Civil Society and its Institutions

Any Institutional activities in the world
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Post by Admin »

Coincidentally, this Statement from the White House comes few days after Hazar Imam's plane flew on 19th September 2014 to Tucson, Arizona from Montreal, Canada. :D
Last edited by Admin on Wed Sep 24, 2014 4:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Admin »

This is the video of President Obama announcing the partnership

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGTI-Y5mYk4
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Announcement in Jk

President Obama Acknowledges AKDN Partnership in Empowering Civil Society
On behalf of AKDN agencies, the Aga Khan Foundation USA and Jamati Institutions are pleased to inform the Jamat of President Obama's landmark "Standing by Civil Society" speech on Tuesday, September 23, 2014.

Speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, President Obama announced a new, groundbreaking initiative to support and connect civil society across the globe through the launch of Regional Civil Society Innovation Centers, in partnership with the Government of Sweden and the Aga Khan Development Network. These innovation centers will “empower civil society groups around the world,” the President stated.

The detailed mandates of these Centers will be developed jointly, with respective AKDN Agencies. They are expected to, among other things, connect civil society organizations at the regional and global level; encourage peer-to-peer learning; provide civil society organizations and their networks platforms to access tools and technologies and amplify civil society voices.

The Jamat may be aware that Mawlana Hazar Imam has paid particular emphasis on civil society, noting during his address to the Canadian Parliament "that it is one of the most powerful forces in our time, one that will become an increasingly universal influence.” This partnership will help implement that vision.

Our heartiest mubarakis to the Jamat for this historic joint endeavor between the United States and the Aga Khan Development Network along with our gratitude for Jamat’s generosity towards the AKDN Agencies over the years, which has made this partnership possible.
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Post by kmaherali »

Statement by Minister Paradis on Canada’s Commitment to Protect and Promote an Enabling Environment for Civil Society

“Canada has a strong track record of support for civil society, one that is recognized around the world and can serve as a model to other nations. As recently mentioned by His Highness the Aga Khan, ‘Canada is uniquely able to articulate and exemplify three critical underpinnings of a quality civil society—a commitment to pluralism, to meritocracy, and to a cosmopolitan ethic.’

http://www.international.gc.ca/media/de ... x?lang=eng

http://www.international.gc.ca/media/de ... x?lang=eng

http://www.international.gc.ca/developm ... x?lang=eng
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Post by kmaherali »

Afghanistan Institute for Civil Society launched with the help of AKDN

Kabul, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 17 February 2015 – A new Institute promoting Afghanistan civil society was launched today in Kabul.

The Afghanistan Institute for Civil Society’s objective is to act as an independent, national agency that raises the credibility of civil society actors, by certifying them in accordance with locally defined and internationally recognized standards.

The Institute will also focus on coordination of civil society building efforts, and liaison with government, donors, the private sector and civil society. AICS aspires to enhance the quality, competence and merit of civil society across Afghanistan and to support an enabling environment to encourage the growth of a vibrant and credible civil society sector in the country.

Via http://www.partnershipsinaction.org/node/2021
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below is about how civil society institutions can bring about socio-economic equality in times of robotic changes.

"A combination of public works and guaranteed welfare (not, by the way, a dirty word) is the best top-down solution for the short term. But the bottom-up situation has even more potential for a more equitable economic system. What we’re seeing, on a small but growing scale, is a world where energy and even power may become increasingly decentralized, and communities are building more on local and regional levels, creating organizations that benefit more of their members. Worker ownership — which, for obvious reasons, combats income inequality directly — is becoming more common, and these organizations are talking to one another locally. Even something as simple as the farm-to-school movement means that economies are becoming more local and communities are supporting their own businesses."

More....

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opini ... ticle&_r=0
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Post by kmaherali »

FARMAN ON IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL SOCIETIES

"The next point I want to make to my jamat is that, throughout the countries where my jamat is living, the past years, the past decades, have been aimed- in terms of the work that the Jamati institutions and the Imamat institutions have been doing- have been aimed at contributing to the strength of civil society. This is a notion which is not talked about extensively in the media, but the notion of civil society is extremely important. Essentially what it means is that people organise themselves in diverse ways, so that society can improve its condition of living without direct government support- that is, it is knowledge, the competencies, the drive, the wish of the people, to improve their quality of life. And this is particularly important in countries that have large rural environments or in countries which have governments which are unable to plan and govern in a constructive manner. And if you think about the farman I am giving you today on this issue, you yourselves will identify countries in the developing world where civil society has grown and it has been the underwriter of progress in the quality of life. And our institutions, including the jamati constitutional bodies, can make significant contributions to the improvement in the quality of life. And I will give you an example which is the mediation-arbitration fora where all people in the developing world are faced with very high costs of litigation, unsure outcome and sometimes worse-that is, judicial systems that are, frankly, corrupt. Society cannot function in these environments and we have constitutional bodies dealing with issues such as these. And, more and more, I believe that, if the Jamat wishes it, we can make these bodies available to people outside the Jamat, because we have the knowledge and the experience of running these institutions in a competent, professional manner. So I am saying to my jamat today: do not be surprised if the Imam of the Time says in two or three or five years, “Alright, Arbitration, you can make yourselves available to people outside the jamat”. And this is the notion of building civil society, where the competencies of a community become competencies of a wider national scale. So I wanted to give you this example because it is happeneing already, but I may encourage it to happen in wider form and I do not want the jamat saying, “Why has Hazar Imam let this happen?” I will let it happen if it will contribute again to building civil society." (Kampala, March 20,2005)
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Jain Irrigation Systems Makes Fortune Magazine's 'Change the World' List
http://www.indiawest.com/news/business/ ... af68c.html

NEW YORK — India-based micro-irrigation firm Jain Irrigation Systems is the sole company from the country named in Fortune magazine's inaugural “Change the World” list of companies making significant progress in addressing major social problems as a part of their core business strategy.

