NGOs and UN Humanitarian Action

There is increasing focus on operational and organisational cooperation between NGOs and the UN system, not on the role of the military or the media, but in the humanitarian response system. Operational NGOs in particular have been increasing their activity in policy and advocacy work in complex emergencies. In Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union, the growing number of failed states has produced a widening level of chaos to which NGOs and the UN have tried to respond. These complex humanitarian emergencies are defined by five common characteristics: the deterioration or complete collapse of central government authority; ethnic or religious conflict and widespread human rights abuses; episodic food insecurity, frequently deteriorating into mass starvation; massive unemployment and net decreases in GNP; and population movements of displaced people and refugees escaping natural disaster, or conflicts. There is an argument that these emergencies have caused a shift of increasingly scarce resources away from sustainable development to life saving humanitarian interventions. Relief NGOs frequently specialise in one or more of the five activities that are commonly understood to compose the releif discipline: food distribution, shelter, water, sanitation and medical care. To this may be added the rehabilitation efforts to bring a society traumatised by a complex emergency to minimum self sufficiency: animal husbandry, agriculture and primary health care. The larger development NGOs such as Oxfam GB have the added advantage in many complex emergencies of having had development programmes and staff to run them in the countries before the onset of the emergency. This advantage gives them a familiarity with the culture, ethnic groups and development programmes of the country as well as with indigenous staff.

Since the Ethiopian famine of 1985 - a watershed event for most of the major NGOs that work in relief - a quiet revolution has taken place in doctrine and practice between releif and development. Traditional relief efforts were commodity-driven and logistically based, with little programmatic, economic or developmental thought given to how the relief effort might be more than simply pushing down death rates and saving lives. As a general proposition, NGOs make an effort in good faith - given t he altruistic motivation of most of their workers nad managers - to invovle the people they serve in the field with how resources are spent. Community participation I s an elemental axiom of NGO work. Thanks to dissemination, advocacy, training and follow up among and by international NGOs, the Sphere standards and the Red Cross and NGO Code of Conduct have achieved centre stage position in the awareness of many organisations, including Western donor administrations and UN agencies. Although staff and associates of the Sphere project emphasise that the Sphere Charter is as important as the ‘minimum standards’, in practice the technical delivery minimum standards are more actively used by aid workers than the Charter with its very brief references to the Refugee Convention, Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law. While the Refugee Convention may be a daily reference for UNHCR, for example, it is neither well known nor regularly used by international NGOs (often the operational partners of UNHCR) – hence the creation of the Reach Out project to familiarise aid workers across the globe with the Refugee Convention.

There is a much wider range of relevant yardsticks or benchmarks that can – and sometimes must – be used to plan, review or ‘judge’ the quality of a performance and to hold agencies to account. These yardsticks have different status. An organisation is not obliged to accept an inter-agency benchmark and some are of the view that they are only bound by legal references and their own internal yardsticks.
1. International and national legal references: These spell out rights and obligations. Of particular relevance here is the constitution of a country. While typically little known to the overwhelming majority of people, a constitution spells out rights and obligations within the national framework. In certain circumstances, it can possibly be a more powerful tool for advocacy and accountability in the country where humanitarian action takes place than an international convention or an interagency ‘code’.
2. National policy framework: National policy may be perceived by some as inappropriate in certain crisis situations, or even counter-productive, but it is
preferable that aid agencies argue their case with the national authorities rather than simply bypass them. The latter practice undermines the credibility of local authorities and also contributes to the perceived confusion of roles and responsibilities that aid agencies then subsequently lament.

3. Inter-agency references: Some refer to rights and principles. As such they have no formal legal status but are fairly widely accepted. They can be given a more authoritative status by the national authorities. Some countries, like Colombia, have
incorporated the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement into national law.
Uganda has used them to develop a National Policy Framework on Internal Displacement.

A series of other guidelines, developed on an inter-agency basis, refer more to good practices.
5. Each organisation also has a series of internal references, ranging from mission and values statements to policy statements and practical manuals, which it has developed internally and against which it can plan, monitor and review its performance. Finally, there are situational references that can be used as yardsticks: project agreements (with donors but also withintended beneficiaries), operational
plans, etc.

Benchmarks for humanitarian action

■ International Human rights Law
■ International Humanitarian Law
■ 1951 Refugee Convention
■ Convention on the Rights of the Child
■ Laws of Country of Association
■ Constitution of country of operation
■ Laws of country of operation
■ Disaster policy and management framework
■ Sectoral policies
■ Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
■ Red Cross and NGO Code of Conduct
■ People-In-Aid Code
■ Guidelines for the Protection of Refugee Women
■ Guidelines on Older People in Disasters and Humanitarian Crises
■ Good Practice Reviews
■ Sphere sectoral standards
■ Local Capacities for Peace
■ Coordination on protocol
■ Values and principles
■ Policies and procedures
■ Code of personal conduct
■ Sectoral manuals
■ Operational plans
■ Project agreements

Sources:
www.oxfam.org.uk
www.sphere.org
www.reachout.ch
www.dec.org.uk
www.act-intl.org
www.hapgeneva.org

The long Peace

The international contrast between the 18th and 19th centuries is one of the big historical questions of the modern world system. Whereas the 18th century was a period of almost continual war among European powers, in the 19th century they enjoyed what is commonly referred to as “the long peace”. Quantitatively battlefield deaths declined by a factor of eight between the two centuries and this despite the increasing destructiveness of the weaponry. Why should this be so? One obvious approach to answering this question is to study the various actors in the two centuries and to work out why they were more successful in securing peace. The differences between the two centuries cannot be explained by the behaviour of political elites, but must reflect, instead, a structural change in the nature of inter state politics. Structural change in the interstate system means that the fundamental way the system works, and is perceived to work, has altered in terms of what sort of behaviours are penalized and which are rewarded. In the 19th century peace broke out in Europe and war became clearly demarcated precisely because it had become unnatural where Britain played a great role. The framework agreed at Vienna in 1815 has been called the ‘modern international system‘. although it did not set up permanent international institutions - these were to come later - it did provide for the management of inter state relations for the very first time.

Studies show that English politics took the pace of becoming exceptional from the second half of the 17th century: in the initial development of modern European states in the 16th century, Tudor England shared in the common centralizing practices of the times and the English civil war (1642-9) can be interpreted as part of the general crisis of the renaissance state. Thereafter England diverges from the general pattern of European state development. The key point is that the political and legal concept of the state, so central in France and Germany for example, was not constructed for English politics. The idea of a state only appeared as an external sign to mark England’s role in the interstate system. Hence the use of the royal prerogative foreign policy became known as an Act of state; otherwise there was no reference to the state as a part of the politics. Certainly the notion of the state as a distinct corporate authority above society was never developed with respect to domestic policy. Why no state? The state that was created lacked the idea of emancipation from civil society because it was composed of members of civil society. In other words, like the Dutch before them, the English reversed the relation between state and society: society used state and not vice versa.

According to Tom Nairn ‘a spontaneously emergent bourgeois “civil society” created the state’ in the 17th century. The outcome of the conflicts from the civil war to the Glorious Revolution was the rise of political power of a commercial landed elite allied with the urban merchant class to produce their own patrician state. With the accession of William and Mary to the throne by invitation of the patricians, a new state was created whereby sovereignty lay with the Crown in Parliament. This combination of a private court and public arena proved to be a very flexible formula for rule; through its many reincarnations in the next three centuries, civil society has been able to continue domination of the state. Hence just at the same time when the latter’s abstract mystique was being promoted elsewhere, in England any vestiges of a state spirit were being eliminated by a more personal and informal rule. The result was non-bureaucratic and relatively decentralized control of the country. This decentralization was premised on a division between ‘high politics’ and ‘low politics’. the centre jealously guarded control of the former - largely fiscal and foreign policy - allowing all other matters to be dealt with through negotiation with the communities and interest groups outside the centre.

The transition from such a low profile state of patrician origins to the liberal ideal of a night watchman state during British hegemony in the 19th century was relatively smooth. While other countries experienced revolutionary political change Britain continued its famed political evolution. By investing sovereignty with the Crown in Parliament a flexible political system of checks and balances was created in which the politics could change from Tory royalism or Whig aristocratic control to constitutional liberalism without any need to change the state apparatus. Only two options were precluded by this political formula: a royal absolutism and a radical popularism. At the time of the Great Reform Act of 1832, the rising middle class political interests required just such a political formula. In their agitation for change they confronted traditional aristocratic power, but the middle classes were simultaneously watchful of new working class political aspirations. The reforms widened representation in parliament and changed the balance of power in favour of the elected House of Commons. The reformed parliament was an opportunity to eliminate t he traditional mercantilist state and bring British political practices into line with contemporary political economy needs. Half a century earlier Adam Smith had argued that economic success depended on the free operation of markets and therefore that state interference in these processes was against the public good. This left the state with little to concern itself with but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. however the British liberal state can be viewed as a transition between two alternative interventionist states: mercantile state and welfare state. Hence while political economists were having their great success with the abolition of the Corn Laws, there was also increasing recognition for the need to regulate rapid industrialization and its consequence, massive urbanisation, factory Acts with state inspectors, local boards of Health and Housing Acts for slum clearance all make their appearance at this time. Nevertheless, by any historical standards, this was a minimal state and marked Britain out as different from her European rivals.

