Top Stories Archive
International PB Conference - Registration Open! Registration is now open for the first International Conference on Participatory Budgeting in the US and Canada, March 30-31, 2012, in New York City. We've also announced a new batch of speakers and co-sponsors - see the conference website for more info!...
by jlerner at February 1, 2012 03:16 PM -05:00 GMT
2012 PB Conference Updates We look forward to seeing you soon at the first International Conference on Participatory Budgeting in the US and Canada. Due to popular demand, the deadline for proposals has been extended to January 31st. Please see the call for proposals for submission guidelines, and feel free to ask us about your session ideas. The conference dates have also been set - March 30-31, 2012. The conference organizers are already planning an exciting lineup of sessions and activities. Here’s a taste of what to expect: - Site Visits to Observe PB Voting in NYC - Presentations on PB processes in New York, Chicago, Toronto Community Housing, Guelph, Montreal, Porto Alegre, the UK, and elsewhere - Sessions on e-Participatory Budgeting & Digital Media, Community Organizing, Arts & Culture, Public Housing, and Youth Engagement - Focused discussions for elected officials, practitioners, and community organizations Stay tuned to the new conference website for updates!...
by jlerner at January 5, 2012 11:01 AM -05:00 GMT
Los Angeles PB Event - Jan 12th The PB Project is speaking at a public event next week in Los Angeles - see the announcement below! --- Participatory Budgeting: From Budget Cuts to the People's Budget An introductory event Thursday, January 12th 7pm @ Haines Hall 279 on UCLA’s Campus Are you interested in real world solutions to the budget crises we face? Do you want to learn about a new approach to democracy being implemented NOW in over 1000 cities world wide including places like New York City and Chicago? Would you like to discuss how participatory budgeting can be applied to the city of LA, UCLA and the UC graduate TA union (UAW 2865)? Then please join us Thursday, January 12th, 7pm at UCLA, Haines Hall 279, for a panel discussion on the Participatory Budgeting (PB) movement. We will be joined by New York City Council Member Brad Lander, Pam Jennings from The Participatory Budgeting Project, and community representatives from NYC's 39th District. The discussants are part of a larger group of four NYC districts who are using participatory budgeting to allocate nearly 6 million dollars in capital discretionary funds. We will learn more about participatory budgeting, the challenges of implementing it in NYC, and discuss ways participatory budgeting can be used in LA and within the UC system. Refreshments will be provided. Hope you can join us! Please use this google map to find Haines Hall. Once you enter Haines Hall go up the main stairs to the 2nd floor and room 279 will be at the north end of the building on your left....
by jlerner at January 4, 2012 12:19 PM -05:00 GMT
New Orleans event The Participatory Budgeting Project is traveling to New Orleans next week, and we'll be speaking at a public forum on Wednesday December 14th. 6pm at Grace Episcopal Church – 3700 Canal Street. The event is sponsored by the Committee for a Better New Orleans and the New Orleans Coalition on Open Governance. For more information visit their event announcement....
by jlerner at December 8, 2011 08:57 PM -05:00 GMT
PBP in Baltimore, New Haven, New Orleans & Porto Alegre The PB Project is hitting the road! In the next month we'll be speaking at the following events: November 23-26: Porto Alegre, Brazil 10th World Congress of Metropolis November 25: Baltimore 4:00pm, at The Baltimore Free School (1323 N. Calvert, corner of Calvert and Mt. Royal) Event hosted by Occupy Baltimore organizers. More info. December 6: New Haven 7:00pm at the Hall of Records - City of New Haven (200 Orange Street) More info. December 13-15: New Orleans Visit organized by The Committee for a Better New Orleans and the Open Society Foundation....
by jlerner at November 22, 2011 05:49 PM -05:00 GMT
International PB Conference: March 2012, NYC Please share with your networks: International Conference: Participatory Budgeting in the US and Canada March 30-31, 2012, New York City CALL FOR PROPOSALS--EXTENDED DEADLINE: JANUARY 31, 2012 Conference Website: http://pbconference.wordpress.com/ In a time of widespread budget crises and plummeting trust in government, politicians and community members are searching for more democratic and accountable ways to manage public money. Participatory Budgeting (PB) offers an alternative. PB is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. The process was first developed in Brazil in 1989, and there are now over 1,000 participatory budgets around the world. Most are for city budgets, but counties, states, towns, housing authorities, schools, and other institutions have also used PB to open up public spending to public participation. PB is now common in Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa - and in some cases even required by law. Yet it has only recently appeared on the radar in the US and Canada, with a few Canadian processes starting in 2001 and some initial US experiments starting in 2009. This first regional conference on PB will take place in New York City to allow participants to observe and celebrate the closing of the city’s first PB cycle. The conference will provide a space for participants and organizers of the initial PB processes in the US and Canada to share and reflect on their experiences so far, alongside interested activists, practitioners, and scholars. Dates March 30-31, 2012 Note: The conference will coincide with the final vote for the New York City Participatory Budgeting process. The dates of the vote have not been finalized yet, but we expect them to be one of these two weekends. We will confirm the dates as soon as possible. Locations New York City: Pratt Institute...
by jlerner at November 16, 2011 02:27 PM -05:00 GMT
Occupy Baltimore calls for participatory budgeting Organizers with Occupy Baltimore called for participatory budgeting at a public hearing they organized with the Baltimore Development Corporation. Read more....
by jlerner at November 9, 2011 11:42 AM -05:00 GMT
New Project: Environmental Justice PB in Louisiana The PB Project is partnering with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade to launch a new PB process for environmental justice funds in Louisiana, with support from the Fund for Democratic Communities. Faced with widespread industrial pollution, Louisiana communities are struggling to protect their environment, public health, and local economies. Oil refineries in the state experience an average of 10 chemical accidents per week, releasing up to 80 different chemicals into surrounding communities. Grassroots groups are struggling to document these environmental injustices, educate residents, and advocate for change. Through a PB process, the Bucket Brigade will invite these groups to directly allocate $100,000 for local projects and to shape hundreds of thousands of dollars of general organizational spending. We hope that the initiative will help local groups develop the budgeting and fundraising skills needed to sustain campaigns and engage community members, while enabling the Bucket Brigade to better support grassroots action. At the same time, it will model a new use for PB, showing how organizations and coalitions at the state or regional level can engage members in deciding collective budgets. More info coming soon!...
by jlerner at October 23, 2011 02:06 PM -05:00 GMT
Full Steam Ahead in NYC PBNYC is well into its Neighborhood Assemblies stage! Across the four participating City Council Districts, community members are coming out en masse to learn about PB and share project ideas. Roughly half of the Neighborhood Assembly participants so far have volunteered to serve as budget delegates and work over the next several months to turn the ideas collected into a final ballot. The PB Project has been busy supporting the more than 25 assemblies city-wide in October and November. Starting in a few weeks, hundreds of budget delegates will begin meeting - and organizers will start planning the final vote and expansion for next year. For updates and more info, check out the PBNYC website and Facebook page....
by jlerner at October 23, 2011 01:38 PM -05:00 GMT
PB at Occupy Wall Street As the Occupy movement is inspiring people around the world, it is turning to PB for inspiration. The PB Project has been invited to help facilitate teach-ins this Sunday (October 23rd) at 6pm at Occupy Wall Street and at 2pm at Occupy Providence. Occupiers in Boston, Greensboro, and other cities are also reaching out, to see how PB can fit into the movement's diverse tactics and demands. OWS and PB assemblies are both drawing out hundreds of people to build a new form of democracy, in New York and elsewhere. Mainstream media and organizers on the ground are starting to draw connections. Occupiers could use PB to manage the funds they have raised (over $300,000 at OWS!), modelling a more democratic economy. PB is also one of the more winnable demands occupiers could make, since it's already happening in over 1,000 cities around the world. Existing PB processes could likewise benefit from new support, if occupiers can push for more public control over more money....
by jlerner at October 23, 2011 10:26 AM -05:00 GMT
Project Censored: PB One of Top Censored Stories For the second year in a row, participatory budgeting has won the bittersweet honor of being named to Project Censored's list of the top 25 censored stories of the past year. Hopefully that streak will end this year, as PB is attracting more coverage from media such as the New York Times and ABC....
by jlerner at October 5, 2011 12:38 PM -05:00 GMT
Neighborhood Assemblies in NYC and Chicago Neighborhood Assemblies start today for PB in New York! They will continue throughout October, and anyone is welcome to participate. See http://pbnyc.org for the full schedule. PB49 (PB in Chicago's 49th Ward) also announced its fall slate of assemblies, starting in a few weeks....
by jlerner at October 3, 2011 04:34 PM -05:00 GMT
Times piece: UK Government basing claim about benefit reforms on poor analysis? David McCollum and I had a piece on the Times Science Blog this week, criticising the evidence behind much-publicised claims that moving the UK's benefits system to a Universal Credit will seriously reduce the number of workless households in Britain....
