care and life-changing has been reversed. Based in Morogoro, the humanitarian William Foote realized during travels in Mexico, however, disabilities. Founded on the Thai-Cambodian border in 1982 assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. organization has spent the last 15 years honing its unique small and medium-sized rural businesses in the developing as a response to landmine injuries suffered by refugees fleeing Evolving into one of the world’s leading humanitarian approach to training rats as mine detectors, and exported world were often caught in a quandary – considered too the Khmer Rouge, Handicap International provides crucial agencies providing emergency relief, rehabilitation, this ‘technology,’ despite initial skepticism, to four countries small and risky for mainstream banks, and too large for the assistance to acutely vulnerable people in dire situations of protection, resettlement services and advocacy, the in Africa and South East Asia. Cheaper, quicker and lighter burgeoning microfinance movement. Returning to Boston, poverty, exclusion, war and disaster, taking action and raising organization works in over 40 countries worldwide, as well as than conventional de-mining methods, APOPO’s African Foote went on to launch Root Capital in 1999 as a non-profit awareness to respond to their essential needs, improve their managing the Surge Protection Project in collaboration with Giant Pouched Rats – endemic to sub-Saharan Africa – have social investment fund targeting grassroots businesses in the living conditions and promote respect for their dignity and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. helped return more than 6 million square meters of suspected “missing middle.” fundamental rights. minefields to local populations in Mozambique alone. Though highly respected for its rapid and reliable response By the beginning of 2012, the organization had disbursed Comprising a network of eight national associations active in to crisis situations, the International Rescue Committee is The organization has also continued to innovate, diversifying over $460 million in loans to sustainable enterprises in Africa over 60 countries, the organization has been rightly lauded also committed to laying the groundwork for lasting peace into the field of public health by training the same and Latin America, reaching 2.6 million people in poor, for its deep impact on the lives of a previously underserved and economic development. For instance, the organization ‘HeroRATs’ to detect tuberculosis in human sputum samples environmentally vulnerable rural communities. Beyond constituency – from relief to demining, rehabilitation to social has been working with Japanese fishermen in the wake of the – a faster, more accurate diagnostic method capable of managing two innovative investment portfolios, Root Capital inclusion and anti discrimination – as well as its tireless and devastation left behind by the 2011 tsunami, as well as helping screening thousands of patients every month. has also multiplied its impact by delivering targeted transformative advocacy work, including as a co-founder of undercapitalized local farmers in Zimbabwe access global financial advisory services and catalyzing a wider market the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. markets through the ‘Tabasco’ initiative in partnership with in rural financing. the McIlhenny Company.
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© SPRINGBOX FILMS © DEBORAH ESPINOSA © ASHOKA © ONE ACRE FUND
15 16 17 18
Barefoot College Landesa Ashoka One Acre Fund
SOLAR MAMAS AND BAREFOOT PROFESSIONALS TRANSFORMING RURAL LIVES THROUGH LAND RIGHTS THE SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP EVANGELISTS SOWING THE SEEDS OF IMPROVED FOOD SECURITY
18 40 42 = HQ LOCATION: INDIA HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES HQ LOCATION: KENYA
© SYLVAIN PIRAUX FOR APOPO © ROOT CAPITAL © SYLVAIN PIRAUX FOR APOPO © ROOT CAPITAL
n the recent documentary Solar Mamas, a 32-year-old, n outlier amongst the NGOs making up this ranking, hen wading through a sea of non-profit annual fter having served as a strategic consultant to Fortune tent-dwelling Jordanian mother with only five years of the Seattle-based Landesa works to secure land rights reports and press material, it can appear ‘social 500 companies, Andrew Youn decided to spend the I primary education travels to India for six months of A for the world’s poorest people – those 2.47 billion W entrepreneurship’ is the term on everybody’s lips. A summer before his second year of MBA studies as hands-on training, culminating in a return to her desert chiefly rural individuals who live on less than two dollars a How easy it is to forget, then, that back in 1981 when a 20 an intern in Kenya learning about the root causes of rural community armed with the skills to fabricate, install and day. Of this group, more than a billion lack legal rights over year-old Bill Drayton launched Ashoka as an organization poverty and chronic hunger. The experience proved to be maintain solar power technology – a journey that would seem the land they use to survive, causing entrenched poverty dedicated to supporting the dreams of social innovators transformative. A year later, in 2006, he founded One Acre scarcely believable, save for the fact it has been replicated by cycles to persist over generations. For more than 40 years, worldwide, he was walking a solitary path. Thirty years later, Fund as a means to improve livelihoods amongst subsistence others time and time again. Founded by Bunker Roy in 1972 the organization has worked to advance durable land rights to and Ashoka has evolved into an association of over 3,000 farmers using market-based methods as an alternative to provide basic services and solutions to problems in rural achieve transformational change on a large scale. fellows in more than 70 countries. to traditional food aid. From this innovative idea, the communities in his native India, Barefoot College has since organization has expanded to serve over 130,000 farming nurtured a form of grassroots social entrepreneurship that has More precisely, Landesa works with governments and other Fundamental to the Ashoka model is a tripartite approach families in Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi. won plaudits for its success in helping participants forge their local organizations to create tailored approaches to expanding identifying and investing in leading social entrepreneurs, own path out of poverty. land rights to the rural poor. In all, the NGO has helped engaging communities of entrepreneurs to develop patterns At the core of the One Acre Fund program is a ‘market bring security of tenure to more than 105 million families, of effective collaboration, and working to deliver necessary bundle’ of services – including seed and fertilizer, financing, Open only to individuals without a formal education, the representing a beneficiary pool of over 400 million people. infrastructure, such as access to social financing, bridges to education and market facilitation – that enables farmers organization’s innovative – and powerful – model employs This has included the innovative use of a scalable ‘micro-plot’ business and academia, and the frameworks for effective cross to double their income per planted acre in one year. peer-to-peer learning, grounded in practical knowledge, to – tennis-court-sized pockets of land – strategy in India, which sector partnerships. While the organization’s global reach Committed to data-driven program development and donor demystify and decentralize sophisticated technology, in the despite their small size, have been proven to boost family is incalculable, evaluation has show that over 80 percent of accountability, the organization has also pioneered a rigorous process training an army of ‘barefoot professionals’: teachers, income, enhance nutrition and provide physical security. alumni are driving systemic change at a national level within system of internal and external performance monitoring used doctors, midwives, mechanics and architects in the millions. ten years, while 96 percent of their ideas have been replicated to ensure increased scale is not pursued at the cost of quality by independent groups. of impact and sustainability.
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Top NGOs By Sector.
EDUCATION PEACEBUILDING TECHNOLOGY 1. WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION 1. CURE VIOLENCE 1. FRONTLINESMS 2. BAREFOOT COLLEGE 2. APOPO 2. CAMBIA 3. ROOM TO READ 3. SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND 3. CODE FOR AMERICA
© CLINTON MIKUMI © HEIFER INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT HUMAN RIGHTS 1. BRAC 1. LANDESA 2. ACUMEN FUND 2. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 19 20 3. MERCY CORPS 3. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CHAI Heifer International
CATALYZING SYSTEMIC HEALTH CHANGE ENDING HUNGER ONE COW AT A TIME HUMANITARIAN ENVIRONMENT 1. DANISH REFUGEE COUNCIL 1. CERES 35 8 HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES 2. CARE INTERNATIONAL 2. RARE 3. MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES 3. WATER FOR PEOPLE © SYLVAIN PIRAUX FOR APOPO © ROOT CAPITAL
eyond local communities, the key challenge in the oved by the plight of the orphans he attended to sphere of public health has long been to address during the Spanish Civil War, Dan West realized B systemic barriers to (sustainable) progress. In 2002, M these individuals needed “a cow, not a cup” – the President Bill Clinton launched the ‘Clinton HIV/AIDS difference between temporary aid and a long-term investment HEALTH CHILDREN AND YOUTH Initiative’ under the auspices of his Clinton Foundation in overcoming poverty and hunger. Returning to the United to not only bring care and treatment to people living with States, he founded Heifer International on this principle. The 1. PARTNERS IN HEALTH 1. AKSHAYA PATRA FOUNDATION the disease, but also strengthen health infrastructures in organization provides families with a ‘living loan’ – a donation resource-poor countries. Ten years later, the renamed Clinton of livestock, accompanied with training in animal husbandry, 2. CHAI 2. AFLATOUN Health Access Initiative has carved a considerable niche care and sustainable grazing methods. The receiving family 3. AMREF 3. SAVE THE CHILDREN for itself as a willing partner to governments committed to must “pass on the gift” by transferring their knowledge and improving in-country health systems, and as an active player donating one or more of their animal’s offspring to another in the movement to develop the market for medicines and the family. This practice ensures project sustainability, develops efficiency of health resource allocation at the global level. community and enhances self-esteem by allowing project partners to become donors. Preferring to focus on organizational and managerial factors SHELTER LAW AND JUSTICE – rather than scientific or medical – the organization pursues A highly-participatory model, Heifer International works with catalytic, ‘game-changing’ opportunities for action. Its communities to decide what types of animals and production 1. COMMON GROUND 1. TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL headline achievement to date was a successful negotiation systems they want, and who should receive animals. Since its 2. HABITAT FOR HUMANITY 2. INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE with companies to secure lower prices for essential HIV/AIDS inception, the organization has helped 15.5 million families retroviral drugs, resulting in more than $1 billion in cost in more than 125 countries move toward greater self-reliance, 3. ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY 3. INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF JURISTS savings shared by over 4 million people. with third-party evaluations confirming a substantive impact on household incomes, assets and family nutrition.
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© MOISES SAMAN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH © RARE © AKSHAYA PATRA © GRAM VIKAS © DIGITAL DIVIDE DATA © ROOM TO READ
21 22 23 24 25 26
DEMANDING JUSTICE ON A GLOBAL SCALE CONSERVATION THROUGH SOCIAL MARKETING A MIDDAY MEAL FOR MILLIONS THE UNTAPPED POWER OF SANITATION AN INCUBATOR OF HUMAN CAPITAL LITERACY AS THE VEHICLE OF PROGRESS Human Rights Rare Akshaya Patra Gram Vikas Digital Divide Room To Read Watch Foundation Data
7 34 NEW 27 3 40
HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES HQ LOCATION: INDIA HQ LOCATION: INDIA HQ LOCATION: CAMBODIA HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES
fter the watershed events of ccording to Rare, conservation n July 2012, the Akshaya Patra s Joe Madiath is fond of t the vanguard of the ‘impact’ very day, over 139 million 2011, human rights did not quite ultimately comes down to people Foundation quietly reached a reminding people, “shit” is not outsourcing movement, Digital children are denied the right to A enjoy the same global exposure A – their behavior toward nature, I significant milestone – its one A a glamorous issue. At the same A Divide Data successfully E go to primary school, a figure in the year just gone. If anything, their belief about its value and their billionth midday meal served to time, the organization he founded straddles the boundary between that increases significantly during however, this only served to further ability to protect it without sacrificing schoolchildren in India. Despite these in 1979 has had a marked impact business and NGO while providing a adolescence. Founded in 1999 by highlight the crucial role played by the basic community livelihoods. Based intensive efforts, malnutrition remains in delivering and scaling a holistic proven model for future innovation. former Microsoft senior executive New York-based Human Rights Watch. on this principle, the organization has a real challenge, with an estimated 42 village development model that uses Founded by Jeremy Hockenstein in John Wood, Room to Read operates With Cold War roots stretching back to developed an innovative model in which percent of children suffering from lack entry point concerns over clean water Phnom Penh in 2001, the organization in ten countries in Africa and Asia 1978, the organization has a long track it partners with local conservationists of food. Founded in 2000 in Bangalore and sanitation as a tool to unite and provides disadvantaged youth in based on the conviction that investing record of ‘muscular’ advocacy to achieve around the world to implement – feeding 1,500 children in five schools empower communities. Requiring Cambodia, Laos and Kenya with the in childhood literacy represents the sustained, positive behavioral change behavior-changing social marketing – through constant innovations in 100 percent ‘buy-in’ as a precondition education and training necessary to best vehicle to facilitate learning and by governments, law-makers, judicial campaigns aimed at protecting preparation and distribution the for commencing new projects, Gram deliver competitively priced technology ensure participation in today’s global systems, corporations and rebel groups. biodiversity while providing new organization has continued to drive Vikas’ participatory and sustainable services to a range of global clients. society. The organization partners with Unafraid of courting controversy, unlike avenues for sustainable development. down program costs and now reaches ‘MANTRA’ approach has achieved With revenues reinvested back into the communities and local governments to mass membership movements Human Since 1988, Rare has trained more 1.3 million kids on a daily basis, impressive results – eliminating 85 enterprise as a means to fund continued promote literacy and gender equality Rights Watch focuses on targeted than 200 local conservation leaders including in otherwise neglected remote percent of water-borne diseases in expansion, Digital Divide Data can in education by establishing libraries, advocacy, insider access and deft from across the globe in its signature rural areas. Beyond the immediate participating villages, and boosting point to concrete impact on the lives of constructing classrooms, publishing utilization of media headlines to raise method – the ‘Pride’ campaign – with impact on child health, the work of school attendance from ten to 90 its ‘graduates,’ who go on to earn local-language children’s books, pressure on those in positions subsequent campaigns reaching nearly Akshaya Patra Foundation has also been percent. From its origins in remote rural more than four times the average training educators and supporting girls’ of influence. 10 million people living in 57 of the fundamental in boosting lagging school India, the model has been replicated in regional wage. education. To date, over six million world’s biodiversity hotspots. enrolment and attendance. Tanzania and Gambia. children have benefited from Room to Read’s innovative approach.