Where the more authoritarian monarchies in Europe had to confront revolutionary popularism head on, the British with their relatively soft monarchy took a completely different route: the monarchy itself was popularized to act as a focus for popular politics. Nationalism was designated foreign and English royal patriotism developed to take its place. This was crucial in these dangerous times to maintain the peace since the world war led to a politicalization of populations throughout Europe. The result was that in England the state ruled in the public interest rather than on behalf of the people. Hence the British created an aberrant nationalism which allowed their civil society to go about its business in full knowledge that it operated a political machine where neither absolute state nor popular nation were a threat to its interests.

Derived from:
Dyson, K.H. F., 1980; The state tradition in Western Europe. Oxford: Robertson
Nairn, T., 1988; The Enchanted Class, Britain and its Monarchy. London: Radius
Robbins, K., 1988; nineteenth century Britain. Integration and Diversity. Oxford: Clarendon
Taylor, P. J., 1993a Political Geography: World economy, Nation state and locality. London: Longman

DFID Sustainable Livelihoods Distance Learning Guide Glossary

Available online at Livelihoods Connect: www.livelihoods.org

Asset Pentagon The Asset Pentagon is an important component in the SL Framework. It is a visual representation of information about people’s livelihood assets. It brings to life important inter-relationships between the various assets.
Asset Status This refers to an individual’s or group’s access to livelihood assets. A change in Asset Status may involve an increase or decrease in access to livelihood assets or a change in the composition of the livelihood assets to which there is access.
Barriers to Entry Refers to the obstacles facing potential newcomers to a market. Typical obstacles include: the high level of skills and/or investment required to enter the market, bureaucratic/regulatory obstacles, cultural/social obstacles, action taken by established firms to discourage new-entrants etc.
Capital In the sustainable livelihoods framework it is best understood with reference to the following five categories: human capital, natural capital, financial capital, social capital, and physical capital. These are also known as livelihood assets. Outside the sustainable livelihoods framework the term, Capital, is used in a variety of ways. In economics it is commonly defined as being one of three factors of production, the other two being labour and land.
Civil society organisations These consist of a variety of different formal and informal organisations that represent the interests of various members of society. They may include, for example, community-based organisations, producer associations, unions, and NGOs.
Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) A Comprehensive Development Framework is a type of country-level development strategy, launched by the World Bank in 1999 with the aim of mainstreaming anti-poverty strategies into international development co-operation.

A CDF involves working out long term development objectives with the broad strategies for achieving those objectives. This is so that government, donors, civil society and the private sector have a clearer understanding of long term government policies, and can work together in an integrated way to achieve long term objectives. This is intended to address problems of disjointed, uncertain and sometimes conflicting policies and programmes implemented by different government, donor, civil society and private sector organisations.
Core Principles of Livelihood Analysis The Core Principles of Livelihoods Analysis are as follows:

Effort should be devoted to identifying and understanding the livelihood circumstances of marginalised and excluded groups.
Analysis should take into account important social divides that make a difference to people’s livelihoods. For example, it is often appropriate to consider men, women, different age groups, etc. separately. It is not sufficient to take the household as the sole unit of analysis.
The SL approach seeks to build upon people’s strengths and resourcefulness. When conducting analysis it is important to avoid thinking only about need.
The SL approach embraces the idea of dynamism. Avoid taking one-off snap shots and instead think about change over time, including concerns about sustainability.
There will never be a set recipe for which method to use under which circumstances. Flexibility is key. Equally, it is not necessary to produce one definitive ‘map’ of livelihoods. Different ‘maps’ may be appropriately used for different purposes.

The Core Principles of Livelihood Analysis should not be confused with the core principles of the sustainable livelihoods approach which are much broader.
Core Principles of The Sustainable Livelihoods Approach These are that poverty-focused development activity should be:

People-centred: sustainable poverty elimination will be achieved only if external support focuses on what matters to people, understands the differences between groups of people and works with them in a way that fits in with their current livelihood strategies, social environment and ability to adapt.
Responsive and participatory: poor people must be key actors in identifying and addressing livelihood priorities. Outsiders need processes that enable them to listen and respond to the poor.
Multi-level: poverty elimination is an enormous challenge that will only be overcome by working at multiple levels, ensuring that local-level activity informs the development of policy and an effective enabling environment, and that higher-level policies and institutions support people to build upon their own strengths.
Conducted in partnership: with both the public and the private sector.
Sustainable: there are four key dimensions to sustainability – economic, institutional, social and environmental sustainability. All are important – a balance must be found between them.
Dynamic: external support must recognise the dynamic nature of livelihood strategies, respond flexibly to changes in people’s situation, and develop longer-term commitments.

The Core Principles of the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach should not be confused with the core principles of livelihood analysis which relate more specifically to the activities involved in investigating livelihoods.
Country-level development strategies Country-level development strategies integrate poverty and environment policies into a coherent, growth-orientated macro-economic framework. They come under different headings such as:

· Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF)
· Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
· National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD)

Governments are encouraged to take strong ownership of the strategy by assuming responsibility for its formulation. This entails prioritising policy interventions and allocating the domestic and external resources necessary to implement the strategy. The resulting framework provides a basis for assessing the need for, and allocating external development assistance.
Cross-Sectoral Links
Economic Appraisal/Analysis
Economic Shocks
Economic Sustainability
Empowerment
Entry Point
Environmental Checklists
Environmental Sustainability
External Environment
External Shocks
External Support
Extractive
Financial Capital
Fiscal policy
Governance
Human Capital
Inflation-Indexed Assets
Institutional
Institutional Appraisal
Institutional arrangements
Institutional Sustainability
Institutionalise
Institutions
International Development Targets
Iterative Process
Key Informants
Livelihood (s)
Livelihood Assets
Livelihood Components
Livelihood Goals
Livelihood Outcomes
Livelihood Strategies
Livelihoods Analysis
Livelihoods Asset Pentagon
Livelihoods Review
Logical Framework
(log frame)
Macro Policy
Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF)
Micro Policy
Natural Capital
Natural Shocks
National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD)
Objectively Verifiable Indicators
Organisations
Outputs
Participation
Participatory
Participatory Activities
Participatory Development
Participatory Methods
Participatory Poverty Assessments
Participatory Principles
Partners
Partnerships
People-centred approach
Physical Capital
Policy
Policy, Institutions and Processes (PIPs)
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP)
Process Approach
Processes
Programme
Project
Project Scope
Pro-poor policy reform
Remittances
Rights-based approaches
Sample Surveys
Seasonality
Sector Programmes
Sectoral
Sector-Wide Approaches
Sharecropping
Shocks
SL Analysis
SL Approach
SL Framework
Social Analysis/Appraisal
Social Capital
Social Resources
Social Sustainability
Stakeholder Analysis
Stakeholders
Structured Checklists
Sustainable / Sustainability
Sustainable Livelihoods
Sustainable Livelihoods Approach
Sustainable Livelihoods Framework
Sustainable Livelihoods Guidance Sheets
Transactions Costs
Trends
Triangulation
Venn Diagrams
Vulnerability
Vulnerability Context
Watershed
White Paper



Feedback:
Any comments or suggestions on this Glossary are welcome by email to:
livelihoods-connect@ids.ac.uk

Disclaimer:
This document is an output from a project funded by the UK Department For International Development (DFID) for the benefit of developing countries. The views expressed are not necessarily those of DFID or Imperial College at Wye.

The New Economics: outlining systemic and synergistic public policies

The new economics that is struggling to grow today is something very different than the previous century. It constitutes our response to a new set of problems which was only dimly perceived earlier, but has steadily grown in urgency over the last quarter of 20 century. It attempts to put forward new ideas about how to organise the foundations of a sustainable economy at this juncture in history when there are clear signs that the global economy cannot move much further along the accustomed paths of industrial growth without ending up in total disaster. The new economics reflects the growing worldwide demand for new ways of economic life and thought that will conserve the Earth and its resources, and empower people to meet their own needs and the needs of others.

In general it brings a more radical perspective to sustainable development and implies more far reaching changes than the mainstream perspective; emphasising the need to move away from a state centred or business centred economic system, towards a more people centred system, and away from money measured growth as the principal economic target and measure of success, towards sustainability in terms of real life social and environmental and economic variables. Governments and government agencies including the Eu Commission are themselves an important part of the problem. Existing public policies - e.g. for agriculture and transport, but in most other fields also give powerful encouragement to unsustainable development. Governments and government agencies will come under steadily increasing pressure to rectify that. Being advised to put one’s own house in order may not be the advice one most wants to receive. But policy makers need not see it as negative and unexciting. The proposed changes in existing structures of taxation and public expenditure aim not merely to remove incentives to unsustainable development, but to replace them with powerful positive incentives in favour of sustainable development. This will bring about more systemic and synergistic possibilities where a shift towards sustainability in each field will encourage a comparable shift in the others. As it takes time for mainstream opinion to adjust to the new economics, some of its more important policy implications will not yet be acceptable to many of the people who need to consider them, until compelled to take them seriously. Pressure will continue to grow for changes in economic life that will give primacy to the needs of people and Earth, and for changes in economic thought that will provide new concepts of economic efficiency and progress.