Jain Irrigation ranks seventh on the list of 50 companies on Fortune's new "Change the World" list that has been topped by UK-based Vodafone and Kenyan telecom Safaricom and includes Bangladesh-based Grameen Bank and Afghan telecom company Roshan.

In its profile of Jain Irrigation, Fortune said the company, headed by Anil Bhavarlal Jain, has built its business by improving the livelihoods of five million small farmers in India.

The Maharashtra-based company began selling micro-irrigation systems in 1986 when it recognized that the technology, commonly used in industrial agriculture, could be adapted for local growers, whose tiny landholdings were traditionally watered by rain or blunt flooding techniques.

Yields increased dramatically from 50 percent to 300 percent, depending on the plant along with farmers' incomes.

"Jain continues to boost both in other ways as well: It has introduced more viable crop varieties and trained farmers on more productive growing techniques, such as high-density planting for mangoes," Fortune
said.

The company also branched into solar water pumps, financing and food processing — for the likes of Coca-Cola and Unilever — so that there is a ready market for these farmers' wares.

The company, the world's second-largest seller of drip-irrigation systems with revenues of $990 million, now does business in 116 countries.

The list also includes global giants Google, Facebook, Toyota, Walmart, Novartis, Alibaba, IBM, Starbucks, Ikea, Nike, and MasterCard, led by Indian American CEO Ajay Banga.

Fortune said the list is meant to "shine a spotlight on companies that have made significant progress in addressing major social problems as a part of their core business strategy."

It is based on the belief that "capitalism should be not just tolerated but celebrated for its power to do good. At a time when governments are flailing, its powers are needed more than ever."

The list includes some of the "most thoughtful leaders" in the corporate and nonprofit realms, as well as a number of scholars who bring both perspective and insight to the public discourse on business.

On Grameen Bank founded by Muhammad Yunus, Fortune said the bank has demonstrated that "microcredit" could be self-sustaining and even profitable.

Grameen has loaned $17.4 billion to 8.7 million borrowers since 1983, most of them impoverished women.

"Globally, micro­finance accounts for at least $60 billion in loans annually and has reached 135 million people, according to the World Bank, one reason Yunus' accolades include the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize," Fortune said.

On Roshan, it said during the 2009 elections in Afghanistan, Taliban insurgents trained their weapons on cellphone towers belonging to Roshan, the country's largest telecommunications provider.

It said 18 towers worth $14 million were bombed, but Roshan, founded by the Aga Khan Development Network in 2003, refused to pay the extortion money that would have protected them from such acts.

"Perhaps no other company on this list operates under such stress, and yet Roshan has become a foundational cornerstone for a new, developing Afghanistan," it said.

.
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Post by kmaherali »

Nobel Peace Prize Is Awarded to National Dialogue Quartet in Tunisia

Excerpt:

“The Arab Spring originated in Tunisia in 2010 and 2011, but it quickly spread to other countries in North Africa and the Middle East,” said Kaci Kullmann Five, the chairwoman of the committee, who announced the prize in Oslo. “In many of these countries, the struggle for democracy and human rights has come to a standstill or suffered setbacks. Tunisia, however, has seen a democratic transition based on a vibrant civil society, with demands for respect for basic human rights.”

In Tunisia, the winners rejoiced. “Congratulations to Tunisia, to the quartet and to all parties that facilitated the mission of the quartet,” the labor union’s secretary general, Houcine Abassi, told Radio Mosaïque FM. “This prize came at the right time, because our country is still threatened by different security challenges.”

More....

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world ... 05309&_r=0

*****

A Nobel Prize for Dialogue in Tunisia

Excerpt:

"But in singling out Tunisia, whose 2011 street rebellion overthrew an entrenched dictatorship and launched the “Arab Spring,” the Norwegian Nobel committee also underscored the dismal failure of the uprisings that followed in other Arab states.

That, presumably, was the committee’s intent, to demonstrate that a national dialogue led by civic groups can lead a country to an outcome far more promising than the coup that put an end to Egypt’s democratic aspirations or the civil strife that sank Libya, Syria and Yemen into anarchic violence.

For a while, Tunisia had seemed headed for the same fate. An Islamist government elected after the ouster of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali tried to push through a repressive constitution; there were street clashes and assassinations. In the summer of 2013, four organizations — the Tunisian General Labor Union, the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts, the Tunisian Human Rights League and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers — came together as the National Dialogue Quartet and mediated the formation of an interim government that would lead the country to new elections."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/opini ... d=45305309
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Championing Literacy, Girl’s Online Campaign Strengthens Kenyan Civil Society – Yetu Initiative of Aga Khan Foundation

Can one girl inspire a nation to action? Chela, an 10-year-old Kenyan girl, has identified a critical challenge in her country: access to reading materials. Like most Kenyan children, Chela grew up without access to books; only two percent of the country’s primary schools have libraries. Knowing the critical importance of literacy to education and life skills, she calls on Kenyans to share their stories and contribute to a campaign to start school libraries across Kenya. Through this call to action and video, Chela is the heroine of one of the first online campaigns for Kenyans to help Kenyans on local initiatives.