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© PANITHAN KITSAKUL/AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL © AMREF © PRATHAM USA © IDE © RIDERS FOR HEALTH © SAM PHELPS
27 28 29 30 31 32
THE SOUL OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT LASTING HEALTH CHANGE IN AFRICA LOW COST EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTIONS HARNESSING IRRIGATION TECHNOLOGY FOR GOOD THE ‘LAST MILE’ OF HEALTH CARE DELIVERY HEALTH WORKERS ON THE FRONTLINE Amnesty AMREF Pratham iDE Riders for Health MERLIN International
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y now, Amnesty International seeming rarity in today’s ow the largest educational ne of the leading voices in s in many other impoverished t the age of 30, Christophe needs no introduction. crowded public health field, NGO in India, Pratham was the ‘appropriate technology’ regions, the majority of the Besse left his job treating the B Established by lawyer Peter A AMREF is an African-led NGO N founded in 1994 to address O movement, psychiatrist turned A population of sub-Saharan A rich and famous in an exclusive Benenson in 1961, the organization focused on developing indigenous teaching gaps in the slums of Mumbai. social entrepreneur Paul Polak founded Africa lives in rural areas where the best London clinic, to “do some proper has amassed more than three million solutions to African health challenges. From those humble beginnings, the iDE in 1982 as an organization devoted roads are little more than dirt tracks. work.” Founding MERLIN in 1993 supporters, members and activists Founded in 1956 as part of a plan to organization has expanded in scope and to the manufacture, marketing and Without reliable transport, the millions with two friends, the organization went in over 150 countries. The popular provide mobile medical assistance geographical coverage, teaching English distribution of affordable, scalable invested in health materials and training through a baptism of fire in war-torn touchstone of the global human rights to remote regions in the east of the and computer literacy, establishing micro-irrigation and other low-cost will be wasted. Identifying this crucial Bosnia. Twenty years later, it numbers movement, Amnesty International continent, the organization has evolved libraries, publishing books and offering water recovery systems throughout the gap, husband-and-wife team Barry and 6,000 staff reaching an average of 20 engages with governments, armed into a multifaceted institutional comprehensive learning support. Since developing world. Envisioning the rural Andrea Coleman established Riders million people per year in 17 countries, political groups, companies and other actor working on a diverse range of its inception in 2007, Pratham’s flagship poor as potential entrepreneurs and For Health in 1996. The organization including operationally challenging non-state actors, seeking to disclose health issues with over 100 poor and program, ‘Read India’ – which aims to customers rather than charity recipients, manages over 1,400 motorcycles, locations like Afghanistan, Pakistan human rights abuses and mobilize marginalized rural and urban slum catalyze existing resources at the village iDE relies on local manufacturing, ambulances and other four-wheel and the Democratic Republic of the public pressure to address both communities – from HIV/AIDS and level to train teachers and harness retailing, and maintenance resources vehicles used in the delivery of health Congo. More than a humanitarian individual cases and normative change. malaria, to water and sanitation, domestic volunteers – is active in 38,000 to make affordable technologies care in eight countries across Africa, relief actor, MERLIN stays on to assist Though less innovative in its methods surgical outreach and practitioner villages, reaching over two million available to farmers. The organization’s including local training and preventive recovery in the long-term, building the as they have become organizationally training. Committed strongly to children in 2011 alone. Similarly, emblematic success has been the vehicle maintenance. Charging partners capacity of local health care workers and entrenched over time, Amnesty building the capacity of local health the organization’s ‘Annual Status of ‘treadle pump’ – a more efficient a fee to ensure the sustainability and embedding best practices to increase the International remains an important systems, AMREF has emerged as a Education Report’ has become a crucial and user-friendly technology than scalability of the model, Riders For resilience of at-risk communities in the independent voice in the international pioneer in community-based health influence on evidence-based state traditional manual pumps. More Health has already improved access to face of future shocks. arena, speaking fearlessly to power and care, as well as a regional leader in policy planning. than 1.5 million have been sold in health care for over 12 million people. pursuing a new focus on overlooked maternal and child health. Bangladesh alone, creating $1.4 billion economic, social and cultural rights. in net additional income per year.
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An Eye ETIENNE EICHENBERGER On The Sector. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WISE PHILANTHROPY ADVISERS
in the United States. Their approach to working with disadvantaged youth is seen as standard-setting. Another example is the ‘Fight for Peace’ model developed in Brazil being exported to prisons in © CASSIDY RUSH © TREVOR SNAPP © WATER FOR PEOPLE the United Kingdom.
Have you observed any challenges for NGOs linked to the financial crisis? 33 34 35
NGOs have grown more professional due to numerous factors, though the influence of limited financial resources AN ALTERNATIVE BANK FOR THE RURAL POOR ERADICATING PREVENTABLE BLINDNESS CREATIVE AND SUSTAINABLE WATER SOLUTIONS is certainly one key element. This has been caused by the diminished performance of foundations, and the financial constraints imposed on public funding. At the same time, the financial crisis has also brought new ideas and talent Fonkoze Helen Keller Water for People into the sector. In a certain way, the crisis has provided an opportunity to rethink our status quo. International What is the most innovative NGO you have worked with? NEW NEW 18 I often think we fool ourselves by equating social innovation with technical innovation. At the last European Venture © ZIYODA KURBANOVA FOR THE GLOBAL JOURNAL Philanthropy Association meeting in Dublin, a speaker suggested “social innovation is not what is new, but what HQ LOCATION: HAITI HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES HQ LOCATION: UNITED STATES works better.” I like this quote because it helps us to move What is your interest in NGOs? beyond the paradigm that only new is better. I think, however, that Arc en-Ciel in Lebanon is a very innovative I have worked with civil society for the last 15 years. In model in its context – it is very interesting to see how an hen asked why he created or much of the 20th century, very day, nearly 6,000 people the past I collaborated with the Avina Foundation in organization can create great value in a tense environment. a microfinance institution the name Helen Keller was die from water-related illnesses, Latin America in the field of social entrepreneurship, and Arc-en-Ciel began operations after the civil war with W focused on women, the F synonymous with courage in the E the vast majority children supported the Schwab Foundation while at the World wheel chairs, but today pursues six development streams, founder of Fonkoze, Father Joseph face of overwhelming odds. Left blind lacking access to safe drinking water Economic Forum. Today, I am the co-founder of a leading including medical waste management and eco-agriculture. Philippe, was clear: “women are the and deaf as a baby, she went on not only and adequate sanitation facilities. boutique philanthropy consultancy. We advise a range of Its founders have seen a weak state as an opportunity to backbone of the Haitian economy and to become a leading advocate for the Recognizing that part of the problem clients in fulfilling their philanthropic aspirations. I am also create social value. the doorway into the family unit.” blind, but also to found Helen Keller is the prevalence of good-hearted but Vice President of Sustainable Finance Geneva and a board The largest organization of its kind in International in 1915 as a premier unsustainable interventions, Water For member of several foundations. Many paths lead me to NGOs What do you think is the NGO model of the future? Haiti, serving more than 56,000 women organization dedicated to preventing People has developed an innovative as you can see. borrowers – most of whom live and work blindness and reducing malnutrition. model based on close collaboration NGOs, like businesses, are all about diversity – from in the countryside – and over 250,000 Today, Helen Keller International’s with local communities and full What do you see as the biggest trend in the sector over small and medium size enterprises to global corporations. savers, Fonkoze is committed to offering cost-effective and sustainable programs coverage across entire districts and the last 1-2 years? Their respective challenges are hardly the same, and its clients a range of services that not span 22 countries, focusing on basic regions, rather than ad hoc projects at neither are their models. Future models will depend on only recognize the different points at eye care, vision correction, vitamin the household and village level. Local There are more long-term underlying trends that remain key, numerous factors, driven by an NGO’s mission. For instance, which individuals can start their climb supplementation, food fortification, groups must be willing to not only such as accountability and related issues of transparency. an advocacy NGO will need to further strengthen its out of poverty, but also acknowledges infant and young child feeding and contribute in-kind labor and funding to However, another interesting trend is the fact that social independence, an NGO focused on service delivery will that progress is not always linear. Much community malnutrition surveillance. an entire project, but also participate in innovations in transition countries – or so-called ‘poor’ need to continue to innovate with regard to generating more than a bank, the organization also Committed to productive partnerships, planning, implementation, operations, countries – have begun to be replicated in developed revenues. But both small and large NGOs will need to be delivers critical programs in education, the organization is also active in maintenance and repair. Across economies. Let me give two examples. One of your Top 100 more accountable in terms of impact and the quality of health, insurance and client protection. conducting and sharing research ten countries, Water For People is NGOs of last year, Friends International, has been asked to their delivery. The time when NGOs had a blank check to through a vibrant network of leading transforming the lives of over 300,000 test a model – developed originally in South East Asia – “do the right thing” is gone. international institutions. people – for the long-term.
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THE DOLLARS AND CENTS OF FINANCIAL LITERACY MOBILE TECHNOLOGY FOR SOCIAL CHANGE FAMILY PLANNING ON A GLOBAL SCALE PROMOTING SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH LASTING CHANGE IN CHILDREN’S LIVES PUTTING CHILDREN FIRST Aflatoun FrontlineSMS Marie Stopes IPPF Save the Children PLAN International International International
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nspiring disadvantaged children to aunched in 2004, FrontlineSMS ounded in 1976 on the basis of a nternational Planned Parenthood ne of the original international elebrating 75 years of working know their rights, practice saving is the brainchild of Ken Banks. vision to make family planning Federation promotes sexual and NGOs, Save the Children for children’s rights, PLAN I and launch enterprises, Aflatoun L During his work at Kruger F available to women and men I reproductive health as well as an O International was founded in C International was established began in 1991 in Mumbai as an action National Park, Banks noticed that around the world, Marie Stopes individual’s right to make their own 1919 to assist ‘children of the enemy’ when John Langdon-Davies and Eric research project affiliated with the Tata instead of the Internet, outlying International is active in 42 countries, choices regarding family planning. following World War I. Comprising an Muggeridge sought to provide food, School of Social Studies. By leveraging a communities used mobile phones for delivering reproductive health care and Founded in 1952 in Mumbai, it has alliance of 30 national organizations, accommodation and education to large network of implementing partners all communication needs. Following maternal health services to some of the since expanded to over 180 countries, it is now a global movement active in children whose lives had been disrupted – ranging from local community groups six weeks of “recoding on the kitchen world’s poorest and most vulnerable and exerted an important influence 120 countries and reaching 125 million by the Spanish Civil War. Today, the to large international NGOs – Aflatoun table,” the FrontlineSMS interface was people. Though the organization on global reproductive policy. Striving people. In pursuit of its simple mission organization has reached more than has since provided social and financial born. With a diverse range of functions operates over 600 service centers, to stay aware of unfolding trends, – saving children’s lives and protecting 56 million children in 50 developing skills to over 1.3 million children and – including FrontlineSMS:Credit, the bulk of its work is carried out in the organization maintains a youth their rights – Save the Children countries, with the majority of its youth in more than 90 countries via which allows users to send and remote, inaccessible and underserved presence on its executive board, while International engages in diverse and operating income derived from its an innovative, activity-based program. receive mobile payments, as well as communities via a pioneering system of new initiatives like ‘Girls Decide’ effective programming, from emergency pioneering child sponsorship scheme. The organization has also worked FrontlineSMS:Radio, enabling two- clinical outreach teams. Marie Stopes focus on empowering women and girls relief (co-leading the education cluster Framed by the principle of child- effectively in an advocacy context, with way dialogue between broadcasting International has also been an innovator to take control of their own sexual under the auspices of the United centered community development – a an Aflatoun module being included companies and listeners in marginalized in using a social franchise network – health. Similarly, International Planned Nations) to nutrition, education, model that emphasizes inclusion, gender in UNICEF’s Child Friendly Schools communities – FrontlineSMS is able clinics, midwives and pharmacies – to Parenthood Federation’s research protection, poverty alleviation and equality and youth empowerment – curriculum, and its annual ‘Children to constantly evolve to match the scale up access, assure quality and partnerships ensure that patients, spirited global advocacy. A highly PLAN International has most recently & Change’ publication serving as development of mobile technology. leverage economies of scale to achieve especially those living with HIV/AIDS, respected and visible organization, Save launched the ‘Because I am a Girl’ an authoritative source of data and Validating the organization’s pricing savings for clients. receive the care they deserve. In 2011 the Children International has only campaign to tackle cultural barriers research for the broader child commitment to a free, open-source alone, the organization’s 65,000 global recently completed a sustained period of like child marriage and gender-based finance movement. platform, users downloaded the software facilities reached over 89 million people. internal transition and consolidation. violence that prevent females from 20,000 times in 2011 alone. completing a quality education.