Principles of the New Economics

- Systematic empowerment of people as opposed to making and keeping them dependent, as the basis for people centred development
- Systematic conservation of resources and environment, as the basis for environmentally sustainable development
- Evolution from a wealth of nations model of economic life to a one world model and from toady’s international economy to an ecologically sustainable, decentralizing, multi level one world economic system
- Restoration of political and ethical factors to a central place in economic life and thought
- Respect for qualitative values, not just quantitative values
- Respect for feminine values, not just masculine ones

Hence policy making will be based on realistic view of human nature, recognizing that people are both altruistic and selfish, cooperative and competitive. Thus it recognizes that evolving the economic system to reward activities that are socially and environmentally benign and not the reverse, as at present, will make socially and environmentally responsible choices the easier choices for people and organisations. Policies ought to be dynamic and developmental, working for changes in the direction of progress, not to a blue print for a final destination. New economics policies are critical and constructive, based on recognition that effective opposition to conventional economic development and thought is a necessary part of the transformation. They will focus more directly on people as active citizens. Recycling a significant proportion of public revenue directly to citizens as a citizen’s income will be an example.

The implications of sustainable development across a range of policy areas include farming and food, travel and transport, energy; work, livelihoods and social cohesion; local development; technology; business; health, and law and order. A number of framework policies are noted that apply to all these policy areas, such as:
- Restructuring the tax system in favour of environmentally benign development and higher levels of employment and useful work
- introduction of a citizen’s income paid unconditionally to all citizens in place of many existing social welfare benefits
- termination of subsidies and other public expenditure programmes which encourage unsustainable development
Introduction of public purchasing policies which encourage contractors to adopt sustainable practices
- development of more self reliant local economies, involving support for local banking and financial institutions, local means of exchange, local shops, and easier access for local people to local means of production
- Development of indicators to measure economic, social and environmental performance and progress
- Development of accounting, auditing and reporting procedures to establish the sustainability performance of businesses and other organisations
- Demand reduction policies (e.g. for transport and energy), and the need to consider their implications
- Changes in the existing international trading regime, to encourage sustainable forms of trade

Public Spending

It needs to be understood that the whole array of public expenditure programmes and taxes existing at any one time together with the non existence of public expenditure and taxation on other things, constitutes a framework which helps to shape market prices and thereby rewards certain kinds of activities and penalizes others. This framework should be designed to encourage economic efficiency and enterprise, social equity, and environmental sustainability. It should be designed to minimize uncertainty and disruption caused by need for ad hoc interventions in the workings of the market.

The following specific conclusions are noted:
Public purchasing policies should encourage sustainable and equitable practices on the part of contractors, thus contributing to sustainable and equitable practices throughout the economy
Systematic reviews should be carried out and published on the sustainability effects of all public subsidies and other relevant public expenditure and tax differentials, with the aim of eliminating subsidies that favour unsustainable development (one estimate has put the total value of environmentally damaging subsidies in Britain alone at £20 bn a year)
Temporary subsidies for sustainable development initiatives such as green investment funds should be considered. But reducing the existing bias of taxation and public expenditure in favour of unsustainability is more important
Systematic reviews should be carried out a nd published on the possibilities for re-orientating public spending programmes, with the aim of preventing and reducing environmental and social problems before the event, rather than concentrating on trying to clean up and remedy their effects afterwards.

The Global Economy

We can help to shape global economic policies and institutions in support of people centred, environmentally sustainable development all over the world.
We can:
- Show that we are committed to reorienting our own way of life towards sustainable development
- Ensure that our own national activities in the spheres of international trade, investment and aid contribute to sustainable, not unsustainable, development in other parts of the world
- Participate effectively with the rest of the international community in the building of new global institutions, and the restructuring of existing ones, in support of sustainable and equitable development

The new economics points to the only effective way to deal with our problems of environmental damage, unemployment, rising poverty, growing underclass, and declining social cohesion. Its policy implications demand attention.

Robertson, J., The new economics of sustainable development, European Commission, Forward Studies Series, 1999


The UK Economy

The UK economy is the world's fourth largest. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was almost US$1.8 trillion in 2003 (equivalent to around £1.044 trillion sterling at December 2003 prices). The UK's people are the world's twelfth richest. The strongest performing sector in the UK economy is business and financial services. Measured by 'Gross Value Added' (GVA), this sector represented over 30 per cent of economic output in 2002. In contrast, agriculture's contribution dropped below one per cent whereas manufacturing comprised only about 16 per cent of GVA. Information and Communication Technologies and the creative sector both showed growth over the period 1992 - 2002. There are over 1.6 million VAT registered enterprises in the UK. Over 94 per cent of these enterprises have less than 20 employees. Around 75 per cent of people of working age are in employment. The number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance stood at 833,200 in November 2004, the lowest since July 1975.

A study by the Employment Policy Institute for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that there was a marked increase in non-activity among men aged 50 and over during the last 20 years. Personal debt in the UK stands at more than £1 trillion. This has partly been attributed to sustained low interest rates for borrowing. A survey for the Bank of England concluded that the proportion of the total debt owed by those with debt problems has actually decreased. The black economy (i.e. economic activity not declared in order to avoid tax and other obligations) has been estimated at 10.6 per cent of GDP. Based on analysis of household expenditure and income data, researchers at the University of Cyprus estimated that patterns of expenditure for households where there were self-employed individuals matched those of employees on much higher reported incomes. During the tax year 2002-2003 average gross annual pay for full time employees in the UK was £25,170, or £476 per week. This represents a growth of 2.6 per cent on the previous year.
The average UK household spent £406 per week in 2002-03. Transport was the highest category of spending, at £59 a week. On average households spent £56 a week on recreation and culture and £40 a week on food.

Between 1990 and 2002, total UK greenhouse gas emissions declined 10 per cent. However, the transport industries were one of the few exceptions to this downward trend. Greenhouse gas emissions from the transport industries were 47 per cent higher in 2002 than in 1990.The UK transport industries (mostly aviation and maritime industries) were responsible for emitting the equivalent of 86.0 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2002 compared with 58.5 million tonnes in 1990. Greenhouse gas emissions from road transport now constitute 18 per cent of all UK emissions. In spite of downsizing and restructuring of modern organisations to "flatten" management hierarchies, the ranks of managers in the UK are actually reported to be growing. Global competition has highlighted the need for adoption of modern management initiatives to deliver enhanced quality and cost-effectiveness in UK business operations. With the emphasis placed upon empowerment of employees to achieve these operational aims, the issue of development of managerial competencies within the workforce becomes paramount.
According to the Labour Force Survey, in Autumn 2004 the highest proportion of employees in the UK (14.9 per cent) worked in the "managers and senior officials" occupational group. This group, as defined by the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC), includes corporate managers and managers in agriculture and services. Based upon average hourly wage, the "managers and senior officials" occupational group is one of the highest paid across all occupational sectors in the UK, according to the autumn 2004 Labour Force Survey. The UK relies less upon family members of company owners to manage corporations and more on professional managers. The UK also has a lower proportion of managers with advanced formal educations compared with other countries, but this may be due to the higher proportion of UK employees that are classed as managers. The Changes in Employer Practices survey reports a net recorded growth in the number of managers being recruited since 1999 in all sectors. This trend was especially prominent in financial and business services, public administration, health, education, manufacturing and construction.

The smallest increase in management recruitment was expressed in the transport, storage and communications sectors yet still more respondents reported increases in management recruitment than decreases. A survey study of large service organisations showed that half the organisations studied used Competency Based Management Training (CBMT) programmes to train their managers, with the aim of increasing the availability of skills that were of direct business value. CBMT represents a significant investment for organisations in managerial competencies, with 2/3 of the organisations studied spending over £1,000 per manager and 1/3 investing over £2,000 in the training of each manager. The Management Standards Centre (MSC) defines managerial competencies based upon definition of criteria associated with effective management of people, finances, operations and information. The table below outlines six key functions associated with effective management and leadership, according to the MSC, which may be used to structure management training and competency development programs. According to a review of UK competitiveness by the Department of Trade and Industry in 2003. There is some evidence to suggest that UK companies are slower and less likely to adopt contemporary management programmes such as Total Quality Management, then their foreign counterparts, especially in the manufacturing industry. A number of explanations for this trend have been proposed, including: resistance to change, inadequate training, low private and public investment in R&D, and lack of collaborative institutions for the dissemination of management best practices.