by jon_mendel at September 25, 2011 06:38 PM +00:00 GMT
Launch of PB in New York City! Participatory budgeting has arrived in New York City. The PB Project is proud to serve as the lead technical assistance partner for a new $6 million PB process that is starting next month in four City Council districts. City Council Members Brad Lander, Melissa Mark-Viverito, Eric Ulrich, and Jumaane Williams are each setting aside at least $1 million in capital discretionary funds for residents to allocate. Over the past several months, the PBP has worked closely with the Council Members, lead community partner Community Voices Heard, and a City-Wide Steering Committee of 40 organizations, to design and plan the process. District Committees in each of the four districts are now planning the opening round of neighborhood assemblies, which will last throughout October. Volunteer budget delegates, selected at the assemblies, will then meet for 3-4 months to develop final budget proposals. In March 2012, residents in each district will vote on the proposals, and the top vote getters will be included in the city budget for 2013. We expect this pilot process to expand to additional districts and budget pots once the first cycle is complete. For more information, see today's NY Times article and the PBNYC website, and stay tuned for more updates here. The full press release is copied below: Councilmembers and Community Allies Announce Groundbreaking, Democratic Budgeting Initiative In Four City Council Districts Across New York City, Residents Will Propose and Vote on Capital Projects to be Funded by Members' Budget NEW YORK, NY, September 14, 2011: Today, Council Member Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn), Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-Manhattan), Council Member Eric Ulrich (R-Queens) and Council Member Jumaane D. Williams (D-Brooklyn), unveiled a new process for budgeting, in which voters in their districts will directly decide how to spend millions of their own tax dollars, a first in New...
by jlerner at September 14, 2011 03:06 PM -05:00 GMT
New Additions to the PBP Team We extend a warm welcome to the two newest PBP members: Donata Secondo and Pam Jennings. Donata and Pam interned with us over the summer, and we're thrilled that they're staying on board as Associates. Both will be working on PBNYC and other upcoming projects. For more info on the PBP team, visit the Who we are page....
by jlerner at September 14, 2011 09:11 AM -05:00 GMT
PBP at BMW Guggenheim Lab The Participatory Budgeting Project will be speaking at the BMW Guggenheim Lab in NYC this Thursday, September 15th, 2:30-4:30pm. We'll be previewing the new PB process in NYC, together with other people and organizations that are involved. Read more....
by jlerner at September 14, 2011 09:09 AM -05:00 GMT
Back on track in Chicago, but with delays Back in June, we warned that PB in Chicago could be shut down prematurely, as new Mayor Rahm Emanuel was threatening to get rid of the discretionary funding for Aldermen. Fortunately, those cuts appear to be off the table now, meaning that the Aldermen will still have discretionary funds and that PB will continue in the 49th Ward. Unfortunately, the uncertainty of the past few months derailed plans to expand PB to other wards this fall, leaving too little time for planning and preparation. The PB Project is now working to build a broader PB process across multiple wards for the 2012-2013 budget cycle. If you know people or organizations who would like to be involved, let us know....
by jlerner at August 18, 2011 01:16 PM -05:00 GMT
Participatory Budgeting Gains Steam in San Francisco The San Francisco Public Press and Shareable.net recently published a feature piece on the momentum building around PB in San Francisco: Participatory Budgeting Gains Steam in San Francisco Participatory budgeting has become a mayoral campaign issue in San Francisco. This could lead to San Francisco becoming the first U.S. city to adopt participatory budgeting on a city-wide basis. read more...
by jlerner at August 18, 2011 01:00 PM -05:00 GMT
Youth and Participatory Budgeting in Toronto A short interview on youth involvement in participatory budgeting at Toronto Community Housing, with Abdulle Elmi, a wise young participant:...
by jlerner at July 17, 2011 07:18 PM -05:00 GMT
Participatory budgeting proposed for Greensboro The PB Project is working with the Fund for Democratic Communities to launch PB in Greensboro, NC. See this recent article in Yes Weekly for more info: Participatory Budgeting Proposed for Greensboro....
by jlerner at June 24, 2011 05:35 PM -05:00 GMT
Cutting Democracy from Chicago's Budget? Chicago's new mayor, Rahm Emanuel, is considering cutting the discretionary funds allocated to Aldermen - the pot of money used for participatory budgeting in the city's 49th Ward. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the $66 million budget - called menu money - could be eliminated. The funds are distributed equally to the city's 50 Aldermen, to pay for basic ward infrastructure. Alderman Moore has been letting 49th Ward residents decide how to spend their menu money since 2009, and other Aldermen are planning to follow suit this year - but only if the menu money remains in the budget....
by jlerner at June 13, 2011 12:39 PM -05:00 GMT
PBP on CBC The Participatory Budgeting Project's Maria Hadden was interviewed last night on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) program Connect with Mark Kelley. In light of the current federal budget debates in Canada, she discussed Participatory Budgeting in Chicago's 49th Ward, as an alternative way to decide public spending. Her segment appears around the 24 minute mark of the video....
by jlerner at June 9, 2011 07:43 PM -05:00 GMT
Update from Springfield Check out this quick 8-minute video of the recent PB event in Springfield, MA, that captures the participants' contributions. In the coming months, local organizers are planning to work with elected officials and candidates to move forward discussions about implementing PB in the region. If anyone is interested in getting involved, please let us know....
by jlerner at June 4, 2011 06:50 PM -05:00 GMT
Organizing in Greensboro In May, the Fund for Democratic Communities invited The PB Project to lead some discussions about bringing PB to Greensboro, North Carolina. After a successful visit, organizers are ready to move forward: "Folks are ready to move from learning about participatory budgeting in other cities to figuring out how to make it a reality in our town. Please join us for an information and brainstorming session on how to bring participatory budgeting to Greensboro, North Carolina! On June 14th, from 6 to 8 pm, we will meet in the Nussbaum Room at Greensboro’s Central Library. After a short introductory (or refresher) presentation on participatory budgeting, we’ll brainstorm together and build a strategy to bring participatory budgeting to Greensboro. Bring your energy and ideas to help build momentum around this exciting and timely project!" For more info, see the Fund for Democratic Communities....
by jlerner at June 4, 2011 06:26 PM -05:00 GMT
PB Discussion in Chicago If you're in the Chicago area, check out the following event: Roving Cafe Society with WBEZ: Participatory Budgeting Thursday, June 23 – 6:00 PM – WBEZ North Side Bureau (2913 West Devon Ave, Chicago) For the first time in the U.S., the city’s 49th Ward lets taxpayers directly decide how public money is spent. Residents of the ward were able to decide last year, through participatory budgeting, how to spend $1.3 million in taxpayer dollars. What are the benefits of participatory budgeting and what are its downfalls? Alderman Joe Moore of the 49th Ward and Liz Vitell from the Rogers Park Community Council will be our guest speakers. Come learn more about this process and more at our Roving Café Society discussion! Co-sponsored by WBEZ 91.5FM Register here Explore the event...
by jlerner at June 4, 2011 06:21 PM -05:00 GMT
Year Two of PB in Chicago Chicago's 49th Ward recently completed its second year of participatory budgeting. See the 49th Ward website for a list of the results. As Alderman Joe Moore announced afterward: "Aproximately 1,000 residents of our community cast ballots in this historic election to vote on how to spend the 49th Ward's 2011 capital improvement budget. The voters decided that slightly over half of this year's budget should be devoted to street resurfacing. For the remaining portion of the budget, the voters selected a wide range of proposals, including safety improvements to the Ridge, Touhy, Rogers intersection; new bike lanes and bike racks; upgrades to several Metra viaducts; and improvements to our parks." RogersPark.com reporters prepared a video on the process this year, with lots of interviews of participants: The PB Project is working with other Aldermen to launch new PB processes in additional wards this year. 5th Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston recently introduced her PB plans in her Spring 2011 Newsletter....
by jlerner at May 23, 2011 09:07 PM -05:00 GMT
May 16: NYC Panel on PB in Europe The PB Project is sponsoring a talk in NYC on May 16th: --------------------------- PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING IN EUROPE: IMPORTING DEMOCRACY FROM BRAZIL? A Panel Discussion with: Giovanni Allegretti, Coimbra University, Portugal Ernesto Ganuza, Spanish Scientific Research Council Moderated by Michael Menser, Brooklyn College/CUNY MONDAY MAY 16TH, 2011 4-6PM; ROOM 9204 CUNY Graduate Center 365 5th Avenue, New York City Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Place, Culture and Politics and the Participatory Budgeting Project In the 1990s, the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre became famous for "participatory budgeting" - a bold democratic experiment in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. In the past decade, hundreds of cities and public agencies across Europe have also adopted participatory budgeting. In this panel, two of Europe's top experts on participatory budgeting will discuss the challenges and opportunities of deepening democracy in the Global North. Giovanni Allegretti is an Italian architect and senior researcher at the Center of Social Studies (CES) at Coimbra University in Portugal. He is currently co-director of the PhD course “Democracy in the XXI century” at CES, and coordinator of the PEOPLES’ Observatory on Participation, Innovation and Local Powers and the 3-year project “Participatory Budgeting as innovative tool for reinventing local institutions in Portugal and Cape Verde?” He serves as a resource person in the Chinese-coordinated project “Legal Issues of Public Participation” and a consultant for the Swedish Associations of Municipalities and Regions on their first participatory budgeting experiment. He has been research director of three EU-funded projects on participation: “Participando” (coordinated by the Municipality of Rome), “INCLUIR – Participatory Budget as a tool for fighting social exclusion” (coordinated by the Municipality of Venice) and “PARLOCAL”, a cooperation between 36 Spanish, Uruguayan and Dominican cities (coordinated by the Province of Malaga). From...
by jlerner at May 2, 2011 11:19 PM -05:00 GMT
May 7: 2nd PB Vote in Chicago Participatory Budgeting in Chicago's 49th Ward is gearing up for its second annual PB voting day - Saturday, May 7th. For more information, including the sample ballot, see http://www.ward49.com/...