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COMMUNITY-LED SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION REVERSING AVOIDABLE BLINDNESS FIGHTING THE PLAGUE OF CORRUPTION BREAKING THE CYCLE OF CHILDHOOD DISEASE SWITCHING THE FOCUS OF LEARNING STRIVING FOR TOLERANT AND FREE SOCIETIES Tostan Fred Hollows Transparency Saúde Criança Escuela Nueva Open Society Foundation International Foundations
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n 20 December – the same day n Australia, ophthalmologist orruption can happen anywhere, orking as a pediatrician in rawing upon her educational hen multi-billionaire hedge- the United Nations adopted a Fred Hollows was lauded for his silently exacerbating poverty, a public hospital in Rio de experiences in the region, Vicky fund manager George Soros O resolution calling for a global Icommitment to restoring sight C inequality and social instability. W Janeiro in 1991, Vera Cordeiro D Colbert returned to Colombia W decided in 1979 to invest ban on female genital mutilation – 40 to thousands living with avoidable According to the latest Corruption was shocked by the number of children in the mid-1970s to introduce Escuela his money in philanthropic activities, communities in Guinea-Bissau, where blindness in remote indigenous Perceptions Index, not one country is successfully treated for an infectious Nueva – ‘new school’ – a unique he was probably inspired by Henri Tostan delivers a number of educational communities and abroad. Established free from corruption, with the majority disease who then returned after being pedagogical model aimed at addressing Louise Bergson – the first to describe projects, declared they would abandon just before his death in 1993, the Fred scoring below 50 out of 100. There is re-infected at home. Creating Saúde the dysfunctional approach of the “open societies” based on universal harmful practices like female genital Hollows Foundation is expanding this a serious plague that must to be cured. Criança to provide low-income children conventional school system, especially principles seeking the good of all cutting and promote human rights. activity. Rather than ‘fly-in, fly-out’ For the past 18 years, Transparency and families with effective long-term in rural and low-income areas. The mankind. Encompassing a network Although ending cutting was never surgery, the organization works to build International has strived to place, and health care, the organization offers organization’s cost-effective and active in over 80 countries, Open one of Tostan’s original goals, the local skills and in the past five years keep, corruption high on the political a holistic response to address both scalable strategy includes a focus on Society Foundations operates as both a Dakar-based organization has been has trained over 38,000 eye surgeons and business agenda. By measuring and diseases and the socioeconomic factors active learning centered on student grant-making and implementing entity a major driver of change in many and clinical support staff. By building reporting on this deleterious activity, that serve to aggravate their symptoms. participation, a revamped role for supporting a variety of projects – from African villages. Rather than blaming intraocular lens factories in Eritrea and the international movement – which Saúde Criança has developed an teachers as facilitators of cooperative governance to justice reform, minority or criticizing, Tostan – Wolof for Nepal to lower the global price of lenses includes more than 100 independent innovative two-year ‘Family Action learning, more interactive materials rights, education and public health. ‘breakthrough’ – promotes community (required in cataract operations) it has national chapters and partners around Plan’ that targets specific areas of allowing for self-instruction, and a A key recent initiative has focused dialogue on a wide range of topics contributed to the production of over the world – has both raised awareness of family wellness necessary to achieve curriculum that combines life skills on eliminating discrimination and through its 30-month ‘Community five million lenses, reducing the cost of its devastating effects, as well as worked sustainable good health, such as with academic subjects. Ultimately prejudice against Europe’s Muslims. Empowerment Program,’ based on the surgery to as little as $25 and helping with governments, business leaders, education, housing and income. adopted formally at the national level The ‘At Home in Europe Projecta’ conviction that genuine democracy and to restore the sight of more than one local communities and other civil Testament to its success, the model has in Colombia, the innovative Escuela documents daily experiences to identify development must always be rooted million people. society organizations to fight for been replicated across Brazil, reaching Nueva model has since been replicated issues that residents in Europe’s urban in and emerge from existing cultural its eradication. 40,000 people per month. in 16 countries, reaching over five spaces share as common concerns. practices and local knowledge. million children.
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© KIERAN OUDSHOORN ©INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS © GAIN/OLIVER WILKINS
48 49 50 Top NGOs By Criteria.
MOBILIZING COMMUNITIES TO ELIMINATE TB BUILDING CAPACITY IN UNSTABLE ENVIRONMENTS PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS FOR NUTRITION
Operation ASHA International GAIN IMPACT INNOVATION SUSTAINABILITY Medical Corps 1. BRAC 1. WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION 1. BRAC 2. WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION 2. ACUMEN FUND 2. PARTNERS IN HEALTH NEW 4 NEW 3. DANISH REFUGEE COUNCIL 3. APOPO 3. RARE 4. MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES 4. BRAC 4. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL HQ LOCATION: INDIA HQ LOCATION:UNITED STATES HQ LOCATION: SWITZERLAND 5. ACUMEN FUND 5. CURE VIOLENCE 5. DANISH REFUGEE COUNCIL 6. PARTNERS IN HEALTH 6. CERES 6. HANDICAP INTERNATIONAL 7. CARE INTERNATIONAL 7. RIDERS FOR HEALTH 7. INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE ounded in 2005, Operation nspired by the Soviet-Afghan war, ounded in 2002, the Global ASHA has the ambitious goal Robert Simon sought to find a Alliance for Improved Nutrition 8. INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE 8. WATER FOR PEOPLE 8. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH F of achieving a tuberculosis-free Iway to provide children with basic F (GAIN) is driven by a simple 9. SAVE THE CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL 9. PARTNERS IN HEALTH 9. OPEN SOCIETY FOUNDATIONS India. Motivated by the inability of her health care amidst conflict. Yet he goal: to end malnutrition. In the patients to receive proper care, Shelly realized quickly that small clinics were decade since, GAIN has partnered with 10. HANDICAP INTERNATIONAL 10. BAREFOOT COLLEGE 10. WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION Batra partnered with Sandeep Ahuja insufficient – the real problem was governments and international agencies to develop a cost-effective treatment “how to reconstruct [an] entire medical in 30 countries, sponsoring projects now delivered by 240 clinics. Having system.” This experience shaped the involving more than 600 companies recently expanded to Cambodia, mission of International Medical Corps, and civil society organizations. Using Operation ASHA continues to grow at which focuses on the path from ‘relief population-based programs to deliver an impressive rate. The organization to self-reliance’ via sustainable health basic foods fortified with vitamins dedicates significant energy to finding interventions. The organization’s pillars and minerals, GAIN relies on a efficient medication delivery methods. of humanity, neutrality, impartiality simple strategy to reach the maximum The most successful strategy has and operational independence mean it amount of people possible. The been the ‘DOTS’ (Directly Observed is able to reach emergency zones rapidly organization’s market-based approach Therapy Short Course) program, – it was one of the first NGOs to enter also includes fostering local initiative: which increases accessibility for poor Haiti just 22 hours after the earthquake In Cote D’Ivoire, for instance, GAIN patients. More innovative is Operation hit. With 96 percent of field-based staff actively sponsors Protein Kisèe-La, an ASHA’s rigorous patient tracking and health professionals drawn from organization that provides affordable model, eCompliance. A partnership local communities, the organization and fortified cereal products for infants with Microsoft, the software represents is committed to ensuring skills and and nursing mothers. Ultimately, a key breakthrough replicable by other knowledge are passed on. GAIN’s scope is its strongest point, organizations dealing with antibiotic reaching over 610 million people. resistant diseases.
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It’s 18:49, the project is due today and a few ideas have come up. How can he get feedback to make the right decisions? With his company's social network.
Groups going further
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© SEAQRCH FOR COMMON GROUND © WITNESS © FOEME © CAMBIA © COMMON GROUND © VIVA RIO
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BUILDING FOUNDATIONS FOR PEACE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS ON VIDEO THE ENVIRONMENT AS A FORCE FOR PEACE OPEN-ACCESS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY A JOINED-UP APPROACH TO HOMELESSNESS REDUCING VIOLENCE THROUGH SOCIAL INCLUSION Search For WITNESS Friends of the Cambia Common Ground Viva Rio Common Ground Earth Middle East
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ne of the original peacebuilding he impetus for the founding riginally founded as ‘EcoPeace’ ounded by molecular biologist perating in New York since city no stranger to violence, NGOs of the contemporary of WITNESS as a pioneering in 1994, Friends of the Earth Richard Jefferson, since 1992 1990, Common Ground aims even Rio de Janeiro residents O era, Search For Common Tadvocacy organization in 1992, O Middle East is a unique F Cambia has sought to develop O to address the needs of the Awere left shaken after the bloody Ground works to transform the way Peter Gabriel’s vision of video as a tool organization bringing together and disseminate new technologies city’s population experiencing recurrent Candelaria and Vigário Geral massacres the world deals with conflict – away for the advancement of human rights Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli and collaborative instruments while housing instability by creating high in 1993. Viva Rio was founded as a from adversarial approaches and has now become a reality. WITNESS’ environmentalists. Convinced of fostering transparency and innovation quality and affordable housing options. reaction to these and other events, towards collaborative problem solving. role is more relevant than ever – from the need to join forces to promote in the life sciences. Increasingly, The organization’s strategic framework drawing together representatives Rather than focus on key individuals partnering with Central African NGOs the integration of environmental this has meant the organization has recognizes that the chronically from various sectors of civil society. to achieve short-term gains, the to combat the use of rape as a tool considerations into the regional had a significant target in its sights homeless, especially those with special The organization is committed to organization draws upon a diverse of war, to empowering poor families development agenda, the organization – the complex and closed world of needs – such as severe and persistent promoting peace and social inclusion ‘toolbox’ aimed at deep societal change being forcibly evicted from their homes is simultaneously committed to creating international intellectual property mental illness – require more than one- through research, innovative on- – from media production to mediation ahead of the World Cup in Brazil. the necessary foundations for lasting regimes. Across a handful of key time interventions, but rather sustained the-ground projects – encompassing and facilitation, training, community Committed to supporting victims in peace. Functioning as a innovative projects, Cambia is energetically and support to enable them to maintain human security, health, education and organizing, sports, theater and music. order to transform their personal stories grass-roots actor reaching 500,000 ambitiously working to democratize housing over the long-term, lead more environment programs – and the design Presently active in 26 countries in of abuse into effective tools for justice, people as well as a dynamic policy scientific innovation, most notably normalized lives, and decrease their of effective public policies, including Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle the organization works with grassroots advocate, Friends of the Earth Middle through the ‘Patent Lens’ – an open use of expensive resources such as in collaboration with law enforcement East, Search For Common Ground is groups to bring the power of video into East’s ‘Good Water Neighbors’ project access, Gates Foundation-backed online in-patient psychiatric or medical care. officials. Following an invitation from also committed to improving methods their existing campaigns, trains activists has grown from 11 to 28 communities, facility dedicated to mapping global Salvaging historic buildings, renovating the United Nations in 2004, Viva for measuring effectiveness in the and shapes the safe and ethical use of while the ‘Jordan River Rehabilitation’ patent landscapes. While that may not them through creative financing and Rio has also exported its expertise to peacebuilding sector, establishing a video online and offline. project has been so successful in shifting seem exciting, the organic and viral partnering with other organizations to Haiti. What began as a peacekeeping specialized Institutional Learning political attitudes the Iraeli government nature of the initiative has the potential develop an integrated social program consultancy role expanded into a multi- and Research Division to develop new has agreed for the first time in 60 years to redefine the role of IP in the social model, the Common Ground approach faceted development operation in the research methodologies. to return fresh water to Jordan. use of scientific research. has been replicated nationwide. country’s most impoverished slums.
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A GLOBAL NETWORK OF CONFLICT PREVENTION AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR FAMILIES IN NEED SELF-SUSTAINING POVERTY ALLEVIATION FINDING THE HOPE AMIDST DISASTER SECURING THE FUTURES OF MARGINALIZED YOUTH THE SUSTAINABLE FUTURE OF DESIGN International Habitat For KickStart ZOA Friends- Architecture For Crisis Group Humanity International International Humanity
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ounded in 1995, the International merging from an interracial ickStart International began with eadquartered in Apeldoorn, but ounded in 1994 in Phnom Penh as ith exhibitions at MOMA Crisis Group was created with the Christian community just the basic premise that “a poor active throughout the world, a local outreach project for street in New York and dedicated F express purpose of being wholly E outside of Georgia, Habitat For K person’s top need is a way to make H ZOA (formerly ‘ZOA Refugee F children, Friends International W glossy monographs, independent from governments or Humanity was founded on the premise more money.” In response, its founders Care’) began as a student initiative in has rapidly expanded its operational community-focused ‘social’ design international agencies. Since then, the of “partnership housing” - building developed a cheap and sustainable 1973 offering assistance to Southeast scope to encompass the entire Southeast is everywhere. San Francisco-based Brussels-based organization has helped sustainable structures alongside irrigation pump – the ‘MoneyMaker’ – Asian refugees. The organization now Asian region, as well as Honduras, services firm Architecture For the international community to mitigate volunteers, with beneficiaries offered to support African farmers in a move operates in 15 countries providing Mexico and Egypt. Working with Humanity, however, has been leveraging and prevent large-scale deadly conflict. affordable loan terms and expected from subsistence farming to commercial relief to people affected by conflict marginalized children, their families the power of design for good since 1999, The International Crisis Group employs to contribute reciprocally with labor. agriculture. Reflecting the massive or natural disasters, and working and communities in urban areas, the and presently comprises 52 chapters a three-tiered approach of field-based Since expanding internationally in effect of a simple idea, the organization with affected communities to recover organization is dedicated to ensuring in 13 countries worldwide, directly analysis, policy prescription, and, 1973, the organization has experienced estimates that it has sold over 200,000 their livelihoods and boost future this target population becomes serving 100,000 people annually. Based finally, aggressive advocacy. Yet, it is impressive levels of growth. By 2012, pumps in Kenya, Tanzania and Mali, resilience. ZOA’s three specific fields productive and functional citizens. on a credo of inclusive design that the sheer scope of the organization’s Habitat For Humanity had successfully lifting almost 700,000 people out of expertise encompass livelihoods and ‘Friends Programs’ are focused on spurs lasting change, the organization operations that makes it stand out from built 600,000 houses globally. In lower of poverty. Beyond this innovative food security, basic education, and protection, reintegration, prevention focuses on poverty alleviation, disaster the crowd, with programs across more income countries, the organization low-cost technology, KickStart water, sanitation and hygiene. Where and capacity-building, while the mitigation and reconstruction, post- than 70 regions. This unique expertise partners with microfinance institutions International is also demonstrating a possible the organization encourages ‘ChildSafe Network’ is a joint advocacy conflict community building and has been used time and time again in to provide additional flexibility through strong commitment to refining and collaborative work with NGO partners, and service initiative educating travelers spaces meeting the needs of at-risk especially sensitive contexts, including incremental financing and group saving. improving its model. The organization and acts as the lead agency of the Dutch and reaching out directly to at-risk populations. It has also developed the crisis alerts in Ethiopia-Eritrea, Yet, Habitat For Humanity does more is partnering with the International Consortium for Rehabilitation focusing youth. As a means to offer practical groundbreaking ‘Open Architecture Darfur, Somalia and Pakistan, as well than simply build houses – initiatives in Food Policy Research Institute on a on addressing fragility in Burundi, the training opportunities to disconnected Network’ – the first open-source as behind the scenes support for peace Honduras, for instance, have included three-year study to measure the impact Democratic Republic of the Congo, youth, as well as increase overall repository of architectural plans negotiations in Sudan, Burundi and home and health education, as well as of the pump on family health, nutrition, Liberia, Uganda, Sudan and sustainability, Friends-International and drawings aimed at fostering Northern Uganda. domestic financial management. income, education and farming. South Sudan. also runs a number of social businesses. knowledge sharing.