Small and medium-sized enterprises provide more employment and business turnover in the UK than large firms and public organisations together. In 1998, firms with fewer than 250 employees employed 57 per cent of the workforce and accounted for 54 per cent of turnover. Effective management of SMEs provides certain challenges, including the control of innovation, marketing and training needs, compared with larger enterprises that possess specific departments to deal with these functions. Effective management is essential to secure competitive viability in globalised markets and the emerging knowledge-based economy. Increasing availability of information technology and Internet business means increases in the levels and strength of competition. The challenge for modern managers lies in effective "knowledge management" and the creation of perpetually "learning organisations" to achieve valued innovation in both products and business processes.

The UK population is projected to continue to grow, increasing gradually to 64.8 million by 2031. Longer-term projections suggest the population will peak around 2050 at over 65 million and then gradually start to fall. Over 90 per cent of the British population live in cities. The majority of people in the United Kingdom use their right to vote at general elections. However, the turnout in the June 2001 election was the lowest since the election in 1918. Only 59 per cent of those registered turned out to vote in 2001 compared to 76 per cent in 1979. In the last election, 41 per cent of all votes went to the Labour Party.

The UK has 78 seats in the European Parliament, which are distributed between 12 electoral regions. Elections were held for the European Parliament across Europe between 10-13 June 2004 using a system of proportional representation. Age differences in turnout were evident in the last election. In general people who were under 34 were less likely to vote than those in older age groups. Immigration levels in the UK are rising, according to Home Office control of immigration statistics. UK immigration levels have undergone a sharp increase in the years since 1998, prior to which they remained relatively stable for 10 years, at 60,000 immigrants per year. By 2003 the annual number of people granted settlement in the UK rose to just less than 140,000, an increase of 20 per cent from the previous year and approximately double the level reported in 1998. Concern over the adequacy of UK immigration and asylum systems has led to recent developments in policy in 2003 and 2004. These changes include a new asylum and immigration bill, processes for managed migration, establishment of a National Asylum Support Service (NASS) and developments in existing policies, such as those concerning migrant workers schemes. In 2002, the majority of asylum seekers were male (75 per cent), under 30 (67 per cent) and from Asia, Africa or the Middle East, with countries such as Iraq, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan at the top of the list. In terms of the number of people granted asylum annually, Home Office figures report that both applications for asylum and the number of applicants actually granted asylum in the UK in 2003 fell to 60,000, a comparable level with 1998. Slightly more than 13,000 people were granted asylum in the UK in 2003. With similar pace, application levels dropped by 42 per cent between 2002 and 2003. The International Passenger Survey IPS, is a voluntary sample survey that monitors inflow and outflow through all major points of departure between the UK and the rest of the world. It records data associated with country of visit/origin, purpose of visit, length of stay, age and gender, amongst other factors. The sample taken involves 250,000 interviews per year, representing 0.2 per cent of all travellers as they enter or leave the UK.

Sources:
http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.
www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/
rp99-111.pdf
www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=6
www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/
www.geog.ucl.ac.uk
www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration1.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/03/
uk_asylum_facts_and_figures/html/1.stm
www.cipd.co.uk
www.dfes.gov.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kyoto_Protocol_
signatories
www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/p
ublications/
factsheets.cfm

What is ecological footprinting?

A guide to local monitoring to complement the indicators in the UK Government Sustainable Development Strategy

What is ecological footprinting?
The recent UK Sustainable Development Strategy explains that the government has commissioned some research into ecological footprints for the UK.
Ecological footprinting measures the impact of human activity upon nature, by looking at our basic human consumption needs: food, materials and energy (demand) converted into areas of biologically active land required to produce them and absorb wastes (supply). It helps to illustrate how sustainable current consumption and production patterns are and creates a tangible link between local actions and global environmental impacts. This is an essential component of sustainable development that the quality of life indicator set does not currently address adequately.

Ecological footprinting is recommended for use at the regional level by the European Parliament research body, the Scientific Technology Options Assessment (STOA). www.europarl.eu.int

How can ecological footprinting be used?

There are several models and methodologies available to calculate an area’s ecological footprint. This tool is still in its infancy – but is evolving fast – and has both advantages and some important limitations to consider.

Peter Wearmouth, NHS Estates Chief Executive, speaking about Material Health – a footprint study on the NHS: ‘This study provides the first complete overview of the impact of NHS activities in England and Wales on the environment and will be a valuable tool in the debate on the future direction of the NHS’ economic, social and environmental policies.’

www.materialhealth.com
For example, it can be used to raise awareness of environmental programmes, examine the impact of policies on waste or identify unsustainable trends.

Advantages and limitations
Advantages
● Awareness raising – ecological footprinting is a powerful awareness-raising tool and has been found to have resonance for the public, policymakers and businesses. It is widely used for educational purposes – to support Local Agenda 21, environmental awareness programmes and other curriculum activities. Other examples of ecological footprint studies can be found at
www.bestfootforward.com
● Appraisal and scenario planning for policies and services – the data sets used in footprinting can be used to model different scenarios. They can inform strategic planning by examining the impact of policies and actions in areas such as waste, environment, economic and transport planning.
● Trends – the tool, used in conjunction with sustainability appraisal, can help identify unsustainable trends, opportunities for more sustainable management of resources and the challenges we face in the future. The ecological footprinting tool has the potential to feed into the sustainability process. The ODPM’s guidance on monitoring local development frameworks, published in March
2005, is also relevant, as it shows how longer-term monitoring of outcomes links with monitoring of shorter-term plan outputs.

Limitations
● Methodological constraints – existing ecological footprints consider land required to absorb carbon dioxide emissions and provide all renewable resources. This includes the embodied energy of renewable and non-renewable resources. A wide range of emissions are excluded, such as acid rain precursors and health-related emissions. Footprinting does not include the effects of pollution, loss of biodiversity, or use of water, nor does it make a distinction between the use of sustainably or unsustainably-managed resources.
● Transparency – there are some concerns around the robustness and transparency of data with the ecological footprinting tool. It is an aggregated indicator and this needs to be considered in its application. Users of footprinting need to be aware that it should not be assumed that actions to reduce the calculated footprint always have a beneficial net impact on the environment.
● Sensitivity to local factors and comparison issues – the ecological footprinting tool needs to be verified and supported with local data and should also consider economic and social indicators in order to give the whole picture of sustainable development. Different models and techniques are being used to calculate ecological footprints. These use different methodologies and produce different results, which restricts comparability.

East Europe Development Prospects

Many of the accession countries will play dual roles as aid recipients and aid donors up to and beyond accession. At stake, ultimately, is the EU’s commitment to poverty reduction and the international development targets. EU Delegations in accession countries, for instance, are still adjusting to their new decentralised responsibilities. In these the administration of inward EU investment far outweighs looking ahead to the new roles of the accession countries as donors themselves. the leading NGOs in Central and Eastern Europe owe their capacities and resources as much, if not more, to North American than European sources to date. How far will these connections and influences extend beyond accession and to what extent will European values inform aid cooperation policies?
The notion that economic development could be fostered by the application of well designed macro policies grew, in the West, largely out of the experience of war time economic planning, and the experience of the Marshall Plan in promoting economic growth in devastated areas of western Europe in the post war years. Overseas Development assistance, from Western countries to the newly independent former colonies, initially concentrated on the same approaches: investment in large scale infrastructure, health and education projects, focussing on technology transfer.

This project approach often developed into wider scale projects, such as the ‘integrated rural development projects’ which aimed to tackle several issues in the same geographic area. The initial project approach during 70s, later developed into wider scale projects, such as the ‘integrated rural development projects’ which aimed to tackle several issues in the same geographic area. Recent years have again seen major changes in the aid strategies of most multi-lateral and many bi-lateral donors. Most initiatives, for instance the Highly Indebted Countries Initiative (HPIC) and the Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) of the World Bank are focused on poverty reduction and are based on the premise that this goal will be achieved if there is ownership of the process in the recipient country.
Bi-lateral donors are similarly seeking evidence from recipient governments that there is a national strategy for reducing poverty. In addition, donors can encourage/require recipient governments to introduce those economic reforms required by the world market (or the powerful players in the world market).
One very significant aspect of these new paradigms of aid is that there is an explicit role envisaged for civil society groups both at the stage of negotiation (or at least consultation) about the government budgetary process, and at the stage of monitoring actual government expenditure. The monitoring role is about holding governments to account and possibly developing a more pro-active role in assessing the impact of specific policies.

The enlargement of the EU provides new opportunities through the inclusion of populations with additional areas of expertise in these areas. Most European bi-lateral aid is also defining explicit roles for NGOs and civil society groups, both as recipients of aid funding and as partners in policy dialogue.

Enlargement calls for the harmonisation of accession country institutions and public administration to EU models. In these regards there is no one EU model for accession countries to aspire to. The current EU is not a homogenous entity with regards to policies regarding trade, subsidies (CAP), monetary union or development cooperation.
The GDPs of Portugal, Greece and Spain are lower than those of Slovenia and Poland, and many current EU member states will find it difficult to reach the 0.39% target for ODA budgets set for 2006.