by jlerner at May 2, 2011 10:53 PM -05:00 GMT
Upcoming Speaking Events: MA, RI, CA, NC The PB Project is hitting the road and speaking at several public events, most with Chicago Alderman Joe Moore. April 11: Springfield, MA - 4pm at Springfield Technical Community College April 12: Boston - 6pm at Central Boston Elder Services April 13: Cambridge, MA - 4pm at the Ash Center April 14: Providence - 7pm at the Watson Institute April 26: San Francisco - 6:30pm at Centro del Pueblo Auditorium April 27: Berkeley - 5pm at UC Berkeley April 28: Vallejo, CA - 7pm at Mira Theatre Guild at the Bay Terrace Theater, 51 Daniels Avenue May 4: Greensboro, NC - 5:30pm at the Nussbaum Room, Central Library, 219 North Church St (for general public) May 5: Greensboro, NC - 3pm at Gateway Center Conference Room, 620 S. Elm St., Third Floor (for non-profits) May 6-9: Chicago (the 2nd annual PB Voting Day in the 49th Ward will take place May 7) If you live in one of these cities, know someone there who might be interested. or want us to come to your town, let us know....
by jlerner at April 9, 2011 01:48 PM -05:00 GMT
More Good News from Chicago The run-off municipal election in Chicago on April 5th brought into office at least two more Aldermen who have pledged to launch PB in their ward: James Cappleman (46th Ward) and Deborah Silverstein (50th Ward). Michelle Smith (43rd Ward) and John Arena (45th Ward), who also came out in support of PB, are leading in their vote counts as well. This brings the total number of supportive Aldermen to 11-13....
by jlerner at April 9, 2011 01:44 PM -05:00 GMT
"Government can't solve budget battles? Let citizens do it." Daniel Altschuler and I co-published an opinion piece today in The Christian Science Monitor: Government can't solve budget battles? Let citizens do it. In recent weeks, Americans have watched budget battles tear apart Congress and state governments. This may be just the beginning. As states and cities across the country confront staggering budget shortfalls, they face a double whammy:... read more...
by jlerner at April 5, 2011 01:14 PM -05:00 GMT
Springfield, Mass: "Real decisions about real money" Amherst College's Center for Community Engagement has published an article on the possibilities for PB in Massachusetts: ‘Real decisions about real money’: Participatory budgeting for Springfield? On Monday, April 11, Springfield and area residents, nonprofits, and local representatives are taking what could be the first step towards implementing “participatory budgeting” (PB) in Springfield... read more...
by jlerner at April 5, 2011 12:52 PM -05:00 GMT
PB Featured at Politics Daily Alison Fairbrother recently published a great article updating the PB developments in Chicago and elsewhere, on the national news site Politics Daily - "Participatory Budgeting: In a Chicago Ward, Residents Call the Spending Shots"...
by jlerner at March 17, 2011 12:11 PM -05:00 GMT
Unrest, networks and connectivity Last year, I wrote about the role of networks and connectivity in Afghanistan. I argued that such connectivity was key to the unpredictable and dramatic events emerging from the state. I ended the article by arguing (p. 746) that, rather...
by jon_mendel at March 2, 2011 06:40 PM +00:00 GMT
Chicago Election Results Chicago's municipal elections this Tuesday delivered good news for participatory budgeting. Joe Moore won the 49th Ward in a landslide with 72% of the vote, after barely winning in a runoff last election. Amongst the other candidates who pledged to launch PB in their wards, 8 won office: 1st Ward: Proco "Joe" Moreno 5th Ward: Leslie Hairston 7th Ward: Sandi Jackson 28th Ward: Jason Ervin 29th Ward: Deborah Graham 30th Ward: Ariel Roboyras 47th Ward: Ameya Pawar 48th Ward: Harry Osterman Six other PB supporters are heading for run-off elections on Tuesday April 5th: 17th Ward: David Moore 25th Ward: Cuahutemoc Morfin 43rd Ward: Michelle Smith 45th Ward: John Arena 46th Ward: James Cappleman 50th Ward: Deborah Silverstein...
by jlerner at February 24, 2011 04:41 PM -05:00 GMT
PB candidates in Chicago elections Chicago is holding municipal elections on February 22nd, and participatory budgeting is on the ballot, indirectly at least. Alderman Joe Moore, who launched PB in Chicago's 49th Ward, is up for re-election. Following Moore's lead, many other alderman candidates are also calling for PB. A few examples: - Valerie Leonard, 24th Ward - Emily Steward, 46th Ward - Ameya Pawar, 47th Ward - Ahmed Khan, 50th Ward - Bertha Starks, 8th Ward The Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO) distributed a questionnaire to all alderman candidates, and question 27 asked "Will you institute participatory budgeting to allow ward residents to vote on discretionary spending in your ward?" Of the 88 candidates that responded, only 17 said 'No.' Two did not respond, and 69 responded 'Yes.' Of the 69 that responded 'Yes', seven are incumbents....
by jlerner at February 18, 2011 12:15 PM -05:00 GMT
New Videos on Participatory Budgeting in Argentina & Brazil The Bertelsmann Foundation has posted short videos (in English) describing the seven finalists for the 2011 “Vitalizing Democracy” Prize. 158 democratic innovations from around the world were submitted, and three of the finalists are cases of participatory budgeting. Each case also uses technology in innovative ways, for SMS-voting, internet voting, electronic ballots, or online forums. 1) La Plata (Argentina) 2) Belo Horizonte (Brazil) 3) Recife (Brazil)...
by jlerner at February 16, 2011 06:17 PM -05:00 GMT
Cincinnati's 40k Challenge There's a new participatory budgeting initiative in Cincinnati's Price Hill neighborhood. The 40k Challenge, run by the organization Price Hill Will, is inviting community members to decide how to spend $40,000. Starting with a public meeting in December 2010, organizers are asking people to generate project ideas and proposals for four themes: business & entertainment, community cooperatives, community promotion & connection, and public spaces & things to do in them. Like in Chicago's 49th Ward, project teams will then refine the proposals and present them to the public for a vote. The pot of money may be small, but the 40k Challenge shows how an organization can open up budget funds to the public, and spark more community engagement in the process. Could this be a new model for participatory budgeting?...
by jlerner at February 10, 2011 12:06 PM -05:00 GMT
Talk at Columbia For those in the New York area, I'll be speaking at Columbia University's Lectures in Planning series next week: Talk: Participatory Budgeting in the US: Public Control Over Public Money Speaker: Josh Lerner, The Participatory Budgeting Project February 15, 1:00PM Avery Hall 114 Faced with huge budget crises and low public trust, governments are increasingly turning to participatory budgeting. Through this democratic process, community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. Since emerging in 1990 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, participatory budgeting has spread to over 1,000 cities around the world, giving communities control over spending decisions in municipalities, public housing, and schools. As Co-Director of The Participatory Budgeting Project, Lerner has researched and helped develop participatory budgeting processes in North America over the past decade. In 2009, he worked with Chicago Alderman Joe Moore to launch the first participatory budget in the US, in which over 1,600 residents decided how to spend Moore's $1.3 million discretionary budget. This talk will focus on the recent experience in Chicago and on new possibilities for participatory budgeting in New York....
by jlerner at February 9, 2011 11:38 AM -05:00 GMT
Afghanistan, Networks and Connectivity: journal article I'm pleased that my article on Afghanistan, Networks and Connectivity is now out in Geopolitics: Afghanistan is often thought to be a failed state because it is isolated from the networks of globalisation: for example, Afghanistan is viewed as part...
by jon_mendel at December 14, 2010 06:57 PM +00:00 GMT
USA Today: Participatory Budgeting Builds Community USA Today sings the praises of participatory budgeting, as part of a series on community involvement: One of the boldest exercises in citizen involvement is playing out in Chicago's 49th Ward. Every ward receives $1.3 million a year to spend on roads, sewers and other infrastructure. Alderman Joe Moore let residents choose exactly where they want the money to go. Neighborhood committees were formed, drafted a list of projects they wanted to fund and put it to a vote... Moore says letting citizens decide what to spend money on is... Read more....
by jlerner at December 9, 2010 09:33 PM -05:00 GMT
National League of Cities Congress in Denver The Participatory Budgeting Project will be co-hosting a workshop in Denver this week at the 2010 Congress of the National League of Cities, the annual gathering of municipal government officials. If your local elected officials might be attending, please let them know about our session with Cities for Progress on Thursday, December 2nd: Participatory Budgeting: Building Community Agreement Around Tough Budget Decisions (4:45-6:15pm, Korbel 2A) Learn about a pioneering experiment in democratic governance in Chicago’s 49th Ward where residents are invited to decide directly how to spend $1.3 million in city funds. This session/reception from Cities of Progress will include food and drinks for participants. Chicago Alderman Joe Moore will also be speaking about his experience with participatory budgeting at a session on Friday, December 3rd: Fees or Flames: Is it Time for a New Social Compact Between Government and the People? (2:00-3:30pm, Korbel 1F)...
by jlerner at November 29, 2010 02:01 PM -05:00 GMT
Could Participatory Budgeting Work in New York?
In this guest post, Pratt Institute's Laura Stinger recaps a panel discussion held in Brooklyn on October 29th, to discuss Chicago's recent experience with participatory budgeting, and the possibilities for similar initiatives in New York:
During an evening event held at Pratt Institute to discuss the future of participatory budgeting in New York City, Chicago Alderman Joe Moore was joined by New York City Council Member Brad Lander, Bronx Community Board 7 District Manager Fernando Tirado, and Community Voices Heard representative Anne Washington. This post recaps the presentations and discussions from the event.
After introductions by Eve Baron of the Pratt Center, the Alderman screened a short film to illustrate the participatory budgeting (PB) process in his ward, from formation of the steering committee, to brainstorming sessions, to presenting ideas, and finally voting. After the film, the Alderman explained why he felt compelled to use participatory budgeting as a way to tackle the lack of citizen influence in city government.