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Most Promising New NGOs.
In the process of producing this year’s ranking, four young NGOs stood out for their out-of-the-box thinking and willingness to dream big © JENNIFER O’GORMAN/CONCERN © CENTER FOR DIGITAL INCLUSION © ATHIT PERAWONGMETHA/ARC despite modest beginnings. While it is still too early to gauge the true impact these organizations will ultimately have, each impressed us with 63 64 65 their innovation and long-term view. Though markedly different in the thematic space they occupy, Code For America, Child & Youth Finance International, Skateistan and the Akilah Institute For Women are all TARGETING EXTREME POVERTY EXTENDING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY TO THE POOR A PATHWAY TO SECURITY AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY NGOs with a bright future. Concern Center For Digital American Refugee Inclusion Committee
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stablished in response to charity ounded in Rio de Janeiro in 1995 ike a number of NGOs on this appeals from missionaries working by ‘digital inclusion’ pioneer list, the American Refugee E in war-torn Biafra in 1968, F Rodrigo Baggio, the Center For L Committee emerged from the AKILAH INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN - P89 CODE FOR AMERICA - P81 Belfast-based Concern has gone on to Digital Inclusion aims to use technology chaos that enveloped Southeast Asia work in over 50 countries, responding as a powerful medium to fight poverty, in the 1970s. Moved by the plight of to major emergencies as well as stimulate entrepreneurship and the millions affected by the conflict, implementing long-term development develop a new generation of change- Chicago businessman Neal Ball programs. Today the organization is makers. The organization’s innovative founded the organization to provide present in 25 of the world’s poorest model revolves around a decentralized medical services to individuals stranded nations, with a major operational focus network of ‘CDI Community Centers’ in refugee camps on the Thai border. on health and nutrition, education, established with local partners in the The American Refugee Committee HIV/AIDS and community livelihoods. most impoverished communities in now works with refugee communities Over time, Concern has invested the region. Three principle objectives in seven countries providing shelter, in early warning systems for slow guide the activities undertaken at these clean water and sanitation, health care, onset crises, allowing it to act fast sites: self management, sustainability skills training, microcredit education before situations deteriorate and help and a commitment to implementing the and protection. Still focused on refining communities build their resilience. In Center For Digital Inclusion’s unique its programs despite a 30-year history, this vein, the organization has played pedagogy, which encourages students the organization recently developed the a leading role in the ‘Scaling-Up to use technology as the main tool in innovative ‘I AM A STAR’ program, Nutrition’ (SUN) initiative, which completing a ‘social advocacy project’ which leverages the influence of the promotes improved nutrition during the in their local community. To date, the Somali diaspora to help shape its SKATEISTAN - P86 CHILD & YOUTH FINANCE INTERNATIONAL - P82 first 1,000 days of a child’s life. model has impacted almost 1.5 million response to the world’s most enduring lives across 12 countries. humanitarian crisis.
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A HEALING INFLUENCE ON TROUBLED SOCIETIES RE-STITCHING THE SOCIAL FABRIC SUCCESSFULLY ENGAGING ARMED GROUPS PEOPLE-CENTERED CONSERVATION PROMOTING FEMALE EDUCATION IN AFRICA A PEACE CORPS FOR GEEKS ICTJ Interpeace Geneva Call Rainforest FAWE Code For America Alliance
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edicated to restoring civic trust volving from its roots as a United ounded in 2000 with a view to n 1987, the Amazon was disappearing ore than half of sub-Saharan ike many buzzwords, ‘Government in fractured state institutions, Nations pilot project, Interpeace addressing the lack of international at a rate of 14,305 acres per day. African countries have not 2.0’ signifies much, but has D the International Center for E is focused on building sustainable F attention being paid to the I While other NGOs organized M reached gender parity in L delivered little of real substance. Transitional Justice helps heal and peace in conflict-ridden regions. The growing influence of non-state actors protests and boycotts, Rainforest primary education, while at a secondary The idea that the Internet could rebuild societies devastated by past organization’s peacebuilding principles in situations of violent conflict, Geneva Alliance realized the better strategy was level, gender gaps exist in most of the revolutionize conventional governance atrocities. The organization believes focus on the local – insisting that Call focuses on engaging armed groups to provide incentives for forestry, farm region’s countries. It is in this context processes, however, is worth pursuing. sustainable peace can only be achieved peace must first be locally-owned, in a constructive dialogue aimed and tourism enterprises to manage their that the Forum for African Women Washington DC-based Code For via a three-tiered approach: reformation participatory and long-term. Operating at persuading members to respect land in a sustainable way. Since then, Educationalists was founded in 1992 America is doing just that. Launched at of key institutions, engagement with in 16 countries, Interpeace partners with specific humanitarian norms. The it has worked to conserve biodiversity to promote female education in the the beginning of 2011, the organization civil society organizations and careful grassroots civil society organizations to organization is perhaps most famous and ensure sustainable livelihoods via region. Working in 32 countries, the functions on a simple premise – by analysis of recent developments develop tailored strategies, leading to for its innovative use of specially a transformation of land-use practices, organization is focused on achieving matching technology fellows with in transitional justice. Yet despite a variety of activities, including youth formulated ‘Deeds of Commitment’ business practices and consumer gender equity and equality via targeted government institutions, not only would this holistic approach, it is the programs to combat gang violence in as a means to hold guerrilla groups, behavior – expanding its original programs encouraging partnerships new efficiencies be identified, but the International Center for Transitional Latin America, platforms for dialogue liberation movements and other de mission to address the social impacts on between schools, communities, civil public sector would also be placed on Justice’s commitment to civil society to encourage reconciliation in Liberia facto authorities accountable. Currently those who depend on resource-based society and governments. Amongst a the same innovation curve as the rest organizations that remains the most and changes to agricultural policies focusing its efforts on banning the use jobs. Thanks to a partnership with the suite of projects, the Gender-Responsive of society. Two years later, this “peace innovative aspect of its work. Active in Mozambique addressing societal of anti-personnel mines, prohibiting Sustainable Agriculture Network – Pedagogy was initiated in 2005 and has corps for geeks” has led to a range partnerships with grassroots groups grievances. Perhaps its most innovative the recruitment of child soldiers, which manages the Rainforest Alliance led to an improvement in girls’ retention of innovations, from an ‘adopt a fire have resulted in an array of solutions, contribution to peacemaking, however, and ending sexual violence in armed Certified™ standard – the organization and performance, greater participation hydrant’ app allowing Boston residents including the creation of an Apartheid is the initiative ‘Constitution-making for conflict, Geneva Call has already has introduced a sustainable agriculture and improved gender relations within to keep these facilities functional during Museum in South Africa, and the Peace,’ featuring a handbook guiding secured the formal commitments of 42 model in 31 countries directly affecting schools. Over 6,600 teachers have been snow season, to a recently-launched development of a legal framework for national actors involved in the process of groups to date. over five million people. trained to date. ‘civic accelerator’ for government- gender based violence in Argentina. creating a constitution. related start-ups.
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©CHILD AND YOUTH FINANCE © GEMMA CALDWELL/AA © YCAB FOUNDATION © PLANETREAD © MAMUN MAHMMUD MALLIK/DAM © SOPHIE JORDI/ICJ
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ACHIEVING FINANCIAL INCLUSION FOR THE YOUNG TRAINING REFUGEES TO REBUILD THEIR LIVES EMPOWERING AT-RISK YOUTH THE POP CULTURE LITERACY PROGRAM MULTI-DIMENSIONAL POVERTY ALLEVIATION A SEMINAL ACTOR IN HUMAN RIGHTS Child & Youth Asylum Access YCAB Foundation PlanetRead Dhaka Ahsania ICJ Finance Mission
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inety percent of young earing persecution or fleeing a oncerned with the increasing lliteracy rates in rural India are ounded in 1958 by educationist, omprised of an evolving standing people worldwide lack access crisis, refugees usually land first incidence of drug abuse amongst the world’s highest, and social reformer and spiritual leader group of 60 prominent judges N to basic financial services. F in a country near their own. C and street crime amongst I the lack of effective educational F Khan Bahadur Ahsanullah, Dhaka C and lawyers, the International Yet, financial inclusion and access There, they often experience further Indonesia’s youth, together with infrastructure makes it difficult to Ahsania Mission has since established Commission of Jurists focuses on is critical in developing financial hardships and marginalization. increasing high school dropout rates, address such a persistent challenge. itself as one of the largest NGOs in promoting the rule of law worldwide. literacy and building positive financial Providing legal assistance and helping Veronica Colondam established YCAB Hundreds of millions of people are Bangladesh, implementing a range of Originally funded by the CIA and behavior over time. Established by the refugees assert their rights in their Foundation in 1999 to address issues either illiterate, or ‘neo-literates’ – diverse programs in the areas of health, established as a counter-point to the founder of Aflatoun, Child & Youth first country of refuge, Asylum Access of youth development. An abbreviation possessing only rudimentary skills education, agriculture, technology, Soviet International Association of Finance International is pursuing transforms the traditional approach of of an Indonesian expression translating despite several years of primary school. human rights and climate change Democratic Lawyers, the organization an ambitious ‘spider in the web’ endless humanitarian handouts into to “loving the nation’s children,” the Realizing the situation demanded and disaster management focused on has since discarded its ideological model by bringing together a global a sustainable, empowering solution. organization’s program consists of out-of-the-box thinking, Brij Kothari improving the quality of life and social ties, instead focused on advocacy, movement of international stakeholders Refugees find grassroots assistance three connected activities: the primary devised a very simple, yet cost inclusion of the urban poor. A key policy work and technical assistance. – from financial regulators, to banks, to navigate the legal process. Asylum prevention of risky behavior, including effective (and scalable) solution using feature of the Dhaka Ahsania Mission Throughout a 60-year history, the child rights groups and academia – Access also trains refugees as translators drug abuse and HIV/AIDS, through ‘Same Language Subtitling’ (SLS) approach is its network of ‘Community International Commission of Jurists dedicated to increasing the financial and community legal advisors for other education and the adoption of a positive – the practice of subtitling television Learning Centers,’ which seek to has remained at the forefront of human empowerment and security of children refugees, delivering lasting change. To lifestyle; digital inclusion, English programs, music videos and other instill a participatory dynamic and rights standards, including a key role and youth. Simply by aligning the further scale its work, the organization literacy and vocational centers; and audiovisual content drawn from popular partnership with those benefiting from in the creation of the International efforts of existing partners, it has is developing a Refugee Rights Toolkit seed capital for youth entrepreneurship, culture in the same language as the the organization’s initiatives, and have Criminal Court. From ensuring already succeeded in reaching out to help advocates customize the Asylum including micro loans and a job audio track. This ‘karaoke’ approach to also been used as a platform to deliver women’s access to justice in Botswana to 18 million additional children – it Access model to local contexts and center for graduates. From reaching literacy provides crucial regular reading piggy-backed ‘one stop service’ points in to highlighting violations of due process is expected that this approach will launch their refugee legal aid project out to 2,000 youth per year in 1999, practice to over 200 million neo- target communities. in Sri Lanka, it also works assiduously build a global consensus on child anywhere in the world. YCAB Foundation now benefits over literates, and has prompted another 270 at the grassroots to build local capacity friendly banking services and financial 400,000 and has expanded its model million to begin reading. in the justice sector. education. internationally.