Pro-poor aid
However, most forms of tied aid are now criticised as not being in the best interests of the recipient countries. Good practice is now specifies that there should be a separation between trade and aid budgets. And, as we have seen, aid policy now focuses on methods of assistance which will benefit the poor.
Approaches include:
· The traditional use of external funds for investment in those areas of the recipient country economy which are likely to induce economic growth. This can include the transfer of skills (technical assistance). The theory here is that faster economic growth will benefit the poor in the long run through a ‘trickle down’ effect.
· External agencies can help improve domestic institutions (political, legal, judicial & administrative systems), to be more accountable and responsive to the needs of the poor. This can be through technical assistance programmes, specific interventions focussing on specific aspects of particular institutions, etc.
· External agencies can make specific poverty focussed interventions, targeted to specific populations. This can include the financing of individual projects and programmes. In recent years many donors have focused particular programmes in specific sectors, such as the health sector, or the agricultural sector. It is thought that these sector wide approaches may be more effective in making a difference in those sectors.
· External agencies can play a role as innovators – they can support new ideas as pilot projects to establish whether particular approaches can make a difference. If so, then these approaches can be scaled up and replicated more widely by domestic authorities.
The fourth generation of approaches is comparatively recent, and builds on the
advocacy approach. This generation looks to the power of global social movements to bring about the types of changes required in global institutions necessary for pro-poor strategies. This approach is seen as being, potentially, more sustainable in that social movements are not driven by budgets or organisational structures, but rather by ideas, by a vision of a better world.
Whilst not all Western NGDOs have ‘progressed’ through these four generations of approaches at the same rate, and whilst not all of them would agree of the necessity to be working at the fourth level, it is useful to understand this evolution of approaches, since it corresponds to a certain degree with the changes in models of ODA. Thus, official development assistance from the big donors, including the EU, is encouraging the active involvement of NGOs and other civil society groups in the development of pro-poor strategies. At the same time, NGDOs perceive the need to be involved in policy dialogue, in order to bring about lasting change.

Co-ordinating Platforms of NGDOs in accession countries


In the years following 1989, ODA programmes decreased dramatically, (although scholarship programmes were often maintained). Former donor countries in Central and Eastern Europe often became net recipients of assistance. Where ODA programmes are being re-developed, however, the structures for their administration have tended to remain the same as they were during the socialist period, with decisions about ODA being made and coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The institutional arrangements of most of those accession countries from Central and Eastern Europe, which have an ODA programme, continue to be similar to those that existed during the socialist period. Thus, the responsibility for the programme generally lies with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which may play a co-ordinating role for programmes which are identified and funded from within other Ministries. The majority of ODA in recent years has been to fund Humanitarian programmes, and in support of diasporas in neighbouring countries, with the greater part of funding going to neighbouring countries (South Eastern Europe, countries of the Former Soviet Union).

The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia are all in the process of developing new policies, structures and institutions for their ODA programmes. The Czech Republic has established The Czech Republic
Development Centre which will take responsibility for the ODA programme of the CR and for managing UNDP’s programmes to assist ODA. Its strategy identifies new thematic priorities, which include:
· Support to the fostering of democratic changes, human rights and social justice;
· Support to equal integration of developing countries into the global economy, with emphasis on use of information technologies;
· Support to sustainable development and the protection of the environment.

The Slovak Republic has also recently adopted a new policy document to establish the basis of its ODA programme. It’s development cooperation work is supported by the Slovak Institute of International Studies and the recently opened Centre for Development Studies, which act as co-ordinating and advisory bodies for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is expected that SE Europe will continue to be one of the priority regions of Slovak assistance, due to the region’s proximity, cultural links and the need for a small country like Slovakia to provide cost effective assistance. Slovakia has experienced a particularly difficult and volatile transitional process and one result is an active and coordinated NGO sector, and some of the most active and effective Development NGOs in the region. The Slovak Charter of Principles regarding ODA (December 1999) and the MFA recognise the value of the Slovak NGO and NGDO experience and notes its independence. In 2001 Slovakia allocated .042% of its GDP - $9.5m to ODA.

Hungary’s state owned consultancy, TESCO, has recently created a nominally
autonomous non-profit entity, called HUN-IDA, and which is likely to become the
implementing partner of the new ODA mechanism. Prior to 1989 the focus of the
TESCO programmes was aid to Latin America (Cuba) and Africa and 44% of this aid was through the technical support of Hungarian specialists. 48% of its training and technical support went to Cuba. In July 2001 a New Concept Paper for development cooperation adopted the DAC International Development Goals with its focus on poverty eradication. The government emphasises the importance of peace, security and solidarity in its ODA work. Priority areas are south east Europe and the Balkans, the FSU, and selected countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Three million Hungarians live outside Hungary in neighbouring countries and these communities remain a priority focus of what Hungary classifies as ODA.
Poland also places great importance on the stability of her eastern neighbours, for historical and cultural reasons, as well as the potential benefits to Poland if Belarus and Ukraine develop stable, pluralist democracies able to meet the economic and social needs of their peoples. There are also significant Polish minorities in these states and in Kazakhstan.
Slovenia, with Poland, has the highest GDP of the 10 accession countries in transition. Since 1997 and the end of the war in Bosnia, Slovenia’s ODA has increased rapidly due to financial independence and the changed political situation. It is estimated that Slovenia currently spends .01% to .02% of its GDP (around $3m) on ODA. 90% of this is bilateral and through the Stability Pact in south east Europe. Throughout the Soviet period faith based organisations maintained informal and underground links, and in the early 90s these were the most successful groups to rebuild national and regional links and networks. Poland, the Czech and Slovakian Republics, for example, have a large
number of church groups with experience of providing development assistance. Pre-1945 missionary and church based links with the South have been renewed and formed the basis of extending national NGOs work into development and ODA. The four Visegrad countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) all have a strong tradition of charitable giving and volunteering. Each of these countries now has a core of NGDOs with overseas experience in a range of countries and sectors.
In addition, those NGOs with experience in humanitarian, reconstruction and
development work have been able to use these skills in other countries, both in the region and elsewhere. For instance the Hungarian NGO, Hungarian Interchurch Aid, is involved in humanitarian work in former Yugoslavia, Chechnya and the Ukraine, and more recently in Afghanistan with Hungarian government support. Regional and third country projects now form 40% of the Hungarian Civil Society Development Foundation’s work supporting NGOs. Slovak and Romanian organisations, recruited & trained election observers for OSCE missions in former Yugoslavia.

NGOs in Poland, in particular, have a great deal of experience in international
cooperation. Over 100 organisations are active in the Balkans and the Former Soviet Union. Many of the larger Polish NGDOs have regional offices. As the author of a recent report notes: ‘Polish organisations seem to have developed a niche role as regional co-ordinators and implementing partners for foreign funders, who prefer to use Central European NGOs to implement their programmes in the FSU’.


The Czech Republic Platform, the Czech Forum for Development Cooperation, was established in 2002 with 16 founding members. It has a formal coordinating
body which is organised by the largest NGDO, People In Need. Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania have no Platforms. Hungary and Estonia have active NGDOs and are expected to develop national Platforms. The other countries have active forums for NGOs on national issues and currently their activities and concerns are focused inwards on national policy and advocacy issues and social needs, and the legislative basis of NGO activities in their countries.
NGDOs in the region are keen to cooperate with the MFAs and other stakeholders and play an active role in the new ODA system. They feel their specialist knowledge and experience, having often led and developed the ODA of many accession countries throughout the nineties, is under-used by the MFA, and would like to play a greater role in the development and implementation of ODA, including participation in the development of strategy and administrative mechanisms.

Policy Options for the accession countries

Only now, through the re-development of ODA policies as part of the accession
process, is the experience and knowledge of development assistance gained in the Soviet period beginning to be reviewed and re-considered. Up till now this experience tends to have been ignored as part of the communist past; also, during the 1990s, the study and issues of the transition process took precedence. 80% of pre 1989 ODA was through the provision of technicians and experts (particularly doctors and engineers) to developing countries. It would be useful and informative to assess the impact of the past socialist development assistance programmes. For example, it would be very useful for those countries which provided significant scholarship programmes for students from
developing countries, to assess the contribution made by these, the remaining links and impact, and the value added (as seen by both parties) of re-commencing international development links.
An interesting example of this legacy is a current initiative in Slovakia. Angolan-Slovaks who studied in Czechoslovakia and then stayed, have formed an NGDO to support communities in Angola. Through the TRIALOG project this NGO is establishing links and projects with Angolan NGOs, and capacity building and training support from Portugese NGOs.

MFAs and development institutes already recognise the need to
adopt a strategic approach to development cooperation. Currently the focus of
accession country official ODA is on a limited number of strategic and neighbouring countries. These countries – in south east Europe, states of the Former Soviet Union and Central Asia – are all in transition.
There is significant expertise and experience, in government and NGOs, gained since 1992 in the economic, institutional and social transformations required in the processes of democratisation and economic transition, and the development of an active civil society. Some accession countries have already begun to use this experience in work in the Former Soviet Union and the Balkans, and this could be developed and built on.
Extending their focus and support not just to the most recent countries in transition in Central Asia but also to China and Vietnam etc.
Angola, Cuba, Vietnam, Libya and many countries in the Middle East (including Palestine and Iraq) and North Africa (Algeria as an example) are examples where the renewed involvement of East European member states may revive and renew EU development cooperation programmes.