This is also the first online campaign of the Yetu Initiative, which aims to empower Kenyans to give voice to their concerns and create solutions with their own contributions. (Yetu is a Kiswahili word meaning ours.) Called A Story for Chela, the campaign (hashtag #StoryForChela) went live to the Kenyan public on October 6. The campaign supports a Kenyan initiative called Start A Library, owned and implemented by RAAW Trust, a Kenyan civil society organization dedicated to expanding opportunities for storytelling.

Start A Library aims to advance childhood literacy by starting libraries that will put a storybook in the hand of every child in Kenya. In the video introduced by Auma Obama, Chela leads the effort by inviting Kenyans to donate funds and contribute to crowd-sourcing a story for the nation’s children.

The Yetu Initiative is a partnership involving Kenyan civil society organizations and supported by the Aga Khan Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Yetu works with Kenyan civil society organizations to create community engagement efforts, such as fundraising or awareness-raising campaigns like Start A Library.

The Yetu Initiative provides local partners with organizational capacity assessments, highlighting areas where they can improve their skills, such as brand messaging, financial management and communications. Yetu then connects partners with capacity-building services, including online platforms and mentoring opportunities.

With this platform for strengthening civil society organizations, Yetu enables local partners to sustain their advocacy for the Kenyan people over the long term. Yetu is the first country-level project of the Global Alliance for Community Philanthropy. This Alliance, which includes the C.S. Mott Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund along with USAID and AKF, provides a global platform to exchange best practices on strengthening civil society.

Chela’s campaign is a bright first step for Yetu and Kenyan civil society organizations. To learn more, visit Yetu.org.

http://www.akfusa.org/our-stories/champ ... society-2/

******
Kenya to make history with World’s First Collectively Written Book by a Nation – AKF’s Yetu Initiative

Kenya embarked on a journey on 22nd of September this year: The world’s first collectively written book by a nation.

The goal is to raise Ksh 30 million in 90 days to build 100 libraries.

This will be a homegrown solution that will involve every Kenyan.

Led by Chela, Kenyans are urged to get their creative juices and words ready.

Chela is a ten-year-old girl who has taken it upon herself to collect stories for herself and the ten million children like her who don’t have access to libraries.

The campaign, dubbed #StoryForChela is spearheaded by “Start A Library”, an affiliate of Storymoja.

“Start A Library” is the first campaign hosted on the e-philanthropy platform, Yetu .

The Yetu initiative is backed by The Aga Khan Foundation, USAID and various other partners to facilitate communal giving and problem solving.

This campaign is poised to bring a nation together in contributing both money and words.

The writing begins at www.yetu.org/startalibrary. For as little as Sh. 10 you will be making history one word at a time. Write your story for Chela.

Source: Citizen TV Kenya
http://yetu.org/startalibrary/
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Post by kmaherali »

The Anxieties of Impotence

Excerpt:

Today we live in a world of isolation and atomization, where people distrust their own institutions. In such circumstances many people respond to powerlessness with pointless acts of self-destruction.

In the Palestinian territories, for example, young people don’t organize or work with their government to improve their prospects. They wander into Israel, try to stab a soldier or a pregnant woman and get shot or arrested — every single time. They throw away their lives for a pointless and usually botched moment of terrorism.

In a different way, the American election has been perverted by feelings of powerlessness.

Americans are beset by complex, intractable problems that don’t have a clear villain: technological change displaces workers; globalization and the rapid movement of people destabilize communities; family structure dissolves; the political order in the Middle East teeters, the Chinese economy craters, inequality rises, the global order frays, etc.

To address these problems we need big, responsible institutions (power centers) that can mobilize people, cobble together governing majorities and enact plans of actions. In the U.S. context that means functioning political parties and a functioning Congress.

Those institutions have been weakened of late. Parties have been rendered weak by both campaign finance laws and the Citizens United decision, which have cut off their funding streams and given power to polarized super-donors who work outside the party system. Congress has been weakened by polarization and disruptive members who don’t believe in legislating.

Instead of shoring up these institutions, many voters are inclined to make everything worse. Plagued by the anxiety of impotence many voters are drawn to leaders who pretend that our problems could be solved by defeating some villain. Donald Trump says stupid elites are the problem. Ted Cruz says it’s the Washington cartel. Bernie Sanders says it’s Wall Street.

The fact is, for all the problems we may have with Wall Street or Washington, our biggest problems are systemic — the disruptions caused by technological progress and globalization, mass migration, family breakdown and so on. There’s no all-controlling Wizard of Oz to slay.

If we’re to have any hope of addressing big systemic problems we’ll have to repair big institutions and have functioning parties and a functioning Congress. We have to discard the anti-political, anti-institutional mood that is prevalent and rebuild effective democratic power centers.

This requires less atomization and more collective action, fewer strongmen but greater citizenship. It requires the craft of political architecture, not the demagogy of destruction.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/opini ... 05309&_r=0
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below demonstrates the variety of approaches by civil society ranging from gauging the attitudes of the youth to mobilisation of society for change in response to perceived corruption in governance in Kenya.

AKU East Africa Institute’s youth survey reveals impact of integrity crisis and graft

The failure of anti-corruption agencies happened across the continent in an environment of low political will.


“A large reservoir of young and corruptible electorate could undermine competitive democracy and make political leadership a preserve of wealthy oligarchs and their financiers.”