In Chicago, most city-wide decisions are made by...
by jlerner at November 23, 2010 10:54 AM -05:00 GMT
Video: Participatory Budgeting in New York
On October 29, the Participatory Budgeting Project co-sponsored a panel discussion on participatory budgeting at Pratt Institute in New York. Chicago Alderman Joe Moore shared his experience with participatory budgeting, in which he invited residents of his ward to directly decide how to spend his $1.3 million discretionary budget. New York City Council Members, Community Board representatives, and community activists then responded to Moore's presentation, discussing if and how community members could be more involved in budget decisions in New York.
Below are two videos of the event, first of the Alderman's presentation, then of the responses from other panelists.
From Budget Cuts to a People's Budget? Connecting Participatory Planning and Public Budgets in New York from Prattplanning on Vimeo.
Participatory Budgeting Panel Discussion from Jesse G on Vimeo.
by jlerner at November 11, 2010 04:39 PM -05:00 GMT
Participatory Budgeting Events in New York At the end of October The Participatory Budgeting Project is sponsoring two public talks in New York City, featuring Chicago Alderman Joe Moore, who launched the first US participatory budgeting process this past year. See below for info. If you are interested in setting up similar events in your city, send us an email.
by jlerner at October 18, 2010 10:23 AM -05:00 GMT
Science: So What and DBIS - letter to Lord Drayson Alexander Holmes and I have written to Lord Drayson: to ask him about some issues we found when research the Science: So What? So Everything science communication campaign, which ran while Drayson was science minister. The letter is reproduced below;...
by jon_mendel at October 12, 2010 06:50 PM +00:00 GMT
3 Participatory Budgets Honored for "Vitalizing Democracy" From Tiago Peixoto: The Bertelsmann Foundation has announced the 7 finalists of the Reinhard-Mohn Prize 2011 “Vitalizing Democracy”. To this competition, 158 cases of democratic innovations from all over the world have been submitted. Amongst the 7 finalists chosen by the jury, 3 cases are related to innovations in the field of Participatory Budgeting (2 Brazil, 1 Argentina). All these 3 PB cases have the usage of ICT as an essential component of their participatory process. - La Plata (Argentina): Participatory Budgeting uses SMS-voting and electronic ballots. - Belo Horizonte (Brazil) Co-Governance: part of Belo Horizonte’s participatory budgeting includes Internet and interactive voice response (IVR) voting. - Recife (Brazil) Participatory Budgeting: includes electronic ballots and Internet voting. The 7 finalist cases will now go through an in-depth process of evaluation and documentation. The outputs of this process (e.g. videos, research papers) will then be available to the public at large, providing a wealth of information for researchers and practitioners. The full-list of finalists can be found here....
by jlerner at October 7, 2010 03:05 PM -05:00 GMT
Individual action Although foreign policy is typically crafted and wielded by states, it has become fashionable in recent years (if not recent decades) to suggest that non-state actors play just as important a role in international relations. The forces of technology and...
by Daniel Widome at October 3, 2010 11:39 PM -08:00 GMT
Year Two of Participatory Budgeting in Chicago Participatory Budgeting in Chicago’s 49th Ward is starting its second year, looking to build on the success of last year. Over the summer, a group of organization representatives and community representatives from the first year of PB formed a PB Leadership Committee, to help coordinate the process. The Leadership Committee finalized dates for the first round of community meetings, and it has been fundraising to support further outreach and engage more ward residents for this year’s process. Neighborhood Assembly Schedule (Note: All meetings begin at 7:00 p.m.) Monday, September 27th, Loyola Park Fieldhouse Tues, September 28th, Saint Margaret Mary's Wednesday, September 29th, Pottawomie Park Fieldhouse Monday, Oct. 4th, New Field School, 1707 W. Morse Tuesday, Oct. 5th, St. Jerome Church Parish Center, 1709 W. Lunt (Spanish language) Wednesday, Oct. 6th, Loyola University, Campion Hall, 6551 N. Sheridan Monday, Oct. 11th, United Church of Rogers Park, 1545 W. Morse, 3rd Floor Tuesday, Oct. 12th, Natalie Salmon House, 7320 N. Sheridan Tuesday, Oct. 19th, Gale Academy, 1631 W. Jonquil Members of the Leadership Committee will also be holding smaller versions of neighborhood assemblies at local schools, organizations, churches, nursing homes, and senior centers in an attempt to reach out to populations that were under-represented in last year’s process. Look to the 49th Ward PB website for further updates on the assemblies....
by jlerner at October 1, 2010 11:55 AM -05:00 GMT
Project Censored highlights participatory budgeting in Chicago Good news and bad news: Project Censored, the media democracy organization, has named participatory budgeting in Chicago's 49th Ward as one of the top underreported stories of hope and creative change of the past year....
by jlerner at September 15, 2010 08:30 PM -05:00 GMT
A vicious circle: Science So What, BIS and the mainstream media Alexander Holmes and I blogged about issues around research, PR, communications and policy on the Guardian Science Blog earlier this week. Here's the longer version of the post (the Guardian cut it down slightly); we have also added a postscript...
by jon_mendel at September 10, 2010 07:23 PM +00:00 GMT
Word games Foreign policy is typically made behind closed doors. Treaties and trade agreements may become public information once they are signed, but the planning, strategizing, and negotiating that creates them is hidden from public debate. Sometimes, however, the process that creates...
by Daniel Widome at August 31, 2010 03:58 PM -08:00 GMT
Housing benefit, statistics, policy-based evidence and an unclear situation There has recently been a lot of discussion about changes to the UK's Local Housing Allowance (LHA): a benefit which pays or contributes to the rent of low-income households. The plan is to, among other changes, reduce the maximum monthly...
by jon_mendel at August 15, 2010 02:01 PM +00:00 GMT
New Website Up We recently redesigned the Participatory Budgeting Project website. In particular, we streamlined the Resources section. Rather than trying to provide exhaustive (and exhausting) lists of everything PB, we're now highlighting a limited number of PB experiences, publications, and organizations that we think are most relevant for North America. We will continue to add more resources periodically. Please let us know if you have any feedback or suggestions for the site!...
by jlerner at August 9, 2010 03:47 PM -05:00 GMT
San Francisco Community Congress On August 14th and 15th, the San Francisco Community Congress will be discussing a range of policy initiatives and directions for the city, and participatory budgeting is on the short list:...
by jlerner at August 6, 2010 12:16 PM -05:00 GMT
Heffernan on science blogging, culture and deconstruction in NYT In a recent NYT piece, Virginia Heffernan argues that "it’s time to don the old Derridean cloak and re-enter the unwinnable science-culture battle?" I have a number of concerns about Heffernan's piece. I fail to see where it is Derridean...
by jon_mendel at August 2, 2010 07:32 PM +00:00 GMT
Clean start Anyone concerned with the dangers posed by nuclear weapons (which, arguably, should be pretty much everyone) has had a busy and promising year so far. In the past six months, the United States and Russia have negotiated a new arms...
by Daniel Widome at July 26, 2010 12:42 PM -08:00 GMT
Blogging about a blog post about science blogging Hauke Riesch and I have been researching science blogging - looking at some of the networks, boundaries and limitations in play here. We recently presented on the topic at the excellent Science and the Public Conference at Imperial. This led...
by jon_mendel at July 15, 2010 07:23 PM +00:00 GMT
Allied voices The United States has always depended on regional allies around the world to support its foreign policy agenda. But this is especially true today. Experiences with near-unilateralism in Iraq and elsewhere have shown that the United States cannot simply impose...
by Daniel Widome at June 25, 2010 06:54 PM -08:00 GMT
Street Etiquette: Boston vs. Amman Living as a young, single, girl in the Middle East I’ve learned never to make eye contact with anyone on the street, especially since most people on the street are men. This might sound rude to some from the US,...
by Phoebe Sloane at June 15, 2010 08:03 AM -05:00 GMT
Putting it Together: Pre-Kenya Evan and I are in the final stages of pre-trip organization. In two weeks, we'll be on the ground in Kenya, carrying out our pre-production workshops for community radio stations who have answered our call for participants. Right now, we're...
by CBerman at June 14, 2010 10:49 AM -05:00 GMT
Times blog piece on science and research communication Alexander Holmes and I have a post up on the Times science blog: discussing science/research communication and the importance of effective public engagement with research. We argue that the UK government's Science: So What? science communication initiative has illustrated many...
by jon_mendel at June 3, 2010 05:58 PM +00:00 GMT
Global upstarts Recent months have been busy ones in the world of nuclear diplomacy. Many of the most important events already have been covered in this space. But this month, signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) gathered in New York to...
by Daniel Widome at June 1, 2010 02:08 AM -08:00 GMT
Participatory Budgeting at the US Social Forum The Participatory Budgeting Project is excited to announce a special workshop at the US Social Forum in Detroit, featuring organizers of the first participatory budgeting process in the US (Chicago's 49th Ward) and the largest process in North America (Toronto Community Housing). Participatory Budgeting in the US: Public Control Over Public Money June 25, 2010 - 10am-12pm Cobo Hall: W2-58 Sponsoring Organizations: The Participatory Budgeting Project, Community Voices Heard (New York), Toronto Community Housing, Office of Alderman Joe Moore (49th Ward Chicago), Rogers Park Community Council (Chicago), Liberty Tree Foundation Description: This session introduces participatory budgeting and explores how it has been used and could be used in North America. Participatory budgeting is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. Since 1990, it has spread from the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre to over 1000 cities around the world, including several in Canada and the US. It has helped communities gain democratic control over spending and policy decisions in municipalities, public housing, schools, and organizations. This has led to more informed and equitable spending, more accountability and transparency, and more active and organized communities. After a brief introduction, presenters will share their experiences through a roundtable discussion. Representatives from Community Voices Heard will discuss why community control over budgeting matters and how they are organizing around budget participation in New York. Representatives from Toronto Community Housing and Chicago’s 49th Ward will present their experiences with participatory budgeting. The session will then break up into facilitated small groups, to discuss key question, challenges, and opportunities for participatory budgeting in the US....