Set up in 1999 at the EU’s initiative, the Stability Pact aims to strengthen the countries of SE Europe “in their efforts to foster peace, democracy, respect for human rights and economic prosperity in order to achieve stability in the whole region.” The Stability Pact consists of three working tables on Democracy and Human Rights, Economic Reconstruction, Development and Cooperation, and Security and Defence. These working tables are made up of representatives from South Eastern Europe together with the other member organisations (other EU member states, non EU members of the G8, Norway and Switzerland, International Organisations (eg UN, OSCE, NATO), IFIs and other regional initiatives. The working tables both negotiate agreements and administer
funds to selected projects. Participation in the Working Tables has enabled countries of the region to enter into policy dialogue and to use their specific knowledge and experience to inform the policy process: as an example, Slovenia has gained significant experience in chairing the working group on Human Rights and National Minorities and has used this experience in developing its own ODA programme.

However, the whole process has been driven by a very top-down process. Participating countries have been represented by representatives from the MFAs, and decisions made are therefore of an administrative and political nature, without the full understanding and support of the wider society.
Slovenia is focusing its ODA on stabilising and developing the states of former
Yugoslavia. Croatia and Macedonia have also supported refugee and humanitarian aid programmes in the area.

Whilst there is a strong tradition of charitable giving within some countries and some sectors of the population, public support for international development cannot be assumed. Of the 10 Eastern European accession countries only Slovenia and Poland have a GDP higher than they had 10 years ago in 1992.
There is the real need for the development of strong linkages between the NGDO sector and the local, domestic population, in order for a strong development programme, with well-rooted domestic support and understanding, to emerge. The systematic involvement of civil society in the process of enlargement will be a decisive factor in creating a Europe committed to the promotion of sustainable economic, social and democratic development in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The Joint Commission/Council Statement on EC Development Policy of November 2000 further re-inforces that “Poverty eradication is the ultimate objective” of all EU development cooperation policies. In the majority of accession countries no central budget for ODA can be realistically
estimated as expenditure on international cooperation activities is often made from the budgets of a number of ministries. The definition between aid and trade, foreign policy initiatives and development cooperation is not always clear. For example, when attempting to calculate the amount spent by Slovenia on ODA in 2000/01, Dr. Mojmir Mrak, an economist from the University of Slovenia, needed to review data regarding the balance of payments, and the overseas expenditure of various ministries. This is because agricultural aid is administered by the Ministry of Agriculture, certain loans from the Ministry of Finance, infrastructure support and aid via the Ministry of Trade and so on.
In 2001/02 Slovakia allocated US$9.5 m to a central ODA budget held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Capacity Building Requirements for the region

The TRIALOG Project is a project of the NGDO – EU Liaison Committee (CLONG), which is the NGDO representational and co-ordinating body in Brussels for EU NGOs in Development (NGDOs). The project is coordinated from Vienna by the Austrian Platform. The project is in its third year (2000–2003) and has supported the creation of networks of NGDOs in accession countries as the basis of platforms of NGOs working in development in each country. The recently created platforms in Malta, the Czech Republic and Slovakia received TRIALOG support and are represented on the TRIALOG Project Steering Group. The project also facilitates, through seminars and an electronic database and information service, East-South and East-West dialogue on development and project partnerships. The project has developed a website and NGO database, produced policy and research papers on issues related to enlargement, enabled delegates from accession countries to attend CLONG and EC events in Brussels and thematic conferences in the region; and organised and facilitated capacity-building workshops and thematic seminars with the participation of delegates from candidate countries, the EU and global South.


Further Capacity Building Requirements
There is a variety of different levels of expertise associated with developing Official
Development Assistance Programmes:
· Knowledge of development issues and debates and the need for development education. Currently, there is not a high level of understanding either among the wider populations, nor within the government itself. Poland is currently taking the initiative by planning training on development issues for its diplomatic staff. There needs to be more of this.
· Development of appropriate mechanisms to administer and manage an ODA programme. MFAs, or other emerging bodies, which will administer ODA
programmes, need to be informed about the debates and enabled to take a
facilitative and strategic approach to developing well-rooted and coherent policies and mechanisms. MFAs need to create an operational environment which is Capacity building of civil society Whilst the new approaches of the World bank and other multilateral & bilateral donors talk of the need to include civil society in discussions about development strategies, the formulation of policy and the monitoring of outcomes, there is a fundamental difference
between different understandings of the term capacity building. Everyone agrees that Capacity Building is necessary in order for civil society to be involved in policy dialogue, but the different understandings of the term have different implications for the practice. In an early document, the World Bank usefully identified three elements to capacity building:
· Human development (basic health, education, nutrition and technical skills);
· Restructuring of many public and private institutions to create a context in which
skilled workers can function effectively;
· Political leadership that understands that institutions are fragile entities,
painstakingly built up, easily destroyed, and therefore requiring sustained nurturing.
A more democratic interpretation of what we mean by capacity building focuses on an explicit role for civil society actors in defining and shaping their own human development. UNDP defines this new approach as follows: “Traditional donor driven… and expert led practices are giving way to approaches promoting indigenous control, local knowledge and participation, and the dynamics and inter-relationships among various actors and levels of national programmes.”



New Paradigm for Capacity Development:

Nature of development: Societal transformation including building of ‘right capacities’
Conditions for effective development cooperation: Good policies that have to be home grown
The asymmetric donor recipient Relationship: Should be specifically
addressed as a problem by taking countervailing measures
Capacity development: Three cross-linked layers of capacity: individual;
institutional; societal
Acquisition of knowledge: Knowledge has to be acquired
Most important forms of Knowledge: Local knowledge combined with knowledge acquired from other countries – in the South or North

References:
- Anastasakis O & Bojicic-Dzelilovic V, (2002) Balkan Regional Cooperation and European Integration The Hellenic Observatory, the European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science
- Andersen l, Brzica D, Szep A, Hanspach D. ( 2002) Changing from Recipients to Donors of Technical Cooperation – Central Europe and the Baltic States . - - Czech republic. UNDP Cheema G S, (1997) Capacity Development: Technical Advisory Paper 2. UNDP.
- Cox A & Healey J. (2000) European Development Cooperation and the Poor . London. MacMillan Press & ODI
- Deputy Minister Vosalik, (2002) Resume of Conference on International Development Assistance of the Czech Republic. Czech Republic
- Bond Networker (April 2002) 15+12=the Future of EU Development Policy.
- European Commission (1997) Promoting the Role of Voluntary Organisations and Foundations in Europe
- EU DG Environment – NGO dialogue, (Nov 2001)Role of NGOs in pre-accession and capacity building. NGO position paper – EU-NGO Dialogue
- GTZ Orienting Policy Advice in Technical Cooperation, GTZ website.
- Krichewsky L. (2002) Development Policy in the Candidate Countries Vienna, Trialog
- Korten D. (1989) Getting to the 21st Century: Voluntary Action & the Global Agenda
- Novak A, (200) Summary of Findings & recommendations, Re-inforcing NGDO participation in ODA Canada, CIDA unpublished.
- Papic Z et al, (2001) International Support Policies to South East European Countries – Lessons (not) learned in B H Muller, Sarajevo
- Trialog newsletter no.1 2002
- UNDP (2002) (Capacity for Development No. 8, New Solutions to Old Problems London, Earthscan
- UNDP, (1995) Meeting the Challenge of the Emerging Global System International NGO Forum in Manila.

Progress

Progress, once the extreme manifestation of radical optimism and a promise of lasting happiness, has moved toward fatalistic pole of anticipations. It now stands for the threat of a relentless and inescapable change that augurs no peace and respite but continuous crisis and forbids a moment of rest. Unable to slow down the pace of change, let alone to predict and control its direction, we focus on things we can or are assured that we can influence. We try to calculate and minimize the risks that we personally, or those nearest and dearest may fall victims of the uncountable dangers which the uncertain future hold in store. Each extra lock on the entry door in response to successive rumours of terror prompts more panic and defensive action.

