democracy and governance

Transnational Institute (TNI)

Hungary : water privatisation in the context of transition

> In "Beyond the Market: The Future of Public Services", Zsolt Boda and Gábor Scheiring, April 2006, 7 p. (pdf)

Privatisation was to be the key to creating a healthy economy with competent companies that provide jobs for people and pay taxes, rather than being dependent upon state policies and subsidies. Just a few years into the transition to a marketeconomy, however, Hungarians have discovered that private ownership does not necessarily mean efficiency, and that the argument of additional investment is also questionable. The process of water privatisation well illustrates the pitfalls of (...) read

date of on-line publication : 13 March 2007

dossier

Oxfam International

In the public interest : health, education, water and sanitation for all

> 2006, 142 p. (pdf)

Vital public services (health, education, water and sanitation) are the key to transforming the lives of people living in poverty. Building strong public services for all is hardly a new idea: it is the foundation upon which today’s rich country societies are built. More recently, developing countries have followed suit, with impressive results. Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Kerala state in India, for example, have within a generation made advances in health and education that took industrialised (...) read

date of on-line publication : 12 March 2007

Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND)

Financing development in the Arab region : a case of a region at crossroads

> Financing for democracy : an oxymoron? The role of donors in supporting emerging democracies and civil society

The Monterrey Consensus that resulted from the International Summit on Financing for Development in 2002 highlighted several key actions to be worked upon in the process of enhancing the mobilization of needed funds for achieving the global development goals. The Summit convened in a period when several considerations in the global and regional policy-making process, and on the economic, political, and security fronts, were being rearranged upon the attacks of September 11, 2001. In fact, (...) read

date of on-line publication : 2 March 2007

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Partnership Africa Canada (PAC)

The failure of good intentions : fraud, theft and murder in the Brazilian diamond industry

> Occasional Paper n° 12, May 2005

« Laws for the English to see » (para inglês ver) : this Brazilian expression, still in common usage, dates back to 1830, when Brazil, under pressure from England, began to pass laws against trafficking in slaves. Everyone knew the laws would not be enforced. It was then said, that the laws were only para inglês ver, just for the English to see. They seem to act quite the same with the « Kimberley Process ». Production is mostly in the hands of unlicensed, unregistered garimpeiros or hand miners (...) read

date of on-line publication : 8 February 2007

dossier

Partnership Africa Canada (PAC)

Fugitives and phantoms : the diamond exporters of Brazil

> Occasional Paper n° 13, March 2006

Brazil’s diamond sector is in crisis. Three of the country’s largest diamond producers and exporters have been arrested and are now facing an array of criminal charges. A joint task force of Brazil’s Federal Police, Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office and Internal Revenue Service have alleged that the three are behind a mega scheme for smuggling diamonds using fraudulent Kimberley Certificates. According to police, the smuggled diamonds come partly from domestic garimpeiro production, partly (...) read

date of on-line publication : 8 February 2007

dossier

SCHMID Dorothée

European community aid policy and pratice on governance and democracy in Morocco

> Morocco Governance Research Report, One World Action, february 2006, 71 p. (pdf)

Morocco is widely considered as the leading avant-garde for democratic transition in the Mediterranean region. Indeed a wind of liberty has been blowing in the country since the beginning of the post-Hassan II era in 1999. Important reforms have recently been undertaken - some with a high symbolical value, such as the updating of the family code (Mudawana) in an appeased political context. Pluralist elections were held and freedom of speech has substantially improved. At present, the (...) read

date of on-line publication : 7 February 2007

International Crisis Group

Lebanon at a tripwire

> Middle East Briefing n°20, Beirut-Brussels, 21 December 2006

Lebanon has badly lost its balance and is at risk of new collapse, moving ever closer to explosive Sunni-Shiite polarisation with a divided, debilitated Christian community in between. The fragile political and sectarian equilibrium established since the end of its bloody civil war in 1990 was never a panacea and came at heavy cost. It depended on Western and Israeli acquiescence in Syria’s tutelage and a domestic system that hindered urgently needed internal reforms, and change was long (...) read

date of on-line publication : 8 January 2007

dossier

FISCHER Martina

Civil society in conflict transformation : ambivalence, potentials and challenges

> Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management

Civic engagement and the role of social actors within the framework of the nation state is widely accepted, in both politics and academia. The significance of civil society to international politics and in conflict settings is less agreed. The number of agencies engaged in international development policy, humanitarian aid, human rights protection and environmental policy has increased substantially over the last two decades. A similar development is witnessed in the field of conflict (...) read

date of on-line publication : 4 December 2006

Kenyan Minister warns against bilateral trade deals

> TWNSIDE

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/twn (...)

The Kenyan Trade Minister, Mukhisha Kituyi, today spoke up against the danger of countries running to negotiate bilateral and regional trade deals with the impasse of the Doha negotiations at the World Trade Organisation.
"If we face hard decisions in the WTO, we should not run from there by going after bilateral deals," he said in a presentation at the Mid-Term Review session at UNCTAD.
At the same panel, Brazilian Ambassador Clodoaldo Hugueney reiterated the need for resumption of the Doha negotiations but added that "you can’t have a successful Round without dealing with development." He said that agriculture and development are at the centre of the Round, for the first time.
Kituyi, who also currently chairs the African Union Ministers of Trade, said that there is a rise of bilateralism as the Doha Round talks slowed down. Through bilateral and regional agreements, the developed countries were having the same aims as they had in other fora.
"Though the words change, the targets remain the same," he said. Referring to the latest European Commission paper on trade policy, he commented that the EU refused to be on the defensive and was going to go for "more market access."
The Kenyan Minister has on previous occasions spoken up on the imbalances and risks posed to developing countries in the Economic Partnership Agreements that the European Commission is negotiating with the ACP Group of countries. However, he did not mention the EPAs in his speech.
He added that many issues of concern to developing countries, such as the need to tackle agricultural domestic subsidies in developed countries and the use of special and differential treatment for developing countries, could only be dealt with in the multilateral system.  read

date of on-line publication : 27 October 2006

CRAY Charlie

The 10 Most Brazen War Profiteers

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security (...)

The history of American war profiteering is rife with egregious examples of incompetence, fraud, tax evasion, embezzlement, bribery and misconduct. As war historian Stuart Brandes has suggested, each new war is infected with new forms of war profiteering. Iraq is no exception. From criminal mismanagement of Iraq’s oil revenues to armed private security contractors operating with virtual impunity, this war has created opportunities for an appalling amount of corruption. What follows is a list of some of the worst Iraq war profiteers who have bilked American taxpayers and undermined the military’s mission.
In early 2005 CIA officials told the Washington Post that at least 50 percent of its estimated $40 billion budget for that year would go to private contractors, an astonishing figure that suggests that concerns raised about outsourcing intelligence have barely registered at the policymaking levels.
In 2004 the Orlando Sentinel reported on a case that illustrates what can go wrong: Titan employee Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, an Egyptian translator, was arrested for possessing classified information from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
Critics say that the abuses at Abu Ghraib are another example of how the lines can get blurred when contractors are involved in intelligence work. CACI provided a total of 36 interrogators in Iraq, including up to 10 at Abu Ghraib at any one time, according to the company. Although neither CACI, Titan or their employees have yet been charged with a crime, a leaked Army investigation implicated CACI employee Stephen Stefanowicz in the abuse of prisoners.  read

date of on-line publication : 25 September 2006