– Aga Khan University’s East Africa Institute – Youth Survey

Integrity and graft: The regime of darkness
By JOHN GITHONGO Jan. 23, 2016

I struggled for weeks after being asked by a man I hold in the highest esteem, Prof Yash Pal Ghai, [Memeber of the inaugural Board of Directors of the Global Centre for Pluralism] to write this article on ‘Integrity and the Constitution’. Why? I’ll go into this a little later.
Sunday 9 January, 2011 at Freedom Corner, Nairobi sees Mr. John Githongo and Prof. Yash Pal Ghai issues statements at the Kenya Yetu. Katiba Yetu. Maisha Yetu Campaign.
The Ndegwa Commission Report of 1971 effectively legalised conflict of interest in Kenya. It allowed public officials to engage in business while in office, in the days when the biggest player in business was government, so it meant civil servants and politicians were in business with themselves.

This opened the door to theft (corruption is the woollier term) on the part of politicians and civil servants in Kenya. As a result of thieving by public officials, the distinction between the public and private sectors was blurred, so much so that the fortunes held by leading ‘corporate families’ today emerged essentially out of the theft of public resources.

Ironically, this led to a modicum of stability as the thieves stole, especially during the Cold War when all that mattered to the West was which side the thieves were on.

The entire ‘fight against corruption’ in Kenya especially since the early 1990s was aimed partly at undoing this ‘original sin’ of conflict of interest where public accountability is concerned.
On April 3, 2014: Hosted by the Global Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa, Canada, over 80 people joined Yash Pal Ghai (Katiba Institute), Karuti Kanyinga (Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi) and Patricia Kameri-Mbote (Dean of Law, University of Nairobi) for wide-ranging discussion of pluralism and public accountability in Kenya. (image via Global Centre for Pluralism)
The creation of what became today’s Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) was a donor-driven effort, with considerable initial domestic support, in the late 1990s.

This was followed by a tumultuous decade that saw the scale of corruption, and the impunity that attended it, increase exponentially.

Ironically, this was a global phenomenon that saw corruption increase around the world after countries had signed on to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) in 2003.

The failure of anti-corruption agencies happened across the continent in an environment of low political will.

Back to why this article was a challenge…

Kenyans elected a regime whose DNA was disassembling the constitution and for whom integrity was merely a sound bite. Indeed, both constitutionalism and integrity, as values that imbue individuals in a society attempting to develop with an ethos that would allow maturing into an equitable, tolerant, compassionate, diverse and just community of peoples, are inimical to the current regime.

That said, the choices that many Kenyans made in the 2013 elections said more about the society we were and are becoming than they did about the candidates who offered themselves for public office.

Aga Khan University’s East Africa Institute – Youth Survey

Over the last couple of years, the Aga Khan University’s East Africa Institute has been conducting a thorough survey of attitudes of youth (between 18 and 35 years old) across the three countries of the East African region. They released the Kenyan block of results in Nairobi this week. The findings were instructive.

‘The good news’, EAI’s Dr Alex Awiti reported, was “that the majority of Kenyan youth identify themselves as ‘Kenyans first’ over tribe or faith.

They are positive and optimistic about the future, and believe that Kenya will be more prosperous with more employment opportunities for the youth”.

The study, however, also revealed what it described as a ‘staggering crisis of integrity’ among the youth. Indeed, 50 per cent of youth believe it does not matter how one makes money as long as they do not go to jail; 35 per cent would be willing either to give or take a bribe; 40 per cent strongly believe it is important to pay taxes; 73 per cent are afraid to stand up for what is right for fear of retribution; 40 per cent believe there will be more corruption; 47 per cent admire those who accumulate by hook or crook, (including hustling) and 30 per cent believe corruption is profitable.

Said the report: “A large reservoir of young and corruptible electorate could undermine competitive democracy and make political leadership a preserve of wealthy oligarchs and their financiers.” There we have it. Our grim trajectory in all its glory.

https://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2016/ ... and-graft/
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Post by kmaherali »

In his speech at the Africa 2016 Conference recently Mowlana Hazar Imam stressed the importance of the role of civil societies in underwriting progess and development:

"I would like to mention one particular arena in which Africa’s embrace of pluralism will be tested in the coming years, and where I believe, Africa’s success can be forged. I refer to the ability of African peoples and their leaders to strengthen the institutions of “Civil Society.”

By Civil Society, I mean that range of social activity that does not stem from private business organizations, nor from governmental authority. The institutions of Civil Society are motivated, rather, by voluntary energies, and their purpose is to improve the quality of community life. They are private institutions, devoted to the public good.

When I speak of a vital Civil Society I think of path breaking efforts in the field of education, from early childhood to advanced post-graduate programs. I think of health-related innovators, whether they are extending quality maternal and natal care or creating new tertiary care facilities. I think about efforts to advance the arts and culture, to improve environmental quality and foster scientific research. Civil Society includes a host of professional, labour, ethnic and religious groups and a broad array of non-governmental organizations – NGOs - as well.

I focus on Civil Society because I think its potential is often under-appreciated as we become absorbed in debates about the most effective programs of governments and others, or the most successful business strategies. But, in fact, it is often the quality of the third sector, Civil Society, that is the “difference-maker”. It not only complements the work of the private and public sectors, it can often help complete that work.

Similarly, there is a great deal that leaders in the business sector and in government can do to strengthen the work of Civil Society, to help provide Civil Society with what I have called an “Enabling Environment.”

In sum, I believe that social progress will require quality inputs from all three sectors: public, private and Civil Society. Sustainable progress will build on a three-legged stool. And that progress can be particularly impressive when the three sectors work closely together.

One prominent example of such cooperation that I know well is the Bujagali dam in Uganda - a project in which our Economic Development Fund has joined with the government of Uganda, and a private investment fund based in the United States. All three sectors; public, private and civil society have jointly created this project which, after just three years, provides nearly half of Uganda’s electric power.

Another example is the National Park of Mali - opened in Bamako in 2010 - when our Trust for Culture partnered with the national government to create not only a glorious green space, but also an infrastructure which ensures the Park’s long-term sustainability.