by jlerner at May 28, 2010 03:38 PM -05:00 GMT
Video: Democracy in Action Check out the new video on participatory budgeting in Chicago's 49th Ward: If you like the video, register on the website and vote for it in the contest!...
by jlerner at May 6, 2010 01:06 PM -05:00 GMT
The Conservative Party, research and non-conventional families Research is playing a prominent role in the upcoming UK election - will all the major parties using or abusing it in order to justify their policy proposals. One interesting case study of what can go wrong can be found...
by jon_mendel at May 2, 2010 11:43 PM +00:00 GMT
Nuclear blast Over the span of just a few weeks, Obama has leveraged the issue of nuclear weapons in an unprecedented manner. Partly by design and partly by chance, he has staked a tremendous amount of time and capital on his goal...
by Daniel Widome at April 26, 2010 03:36 PM -08:00 GMT
Chicago's $1.3 Million Experiment in Democracy The first year of participatory budgeting in Chicago's 49th Ward concluded last week, with huge turnout for a final voting day. Residents selected 14 community projects for funding, and thanks to strong support from community members and the Alderman, preparations for next year's process have already begun. Megan Wade Antieau and I have a new article in YES Magazine reviewing the process: Chicago's $1.3 Million Experiment in Democracy: Participatory Budgeting in the 49th Ward On Chicago's far north side, citizens are taking democracy into their own hands. Through the first "participatory budgeting" experiment in the United States, residents of Chicago's 49th Ward have spent the past year deciding how to spend $1.3 million in taxpayer dollars. Over 1,600 community members stepped up to decide on improvements for their neighborhoods, showing how participatory budgeting can pave the way for a new kind of grassroots democracy, in Chicago and beyond. read more...
by jlerner at April 21, 2010 03:47 PM -05:00 GMT
The Art of Diplomacy A common critique of Barack Obama's foreign policy is that it consistently takes a back seat to domestic affairs. Just this month, Obama canceled a trip to Indonesia and Australia to stay in Washington DC to shepherd health care legislation...
by Daniel Widome at April 21, 2010 01:18 PM -08:00 GMT
Croatia, to Film I’m Steven Ellis, a 10.5’er originally from Washington, D.C. (technically Bethesda, for those of you in the know). I’m passionately ADD, so my interests range from the founding fathers to microfinance, lacrosse, Japanese animation, whiskey distillation, etc etc. My (independent)...
by Steven Ellis at April 14, 2010 03:45 PM -05:00 GMT
Food for Thought & Thoughts for Food Let's talk about permaculture. Permaculture: where permanent agriculture meets and merges with permanent culture. Put simply, an approach to both agriculture systems and human settlements that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies. Seems logical, right? If only it were...
by SCoghlan at April 13, 2010 10:12 PM -05:00 GMT
UK MoD Defence Cultural Specialist Unit to deploy to Helmand I was interested to see Wired reporting that the DCSU deploys this month to southern Afghanistan, where it will serve as a dedicated cultural advisory team for Task Force Helmand. The news item says the unit is charged with “build[ing]...
by jon_mendel at April 6, 2010 07:11 PM +00:00 GMT
Food for Thought & Thoughts for Food I suppose it makes the most sense to begin at the beginning. Perhaps to introduce who I am, where I've come from, and where I'm heading. So by way of introduction, my name is Sarah Coghlan and I am a...
by SCoghlan at April 5, 2010 08:08 AM -05:00 GMT
GCHQ: BBC fails to crack the code Earlier this week, the BBC broadcast a programme on the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ): a UK intelligence agency. Security correspondent Gordon Corera was, very unusually, allowed some access. However, the programme was extremely disappointing: strikingly uncritical and un-probing. A few...
by jon_mendel at April 2, 2010 06:29 PM +00:00 GMT
Chicago Tribune: Spending out in the open for 49th Ward Alderman Joe Moore of Chicago's 49th Ward has an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune on his ward's participatory budgeting process: Spending out in the open for 49th Ward From Chicago's City Hall to the halls of Congress, important policy and spending decisions have been made for far too long by a handful of politicians behind closed doors working in concert with corporations and special interests. This old way of doing the public's business has bred anger and mistrust of all levels of government. ... As a Chicago alderman, I have embarked on an innovative alternative to the old style of decision-making. In an experiment in democracy, transparent governance and economic reform, I'm letting the residents of the 49th Ward in the Rogers Park and Edgewater communities decide how to spend my entire discretionary capital budget of more than $1.3 million. Read more...
by jlerner at March 31, 2010 08:36 AM -05:00 GMT
The Svaneti Recording and Preservation Project Hi folks - I'm Sarah Gibson, and I'll be posting blog entries in the upcoming months about my project as a New Media Fellow, entitled "The Svaneti Recording and Preservation Project". Since I was twelve years old, I have studied,...
by SGibson at March 27, 2010 01:23 PM -05:00 GMT
PBP at Affordable Housing Conference I'll be speaking about participatory budgeting as a tool for affordable housing at this conference on Saturday: No MAHS: No More "Affordable" Housing Scams Saturday, March 27 9:30 – 5 @ Hunter College West, 8th Floor 6 to 68th Street - Hunter College Affordable housing programs were designed to fail. They do not serve low-income people, they are not permanent, and they benefit developers more than communities. They contribute to gentrification and displacement of communities of color. They rob our communities of the power to make decisions about our future. The longstanding affordable housing crisis has gotten worse with the current financial crisis, leaving us with vacant buildings, massive foreclosures, and even more homelessness. This is a call for those who are tired of being told that their dream for truly sustainable housing, free from market pressures, is unreasonable, impractical, or naïve. This conference aims to create a space where we can radically re-imagine what is possible in our struggles over land, learn about some of the concrete skills to implement new strategies for community control over our resources, and build and strengthen ties within the housing, community and social justice movements. There are other paradigms for community-based control of land and resources that can help move our communities forward! NO MAHS is a forum for housing activists, tenants, squatters, community organizers and homeless people to discuss radical strategies for accessing, securing, and preserving land, community space, and truly affordable housing. Panelists: Setting the Context -- Commodification of Land: Frank Morales and Sam Imperatrice History of New York City’s Housing Movement: Tom Angotti and Peter Marcuse Current Affordable Housing Programs: Mario Mazzoni Tactics for Control of Community Land -- Community Land Trusts: James Tracy and Alice Liu (San Francisco CLT) Limited Equity Coops: Jessica Hall (HDFC), Marina Metolis (UHAB) Participatory...
by jlerner at March 26, 2010 09:45 AM -05:00 GMT
California (to Rhode Island) to Vietnam Hi there :). I suppose this is my first (in)formal introduction as an AT&T Media Fellow. I'm Quyen Ngo, a sophomore planning to concentrate in Development Studies. Here at Brown, outside of classes and schoolwork, a huge amount of my...
by QNgo at March 25, 2010 12:10 AM -05:00 GMT
Video: Participatory Budgeting in Chicago There's a new video short on the 49th Ward Participatory Budgeting Process in Chicago:...
by jlerner at March 24, 2010 04:25 PM -05:00 GMT
From Oregon to Rhode Island to Rwanda Hi, my name is Evan Pulvers. I'm from Portland, Oregon, and I am a senior Development Studies concentrator headed to Rwanda this summer to take part in the global conversation. I'm undertaking a AT&T New Media project with Chantal Berman....
by EPulvers at March 24, 2010 12:03 PM -05:00 GMT
From Boston Basketball to Hurling in Cork Like any Bostonian worthy of the title, I grew up confusing civic pride with a fanatical devotion to local athletics. Every summer (and with luck, every fall) belonged to Red Sox, and each winter was marked off for the Celtics....
by ZMcCune at March 21, 2010 11:59 PM -05:00 GMT
Introduction: Colleen Brogan Hello, everyone! My name is Colleen Brogan, I am a senior at Brown concentrating in Art History and French-Semiotics. I grew up in a small suburb outside of Philadelphia that is obsessed with sports. I ran cross country for a...
by CBrogan at March 21, 2010 11:47 PM -05:00 GMT
Participatory Budgeting and Community Organizing: Update from Chicago Participatory Budgeting continues to move forward in Chicago's 49th Ward, thanks in large part to community organizing. Since November, dozens of community representatives have been meeting regularly in six committees: Parks & Environment, Public Safety, Traffic Safety, Streets, Transportation, and Art & Other Projects. Starting with ideas proposed at neighborhood assemblies, they have been developing full project proposals - and doing the legwork necessary to make these proposals a reality. Each committee has been working as a team to assess project ideas, research their feasibility, and work through key details. To develop a proposal for a new bike path, the Transportation Committee has reached out to Loyola University and Chicago transportation officials, trying to build support for a preferred route and navigate the legal obstacles to implementation. The Public Safety committee met with the 911 Center and Police, and after reviewing the results of different public safety measures has shifted its emphasis from blue light security cameras towards more street lighting. Park & Environment has organized separate community meetings to discuss proposals for a community garden and dog park. The community representatives are now gearing up for the final voting day (April 10th), when all ward residents age 16 and over will be invited to vote for up to 8 projects. Each committee is working to mobilize public support for its proposals, through the ward's participatory budgeting blog, other blogs, community meetings, and word of mouth. The Art & Other Project committee is even organizing an exhibition of proposed projects at a local art space. Many of the committees are thinking even further into the future and discussing how to continue organizing around their key issues after the voting. The residents of Chicago's 49th Ward are turning participatory budgeting into not just a vote over spending, but also an opportunity...