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©DANA PALADE/WORLD VISION © MOVEMBER FOUNDATION © PLANET FINANCE © FREE THE CHILDREN © MOISES SAMAN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
78 79 80 81 82 CHILDREN HELPING CHILDREN WORKING FOR THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN
RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT ON A GRAND SCALE THE POWER OF THE MOUSTACHE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE FINANCIAL SERVICES Free The Children Terre Des Hommes
World Vision Movember PlaNet Finance 8 International NEW International Foundation HQ LOCATION: CANADA HQ LOCATION: SWITZERLAND
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orld Vision International ovember Foundation’s no- stablished by Jacques Attali is one of the largest relief, shave November, as well as in 1998, PlaNet Finance has W development and advocacy M its contingent of sponsored E developed into a group of affiliated organizations in the world today. ‘Mo Bros,’ have become a well-known organizations delivering a diverse set of Established in 1950 to care for orphans cultural phenomenon in recent years – services. Based in Paris, its international in Asia, it has grown to embrace Facebook is littered with budding facial network includes activities in over 80 the broader issues of community hair growth. More than a gimmick, countries, focused on improving access development and policy change, however, or mere fundraising campaign to financial services for those trapped © TRIAL © MICHELLE FERNG working at the community level to – though $124 million raised in 2011 in poverty and excluded from the help individuals overcome poverty alone is testament to the movement’s conventional banking system (including and injustice. Strongly informed by reach – the Movember Foundation’s in the banlieues of France). More than 83 84 its Christian values, World Vision mission goes some way to addressing the just a conventional microcredit lender, ENDING IMPUNITY FOR INTERNATIONAL CRIMES PROTECTING ESSENTIAL LEGAL RIGHTS International has attracted criticism at societal gap regarding men’s health by the organization supports microfinance times for its child sponsorship model, its raising awareness of issues like prostate efforts by federating financial ‘gifts-in-kind’ approach and perceived and testicular cancer, and depression. intermediaries and providing them conflicts stemming from its religious Similarly, the organization’s global with operational services. It also works TRIAL International orientation. Ultimately, however, the action plan involves both an annual with banks and financial institutions, organization’s sheer scale and scope collaborative research project, as well as international agencies and governments 10 1 to experiment – for instance with a ‘Promoveo,’ a prostate cancer knowledge to facilitate the creation of a more Bridges To Justice new LMMS accountability technology exchange program. Both initiatives efficient and equitable sector. One part during the recent crisis in the Sahel – seek to encourage partnerships between of this effort was the launch of Planet reflects a level of impact still beyond the men’s health experts to inspire solutions Rating – the first microfinance HQ LOCATION: SWITZERLAND HQ LOCATION: SWITZERLAND realm of most counterparts. to common diseases. rating agency.
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© SKATEISTAN © CAROL ALLEN STOREY FOR INTERNATIONAL ALERT © ALEX HOFFORD/GREENPEACE © IISD
85 86 89 90 SKATEBOARDING AS EMPOWERMENT REDUCING CONFLICT RISK HEADLINE-GRABBING ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION ENDING ECOLOGICAL ‘OVERSHOOT’
Skateistan International Alert Greenpeace Global Footprint
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© LIBERA © KROUSAR THMEY © LUZ PORTATIL BRASIL © KROUSAR THMEY
87 88 91 92 COMBATING ORGANIZED CRIME THROUGH CULTURE A ‘NEW FAMILY’ FOR DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN LIGHTING UP THE AMAZON INSPIRING A CULTURE OF ENTREPRENEURIALISM
Libera Krousar Thmey Luz Portátil Brasil INJAZ Al-Arab
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©CIVICUS © GENERATIONS FOR PEACE © INSTITUTO DA CRIANCA © DIPLO FOUNDATION
93 94 97 98 THE MEETING PLACE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY A SPORTING CHANCE AT CONFLICT RESOLUTION INCUBATING INNOVATIVE SOCIAL INITIATIVES TOWARDS A MORE EFFECTIVE DIPLOMACY
CIVICUS Generations For Instituto Da Diplo Foundation
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© AGGREY NSHEKANABO/SEND A COW UGANDA © PROJECT WET FOUNDATION © BFF © AKILAH INSTITUE FOR WOMEN
95 96 99 100 TRANSFORMING LIVES THROUGH LIVESTOCK WORLDWIDE WATER EDUCATION PROTECTING ANIMALS IN THE WILD EMPOWERING A NEW GENERATION OF ENTREPRENEURS
Send A Cow Project WET Born Free Akilah Institute
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The Top 100 NGOs: EDUCATION HUMANITARIAN CHILDREN & YOUTH LAW & JUSTICE DEVELOPMENT HEALTH HUMAN RIGHTS SHELTER
A Complete List PEACEBUILDING ENVIRONMENT TECHNOLOGY
1. BRAC 26. ROOM TO READ 51. SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND 76. DHAKA AHSANIA MISSION
2. WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION 27. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL 52. WITNESS 77. INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF JURISTS
3. ACUMEN FUND 28. AMREF 53. FRIENDS OF THE EARTH MIDDLE EAST 78. WORLD VISION
4. DANISH REFUGEE COUNCIL 29. PRATHAM 54. CAMBIA 79. MOVEMBER FOUNDATION
5. PARTNERS IN HEALTH 30. IDE 55. COMMON GROUND 80. PLANET FINANCE
6. CERES 31. RIDERS FOR HEALTH 56. VIVA RIO 81. FREE THE CHILDREN
7. CARE INTERNATIONAL 32. MERLIN 57. INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP 82. TERRE DES HOMMES INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION
8. MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES 33. FONKOZE 58. HABITAT FOR HUMANITY 83. TRIAL
9. CURE VIOLENCE 34. HELEN KELLER INTERNATIONAL 59. KICKSTART INTERNATIONAL 84. INTERNATIONAL BRIDGES TO JUSTICE
10. MERCY CORPS 35. WATER FOR PEOPLE 60. ZOA 85. SKATEISTAN
11. APOPO 36. AFLATOUN 61. FRIENDS-INTERNATIONAL 86. INTERNATIONAL ALERT
12. ROOT CAPITAL 37. FRONTLINESMS 62. ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY 87. LIBERA
13. HANDICAP INTERNATIONAL 38. MARIE STOPES INTERNATIONAL 63. CONCERN 88. KROUSAR THMEY CAMBODIA
14. INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE 39. INTERNATIONAL PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION 64. CENTER FOR DIGITAL INCLUSION 89. GREENPEACE
15. BAREFOOT COLLEGE 40. SAVE THE CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL 65. AMERICAN REFUGEE COMMITTEE 90. GLOBAL FOOTPRINT NETWORK
16. LANDESA 41. PLAN INTERNATIONAL 66. INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE 91. LUZ PORTATIL BRASIL
17. ASHOKA 42. TOSTAN 67. INTERPEACE 92. INJAZ AL-ARAB
18. ONE ACRE FUND 43. FRED HOLLOWS FOUNDATION 68. GENEVA CALL 93. CIVICUS
19. CLINTON HEALTH ACCESS INITIATIVE 44. TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL 69. RAINFOREST ALLIANCE 94. GENERATIONS FOR PEACE
20. HEIFER INTERNATIONAL 45. SAUDE CRIANCA 70. FAWE 95. SEND A COW UGANDA
21. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 46. ESCUELA NUEVA 71 .CODE FOR AMERICA 96. PROJECT WET FOUNDATION
22. RARE 47. OPEN SOCIETY FOUNDATIONS 72. CHILD & YOUTH FINANCE INTERNATIONAL 97. INSTITUTO DA CRIANCA
23. DIGITAL DIVIDE DATA 48. OPERATION ASHA 73. ASYLUM ACCESS 98. DIPLO FOUNDATION
24. AKSHAYA PATRA FOUNDATION 49. INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS 74. YCAB FOUNDATION 99. BORN FREE FOUNDATION
25. GRAM VIKAS 50. GAIN 75. PLANETREAD 100. AKILAH INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN
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How The World Came To Save Haiti And Left A Disaster.
BY JONATHAN M. KATZ + INCLUDES AN EXTRACT REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION FROM PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
A BOY IN THE CITÉ SOLEIL SETTLEMENT CARRIES A BUCKET OF WATER AWAY FROM A BROKEN PIPE AFTER A STRUGGLE WITH FELLOW RESIDENTS © UN PHOTO/LOGAN ABASSI
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A WOMAN WALKS BY A A MAN SETS UP A FIRE IN THE RUBBLE- TEMPORARY SHELTER IN FILLED STREETS OF THE IMPOVERISHED CITÉ PORT-AU-PRINCE SOLEIL SETTLEMENT © UN PHOTO/LOGAN ABASSI © UN PHOTO/LOGAN ABASSI
On 12 January 2010, the deadliest earthquake in the history of the Western Hemisphere struck Haiti. In a country already struggling with huge developmental challenges, the disaster killed more than 300,000 people and left over one million homeless. Yet, despite an unprecedented outpouring of global generosity, the relief – and later reconstruction – effort has floundered. In this ‘Republic of NGO’s, good intentions have often gone wrong, and those driven by a humanitarian impulse have inadvertently contributed to an international response that will be remembered most for promises unfulfilled.
ong before January 2010, when pleased. Many of the most successful despondency undermined their own the sky above Port-au-Prince projects, by their own criteria, had long goals. A persistent lack of coordination L swarmed with foreign aircraft and since become essential providers of among NGOs ranging from offices aid caravans proliferated in the rubble public services, further supplanting and of the world’s pre-eminent international dust, Haiti had been known for one weakening the state. actors to one-man shows seemingly of the world’s thickest concentrations improvised on the spot made an of aid groups. The country’s ever- This weakening of sovereignty was effective aid regime impossible. worsening poverty and proximity to the a bitter pill for the second-oldest When in mid-2009, less than a United States (US) and Europe’s island independent republic in the Western year before the earthquake, former holdings, combined with an absence of Hemisphere. Snide references to the US President Bill Clinton was major conflict, had for decades made it Caribbean nation being governed as appointed the United Nations (UN) a place where aid workers felt needed a de facto ‘Republic of NGOs’ date Special Envoy for Haiti, one of his and free to work. A persistent lack of back to at least the 1990s. Moreover, primary missions was to improve local governance meanwhile meant that experienced aid workers themselves NGO coordination, eliminate managers could experiment as they knew that the cycle of dependency and redundancies, and see to it that
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coverage gaps were filled. His attempts WORKERS FROM THE UN ended in exasperation. STABILIZATION MISSION IN HAITI (MINUSTAH) AND JENKINS AND PENN HAITIAN RELIEF When the earthquake struck, longtime ORGANIZATION REMOVE STREET Haiti hands and clear-eyed aid leaders RUBBLE IN PORT-AU-PRINCE thus faced a paradox. They knew that ©UN PHOTO/MARCO DORMINO outmoded, uncoordinated assistance had not only failed to help in the past, but also helped create the fragility exposed by the disaster. On the other hand, there was now an unspeakably dire emergency, to be followed by long-term, resource-exhausting reconstruction. To add final fuel to the fire, even more NGOs – many with no experience in Haiti whatsoever – were rushing into the disaster zone, lured both by a genuine desire to help and a bonanza of donations pouring in from shocked observers around the world. In the US alone, private donations reached $1.4 billion by year’s end – equating to approximately $6 per American adult. Ultimately, more than $3 billion would be donated to international NGOs after the quake, part of a gargantuan pledged total of $16.3 billion in all. Coordination would be more crucial, yet harder to achieve, than ever.
The approach chosen after the catastrophe was to coordinate aid actors through a system of humanitarian ‘clusters’, in which efforts would be organized by subject area, such as housing or sanitation. Representatives from aid groups of all sizes and provenances – from Médecins Sans Frontières to the newest aid-group leader of all, the movie star Sean Penn – gathered for regular meetings to share data, discuss results, and agree on new strategies. The system’s top-level coordinators were in turn to liaise with deployed military and other government agencies in hopes of achieving a consistent response. Variations on this basic strategy had been employed after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and elsewhere, including at a smaller scale in Haiti after a series of deadly tropical storms in 2008.
As I trace in my new book, The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster, the system failed. A critical moment came at the beginning of February 2010, toward the end of the first month after the quake. At that point, most people in the quake zone had moved out of the acute crisis stage.
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mistakes were made at the beginning. A MAKESHIFT TENT CITY A TENT CITY INSTALLED And the result of that early failure AMID THE RUINS IN PORT- NEAR THE AIRPORT OF PORT- AU-PRINCE AFTER THE AU-PRINCE will be felt for years to come. Make no mistake: that Haiti was let down after EARTHQUAKE ©UN PHOTO/MARCO DORMINO the earthquake is not in dispute among ©UN PHOTO/LOGAN ABASSI those who live there. While, as always, there are some NGOs that can point to successful individual projects, the overall effort has not fulfilled its lofty promise. Poverty is as dire as ever. Hunger is worsening. At the three-year mark, post-quake homelessness remains a crisis, and new housing options are not addressing the critical need for future resilience and disaster preparedness. Cholera, a disease never before confirmed in Haiti, has claimed 7,500 lives since being introduced by foreigners – with all evidence pointing to a contingent of UN peacekeepers stationed beside a rural tributary.