Oxfam GB Livelihoods Strategy

Our strategy on livelihoods has to be situated within our overall strategy for overcoming poverty. Thus our foundation is that all human beings have a set of rights (which are fundamental and universal); poverty is caused by power imbalances; and poverty is multidimensional including income and asset poverty; lack of access to health, education and other public goods; greater vulnerability to natural disasters and conflict; lack of a say in political and social forums; and social exclusion on the basis of gender or identity. The aim is to build on our comparative advantage of unrivalled access to both people living in poverty and to some of the most powerful decision-makers in the world, and seek to change the ideas, beliefs, policies and practices causing poverty and suffering. Efforts should be channeled toward ensuring that programmes bring about real changes in people’s lives at the local level and can be leveraged to bring about wider changes in policies and practices. We believe all human beings have economic rights as part of their fundamental human rights. Power imbalances in markets are fundamental causes of poverty and reversing such power imbalances has the potential to lift millions out of poverty. This can happen both by people organising to gain more power in markets and by governments and other organisations redistributing resources and regulating/managing markets to rebalance power. It is crucial that economies are managed to achieve growth with equity, with special attention to women’s economic rights. There is increasing evidence that policies that promote equity not only lead to rapid progress on poverty reduction, but also are good for growth in the short and longer term. Furthermore such policies can convert that growth into further poverty reduction. We have the expertise and authority to influence others who can help us to achieve this vision. We have developed programmes that assist people in gaining power in markets, and have launched our global Trade Campaign.livelihoods programme has made a real impact on large numbers of people’s lives, for example helping people gain access to land, to microfinance, and to fishing rights and as a result to greater food security. We have also helped a significant number of people to increase their income through improved skills, productivity, product quality and access to new markets. Many of our interventions are only helping people maintain the status quo rather than move forward. Furthermore these people’s livelihoods remain very vulnerable to external shocks or changes.

We have based our aim to assisst people to build truly sustainable livelihoods. There exists potential area to focus on developing programmes that can influence national policy change and link to international issues. This means we should leverage as much change or impact for as many people as we potentially could. It is advisable not to scatter or disperse our efforts instead ensuring that they build on each other and contribute to well-defined goals at a number of levels (local, national etc.). Closely aligned to this, there is a need on more learning about what works and what doesn’t work in a way that helps us to replicate successful efforts. We have built common framework in which to share lessons and have tried to associate with the key people and processes to ensure learning happens. NGO staff should be informed and made clear about the wider vision and purpose that underlies and unites both our local programme work and campaigns. There should be well-communicated definition of what we are trying to change in the global economic system and clear the confusion amongst aid workers about our stance on both markets and growth which might at times be contradictory. This should not hamper strategic clarity. We have set ourselves to analyse the local situation and wider policy/economic environment holistically, and try to succeed to assess the impact of gender differentials and HIV/AIDS which might be difficult due to lack of access to local statistics. While huge strides have been made over the last few years at integrating our humanitarian and development work, major opportunities exist to further improve integration around livelihoods work. To move now to our chosen strategic themes in more detail, we test each of them against the following critera:
Global impact and importance
Our ability to make change happen
Agriculture plays four fundamental roles in poverty eradication:
As a key contributor to economic growth and the strongest source of pro-poor growth:
Studies have shown that a 1% increase in agricultural productivity has a much stronger effect on poverty reduction in the poorest parts of the world than an equivalent gain in manufacturing or services. Furthermore, there is evidence that a well-functioning agriculture sector is a pre-requisite for growth in other sectors.
Agriculture accounts for 37% of African GNP and 27% of GNP in South Asia, and 50% of African exports.
As a key part of livelihoods strategies for hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest:
75% of the world’s poorest live in rural areas.
In Africa, 2/3 of the labour force is employed/self-employed in agriculture, and in South Asia 60%.
As a provider of locally available staple foods.
Through sustainable management of natural resources.
Studies also show that agriculture plays a key role as a “motor” of growth in rural areas, by leading to growth in off-farm employment and supporting food security of non-producers as well as farmers. Our focus will be primarily on small-scale farmers, as we believe this can contribute to wider poverty reduction including benefits to the landless. We will work directly with the landless where we believe that this is a leverage point for wider change or a major opening for successful impact.Link the micro to the macro to help ensure national/international policy change
Help people to organise to get more power in markets. When people organise effectively they are able to buy more efficiently; gain greater access to assets including finance and land; get better prices for their products; and integrate forward into activities such as storage, marketing, processing and transportation. These are the advantages that enable small-scale farmers to compete with larger organisations, as described in the BRAC example below:
we will clarify what we mean by ‘sustainable’ interventions in terms of our livelihoods programme, as different staff members understand this in different ways. The definition will include aspects of sustainability like building social capital, finances, influencing the policy environment, and diminishing other risks and vulnerabilities as much as possible.
With increasing capital mobility and demands for rapid delivery of products, labour standards are continuing to decrease despite years of campaigning to the contrary.
The inequity of the global system is very well-illustrated by workers in export industries, which are critical to national economies (e.g. ready-made garments are 5% of GDP and 76% of exports in Bangladesh) but where workers receive a pittance. Working in this theme will allow us to question the prevailing wisdom of foreign investment as a means of employment creation and poverty reduction. A programme with women workers in global trading chains gives us a key leverage point for impact on global labour legislation and practice:

The ‘worst off’ workers – precarious or temporary workers – tend to be women, who can not migrate to better jobs given their caring responsibilities.
Global trading chains are also the ‘worst’ in eroding labour rights, as legislation is allowing employers to set up a class of workers who receive no social protection. This is a dangerous precedent.
Finally, this theme provides a focal point for work on gendered economic analysis, which increases our impact across other sectors and themes.

Effective policy making

There are number of major management miscalculations that reflects fundamental confusion of how it is possible to operate in decentralized institutions:

1. Not making use of the skills of insiders
A competent manager does not have to be an insider to be effective; however, the newcomer cannot expect to understand how the system works immediately, and is best advised to rely in the early years on experienced and trusted insiders to guide them through the system. To have distrust of everyone and bringing all new faces in, can become disadvantageous for effective management. The newcomers do not know how to get things done, and will loose the respect of those who should have been close allies. Soon everyone will be alienated from the circle. The strategy to not appoint insiders due to distrust, or to avoid becoming co-opted by insiders rarely works. Those work with insiders who either share their goals or would at least go along with them have learned their lessons of how to make things work. Their expertise will enable managers to obtain necessary concessions for what they are most committed and wish to pursue, although not in line with the trend. One of the advantages of such insiders is that they know who counts and who does not count. Heads of entities always have high status but at times not much power, and their prominence and their appearances in public should not be mistaken for power. Without previous in-depth experience, and particularly when managers come to their organisation from a different mind set, their understanding of the structure of opinion within the organisation on given matters may be limited. Managers acquire power on particular issues when they are speaking or acting in a way that clearly reflects strongly felt opinions within their own environment; they then have a constituency behind them that empowers them. Consulting insiders, as if they necessarily constitute a powerful group within the organisation, is to miss the point of how power is actually exercised in any given organisation.

2. Not prioritising between policy objectives
In hierarchical structures it is much easier to pursue multiple goals than in decentralized ones. Managers who fail to decide which policy were their most important, will leave their position with much of their major issue left on the shelves. In all institutions there is a danger that not prioritizing will stretch the senior officials too much, such that flaws in a particular policy proposal are not detected. In decentralized institutions there is the added danger that unlikely coalitions of opponents will form - opponents who would not have coalesced had policy been enacted sequentially on a case by case basis.

3. Not working with what is already on the table
Those that can most transform the role of the board, have not worked from some new and grand blue print that has guided their policy initiatives. The successful administration not constructed from an elaborate blue print rather the bringing together of a variety of policy proposals. In decentralized institutions, where there are so many points of veto, radically new policies are always likely to pick up so many enemies in the process of debate that hey fail. It is much easier to work with what has already been around in the policy network for some time, but not enacted, reshape it, and then use it for your own purposes. Again it is all so unnecessary even for an administration that has a radical agenda; there are other ways of enacting its agenda that could have been more effective - with the administration playing the system to its own advantage, rather than trying to overrun it. The point is that those who have no prior experience of decentralized institutions may fail to see how to operate effectively when first confronted with them. The real danger, therefore, is that, should they then be faced with dealing with consequences of events over which they have had little influence, they may have expended already too many political resources and lost the active support of too many potential allies.


Reference: Oxford University Magazine, Michaelmas term, 2005

Ethno politics in the New Europe

What makes ethnicity politically explosive in some places and not in others? It is contended that political leaders and political parties are a crucially important variable in shaping the course of ethnic politics. They react to the incentive presented by the political institution and intensify the potentials already existed spatially. Where there are signs of ethnic resentments then the incentives is proliferated by these institutions, for their leaders to tap into these resentments for political gain. Political leadership, charisma of the leader and international trend are crucial variables to whip moderate resentments into strong political demands setting entirely different agenda. Political leaders, however, cannot manufacture resentments that are not already present and cannot ignore completely severe inequities that face ethnic groups in a society. The Turkish movement for rights and freedoms in Bulgaria, the Hungarian parties in Slovakia, the Russophone parties in Estonia and Latvia, the Flemish Volksunic and Vlaams Blok in Belgium, and the Scottish National Party in Britain have this in common. Their leaders calculated whether to appeal to the sense of ethnic resentment among their constituents or to downplay it on the basis of the political possibilities presented by the political institutions of their society.