by jlerner at March 19, 2010 11:13 AM -05:00 GMT
Afghan action One of the early ways that the Obama administration set itself apart from its predecessor (and there were many) was in its re-conceptualization of the war in Afghanistan. Recognizing that the challenges presented by that conflict couldn't be neatly confined...
by Daniel Widome at March 12, 2010 06:38 PM -08:00 GMT
PB in the Pacific Some news from the Pacific: The organization Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific International (FSPI) has implemented 2 PB projects recently. One is called 'Making Resource Allocation Pro Poor and Participatory in the Pacific (funded by the ADB) and the other is a current project called 'People, Participatory Democracy and Policy: A PB Project' (funded by AusAid). Most of the work around PB has been implemented to different extents in Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga and Kiribati. Based on funding, they hope to extend PB to other countries in the region in the near future. Thanks to Albert Cerelala of FSPI for this update!...
by jlerner at March 8, 2010 06:56 PM -05:00 GMT
Reportback: International PB Conference in Berlin On January 21st and 22nd, Berlin hosted a coming-out party for participatory budgeting in Germany. After years of smaller seminars and local experiments in PB, around 200 politicians, public employees, practitioners, and scholars gathered for an International Conference on Participatory Budgeting Models. They discussed experiences from diverse cities in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and North America, bringing to light many differences in how PB is practiced and understood. Four particularly interesting debates and questions emerged from these discussions, revolving around the roles of vision, deliberation, decision-making, and change. First, the different experiences had very different visions of the purpose of PB. What kind of world should it help bring about? Most of the Germany experiences were seen as tools for modernization, while the African experiences were more about good governance and the Spanish and UK ones more oriented towards social justice and empowerment. The vision behind the respective PBs has in turn shaped their practice, as described below. Do these diverse visions just represent the rainbow of different approaches PB, or do some of them arc off in fundamentally different directions? PB gained fame around the world largely because of its ability to redistribute resources towards populations with the greatest needs. If social justice is not part of the vision, could this sap the energy and popular support from PB? Second, the PB processes included very different roles for deliberation. In Germany, there are relatively few face-to-face forums for deliberation, with many PBs allowing citizens to vote online without any deliberation. In Spain, deliberation is often about not only budget projects, but also about the criteria for evaluating these projects. These deeper deliberations aim to steer discussion towards the public interest, by asking people to evaluate projects through the lens of broad public priorities. In Africa, many deliberations consider not...
by jlerner at February 28, 2010 10:33 AM -05:00 GMT
New Google Group To replace the defunct participatory budgeting email list at topica.com, The Participatory Budgeting Project and the PB Facebook group are launching a new PB google group. The purpose of the group is to facilitate information exchange, discussion, and collaboration between people working with PB. We invite you to join the group at http://groups.google.com/group/participatorybudgeting/...
by jlerner at February 26, 2010 10:27 AM -05:00 GMT
Dept. for Business, Innovation and Skills' poor use of research in THES article There is a good article in Times Higher Education Supplement this week: criticising some poor use of research by the UK's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). I'm quoted saying that a report on 'future jobs' promoted by many...
by jon_mendel at February 10, 2010 10:27 PM +00:00 GMT
Peter Taylor's Generation Jihad: are we in a golden period of British security? I've just watched the first episode of Taylor's documentary Generation Jihad. Some interesting discussion of radicalisation, but I almost spilled my coffee when the programme started by stating that a small group of radicalised [Islamist] young men now constitute the...
by jon_mendel at February 9, 2010 10:37 PM +00:00 GMT
Visit to Golan Heights and Haifa A collection of clips from a recent peace-building visit by Pakistani-American professor Saleem H. Ali on prospects fpr using environmental issues and energy connectivity as a means of regional peace-building:...
by Saleem Ali at January 31, 2010 07:53 PM -05:00 GMT
Nonproliferation priorities In the year since Barack Obama's inauguration, observers of all stripes have attempted to measure his progress in office against his promise as a candidate. Invariably, a mixed impression emerges. On several prominent issues, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama...
by Daniel Widome at January 29, 2010 06:15 PM -08:00 GMT
Indian Art, a Global Affair With galleries and museums showcasing the works of India’s brightest young stars and ancient treasures, Indian art is front and centre this month in London. In 2005 Indian art turned heads, as the market began to skyrocket and prices for...
by Clare DeBoer at January 26, 2010 05:10 AM -05:00 GMT
Jordan and Israel Ecological Cooperation A visit to the peace "island" between Jordan and Israel which Friends of the Earth -- Middle East is working on converting into an international peace park. Filmed by Saleem H. Ali (University of Vermont, editor of the MIT Press...
by Saleem Ali at January 13, 2010 10:19 AM -05:00 GMT
Nobel notions The October announcement that Barack Obama would receive the Nobel Peace Prize surprised many. The overwhelming sense was that however promising a figure Obama might be, he hadn't yet accomplished enough to join the ranks of Martin Luther King, Mother...
by Daniel Widome at December 31, 2009 12:24 AM -08:00 GMT
Urdu interview on Madrassa problem in Pakistan
by Saleem Ali at December 20, 2009 06:47 PM -05:00 GMT
Democracy for Christmas: Voting on Gifts for Baby Jesus In the UK city of Newcastle, children are using participatory budgeting to celebrate Christmas. To connect with the city's UDecide initiative, the Scotswood Play Centre added audience voting into this year's nativity play. As the play centre's manager described: “We felt that to include the U-decide concept in the play would introduce children to the way it works and how they can vote for activities that will benefit them and their community. Voting themes in the play included deciding on whether Mary and Joseph should travel to Scotswood on a wonky donkey, a scooter or in a shopping trolley. Also, they decided on what gifts would be given to the baby Jesus.” Read more...
by jlerner at December 18, 2009 12:34 PM -05:00 GMT
The Indian Century? 12/16/09: Radio Open Source host Chris Lydon, who spoke with authors Rana Dasgupta and Suketu Mehta while they were at Brown for the "New Indian Writing" literary festival, has written: Are we missing the point about "India Rising" and "India...
by Year of India at December 16, 2009 01:38 PM -05:00 GMT
Between Neighborhood Assemblies and Community Reps: PB in Chicago Participatory budgeting in Chicago's 49th Ward is off to a strong start, with the first phase of neighborhood assemblies now complete. At nine assemblies, hundreds of residents identified over 200 project ideas and selected over 80 people to carry the process forward as community representatives. Spending ideas include community gardens, street paving, murals, bike paths, street lights, wheelchair ramps, and many more infrastructure improvements. Steering Committee members, from local organizations, facilitated the meetings and played a large role in organizing the assemblies. Between December and March, the community representatives will meet to turn the initial spending ideas into concrete and feasible projects. Then in April, all residents of the ward will be invited to vote for the projects of their choice, to decide which get funded. For more information, see the 49th Ward Participatory Budgeting website, or the media reports below: - "A Grand Experiment in Budgeting" (Progressive Illinois) - "Participatory Budgeting Comes to Chicago's 49th Ward" (Prairie State Blue) - "Participatory Budgeting #2: At the Neighborhood Assembly" (Prairie State Blue) - "Alderman Joe Moore Asks His Constituents to Spend $1 Million" (Time Out Chicago) - "Experiment in Democracy: 49th Ward Leads the Way in Participatory Budgeting " (Chicago Talks)...
by jlerner at December 5, 2009 07:03 PM -05:00 GMT
New orientation Between the lofty, untested principles of political candidacy and the urgent and unexpected realities of governance lies something of a middle ground, or an overall orientation that can guide a president's foreign policy and serve as a prism through which...
by Daniel Widome at December 5, 2009 01:59 AM -08:00 GMT
25th Anniversary of Bhopal 12/3/09: Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster, which Suketu Mehta has described in today's New York Times as an "an epic mess that started one night when a pesticide plant owned by the American chemical giant...
by Year of India at December 3, 2009 09:39 AM -05:00 GMT
26/11 - Salute thee Mumbai 26th November 2008. As one of the most ghastly terror attacks ripped our beloved Mumbai, the country's commercial centre stood the test of time. 10 Pakistani terrorists attacked prominent landmarks in the city killing nearly 200 people and injuring many more. The attackers took hostages and battled Indian security forces continuously for nearly 60 hours.
A year has passed since that fateful night, and today, we remember and pay homage to the victims and the martyrs.
by Vasundhara Prasad at November 25, 2009 11:25 PM -05:00 GMT
South Asian Identity Week 2009 Last week marked South Asian Identity Week 2009. As co-director alongside Meara Sharma '10.5, I'm proud to say our week was extremely successful and thought-provoking.