The good news is that Haiti’s story isn’t over. The earthquake proved that a mere increase in attention and even a surge of new funds is not enough. But There were no longer bodies to be “do development,” could spend. most participants, he continued to live similarly deliver resources to people which most of the estimated 1.5 million if there are real changes in attitude and found in the rubble. Medical teams “There’s only so much money that outside the security perimeter, making the outside of the capital, Godfrey and many post-quake homeless would be relocated action – if responders can find ways still working had moved on to treating can be forced through the emergency four-hour round trip each day. At first others reasoned, this might incentivize to new, managed camps, housed in to not only truly work with Haitians car-crash victims and malaria. To most phase,” she added. he wasn’t quite sure what role he could them to remain where they were, solving 125,000 durable ‘T-shelters’ to be themselves, but follow the public’s people in the streets – where nearly play. “I’ve been here,” he remembered one of the country’s biggest problems. constructed from tarps, metal, and lead – the cycle can be broken. The real every quake survivor, including me, The main problem, however, was a thinking. “I know what’s going on.” plywood. Yet by July, when fewer than project of allowing Haiti to stand up on was sleeping – it was time to try and continuing lack of communication. As I In Port-au-Prince, he was convinced, as 6,000 had been constructed, it was clear its own can succeed, and the NGOs can restart businesses, and cobble together recount in the book: What was going on – at the meetings water, medical care, food, and services that this program had failed. By failing finally go home. some form of adequate if temporary and in the streets – disturbed him. The were brought directly to the camps, to take into account how Haitians housing. In humanitarian workers’ Though concerns about security had ‘LogBase’ [UN logistics base in Port-au- the new settlements would become would manage their own recovery, and parlance, Haitians were moving from proved unwarranted, most cluster Prince] bull sessions were dominated by permanent. He tried to explain this to unable to tackle larger issues such as ‘relief’ to ‘recovery’. meetings were held inside the security bureaucratic procedure. With aid workers people working on camp handouts, but land tenure, the resurgent ‘Republic of perimeter at the UN Logistics Base constantly rotating in and out, many they were too busy to listen. As Godfrey NGOs’ had nothing to add. And despite At this crucial juncture, the on the airport road. That meant few staying for only a few weeks, nearly watched thousands who’d fled seep back best intentions, high profile figures like underpinnings of the reconstruction Haitians could attend. And since nearly every meeting had to burn time getting into the capital, he stopped going to Sean Penn were bestowed with a level that was to follow were being laid. The all the meetings were held in English, few newcomers up to speed. The meetings meetings all together. At one of his last, of influence way beyond their expertise. places where Haitians were settling Haitians could have understood anyway. about shelter issues rarely addressed the aid worker – whose stout jaw, wavy Many intra-city camps are still where would be their homes for months at (This was explained via an International the estimated 600,000 people who had yellow hair, and groomed white beard they were in early February 2010. Those least. The way in which post-quake Federation of the Red Cross report with a spontaneously decongested the capital by could make him a convincing extra in individuals and families that have been land use quickly evolved would become tautology: “The language of the national moving to their ancestral homes in the Julius Caesar – stood up and asked, evicted, sometimes violently, have either the new normal for years. But the cluster remained English because only countryside. Thousands more had moved “how can you continue to function when moved to buildings equally or more UN system, foreign militaries and English speakers attended the early to the relatively open land between the there isn’t a person who’s been here for dangerous than those that collapsed NGOs were largely oblivious to this meetings.”) capital and the Dominican border. more than three weeks, and the chairman during the earthquake, or have fallen reality, still stuck in the relief phase. arrived yesterday?” Most participants off aid groups’ radars completely. Outside Haiti, images of the first The cluster participants rarely ventured Godfrey had overseen CARE USA’s agreed but could only shrug. terrible hours after the quake remained into the city, to say nothing of the operations after the 1998–1999 war The cluster system did succeed in in high rotation on television and in countryside, themselves. An early in Kosovo, when at least 1.2 million The Haitian government – a few ways. At an organizational other media. Fundraising and the exception was Mike Godfrey, an aid refugees were driven from their homes. undermanned, underfunded, and, level, there was most likely more gathering of immediate relief supplies worker with decades of experience who Responders in the Balkans made a point in many ways equally out of touch – coordination amongst NGOs than continued unabated. Donors preferred had spent the previous year and a half of delivering aid to individual families was also at a loss. For a while, its in the past, and an unprecedentedly organizations such as the American overseeing a USAID agriculture and instead of squatter camps, for fear of officials were in denial as well. But it open relationship between military and Red Cross – whose $486 million in watershed management program in the encouraging people to stay in them, he did not take long for the new reality to civilian responders. But the nature of a THE BIG TRUCK THAT WENT BY funds raised far exceeded what an Haitian countryside. Both Godfrey recalled, and followed refugees’ lead become clear to everyone. In February, top-down, highly centralized model, as JONATHAN M. KATZ organization that, in the words of its and his rented apartment in Pétionville when they returned to their homes on US officials and allied aid groups were opposed to a broader-based approach PALGRAVE MACMILLAN spokeswoman Jana Sweeny, did not survived the earthquake, and unlike their own. If the aid effort in Haiti could still proposing a three-phase plan in involving Haitians, meant that critical £17.99
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A Dictatorship’s Success Stories.
BY LAURENT VINATIER + PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF ALEXANDER VASUKOVICH
A MIRROR OF DISINTEREST - PASSERS-BY IGNORE A POLL- RELATED PERFORMANCE THE DAY BEFORE PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN THE BELARUSIAN CAPITAL, MINSK.
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A FISHERMAN PROUDLY THE AUTHOR ENJOYING DISPLAYS HIS WARES AT LOCAL HOSPITALITY IN A CENTRAL FOOD MARKET THE VILLAGE OF SABALI, IN MINSK. HOMETOWN OF YURI CHIZH.
Aleksandr Lukashenko is resilient. The President of Belarus has stood firm against the European Union (EU) and its renewed political and economic sanctions in response to his increasingly autocratic rule. In six months, he has freed two political prisoners while a dozen remain in custody. On September 23, nationwide parliamentary elections ran smoothly in an atmosphere of total indifference from the great majority of the population. Russia, for its part, supports Belarus with financial subsidies, ready to buy out everything possible at discounted prices.
he village was still part of in Biarozovsky district, 250 kilometres wet and flat countryside, dotted with the Soviet Union when Yuri south of Minsk, were full of life. Forty familiar birch trees, has become T Chizh – today one of Belarus’ years later, while the petrified Soviet noticeably sadder. The yellow house is richest businessmen, with close links Brezhnev era has disappeared into slightly less colorful. to President Aleksandr Lukashenko history, the village has plunged into a Chizh had to leave for Minsk relatively – preferred to run around in the kind of hibernation. The school has early, in order to commence studies neighboring forest rather than attend been dismantled, and families with in electronics at the Belarusian school. To get up to childhood mischief, children have fled to the cities. Most of Polytechnical Institute. From then on, he had to carefully avoid his family’s the wooden houses lie empty – indeed, everything moved quickly. He had a bright yellow home, which stood only only 70 pensioners remain. chance to exercise his entrepreneurial a few meters between the school and The kolkhoz holds on unconvincingly, skills during perestroika, and now the kolkhoz. At that time, it seems, with two or three old tractors heads a business empire based on the the two intersecting streets of Sabali languishing in a yard. The endless Triple holding, which reprocesses
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and exports oil products bought from enterprises, most ‘normal’ Belarusian the south, and when, for mysterious Russia at discounted prices. Chizh has businesses owe their success to efficient reasons, several of his top managers also diversified into civil engineering, and skilled CEOs, whose first talent is were arrested, he remained silent. The construction, manufacturing, to maintain close, loyal and ‘friendly’ new Christian cross presented recently restaurants, food production and a relations with their unique common to Sabali by a Polish historical society, network of hypermarkets – the Prostore business boss: Lukashenko. Ironically, commemorating the Polish-Belarusian chain. He has been especially prominent in the few remaining post-Soviet insurrection against Tsarist Russia in media headlines in recent times for dictatorships, the Marxist economic in 1863 – and which will hardly be a building the first luxury Kempinski model has been reversed. Political tourist attraction in the middle hotel in central Minsk, just behind the superstructures today prevail over of the kolkhoz – has a poignant Circus and near the unchanged Soviet- the base. political meaning. era Gorki Park. Although associated with the Slovenian Riko Group in the The new bourgeois class of Belarus, In Belarus, Lukashenko decides almost context of that project, Chizh has owners of the means of production, all matters. The 58-year old former failed, however, to escape the EU’s have been reduced to acting as state farm manager assumed power in sanction list. presidential ‘wallet persons,’ or koshelki 1994, and recently described himself as they are nicknamed in Russian. They in a widely publicized interview as Blacklisted since March, Chizh is “the last and only dictator in Europe.” undoubtedly paying for his close Though most infamous internationally links with Lukashenko, and, by ‘The two Baltic as a result of accusations of torture implication, for his impressive success. and other human rights abuses – often Yet in compensation for the European ports profit so focused on opposition figures – his punishment, his boss has just granted political choices also determine business Chizh a 99-year concession over his heavily from strategies. Chizh may have willingly native Sabali village. Essentially, this acting as the agreed to allocate some money to his means that every single square inch of childhood village so long as he could the land where he grew up ultimately also run his business according to his SABALI RESIDENT, IVAN, transit point for PRINCIPAL GUIDE AT belongs to him. After years of fruitful own interests and economic rationale. THE VILLAGE’S MODEST wanderings in the capital, the oligarch goods imported Now on the EU sanctions list, he ETHNOLOGICAL MUSEUM. has returned home. He has brought has fallen as collateral damage in the with him an immense sponsorship by Belarus that President’s acrimonious relations with project focused on building a large Europe, entrapped within Belarusian complex boasting a hotel, restaurant, it would have diplomatic strategies. ethno-museum and a host of other infrastructure. In theory, Sabali will been commercially For Chizh, as for most of his colleagues, benefit as a revitalized rural center. At self-destructive there are obvious advantages in the very least, the faded paintwork of developing overseas trade relationships the wooden houses will be refreshed. to participate and increasing their presence in European markets. Yet, they are Belarus is not devoid of successful actively in increasingly prevented from doing private companies. Chizh’s Triple so. Chizh is officially stigmatized, ranks among the leaders, but many stemming the flow.’ along with other not-yet-blacklisted others follow close behind. Alexander businessmen, and seen as guilty by Moshensky’s Santa Impex for food – cannot even pretend to stand alone as association. Coping with the growing particularly seafood – processing, Pavel independent partners or shareholders gap between attractive trading Topuzidis’ Tabak Invest, Alexander in the national wealth. Lukashenko opportunities in Europe and necessary Shakutin’s Amkodor for road-building usually considers these individuals as political loyalty to the boss in Minsk machinery, or Anatoly Ternavsky’s simple business managers tasked with has proven especially delicate. No Univest-M group – with activities implementing his instructions. Their leading business figures can speak out ranging from petrochemical exports to dependence is as prodigious as their against their President – at least not banking, restaurants and construction – efforts to maintain the President’s yet – since they are kept divided by have no reason to be ashamed. Among confidence. Ternavsky, for instance, has astute pressures from the political and these business leaders, only Ternavsky been obliged to employ Lukashenko’s security services. Consequently, some has been the subject of EU sanctions. daughter-in-law, Anna. He also have already opted to resettle in Russia, Notably, the other three have significant sponsors the Presidential Sport’s where inflation is under tighter control investments in neighboring European Club, headed by Dmitri Lukashenko, and local authorities can guarantee countries. The old Belarusian economic Alexander’s son and Anna’s husband. more sustainable economic and political clichés of arms traders linked to rogue Meanwhile, Chizh seems to prefer conditions. But those Belarusian firms LOCAL PRODUCE ON SALE AT states (such as fellow oligarch Vladimir playing ice hockey on the same team in Russia also operate within a larger A CENTRAL FOOD MARKET Peftiev – blacklisted) and manufacturers as the President. He cannot refuse to market, faced with – usually – stronger IN MINSK. of heavy machinery have faded away. sponsor the cultural resuscitation of competitors. As a result, they are Now engaged in more conventional Belarus’ birch-dotted countryside in vulnerable to becoming easy targets for
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YURI CHIZH’S CHILDHOOD HOME IN SABALI, WHERE HIS MOTHER STILL LIVES. acquisition by more powerful rivals. chain, amongst others, have thus been while the latter two countries have deep Ultimately, Belarusian business shielded from the European list. More business ties in Minsk and beyond, needs Europe. discreetly, the governments of the involving some significant national Netherlands, Germany and Austria actors such as banks and chemical and The EU’s reaction to the deteriorating have also done little behind the scenes machinery companies. The EU cannot political situation following dubious completely shut the door on Belarus. presidential elections in 2010 has been direct and demonstrative. To date, more ‘As long as Russia The sanctions policy has had limited than 200 people – mainly security and impact, however, at least so far as judicial officials – have been banned agrees to subsidize the business sector is concerned. It from traveling to Europe, and have seen seems that banning (for differing their bank accounts blocked. its small neighbor, reasons) Peftiev, Chizh and Ternavsky, Last March, 12 more individuals and freezing their assets, is merely and 29 companies were added to the Lukashenko and the minimum action the EU felt list, and their foreign assets frozen. obliged to undertake in the current Some EU member states, however, his entourage will circumstances. Peftiev, believed to be appear reluctant to enforce these be able to resist Belarus’ richest business figure, was restrictions wholeheartedly. already within the orbit of American any European investigators for his troubled relations The vanguard of Lithuania, Latvia and with non-recommended states. Chizh Slovenia, for instance, intervened to pressure or public and Ternavsky, leading very similar reduce the scope of the second round of holding companies, mainly work and sanctions. The two Baltic ports profit demonstrations of prosper within Belarusian boundaries. so heavily from acting as the transit Sergei Satsuk, Director of Ezhednevnik point for goods imported by Belarus discontent.’ Zhurnal, and probably the most APPROACHING SABALI, THE FLAT COUNTRYSIDE WILL that it would have been commercially reputable business observer in Minsk, SOON MAKE WAY FOR A self-destructive to participate actively to oppose the determined Baltic confirms that “Chizh’s interests in HOTEL, RESTAURANT AND in stemming the flow. Moshanski’s food negotiating stance. The Dutch are one Europe represent only 3 percent of MUSEUM AS PART OF CHIZH’S products and a handful of Chizh’s assets of the main European importers of his whole empire.” It is likely that REVITALIZATION PLAN. related to his Prostore supermarket reprocessed Belarusian oil products, Ternavsky has even fewer business