A third example is our own Network’s East African educational initiative, in which we now invest 10 million dollars a year, reaching some 400,000 students and 6000 teachers, and again working closely with government education offices and local community organizations.

The examples could go on and on. But, despite such successes, the role of Civil Society is often misunderstood or taken for granted. At times, Civil Society has been marginalized, discounted, or dismissed. One worrisome development has been the dwindling of international support, some two-thirds of sub-Saharan countries face a reduction in development assistance by 2017.

Even more disturbing have been efforts in some places to constrain or even repress these institutions, stereotyping them as illegitimate, unelected and unaccountable. These attitudes may simply reflect a reluctance to share power and influence, or perhaps a feeling that the creative energy and sheer diversity of Civil Society is daunting and dangerous.

Such attitudes have been exceptional, but they are highly regrettable, discouraging the qualities of vision, innovation and forward thinking that progressive societies so badly need.

But there is good news too. For, at a fundamental level, the cultures of Africa bode well for the future here of a vibrant, healthy Civil Society.

For centuries, African life has been characterized by a vast array of indigenous informal groups, sustained by citizen donations and voluntary service. They include ethnic and kinship groups, councils of elders, religious bodies, and community fora. Many Africans have grown up amid such groupings, learning to emphasize their mutual interests, to pool their resources, and to share in shaping their local communities. It is part of the African Way.

The influence of Civil Society has also been felt at seminal moments in the continent’s recent history, for example: in shaping the Arusha Accords which recently ended 12 years of civil war in Burundi, in the peaceful resolution of the violent clashes in Kenya following the 2007 elections, in the drafting of a new promising Tunisian Constitution, and in the courageous response to the Ebola crisis. I think too of how sophisticated young Africans have been incubating noteworthy internet-based ventures to expand and coordinate a range of civil society ventures, with high social impact.

In conclusion, there are many reasons to believe that this is Africa’s Moment and that Africans will seize it. Among those positive elements is a growing sense of confidence that encourages Africans to work together across old lines of division, including cooperative engagements with the institutions of Civil Society.

The growing vitality of Civil Society should be a key source of encouragement when it comes to investing in Africa. When it is advanced and enabled, it is the best underwriter of development. It can, I know, be a key force in seizing Africa’s Moment and making the most of it.

Thank you."

http://www.akdn.org/Content/1389
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below illustrates how civil socities my provide the antidote to polarization in politics and facilitate hybrid solutions.

Beware: Exploding Politics

Excerpt:

My own view is that these three accelerations have begun blowing up weak countries — see parts of the Middle East and Africa — and they’re just beginning to blow up the politics of strong ones. You can see it in America, Britain and Europe. The challenges posed by these accelerations, and what will be required to produce resilient citizens and communities, are forcing a politics that is much more of a hybrid of left and right.

It is the kind of politics you already see practiced in successful communities and towns in America — places like Minneapolis; Austin, Tex.; Louisville, Ky.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Portland, Ore. — where coalitions made up of the business community, educators and local government come together to forge hybrid solutions to improve their competitiveness and resilience. We can’t get there at the national level since one of our two major parties has gone nuts and we have designed paralysis into our politics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/opini ... ef=opinion
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below suggests how civil socities may assist in identification of terrorists and radicalization.

Who Will Become a Terrorist? Research Yields Few Clues

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/28/world ... 87722&_r=0

Excerpts:

"Such generalizations are why civil libertarians see only danger in government efforts to identify people at risk of committing crimes. Researchers, too, say they have been frustrated by both the Bush and Obama administrations because of what they say is a preoccupation with research that can be distilled into simple checklists, even at the risk of casting unnecessary suspicion on innocent people.

“They want to be able to do things right now,” said Clark R. McCauley Jr., a professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr College who has conducted government-funded terrorism research for years. “Anybody who offers them something right now, like to go around with a checklist — right now — is going to have their attention."

.........

In Montgomery County, Md., a Washington suburb, a Muslim-led interfaith organization called Worde thinks it may have a solution. Organizers have provided families and faith leaders with lists of warning signs: depression, trauma, economic stress and political grievances. Anyone who spots these indicators signs can call Worde, which will arrange mental health or religious counseling.

Police officers become involved only when there is a threat of imminent danger, said Hedieh Mirahmadi, the group’s president. Ideally, she said, people get help without being stigmatized or placed on government watch lists.
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below suggests how strengthening civil societies can fix politics...

How to Fix Politics

Extract:

Middle-ring relationships, Dunkelman argues, help people become skilled at deliberation. The guy sitting next to you at the volunteer fire company may have political opinions you find abhorrent, but you still have to get stuff done with him, week after week.

Middle-ring relationships also diversify the sources of identity. You might be an O’Rourke, an Irish Catholic and a professor, but you are also a citizen, importantly of the Montrose neighborhood in Houston.

With middle-ring memberships deteriorating, Americans have become worse at public deliberation. People find it easier to ignore inconvenient viewpoints and facts. Partisanship becomes a preconscious lens through which people see the world.

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/opini ... ef=opinion
Last edited by kmaherali on Thu May 19, 2016 5:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by kmaherali »

Below is an example of a civil society initiative to involve people in long term thinking about the issues and challenges facing society.

“The East Africa Dialogue Series provides a platform for evidence-led conversation on the issues that confront East Africans."

The East Africa Dialogue Series is a regionally-focused public engagement initiative of the East African Institute of the Aga Khan University, with generous support from International Development Research Centre, Aga Khan Foundation Canada, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, and the Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan Fund for the Environment.