Let me share with you the thinking process behind our week of events. As Homi Bhabha mentions in The Location of Culture: “The 'beyond' is neither a new horizon, nor a leaving behind of the past.... Beginnings and endings may be the sustaining myths of the middle years; but in the fin de siècle, we find ourselves in the moment of transit where space and time cross to produce complex figures of difference and identity, past and present, inside and outside, inclusion and exclusion.” This “moment of transit” is what this year’s South Asian Identity Week’s theme, "Earth Unbound," strives to unpack.
by Akshay Rathod at November 25, 2009 01:12 PM -05:00 GMT
The State Dinner Today is the first state dinner of Barack Obama's presidency, and the guest of honor is Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Obama is calling the relationship between the United States and India one of the ''defining partnerships'' in the world....
by Year of India at November 24, 2009 12:48 PM -05:00 GMT
Join the conversation Join the conversation, on the Year of India blog... What would Mahatma Gandhi say to President Obama? His grandson, the public intellectual Rajmohan Gandhi, was on campus this week. And he told Radio Open Source that the conversation would go...
by Watsonblogs at November 17, 2009 01:43 PM -05:00 GMT
Traumatic Experiences I have just come back home from a 4 hour shift working at an Urgent Care Center here in Rhode Island with my Doctoring mentor. I learned a lot today about various conditions ranging from tenia crurus or "crotch rot" to pneumonia to shingles. Today, though I had a slightly traumatic experience with my last patient.
by Reshma Ramachandran at November 16, 2009 11:02 PM -05:00 GMT
Resurrection of the Blog Hey all, I'm sure many of you have been on the edge of your seats waiting for my next entries... To appease that, I have decided to resurrect my blog and actively maintain it by ensuring at least 2 updates...
by Reshma Ramachandran at November 16, 2009 03:47 PM -05:00 GMT
Participatory Budgeting in Chicago - Neighborhood Assembly Dates Alderman Joe Moore, of Chicago's 49th ward, has just announced the initial neighborhood assemblies of the ward's participatory budgeting process. There will be 9 assemblies, starting November 3rd and running till December 3rd. The process will then continue till March or April, when residents will decide which projects to fund. Dear Neighbor, Around the United States and here in Chicago, city leaders are increasingly asking residents for suggestions about budget spending. Here in the 49th Ward, we're going one step further. Through a novel experiment in democracy, I'm not just asking for your opinion--I'm asking you to make real decisions about how we spend our money. read more...
by jlerner at October 27, 2009 10:25 AM -05:00 GMT
Euro vision The U.S. president frequently finds himself at the center of global attention. This month was no different, as speculation mounted over Barack Obama's new strategy in Afghanistan and surprise erupted over the president's unexpected Nobel Peace Prize. Beneath these stories,...
by Daniel Widome at October 22, 2009 11:44 PM -08:00 GMT
Participatory Budgeting in Germany Rolf Luehrs has just published an update on some of the more than 115 participatory budgeting processes in Germany. As he notes, the experiences differ in three main ways: Approach While participatory budgeting was originally designed as an instrument of direct democracy with a binding decision of the citizenry, most of the European PBs are implemented as consultations: The citizens were given opportunity to have their say but it is up to the elected representatives to finally decide about the proposals. Scope In many cases only selected parts of the public budget are under consideration in others the entire budget is subject to citizen participation. Interestingly the scope seems to depend on the chosen approach: When the entire budget is under consideration, the opinions and preferences of the citizens usually are not binding. Instruments & Channels Some of the participatory budgeting projects are still implemented using only traditional communication channels. In most cases the Internet is leastwise used to spread information. Quiet a lot of municipalities or cities are providing interactive channels on the Internet to support the offline activities. And in a few cases the Internet is the only channel for the citizens to participate. Read more...
by jlerner at October 21, 2009 02:40 PM -05:00 GMT
Data trafficking: problematic numbers on sex work and trafficking in Britain Sex work in the UK - in various forms - is big business and is problematic in all kinds of ways. However, the issue of trafficked immigrants being coerced into sex work has played a prominent - even dominating -...
by jon_mendel at October 20, 2009 12:03 PM +00:00 GMT
FEAST: PB by and for artists Since February 2009, a group of artists in New York City has been organizing its own variation on participatory budgeting, called FEAST (Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics). As the website explains: FEAST is a recurring public dinner designed to use community-driven financial support to democratically fund new and emerging artmakers. At each FEAST, participants will pay a sliding-scale entrance fee for which they will receive supper and a ballot. Diners will vote on a variety of proposed artist projects. At the end of dinner, the artist whose proposal receives the most votes will be awarded funds collected through the entrance fee to produce the project. The work will then be presented during the next FEAST. Participants reviewing proposals at the May 2009 FEAST. Saturday October 3rd is the 5th FEAST event. The previous events have funded 11 diverse arts projects, many of them political or community-oriented. Do FEAST and other similar efforts, such as the UK's "Who Wants to Be?", represent a new form of PB, emerging autonomously from artist communities?...
by jlerner at October 1, 2009 08:28 PM -05:00 GMT
Missile base Barack Obama staked his campaign for the presidency on the promise of change. The realities of governance are much different than the promises of campaigns, of course, and Obama has disappointed some supporters with the slowness or incompleteness of his...
by Daniel Widome at September 30, 2009 10:26 PM -08:00 GMT
E-Participatory Budgeting in Australia From Tiago via techPresident: The government of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), in an attempt to mitigate the effects of the economic downturn and stimulate local economies, has allocated the equivalent of US$30 million to the Community Building Partnership program. Aiming to support local jobs, stimulate growth and improve community facilities, the program allocates between US$260,000 and US$ 350,000 to each of the 93 NSW electoral districts. Under the program, community groups are eligible to electronically submit applications for funding to support local infrastructure and jobs in the district. Once applicants meet the requirements, MPs prioritize which projects are to receive funding. However, the real novelty comes from the electoral district of Heathcote, where MP Paul McLeay is inviting the district’s citizens to decide through the Internet on the allocation of the funds that the government has made available. Read more...
by jlerner at September 28, 2009 07:50 AM -05:00 GMT
Japan in Pittsburgh When Lehman Brothers collapsed one year ago, Japan entered the worst of the global financial crisis with a unique perspective. It had experienced its own asset bubble in the late 1980s, and the slowness and inadequacy of its response led...
by Daniel Widome at September 24, 2009 01:08 PM -08:00 GMT
June 15 June 15 The humidity that morning was so intense I was awakened by my own sweat before sunrise. My aunt had turned off the air conditioning so all that was left was a fan blasting the hot air into my...
by Cherilyn VyVy Tran at September 14, 2009 11:22 PM -05:00 GMT
June 5 Friday, June 5 I was awoken by the boiling heat that hit particularly early this morning. Josh’s text arrived late, but I had been preparing since last night for the unexpected. After several delays (missing volunteers and my difficulty in...
by Cherilyn VyVy Tran at September 14, 2009 11:08 PM -05:00 GMT
June 4 Thursday, June 4 The taxi pulled up to the curb of Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Sai Gon, and I took time to admire the beautiful of the old, but still glamous wing before they close it down. The...
by Cherilyn VyVy Tran at September 14, 2009 10:51 PM -05:00 GMT
Thuy Her name had come up in several previous conversations because they often discussed the most effective form of treatment for her, but I was never attentive enough to place a name to the endless list of symptoms: precious puberty,...
by Cherilyn VyVy Tran at September 8, 2009 11:38 PM -05:00 GMT
Clinic Day at Hoi An Foundation July 2 Today is my first day at Hoi An Foundation clinic. Hoi An Foundation was founded by a pulmonologist from Denver, Colorado who started out providing medical care to some of the poorest children in the Quang Nam province...
by Cherilyn VyVy Tran at September 8, 2009 11:28 PM -05:00 GMT
7. Wrap-Up Part 1: Rice Farmers and the Philippine Economy Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, as it may be! I am now back in the strange land of Minnesota. I haven’t put up a post in forever! Sorry. The events in that last post date way back to about...
by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at September 5, 2009 05:27 PM -05:00 GMT
The End Well, the internship has ended, and all in all, it has been a great experience. As I prepare to leave for the States, The Paraná Biodiversity Project (PBP) has begun to organize its closing ceremony: funding for the project has...
by Megan Whelan at August 29, 2009 12:19 AM -04:00 GMT
Alliance adjustment As Japan nears its August 30 election, a political era may be nearing an end. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), under the leadership of Prime Minister Taro Aso, is deeply unpopular and trails badly in pre-election polls; its nearly...
by Daniel Widome at August 28, 2009 11:01 AM -08:00 GMT
Last Days in Mandalay and Back to Yangon (and then back to the U.S. of A.) Towards the end of my first week at Phaung Daw Oo, Principal U Nayaka asked me to prepare a lecture for a school-wide assembly. He wanted me to talk about my experience of returning to Burma (for the first time...
by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint at August 28, 2009 12:24 AM -08:00 GMT
The Internship Winds Down Fifty plots, one hundred soil samples, and more than a thousand plant specimens, collected and pressed to a crisp, characterize the past five weeks of my internship here in Paraná, Brazil. It has been a busy month!! Like I said...
by Megan Whelan at August 26, 2009 06:57 PM -04:00 GMT
Mandalay and Phaung Daw Oo monastic high school So here was the original plan: I was to stay in Yangon for a few weeks, teaching classes at Ngar Kyan Pyan. Then I was to travel through the Ayeyarwady Division and visit villages that had been devastated by Nargis...
by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint at August 24, 2009 01:51 PM -08:00 GMT
Comparison of face-to-face and e-PB Richard Fahey recently wrote a nice comparison of three PB processes that use differing amounts of online engagement, in Toronto, Berlin, and Belo Horizonte. Interestingly, he suggests that a greater percentage of participants had low incomes in the face-to-face processes than in the e-PB process. One of the reasons PB has been so popular is because it tends to at least partly reverse the standard political bias towards the more affluent. Does e-PB take the social justice out of PB, or does the online participation just need to be designed better?...