THE GLOBAL JOURNAL + JANUARY & FEBRUARY 2013 THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 106 107 FEATURE interests outside Belarus. As a So far, none of these movements has to convey their message – whether result, the EU sanctions have hardly been able to propose a clear, effective via the media, or in an open and free harmed them. and realistic strategy. Arguably, it political or parliamentary context – is because it would be futile to call the opposition cannot be held totally The EU could, however, have a for regime change in the current responsible for its failure to appear significant impact on other European- Belarusian context. As long as Russia relevant, credible and legitimate. Belarus businesses. Moshensky, agrees to subsidize its small neighbor, Without the means to organize Shakutin and Topuzidis all have Lukashenko and his entourage will be and communicate, any opposition EU-based holdings, as do many other able to resist any European pressure or movement would find it difficult to individuals who prefer to invest in public demonstrations of discontent. unify potential members and exercise Belarus from a safe external vantage Minsk currently receives several billion a political role. The groups aligned point – a practice that is spreading dollars from Moscow each year to against Lukashenko cannot count within the domestic community as it buy social peace, as well as to provide their forces, assess their audience or helps to substantially lower dependence minimal economic stability. set achievable targets, so instead are HUMANITARIAN ACTION on Lukashenko. Consequently, through The President is therefore under no condemned to agitate in almost empty an ironic political twist, reinforcing pressure to sit at a negotiating table spaces. Recent parliamentary electoral Advanced Training for Professionals sanctions on Belarusian businesses campaigns in Belarus illustrate this mainly hurts those – such as the point. The major opposition groups – in Geneva promising young Aleksei Zhukov ‘The groups dismissed as “nobodies” by heading the Alyuteh Company – Lukashenko – boycotted last who are trying to escape the reaches aligned against September’s elections to protest the Master’s programme and short specialised courses of the President’s control. The detention of political prisoners and resultant impact when it comes to Lukashenko alleged opportunities for electoral fraud. foreign investor confidence means Focused on the boycott issue, those that developing interests in the EU cannot count opposition parties that did participate has become increasingly difficult said nothing about economic issues, for such enterprises. Potential local their forces, assess and hardly mentioned the traumatic partners in external markets have their audience currency crisis of 2011, much less no guarantee that, sooner or later, propose any solutions. Unless Russia these good willed and more or less or set achievable performs a U-turn, provoking a serious independent figures will not be financial crash in Belarus, Lukashenko hit adversely by further targets, so instead has ensured his political position for the European restrictions. next three years, while the opposition are condemned to remains frozen. Well-informed At the same time, alternative policies independent experts in Minsk confirm are difficult to identify. Betting on agitate in almost that, “there is nothing more to do now strengthening the political opposition empty spaces.’ than to wait for the next presidential and democratic breakthroughs is not election in 2015.” a realistic option from a European perspective. Liberal and opposition with what he and others would suggest In Sabali, meanwhile, people tend to movements are deeply divided between are barely legitimate opposition think that even if there were no more several leaders, none of whom stand out leaders. Wishful thinking and lobbying elections, life would not change. With as obvious challengers to Lukashenko. for strengthened actions based on a pension of around $200 dollars per Too ideological and radicalized, most promoting European values can lead month, the elderly can meet all their also act, in part, from outside the nowhere, at least in the immediate basic needs and live quite well. country – predominantly, from Poland. future. Even more so as the EU has Well, that is, if one discounts traveling This split geographical base is likely never previously shown an inclination to beyond the village or eating out at to lead to a kind of muted competition enforce such a moral policy elsewhere. nearby restaurants. Ivan, who supervises between externally based groups – Although the new European Dialogue Sabali’s first small ethno-museum especially media actors – and domestic for Modernization, launched last April, set up by his son in an old house activists. Because the latter take most includes a number of very pragmatic nearby, was in no hurry to vote. When of the risks in a climate of strong goals, it has not, to date, proven to be the ballot box arrived he inserted his repression, they typically also claim well managed or coordinated. Perhaps ballot paper in front of the two the most legitimacy. Meanwhile, the inevitably, it has also failed to deliver mandated officials, whom he knew very external groups, with greater control any firm results. well. Voting itself meant nothing. He www.cerahgeneve.ch over communications, try to exert some and his wife will be happy either way, influence by favoring one faction over Oddly, the demands of the Belarusian watching their son help local boy made another. Moreover, when the wives or opposition do not match economic good Chizh to accomplish his dream sisters of former presidential candidates and political reality. This apparent of turning Sabali into a large tourist- speak as if they were representing a incongruity constitutes one of cultural-ethnographic complex. If particular group, further confusion is Lukashenko’s major achievements. nothing else, their house will CERAH, a Joint Centre of !"#$"%&'()&*+"(,((-./0.1(!2&/. added to an already blurred picture. Clearly, deprived of any public platform be repainted.
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Rediscovering Iran.
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF DANIEL BLAUFUKS FOR MACK
A country increasingly defined outside its own borders by a single issue – the will they, won’t they to and fro of the nuclear question – Iran and its people are too often reduced, despite a rich history, to ominous caricature. Another Iran existed, however, in the mind of Portuguese photographer Daniel Blaufuks, whose childhood fascination with ancient and ‘exotic’ Persia came face to face with the unvarnished reality of everyday life on a journey marked by scenic beauty and the visual fragments where culture and memory meet.
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PICTURES FROM IRAN DANIEL BLAUFUKS MACK MARCH 2013
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THE BOUNDARIES OF LIFE
ON BORDERS
OSTKREUZ AGENCY PHOTOGRAPHERS HATJE CANTZ Ð38.00
They offer protection, lead to war, On Borders covers many borders alarmingly resembling human traps limit freedom or enable it; they have dissecting the planet, but there are some – more and more immigrants are being always been there and will continue that seem less recognized: European turned away. But still more are taking to exist: borders. Hardly anything else borders. Many European Union (EU) their chances. In 2011, according is as socially ambivalent, as timeless citizens have experienced a changing to Frontex’s report, the number of and as relevant. The Ostkreuz Agency and expanding border as EU territory individuals arrested rose by 35 percent was founded when what was probably is extended. Most who enter the EU from 104,000 in 2010 to 141,000 in the most important border in the illegally still elect to take the route from 2011. In the future, the organization history of Germany – the Berlin Wall Turkey to Greece, which leads across plans to use robots and drones. Walking – disappeared. Two decades later, its the Evros River or along a country road. in Athens today, one can see an photographers set out on a search But the days when countries tried to increasing number of illegal immigrants for today’s frontiers. Their pictures halt these migrants with barbed wire, wandering the streets, looking for any portray groups of indigenous peoples police and guard dogs are over. Ever opportunity to eat and make a living. battling for their land in Canada, since the advent of the Frontex Agency, homosexuals in Palestine seeking exile a kind of common EU border patrol, On Borders is made by exceptional in the enemy country of Israel, and technology is being upgraded along the journalists using their cameras to the discovery of state identity in South edges of Europe. inspire us to observe and reflect. We Sudan. The focus is always on people: need more books like this. how do boundaries influence their Using infrared cameras, motion everyday lives? detectors and electric fences – - JCN
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TIPPING THE URBAN FABRIC
TORRE DAVID: INFORMAL VERTICAL COMMUNITIES
URBAN-THINK TANK LARS MÜLLER PUBLISHERS Ð45.00
The third tallest building in Venezuela illustrated paean to a fascinating – and elevators, electrical infrastructure, stands proudly in the heart of Caracas’ ongoing – informal urban experiment. running water and windows, shops, former central business district, The book’s austere opening images services and sporting facilities have Libertador. Originally conceived as a presage an improvised community built emerged alongside work-in-progress landmark commercial development, amidst soaring concrete and industrial living spaces through an organic process construction was abandoned in the residue – perched precariously above of bottom-up urbanism. wake of a national banking crisis in a sea of urban sprawl beating back 1994, and the postmodern skyscraper – the vegetation cascading down from Most evocative are a series of in situ now known as ‘Torre David’ – became surrounding valleys. family portraits, capturing the myriad a magnet for squatters. A building in ways in which those seeking refuge a constant state of resident-generated Progress further into the book, however, from the chaotic forces shaping the flux, at last count it served as home to and one is drawn instead to what is not city beyond have sought to transform more than 750 families living in a self- immediately evident from a perspective their corner of a skeletal commercial organized “vertical slum.” framed by external structures and ruin into a space fit to host the richness architectural cross sections – the of everyday life. In the proud faces In Torre David, Zurich-based remarkable social life at the heart of of those living amidst even the most interdisciplinary design firm, Urban- an evolving occupancy. In claiming rudimentary conditions, one finds a Think Tank, in collaboration with Torre David as their own, its residents common sense of humanity. noted architectural photographer have transformed the building’s sense Iwan Baan, have produced a vividly of possibility. Despite an absence of - AK
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MANNING THE GATES THE ROAD TO RUIN IRANIANS ON THE COUCH POST-RACIAL MYTH-BUSTING?WHEN POLITICS AND DISASTER COLLIDE
FORTRESS EUROPE: SYRIA: THE FALL OF THE DOING PSYCHOANALYSIS IN RACECRAFT: THE SOUL OF DISASTERS WITHOUT DISPATCHES FROM A GATED HOUSE OF ASSAD TEHRAN INEQUALITY IN AMERICAN BORDERS CONTINENT LIFE DAVID W LESCH GOHAR HOMAYOUNPOUR JOHN HANNIGAN MATTHEW CARR YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS THE MIT PRESS KAREN E FIELDS & BARBARA POLITY PRESS HURST & CO $28.00 $19.95 J FIELDS £13.95 £20.00 VERSO BOOKS £20.00
“On 28 May 1999, a Sudanese asylum and the reader is left with an impression David W Lesch, a historian specializing Doing Psychoanalysis in Tehran is Tackling the Obama-era idea of the As international attention on seeker named Aamir Ageed died during of a powerful and uncaring hegemony. in the Middle East, is among the not about human rights violations, post-racial society head on, sociologist natural disasters increases, John a deportation flight from Frankfurt to His research on Greece, for instance, handful of Westerners to have democracy or freedom of speech. Karen E Fields and historian Barbara Hannigan examines the latest trend Cairo, after police forced his helmeted uncovers thousands of violations of the gained exclusive, private access to Gohar Homayounpour challenges J Fields argue in their new book, in international politics to resolve head between his knees to restrain Geneva Conventions – including refusing one of the world’s most elusive and Western preconceptions of a stigmatized Racecraft, that race does not produce “borderless” issues. Conceived as a him.” “In March 2005, a Russian to process asylum requests as well as despised leaders: Bashar al-Assad. society by weaving a graceful narrative racism, but rather, the other way textbook reviewing contemporary couple and their son jumped to their abandonment of refugees at sea. What An informative and personal account, between biographical segments and the around. Indeed, they drive their debates, Disasters Without Borders deaths from a Glasgow housing estate he does not mention, however, is that Syria tracks the early rise of the young stories of ordinary people. Although point home more deeply by linking presents a comprehensive account of because they faced deportation.” Greece is no longer considered part of ophthalmologist – once nicknamed psychoanalysis was a European race – and its emphasis on physical the failures of diplomacy in the realm of the ‘Dublin System’ – meaning the EU “The Hope” – before a deluded decline, discovery, through the anxieties of her difference – with witchcraft. These two disaster management. The book views These two examples, outlined in allows refugees to process their claims culminating in one of the bloodiest patients the author shows how pain is concepts have been repeatedly used as the field through an intense politico- Matthew Carr’s straightforward prose, in other Schengen states. Secondly, repressions in recent history. everywhere, with the science finding ‘evidence’ for racial divides, despite, of sociological lens, from the emergence of demonstrate the contradictory nature Carr does not explicitly link the current fertile ground even on ‘foreign’ shores. course, their obvious fallacy. Race, like Disaster Risk Reduction in the 1980s, to of the 1995 Schengen Agreement – an anti migrant attitude to contemporary An easy read, the book showcases witchcraft, is a delusion. the recent integration of climate change agreement that has opened the gates economic realities. It is hard to imagine the sympathy brought about by the When Homayounpour lands in Tehran debates into humanitarian for millions of Europeans, whilst Greece or Spain reconsidering their author’s former proximity to Assad, after a 20-year absence, she is startled In other words, the American practice relief strategies. simultaneously slamming them in the border policies given the current rate though he remains clear and carefully initially by feelings of disillusionment, of race categorization enforces racial face of the rest of the world. Indeed, of unemployment. nuanced when charting the internal pain and ambivalence. To heal this division within society. With examples Disasters Without Borders provides a Carr’s exposé is littered with accounts transformation and foreign power-play malaise, the author looks to her master ranging from the profound to the absurd critical look at the political discourse of of eternal detention centers, rogue Yet despite these omissions, Carr’s work that accompanied the decline of the Kundera for inspiration in an attempt – including, for instance, an imaginary disasters as a thinly veiled disguise for coastguards, humiliating beatings provides invaluable information on the regime. Lesch is particularly successful to shed light on the darkness of interview with W E B Dubois and Emile hegemonic agendas. Hannigan’s text and, finally, “positional asphyxia.” true goings-on within the European in his description of the violent turn human souls. Her patients themselves Durkheim, as well as personal porch culminates with a presentation of two His personal interviews with migrants refugee system. His