The Dialogue Series provides a platform for individuals and groups to address critical issues facing East Africa. The series will engage a cross-section of African stakeholders committed to tackling the continent’s most pressing problems systematically, and incorporate both scientifically based and experiential evidence with an aim to generate practical and ethically driven solutions to Africa’s existing and future development problems. At its core, the dialogue series will: challenge existing paradigms; ask new questions; focus on solutions; and, raise the level of public debate and engagement.

Welcome to the East Africa Dialogue Series! This platform provides opportunities for you to engage in relevant regional issues that matter to you. Stay informed with us and contribute to conversations surrounding issues of youth, natural resource governance, urbanization, and economic growth and inequality.

There is no better time to think about East Africa’s development challenges, ask questions, and find creative solutions than now.

http://eadialogueseries.org/
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Post by kmaherali »

The following article is about how local initiatives are undertaken by individuals in rural communities of America to build civil societies to combat social isolation.

Extract:

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that Americans are great at forming spontaneous voluntary groups. But in towns like Lost Hills, and in neighborhoods across the country, that doesn’t seem to be as true any more.

Maybe with the rise of TV and the Internet people are happier staying in the private world of home. Maybe it’s the loss of community leaders. Every town used to have its small-business owners and bankers. But now those businesses and banks are owned by investment funds far away.

Either way, social isolation produces rising suicide rates, rising drug addiction, widening inequality, political polarization, depression and alienation.

Fortunately, we’re beginning to see the rise of intentional community instigators. If social capital isn’t going to form spontaneously, people and groups will try to jump-start it into existence.

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/opini ... d=71987722
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below demonstrates how compromising the integrity of the structures and the environment surrounding important historical monuments can destroy vibrant civil societies functioning around them.

The Saint and the Skyscraper

Extract:

"Now Karachi’s savior saint is himself in trouble. Ghazi has a new upstart neighbor: the Bahria Icon Towers, a pair of buildings including one 62 stories high that will be Pakistan’s highest building and the country’s first proper skyscraper. The project, though unfinished, doesn’t just dwarf the saint’s shrine; it has surrounded it with ugly prison-like walls, making the shrine invisible and very, very difficult to access.

Like any wise saint living by the sea, Ghazi, according to folklore, chose to set his shrine at the top of a hillock. Its green and white striped dome used to be visible from miles away. Its open courtyards and surrounding empty spaces have hosted thousands of people every day, and hundreds of thousands on public holidays and on the anniversary of Ghazi’s death. People come for prayer, music, food and rendezvous. The shrine hosts a nonstop party for the kind of people who don’t get invited to parties."

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/16/opini ... inion&_r=0
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below is about civil societies emerging in the most socially damaged communities to rebuild the fabric torn by the ravages of excess materialism in America.

A Nation of Healers

Extract:

"The social fabric is tearing across this country, but everywhere it seems healers are rising up to repair their small piece of it. They are going into hollow places and creating community, building intimate relationships that change lives one by one.

I know everybody’s in a bad mood about the country. But the more time you spend in the hardest places, the more amazed you become. There’s some movement arising that is suspicious of consumerism but is not socialist. It’s suspicious of impersonal state systems but is not libertarian. It believes in the small moments of connection."

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/opini ... d=71987722
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below is about how civil society institutions can assist people's innate nature to be cooperative and helpful to each other instead of relying upon external selfish motivations and competition to get things done.

The Power of Altruism

Western society is built on the assumption that people are fundamentally selfish. Machiavelli and Hobbes gave us influential philosophies built on human selfishness. Sigmund Freud gave us a psychology of selfishness. Children, he wrote, “are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them.”

Classical economics adopts a model that says people are primarily driven by material self-interest. Political science assumes that people are driven to maximize their power.

But this worldview is clearly wrong. In real life, the push of selfishness is matched by the pull of empathy and altruism. This is not Hallmark card sentimentalism but scientific fact: As babies our neural connections are built by love and care. We have evolved to be really good at cooperation and empathy. We are strongly motivated to teach and help others.

As Matthieu Ricard notes in his rigorous book “Altruism,” if an 18-month-old sees a man drop a clothespin she will move to pick it up and hand it back to him within five seconds, about the same amount of time it takes an adult to offer assistance. If you reward a baby with a gift for being kind, the propensity to help will decrease, in some studies by up to 40 percent.

When we build academic disciplines and social institutions upon suppositions of selfishness we’re missing the motivations that drive people much of the time.

Worse, if you expect people to be selfish, you can actually crush their tendency to be good.

Samuel Bowles provides a slew of examples in his book “The Moral Economy.” For example, six day care centers in Haifa, Israel, imposed a fine on parents who were late in picking up their kids at the end of the day. The share of parents who arrived late doubled. Before the fine, picking up their kids on time was an act of being considerate to the teachers. But after the fine, showing up to pick up their kids became an economic transaction. They felt less compunction to be kind.

In 2001, the Boston fire commissioner ended his department’s policy of unlimited sick days and imposed a limit of 15 per year. Those who exceeded the limit had their pay docked. Suddenly what had been an ethic to serve the city was replaced by a utilitarian paid arrangement. The number of firefighters who called in sick on Christmas and New Year’s increased by tenfold over the previous year.

To simplify, there are two lenses people can use to see any situation: the economic lens or the moral lens.

When you introduce a financial incentive you prompt people to see their situation through an economic lens. Instead of following their natural bias toward reciprocity, service and cooperation, you encourage people to do a selfish cost-benefit calculation. They begin to ask, “What’s in this for me?”