There is much to be learned from the choices made by leaders to encourage or downplay the ethnic issue, since there is nothing natural about ethnic conflict. The post Cold War era has given rise to a new dogma which holds that the new world order has unleashed primordial conflicts. The making political integration and democracy nigh on impossible. From this perspective violence follows ethnic tensions, while the old system of states taken unnatural. Recognition of natural differences, local trends and culture, divide up the real estate to provide different peoples with their own homelands. Economic, social, political and historical factors can lead to the rise of extreme national sentiment and intense feelings of anger over current political arrangements. Certainly the actions of individual parties can be set off a chain reaction leading to an ethnic explosion. Nonetheless, there are just as many instances where an ethnically based political movement does not lobby for an ethnically pure homeland or political separation but seeks to behave democratically. In ethnically divided societies, the introduction democratic competition and expanded political participation has often led to disintegrative ethnic conflict. Thus, democratization in Eastern Europe given way to the greater appeal for all encompassing nationalist slogans, especially in a context of permanent struggle with the enemy furthering the conflict driven social relation. Nevertheless, even when the opportunities presented by waging war or regime change push the ethno political party into making extreme demand, these demands may be tempered overtime, especially if democratic transition is successful and there is a period of democratic consolidation. Nationalism plays an important role in social communication or the transmission of the culture of a people across territory and through history, this is particularly important in societies undergoing modernization that uproots traditional systems of social solidarity, requiring new concept of community the structure of group relations as a sociocultural factor impacts the quality of resentments. There are condition of superordinate versus subordinate or unranked system where parallel ethnic groups coexist, each internally stratified. Resentments in ranked systems, when they emerge are couched in terms of class conflict and demands for redistribution of resources because the issues of ethnicity and class are intertwined. In addition, changes in the international environment has major impact on the political view of utility in pursuing accommodationist or separatist end.
There are three types of elites that comprise any nationalist movement who react differently towards nationalism and towards the central state, according to Kellas: a political elite “comprising politicians, civil servants and military”; the cultural elite, especially teachers, writers and clergy and the economic elite comprising businessmen and trade union leaders. The cultural elite is most likely to be inclined toward the extreme to promote an idealized national identity upon which their careers depend. While economic elite does not wish to severe its links with market, the role of political elite is crucial in the balance of power.

In the case of Bulgaria during the Zhivkor era in 80s, the existence of minority groups was officially denied and thousand of non Bulgarians were subjected to a series of Bulgarization campaigns. Ethnic Turks have long played an important role in Bulgarian history. Being part of Ottoman Empire Bulgaria has been intimately connected with Turkey and Islam. From 1912 to 193 Bulgaria engaged in two wars. In the first war, it combined with the other new Balkan states to drive the Turkish forces out of the region. In the second war it was defeated by the combined forces of Serbia and Greece and lost territories in Macedonia. The large Turkish population left in Bulgaria constitute the largest of minority populations (10% of population) including Gypsies and Pomaks (Muslims), Jews, and Armenians. For the most part ethnic Turks live in agrarian areas, primarily in the tobacco-growing Kardzhali region in south central Bulgaria and Razgrad-Shumen in north-eastern Bulgaria. Most of the Turkish population live in the provinces of Ruse, Varna, and Shumen in the north and Burgas and Haskovo in the south and form a majority in eight sub provinces, four of which are in northern Bulgaria and four in the south. Bulgarian regime had been reasonably tolerant of its minority populations. The adoption in 1971 of a new socialist constitution marked the beginning of a period of cultural intolerance and efforts at the forced assimilation of the Turks. During the period of liberalization (1989), the government reversed itself and allowed ethnic Turks to revert to their old names, practice Islam and speak Turkish in public. Following the democratic changes in Bulgaria an estimated 120,000 to 180,000 Turks returned to Bulgaria. However many Bulgarians still currently regard the ethnic Turkish minority as a potential Trojan hous e and a Turkish fifth column on Bulgaria territory, a sentiment that is most powerful in the south eastern region of the country.

With the dissolution of Warsaw Pact, Bulgaria no longer has the means to defend itself against Turkey’s superior armed forces. In a nation wide survey conducted in 1994, respondents were asked whether they would be willing to accept a Turk or Roma as a neighbour; 35% said they would not, 32% would not accept as colleagues at work and 52% as close friend and 77% as a relative by marriage. Many of the current problems are the result of the legacy of ill conceived economic policies of the communist regime. The Council of Mutual Economic Assistance CME accused one of the most crushing foreign debt burdens among the communist states. The gross agricultural production fell by 16.3 % in 1993 marked the loss of important markets for Bulgarian products - tobacco and wine. Many villages in the tobacco producing regions of the south east have been entirely abandoned, many have left for Turkey but emigration has become unofficially restricted by Turkey. Bulgarian nationalist parties like the Fatherland of labour and the Bulgarian National Radical see Bulgaria as the primary battle ground in the difense of Eu against Islam. It is widely understood that western politics and economic support is likely to depend on Bulgarian policies toward minority groups. Hence, major political parties are cautious of national minority rights. The Movement for Rights and Freedom MRF represents a classic case of an accomodationist ethno political party.. Until 94 MRF represented a broad coalition of Bulgarian Turkish politicians, ranging from those who favoured some form of national-cultural autonomy to those who wished to maintain the commitment to multiethnic principles.

References:
Kellas, J.G., The politics of nationalism and ethnicity, 1991, New York
Krause, S., Elections reveal blue cities amid red provinces, transition 9 no 29 (1995)
Engelbrekt, Kjell, The movement for rights and freedom, report on East Europe 2, no 48 (1995)
Wyzam, M., Bulgaria a country study, in Hardt and Kaufman, eds. 1995

East Europe: splitting nationalities

Until the sixteenth century, nationalities had little opportunity to realize their common attributes, because the social and geographical aspects of a multinational environment prevented it. One factor included the fragmentation of common nationalities by class: nobility, peasant, and a restricted middle class. The nobility of a territory, what ever their nationality, considered themselves members of one class. Another factor concerned language, for the educated people used Latin, Greek, French or German. Even when their written language had the same origin as the vernacular, it differed from the spoken language (Kohn 1942). As a result the nobility and peasants, even of the same nationality, could not communicate easily. Perhaps the greatest disadvantage, however, was that no literary form existed in the vernacular language for preserving national traditions. In addition, the problem of parochialism, ie, overcoming distances, compounded class and language differences in splitting nationalities. The residents of a territory were familiar with only the local area to which they could be loyal and not to the area occupied by a nationality. Furthermore, nationalities adhered to various international religious that tended to hinder the expression of national feelings. Lastly, political organisation which might have focused national feeling did not correspond to nationality. For a long time multinational states dominated in Eu because the forces of patriotism to territory or ruler were stronger than loyalty to natinal group. Cohesion between members of a nationality because fragmented by factors of class, language, distance, religion and political organisation.

The three absolute empires Prussia, Austria, Germany as well as Russia that ruled East Europe must be separated from the forth Empire of East Europe – the Ottoman. This fourth empire which ruled over portions of the Balkans for periods of up to five hundred years, had political, economic, and social characteristics markedly different fromt hose of the other three. These characteristics help to explain why the Balkans evolved in a divergent way from the rest of East Europe. The Ottoman Empire represented a military state supported by Islamic faith. Its structure rested on perpetual military conquest because the administrative and military bureaucracies were drawn from slaves, mostly conscripted in the Christian areas of the Balkans. Supplementing this group was a native Islamic military class that was given landed estate from which they drew revenues in exchange for providing military services. However they did not constitute a noble class in the European sense, for all land in the Ottoman Empire belonged to the Sultan. The primary goal of the state was the fiscal exploitation of the imperial possessions except beyond the Danube river – in Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania – where a native landholding class was allowed to remain. Elsewhere, the existing nobilities were eliminated. This goal of exploitation helps to explain the economic backwardness of the Balkans under Turkish rule, a condition, of course reflected in part in the landscape: without a noble class of land owners, the land was not cultivated in any systematic way, and large areas of uncultivated land existed throughout the Balkans because may Christian peasants were driven into mountain areas or to large towns. An indirect result of Turkish exploitation, therefore, was the depopulation of certain areas; for example, village settlement on the Hungarian plain declined as people fled to the towns for protection. Christians paid larger taxes than Moslems, which often prompted conversions to the Islamic faith. Today’s Moslems still dominate the population in areas where conversions were greatest as in Bosnia.

Although comparative statistics are lacking, Berend and Ranki (1974) point out that Britain, Germany, and France before the first World War produced 72% of Europe’s population produced 6.3% of the industrial output; over one-half came from the East Europe portion with 60% of this from bohemia. These figures demonstrate that East Europe before the first world war was not heavily industrialized except in parts of Prussia. Industrial programs have been carried out through a series of national plans which have been helped by the public ownership of the means for production and controlled allocation of resources. The pattern of industrial location under socialism eludes easy analysis, because a variety of explanatory factors are present including autarky, military, strategy, ethnic minorities, unexploited raw materials, existing centres, and cooperation through the east Europe common market, large integrated steel plants in all countries, t he improvement of backward areas like Slovakia, the decentralization of older industrial regions like upper Silesia, and oil pipeline from Russia to four countries.


Rugg, Dean S., East Europe, Longman publishing, 1985