interviews with that has commanded international become narrators, telling stories that chats with the authors’ grandmother competing theoretical approaches that themselves provide a voice to a people intergovernmental, international attention over the last year and a half, serve to disguise unspoken realities. – the Fields delve into “racecraft’s” explain the diffusion of norms and that have previously been ignored in the and national organizations provide a documenting the behind-the-scenes From the first session with Mrs N – a profound effect on American political, ideas by non-state actors beyond a European discourse on immigration and comprehensive account of the attitudes activities of a man who did not so famous painter – we understand that social and economic life. Realist perspective. In a rather anti- refugees. Besides filling the reader with of officialdom – while his one-on-one much change the system as be himself psychoanalysis is a dynamic game climactic fashion, however, he finds a sense of hopelessness and despair, conversations with migrants themselves changed by it. between the analyst and patient, each The authors’ account illustrates that that both fall short, but does not Carr’s work leads to the irresistible give the story a much-needed coming face to face with a stranger that race categorization does not simply present an alternative, leaving readers conclusion that the West must be held human face. Unsurprisingly, Lesch’s outlook for is not the Other, but within themselves. affect a small subset of the population, empty-handed. accountable for numerous human rights Syria is as dire as his disappointment: but instead engenders inequality violations, as well as compelling us to - CH a failed state with extremist elements Ultimately, Doing Psychoanalysis throughout society. Their analysis The book concludes with the “SCPQ question the logic of border restrictions situated on Middle East fault lines. in Tehran draws an illuminating of the antebellum South, for example, Configuration” (Securitization, in the first place. Ultimately, the book offers an insightful cross-section of Iranian society that highlights the fact the plantation Catastrophe Scenario Building look into a nation caught in a tragically demonstrates to the reader the common system not only enslaved Africans, and Modeling, Privatization, and Nevertheless, the book, although inevitable downwards spiral. “When a humanity shared by a New Yorker and but also enforced an unequal caste Quantification) embodying the current extremely powerful, provides little room domestic threat appears, there is a push- her Iranian patients, despite perceived system amongst the white population. state of disaster institutions. Overall, for alternative interpretation. In fact, button response of quick and ruthless political and cultural differences – the Such anecdotes prompt the reader to Disasters Without Borders is an enjoyable, two glaring gaps in the narrative lead repression,” Lesch writes. “The real “radiographic picture of the human realize that America – to truly tackle easily accessible read, but lacks new one to doubt the complete validity of story… would have been if Bashar had condition” so evocatively described the problem of racism – must insight into tackling the dismal failures Carr’s account. First and foremost, he not pressed that button.” by filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami in his contemplate an entirely new language of environmental cooperation. does not explore the European Union’s introduction to the book. to describe race. (EU) current approach to immigration, - CT - KC - NZ - CH
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WHO KILLED THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH? FITTING IN THE CHATTERING CLASSES A NEW BIOSOCIAL CONTRACT THE RETURN OF THE VEIL
THIEVES OF VIRTUE: WHEN FIT: AN ARCHITECT’S TWITTER: SOCIAL THE FAIR SOCIETY: THE A QUIET REVOLUTION: BIOETHICS STOLE MEDICINE MANIFESTO COMMUNICATION IN THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN THE VEIL’S RESURGENCE, TWITTER AGE NATURE AND PURSUIT OF FROM THE MIDDLE EAST TO TOM KOCH ROBERT GEDDES SOCIAL JUSTICE AMERICA THE MIT PRESS PRINCETON UNIVERSITY DHIRAJ MURTHY £20.95 PRESS POLITY PRESS PETER CORNING LEILA AHMED $19.95 £50.00 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS PRESS $30.00 $17.00
Born in the 1960s, bioethics was to end is moral action. They teach, write, Early in Fit, Robert Geddes – dean What impact can 140-character At the outset of The Fair Society, Peter The hijab is back – on an increasing bring “a specific kind of analytic, moral advise hospitals and review boards, emeritus at the Princeton School of messages have in our everyday lives Corning, Director of the Institute for number of women’s heads, and as a philosophy to questions of medical care and generally serve as “surrogates Architecture and distinguished urbanist and on influential social movements? the Study of Complex Systems, asks subject of public debate. This discussion and healthcare delivery.” In this well- of the general public” when ethical – notes that “what we build is a result of These are the questions Dhiraj Murthy, some fundamental questions about is often premised on contentious and researched book, Tom Koch explains issues arise in practice and research. what we are.” Subtitled “an architect’s a sociology professor, seeks to address human development and social justice. stereotypical images of veiled women why contemporary bioethics fails to While bioethicists present the scarcity manifesto,” this slim but elegant volume in his engaging new book Twitter. Most crucially, if we perceive life as as a reflection of Islamic oppression. fulfill its role – to the detriment of of medical services as natural, Koch sets out to assert in clear terms that Although one of the most used social unfair, do we have the power to change To what extent is the veil’s resurgence a patients, research subjects and citizens. argues that scarcity is the predictable buildings, landscapes and cities should, media globally, Murthy’s study is the society for the better? reaction to these perceptions? Are there result of “economic choices and political therefore, be designed to “fit” – fit the first that deals critically with the effects different meanings to the hijab? What Under the old Hippocratic Code, decisions made with full knowledge purpose, fit the place, and fit for of Twitter on the “real world,” and In this provocative new book, Corning do Muslim women – veiled and unveiled medical practitioners were caregivers of the dire consequences.” Scarcity “future possibilities.” how it has shaped our contemporary suggests that selfishness is in fact not – have to say about their choices? These of the individual as well as society disappears when the US Congress communication style. a natural human trait, and is instead are just some of the questions that at large. The code was idealistic and votes to fund dialysis as a national As such, Fit is a riposte to notions of grounded in biological, anthropological, Harvard professor Leila Ahmed poses simplistic: some acts were encouraged entitlement, or when local health ‘exclusive’ architecture or “architecture To this end, Murthy places Twitter sociological and organizational in A Quiet Revolution. and others – such as abortion or boards argue for urban sanitation and for its own sake.” Geddes seeks to in historical perspective, drawing evolution. As the basis for affirming euthanasia – prohibited. But the preventive measures against epidemics. challenge both the enduring legacy links with earlier technologies like the ‘yes, we do care,’ he points to the Ahmed provides an interesting historical clinical, environmental and social of modernist dogma – form follows telegraph and radio. He then proceeds two dominant aspects of our nature: analysis of the issues surrounding the elements of the Hippocratic vision also As political actors and social function – and its diametric opposite, an through a series of case studies survival and reproduction. With a hijab since the beginning of the 20th provided a guide as to how health could participants, bioethicists shape health architecture judged largely on aesthetics encompassing a variety of sectors – from moral definition of justice and fairness century, before exploring in detail the be promoted. It was left for societies policy. Their assumptions define rather than its engagement with global health, to disaster coordination inspired by the works of Plato and “unveiling movement” in Egypt. She to find the balance between economic life, health and normalcy; the care or prevailing social and environmental and, of course, political activism. Aristotle, Corning emphasizes the then reflects upon the revival of Islam constraint and human necessity. non-care of persons depends on their conditions. In order to ground his centrality of the “collective survival in the United States, and the different perspective on the human condition. arguments, the author steps the reader What Murthy demonstrates successfully enterprise” to humankind, arguing forms of activism that have emerged as In the late 19th century, however, Through various case studies, Koch through a series of succinct chapters is that though Twitter is only a young this compels us to focus on meeting a result. A key theme throughout is the the focus shifted from patient care explains that bioethicists can – and focused on the experiential role of communications device, it has the our “shared survival and reproductive connection between the reappearance of and communal responsibility to do – regularly deny care for those with nature, the functional and expressive potential to be very potent. At the same needs.” According to the author, these the hijab in the East and West. Ahmed individual autonomy and economic limiting cognitive, physical or sensory qualities of design, and the legacy of time, he presents this argument in a needs are not only primarily physical – argues that understanding the situation efficiency. Practitioners were elevated attributes, advocating the right to die architectural form. balanced way, exposing the myth that such as nutrition – but also mental; for in Egypt – a non-Islamist society that to authoritative positions as medical as an individual choice rather than Twitter is all-powerful. Instead, Murthy instance, the desire for social security went from unveiled to predominantly judges, including the power to decide the right to live with dignity Evidently targeting a generalist emphasizes that it remains a tool, albeit and talent development. veiled in less then 30 years – will help whether to give, withhold, withdraw despite difference. audience, Fit, though measured in its one that can be used for great purposes shed light on contemporary dynamics in or continue care. The new goal of narrative, and peppered with literary by its (human) users. Similarly, his Ultimately, in using cutting edge the West. medicine through fundamental research Koch’s critique is an appeal for a and other references, also suffers as reflections on our “update culture” research in the behavioral and biological became “the definition of the acceptable transformed medical ethics that is a result of its self-imposed simplicity. and ambient news are remarkable. The sciences to paint a more sympathetic Most importantly, she demonstrates person within a population whose humanist, responsible, and defensible. Geddes raises countless truths that 200,000 million tweets sent each day and hopeful picture of human nature, how religious movements are not composition could be controlled to the A fundamental question to be revisited help to illuminate a subject often have been deserving of serious scholarly The Fair Society is an appeal for a new static. They can transform across advantage of the state and is whether we understand society as an impenetrable to ‘outsiders.’ At the same attention. Murthy addresses this gap in collective focus on equality, equity frontiers and generations “and take its economies.” economic enterprise in which patients time, however, one is left with a sense a pioneering book. and reciprocity to heal an increasingly root in environments where new are consumers, or a “social covenant of why architecture matters, but not the fragmented political and social life. social and political conditions open Borrowing from Confucius, Koch in which all are able to participate… new beginning the book promises. - JM up new possibilities of belief, practice warns us against “thieves of virtue” – irrespective of their physical abilities.” - AH and interpretation.” bioethicists who promote as universal - AK a perception of medical ethics whose - AS - ZK
THE GLOBAL JOURNAL + JANUARY & FEBRUARY 2013 THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 128 129 FIVE QUESTIONS
Five ISABELLE QUÉHÉ FOUNDER, ETHICAL FASHION SHOW Questions. BY JULIE MANDOYAN
Since 2004, former French model Isabelle Quéhé has been working to showcase the talents of ethical fashion designers and labels worldwide. President of the Universal Love Association and founder of the Ethical Fashion Show, she celebrated in September the eighth edition of the showcase event, which took place at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris (alongside a spin-off in Berlin). More than just a spectacle, the Ethical Fashion Show has also developed into a diverse trade fair providing sales opportunities to brands focused on fostering local development via the © LUC VALIGNY textile industry.
What exactly is the Ethical born the idea of launching a show with some niche products also, such as Fashion Show? dedicated solely to designers and brands jewelry or luxury accessories. involved in fashion in an ethical way. Ethical fashion is a way of creating What do you see as the biggest stylish fashion while caring about What are the criteria to be an impact of the Ethical Fashion the environment and traditional ethical designer according to the Show on haute couture and craftsmanship. Ethical fashion is a mix Ethical Fashion Show? mainstream fashion and design of different choices, and involves since the first event various production techniques – it Actually, it is quite tricky to dictate took place? focuses on the protection of human which brand or designer is ethical and rights, fair working conditions, which is not! We try to understand The situation and thinking are moving environmental responsibility, and the designers and brands applying for forward. I believe the Ethical Fashion the preservation of unique skills and the show in their social and economic Show gave an impulse and visibility cultural legacies passed down from context. A participating designer living to committed designers and brands generation to generation. in Asia does not work and think in the internationally. We have succeeded in same way, nor is subject to the same raising awareness about how you can How did you first come up with the conditions, as his or her colleague based be fashionable and socially conscious, idea? in Scandinavia or elsewhere. We are while supporting and buying the more into flexible criteria. We do ask products of highly innovative and I love fashion. I had been working as applicants to fill in a questionnaire in creative designers. Lately, one can a model a long time ago, when I met which they can describe the materials see that from High Street to top-end Oumou Sy from Senegal and Bibi they use, the production process, how fashion, all brands are introducing Russel from Bangladesh. Both are eco-friendly they are, their social and either an ethical or ‘green’ element to socially conscious and eco-friendly cultural input. This information allows their philosophies, and are developing designers, as well as two strong figures us to make a decision about whether or either a capsule or regular green/ethical in the domain that would later be called not they will be selected for the show. collection. The Ethical Fashion Show ethical fashion. Both explained to me pioneered this trend and remains an how individuals working in the fashion What is the market for ethical important platform. Whether freshly- industry could care about people, the design and fashion products? graduated students, buyers, designers, environment and preserving traditional major players, weavers or institutions, (7(51,7<7+(8/7,0$7(/8;85< skills. This made me think about how The market, quite similarly to the the whole fashion industry comes to the ,QWKHWKFHQWXU\3LHUUH-DTXHW'UR]ZDVWKHÀUVWZDWFKPDNHUWRLPSRUWWLPHSLHFHVLQWR&KLQDZKHUHWKH(PSHURU4LQJ we could improve the current state traditional fashion market, is expanding show to know what is going on in this FROOHFWHGWKHVHPDVWHUSLHFHVGHHSLQVLGHWKH)RUELGGHQ&LW\:KLFKLVZK\%HLMLQJLVSDUWRIWKHHWHUQDOOHJHQGWKDWLV-DTXHW'UR] of the fashion world and spread these – mainly in relation to middle to still evolving field. The bottom-line: the ‘ethics’ more widely. From this was high-end and very high-end designs, Ethical Fashion Show is inspirational! 7KH(FOLSVHUHI-MAJESTIC BEIJING Collection
THE GLOBAL JOURNAL + JANUARY & FEBRUARY 2013 :::-$48(7'52=&20 130
JD_Corp_Global_July_2011_CH.indd 1 27.06.2011 10:30:38