By evoking an economic motivation, you often get worse outcomes. Imagine what would happen to a marriage if both people went in saying, “I want to get more out of this than I put in.” The prospects of such a marriage would not be good.

Many of our commitments, professional or civic, are like that. To be a good citizen, to be a good worker, you often have to make an altruistic commitment to some group or ideal, which will see you through those times when your job of citizenship is hard and frustrating. Whether you are a teacher serving students or a soldier serving your country or a clerk who likes your office mates, the moral motivation is much more powerful than the financial motivations. Arrangements that arouse the financial lens alone are just messing everything up.

In 1776, Adam Smith defined capitalism as a machine that takes private self-interest and organizes it to produce general prosperity. A few years later America’s founders created a democracy structured to take private factional competition and, through checks and balances, turn it into deliberative democracy. Both rely on a low but steady view of human nature and try to turn private vice into public virtue.

But back then, there were plenty of institutions that promoted the moral lens to balance the economic lens: churches, guilds, community organizations, military service and honor codes.

Since then, the institutions that arouse the moral lens have withered while the institutions that manipulate incentives — the market and the state — have expanded. Now economic, utilitarian thinking has become the normal way we do social analysis and see the world. We’ve wound up with a society that is less cooperative, less trusting, less effective and less lovely.

By assuming that people are selfish, by prioritizing arrangements based on selfishness, we have encouraged selfish frames of mind. Maybe it’s time to upend classical economics and political science. Maybe it’s time to build institutions that harness people’s natural longing to do good.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/opini ... ef=opinion
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below highlights how proper design of the future cities can promote vibrant civil societies...

Extract:

2. Make public life the driver for urban design.

In 2009, Copenhagen (where Gehl is based) enacted a plan called "A Metropolis for People," which was based on Gehl's work. It envisioned what the city should look like in the future.

"The city council decided upon a strategy to make Copenhagen the best city for people in the world, and it is interesting to read what their arguments are: We have to walk more, we have to spend more time in public spaces, and we have to get out of our private cocoons more," Gehl says. "This becomes good for society, good for the climate, and good for health. They said that if people spend more time in the public spaces, the city becomes safer. It becomes more exciting and more interesting. And it furthers social inclusion. This is an important part of having a democratic society: having citizens who can meet each other in the course of their daily doings, and not only seeing different people on television or on screens."

More...
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3061586/sli ... r-urbanist
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below discusses the efficacy of civil societies in the context of American past and how at present it is gaining support among the youth as opposed to the individualistic/atomistic outlook of today.

The Great Affluence Fallacy

Extract:

The native cultures were more communal. As Junger writes, “They would have practiced extremely close and involved child care. And they would have done almost everything in the company of others. They would have almost never been alone.

If colonial culture was relatively atomized, imagine American culture of today. As we’ve gotten richer, we’ve used wealth to buy space: bigger homes, bigger yards, separate bedrooms, private cars, autonomous lifestyles. Each individual choice makes sense, but the overall atomizing trajectory sometimes seems to backfire. According to the World Health Organization, people in wealthy countries suffer depression by as much as eight times the rate as people in poor countries.

There might be a Great Affluence Fallacy going on — we want privacy in individual instances, but often this makes life generally worse.
.....

Millennials are oriented around neighborhood hospitality, rather than national identity or the borderless digital world. “A neighborhood is the place where you live and sleep.” How many of your physical neighbors know your name?

Maybe we’re on the cusp of some great cracking. Instead of just paying lip service to community while living for autonomy, I get the sense a lot of people are actually about to make the break and immerse themselves in demanding local community movements. It wouldn’t surprise me if the big change in the coming decades were this: an end to the apotheosis of freedom; more people making the modern equivalent of the Native American leap.

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/opini ... inion&_r=0
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below discusses how the formation of civil societies in the Washington State has enabled communities to deal with the social problems.

Extract:

“Fifteen or 20 years ago, the Highlands was desolate,” Patricia Thompson, a 61-year-old resident, recalled. “There was garbage and junk everywhere. There were thugs all around. You didn’t feel safe walking down the street.”

Today, the Highlands still has high unemployment and poverty, but residents say the neighborhood has improved substantially. From 2009 to 2012, calls to the police about burglary, stolen and abandoned vehicles, domestic violence and public disturbances dropped significantly.

“People are involved with each other, not just sitting at home with their curtains closed,” said Hite. “I’m out on the street meeting my neighbors.”

“It’s still an economically depressed area,” said Thompson. “There’s not many jobs here. But it’s safer and more hopeful. Young people are realizing they can go to college. The main difference is that we don’t leave people by themselves anymore.”

At a time when poverty and economic insecurity remain widespread in the United States, how does a very poor community like the Highlands strengthen its capacity to improve itself? What does the possibility of change look like from the vantage point of ordinary citizens who care about their community, but struggle to see a path to a better future?

More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/opini ... 87722&_r=0
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below is the second of the three part series of articles, highlighting the role of civil societies in building the bridge between the political divisions and improve the living conditions of communities.

How Community Networks Stem Childhood Traumas

Extract:

Liberals and conservatives often disagree about the causes of poverty and other social ills. Broadly speaking, liberals point the finger at structural factors and advocate for policy changes, while conservatives look to individuals and families and favor behavior changes. Clearly, both points of view have validity. But what’s often overlooked is what lies between these two poles — communities and neighborhoods — and the value of focusing on this middle zone.

.....

The notion that a modest investment in a “community network” can chip away at entrenched social ills seems hard to believe. But the main lesson of the Family Policy Council is that when local citizens acquire the capacity to work together in smarter ways, communities change. “We have to expand leadership to include the people who are most affected by problems,” said Laura Porter, who directed the council from 1998 to 2013. “Not just advice, but real leadership. People will step into that space, and what happens is you get this expansion of resources.”

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/opini ... ef=opinion
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below describes cohousing which functions as civil societies

Modern Housing With Village Virtues

Working families in the United States have many struggles today: expensive child care, not enough time to cook healthy meals, disconnection from nature, a sense of social isolation — what the sociologist Robert Putnam famously called “bowling alone” — and more. Older Americans, a booming population, often end up segregated generationally and in dire need of care and companionship.

What if there was a potential salve to all of these struggles? One that was introduced to Americans 25 years ago, but hasn’t yet gone to scale?

That potential solution is cohousing, a form of shared living in which groups of families with their own private homes (usually about 15 to 40 households) also share common spaces — a kitchen and eating area, often a garden, tool shed, or laundry facilities, or all of them, and a set of principles and practices about living interdependently. The principles can vary, depending on the size and type of community (urban vs. rural, religious vs. secular, intergenerational vs. over 65), but most groups hold in common a belief that a high quality of life is achieved not through self-sufficiency, but through a village mentality. Families will often share meals, yard work and repair labor, sometimes even cars; they also help one another spontaneously in many other ways.

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/opini ... dline&te=1
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below discusses how technology is weakening the social bonds that nurture civil societies...

Intimacy for the Avoidant

Over the past generation there seems to have been a decline in the number of high-quality friendships.

In 1985, most Americans told pollsters that they had about three confidants, people with whom they could share everything. Today, the majority of people say they have about two. In 1985, 10 percent of Americans said they had no one to fully confide in, but by the start of this century 25 percent of Americans said that.

All of this has left people wondering if technology is making us lonelier. Instead of going over to the neighbor’s house, are we sitting at home depressingly surfing everybody else’s perfect lives on Facebook?

Over the past decade, the best research has suggested that no, technology and social media are not making us lonelier. These things are tools. It’s what you bring to Facebook that matters. Socially engaged people use it to further engage; lonely people use it to mask loneliness.

As Stephen Marche put it in The Atlantic in 2012, “Using social media doesn’t create new social networks; it just transfers established networks from one platform to another.”

But recently, people’s views of social media have grown a bit darker. That’s because we seem to be hitting some sort of saturation level. Being online isn’t just something we do. It has become who we are, transforming the very nature of the self.

More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/opini ... d=71987722
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Post by kmaherali »

The article below explains how healthy communities and civil societies can rescue democracy and counter the polarization of ideas caused by social media....

To Rescue Democracy, Go Outside

Real spaces, not digital ones, will fix our politics.

Extract:

"While in one sense this is just another facet of today’s increasingly polarized world, it also provides us with an opportunity. When we interact through social media, we self-identify and seek out like opinions. In real life, we have less control over that selection—we never know who we’ll run into. Physical interactions are also very powerful. They are much better at changing opinions than digital media. Studies show such interactions produce better learning outcomes,10 a greater chance of reaching consensus,11 and greater satisfaction in workplace teams.12

So what would happen if the way we interacted with each other forced us to mix with people of different groups? If we didn’t allow ourselves to dive ever deeper into self-reinforcing groups? What would happen if we mixed primarily through that quaint and old-fashioned technique, namely moving about in our physical environment, encountering opinions and perspectives that we did not pre-select? Could we counter the devil’s brew of single-community media combined with physical segregation? My research at MIT strongly suggests that the answer is yes. In businesses, on the street, and in peer groups, ideas are shaped more by face-to-face interaction than by digital media.13, 14"

http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/to- ... go-outside


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Post by kmaherali »

The initiative below is an example of how activities related to art can bring people of different backgrounds together and enhance civil societies

Q & A With Nabila Alibhai: Colour in Faith

1. How did this collaboration with Art @ The Bus come about? Deciding to paint the big red bus yellow? What’s the thinking behind it, as Colour in Faith focuses on places of worship?

Colour in Faith is about about creating a movement toward pluralism through art. Although Colour in Faith has focused primarily on houses of worship, doing something in the center of Nairobi’s creative hub with conveners of creativity makes total sense with our vision! Art @ The Bus is becoming more central within Nairobi’s cultural scene as a place that brings together people of all races, incomes, religions etc.

The bus itself is a fantastic metaphor for the mobility of culture and we were thrilled to be invited to paint the bus yellow! Over the next month we’ll be collaborating on a host of events that speak to art and change-making… panels, poetry jams, yellow interactions.

2. How has your journey with Colour in Faith been like so far, especially in Africa?

It’s been equally inspiring and challenging. We were thrilled to find that the message of the project made sense to a lot of people. In the Kenyan context, where different religions have co-existed and enjoyed one another for decades, we’ve found that there is a lot of pain and paralysis from our experience of terrorism and the rising threat of fundamentalism.

With the elections coming up in 2017, people are also wary of religion being manipulated for political gains. The idea of visually communicating love, faith in common humanity and unity, has had widespread appeal!

More...
http://www.upnairobi.com/2016/06/05/q-a ... lturalism/
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Post by kmaherali »

Dancing in a Hurricane

Extract:

These accelerations in technology, globalization and Mother Nature are like a hurricane in which we’re all being asked to dance. Trump and the Brexiters sensed the anxiety of many and promised to build a wall against these howling winds of change. I disagree. I think the challenge is to find the eye.

For me, that translates into building healthy communities that are flexible enough to move with these accelerations, draw energy from them — but also provide a platform of dynamic stability for citizens within them. More on that another day.

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opini ... d=71987722
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