by jlerner at August 23, 2009 06:30 PM -05:00 GMT
Crossing Continents: Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan Just a quick blog post - but the BBC's Crossing Continents is essential listening for those interested in war and counter/insurgency. It shows how the US military's counterinsurgency doctrine is now being applied to Afghanistan - with this impacting on...
by jon_mendel at August 22, 2009 01:00 PM +00:00 GMT
First days in Yangon It was about 10 ‘o clock at night when I arrived at Ngar Kyan Pyan. The next morning, at 7 ‘o clock, I taught my first class. I guess you can call that “hitting the ground running.” To be fair, my first week of classes were closely supervised by Sayagyi Daw Sadhu, [3] a retired high school teacher who teaches tenth Standard English at Ngar Kyan Pyan.
by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint at August 20, 2009 12:04 AM -08:00 GMT
Reign's end As Japan nears its August 30 election, a mixture of political weariness and anticipation fills the air. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), under the leadership of Prime Minister Taro Aso, is deeply unpopular and trails badly in pre-election polls;...
by Daniel Widome at August 19, 2009 11:42 PM -08:00 GMT
Better Late than Never (optional subtitle: In which the author makes excuses, excuses, excuses) A few days before I was scheduled to leave for Burma (Myanmar) I came across an article online titled “10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger.” [1] Number one was Burma. This is part of the excuse why I am...
by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint at August 17, 2009 02:16 PM -08:00 GMT
Progress in Chicago A quick update on Participatory Budgeting in Chicago's 49th Ward, which continues to move ahead. We've set up a Steering Committee of over 30 community organizations, which has been designing the PB process for the past few months. We're now finishing up the rulebook, which will include guidelines for the neighborhood assemblies, the geographic breakdown of the ward, thematic focuses for spending, selection of projects and community representatives, and roles of key actors. The plan as it stands now is: - October/November: neighborhood assemblies to identify spending needs and project ideas, and select community representatives - November-February: meetings of community representatives, to turn project ideas into full proposals - March 2010: a single voting day and assembly, to select projects to be funded We'll post more news here as it develops....
by jlerner at August 14, 2009 02:52 PM -05:00 GMT
6. Subic and Olongapo, Continued On my final day in Zambales, I visited the Yokubari Foundation, Inc., a non-profit NGO based in Olongapo City which works closely with the KPD chapter in Subic. In speaking with its director and some community members involved in its...
by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at July 30, 2009 09:13 AM -05:00 GMT
PB at Toronto Community Housing For the past month I was in Toronto researching and working on participatory budgeting at Toronto Community Housing. This year was a transition year, which made for an even more interesting and ambitious process. The article below gives a glimpse into how it worked this year, and it includes a short video. Participatory Budgeting – Working together, making a difference July 27, 2009, Toronto Community Housing 2009 is the eighth year for Participatory Budgeting at Toronto Community Housing, an idea which originated in Brazil, which gives tenants the power to decide how housing money is spent. They decide how to spend the $9 million in a ... Read more...
by jlerner at July 28, 2009 02:46 PM -05:00 GMT
5. Maybe My Last Blog Post Ever! Or Maybe Not! Greetings, fellow people. After three weeks of bouncing around and a dehydrating, rainy, but well-attended protest during President Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address yesterday, I am now finally able to sit down and write a blog post for...
by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at July 28, 2009 10:16 AM -05:00 GMT
Seeing Moravia as a safe haven In previous blog posts, I have talked about how difficult it is to effect true cultural and behavioral change in poor neighborhoods like Moravia. Indeed, violent crime and general social decay remain huge problems there. Nevertheless, I want to correct myself. Yesterday I visited some middle- and lower middle-class Medellin neighborhoods that were far more hostile and scary than Moravia.
by Pablo Rojas at July 27, 2009 05:10 PM -05:00 GMT
Updates and Health Care for All NOW! A couple of great updates for this week: two amendments presented before the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee were voted on this week: 1. An amendment that would reinstate the ban on federal funding for the syringe exchange, cost-effective and...
by Reshma Ramachandran at July 25, 2009 03:37 PM -05:00 GMT
Copenhagen countdown One of the more popular critiques of the Obama administration suggests that the president is taking on too many challenges at once. If nothing else, it is a reflection of the high level of activity emanating from the new administration....
by Daniel Widome at July 25, 2009 01:36 AM -08:00 GMT
Bogota's Refugee Crisis Now, Bogotá officials are saying they expect another 1,200 displaced families to arrive very soon and the city simply cannot take any more refugees. There are already tens of thousands living in dire conditions in slums, parks, and public spaces around the city. The capital is therefore calling on the national government to finally address the refugee crisis. Too often, they say, refugee tent cities are treated as invasions of public space
by Pablo Rojas at July 24, 2009 06:24 PM -05:00 GMT
The Death of Chicho and a Report on Extortion The police were also present at a cemetery in the town of Copacabana, about fifteen minutes north of Medellin, where Chicho was to be buried. Nevertheless, as the caravan approached, armed men on motorcycles came in and out freely to say their last goodbye to their leader.Chicho was buried amidst applause from dozens of his subordinates, without any interruptions by the police.
by Pablo Rojas at July 23, 2009 03:18 PM -05:00 GMT
How Should We Measure Quality? I received an interesting comment with regards of how we should measure health care quality. What is the proper way to measure health care quality? Is measuring health care outcomes the proper way to gauge it? Should we not be...
by Reshma Ramachandran at July 22, 2009 10:54 PM -05:00 GMT
Informal recyclers murdered in Cali, but celebrated in Moravia Social cleansing became national news again last week after the Cali grenade attack on recyclers and a bloody 72 hours last week during which 17 people were murdered in South Bogota, including several drug addicts. This is a country ravaged by intense and often violent social tensions and inequality. Fortunately, however, at least in Moravia, there is a commitment from above to recognize, celebrate, and take full advantage of largely untapped entrepreneurship and social capital in poor neighborhoods. While recyclers may be under attack in Cali, in Moravia, they are a central part of neighborhood's economic development plan.
by Pablo Rojas at July 21, 2009 12:29 PM -05:00 GMT
Links between Ecuador's President and the FARC In essence, President Correa's campaign was partly funded by the hemisphere's most brutal terrorist organization (second only, perhaps, to Colombian paramilitaries), a guerrilla group that has murdered and kidnapped thousands of Colombians and has a huge role in international drug trafficking. It remains to be seen what political consequences the video will bring, but it comes at a horribly inopportune time for an already scandal-ridden Correa.
by Pablo Rojas at July 21, 2009 11:35 AM -05:00 GMT
My first encounter with paramilitaries in action Informal justice is rampant in Colombia, and there is little evidence that it is going away. Decades of state absence or indifference has created deeply entrenched criminal organizations who enforce justice on their own terms. Many neighborhoods of Medellin are ruled not by the state, but by the law of 'survival of the fittest'. These days, the 'fittest' in some areas are indeed the police. In many other cases, however, they are armed gangs, paramilitary groups and CONVIVIR.
by Pablo Rojas at July 21, 2009 11:31 AM -05:00 GMT
Working In and Out of the Cubicle This summer I'm working at the American Medical Students Association (AMSA), the largest organization of medical students that includes pre-meds and DO students as well. Prior to coming to D.C. on July 4th (FIREWORKS!), I was in Germany at the...
by Reshma Ramachandran at July 20, 2009 11:35 PM -05:00 GMT
Putting Things into Perspective "Historic." "Our generation's revolution." "The biggest movement of our lives." These are phrases that I have heard almost every day I have been working for the American Medical Students Association as a Health Care Quality and Safety Intern (or the...
by Reshma Ramachandran at July 20, 2009 12:47 AM -05:00 GMT
The phonebook you never thought you'd have This week has been, by far, my busiest week in Cairo. I have worked a six day week, with most days lasting from 9:30 in the morning until I get home around midnight. Normally, I'd probably have a few choice...
by Alexander Steven Wamboldt at July 18, 2009 12:26 PM +02:00 GMT
The phonebook you never thought you'd have This week has been, by far, my busiest week in Cairo. I have worked a six day week, with most days lasting from 9:30 in the morning until I get home around midnight. Normally, I'd probably have a few choice...
by Alexander Steven Wamboldt at July 18, 2009 12:26 PM +02:00 GMT
I've been in Brazil for over a month?! Hello! Welcome to my first blog entry of the summer! I cannot believe that more than a month has already gone by since I first arrived in Brazil. Needless to say, I have plenty to write about! I guess I...
by Megan Whelan at July 18, 2009 11:06 AM -04:00 GMT
Displacement and AH1N1 Without proper attention from the state, the Embera refugee population has become the epicenter of Bogota's growing AH1N1 problem. Sadly, before flu fears became a reality, few people in Bogota or Colombia cared or did much about the living conditions of Embera refugees or hundreds of thousands of other displaced people
by Pablo Rojas at July 16, 2009 10:53 AM -05:00 GMT
Column Link #2 Just published another opinion piece about illegal wiretapping, freedom of the press and human rights in Colombia. Check it out here: http://colombiareports.com/opinion/111-colombiamerican/4998-colombias-dirty-war-chuzadas-and-the-future-of-the-das-.html
by Pablo Rojas at July 15, 2009 10:46 AM -05:00 GMT
Thoughts on Koyaanisqatsi and the Fragility of Public Housing Experiments Already, in some housing projects, armed groups, composed in part of demobilized paramilitaries, have begun to demand protection money from the buses that operate in the area. In some cases, they even control who comes in and out of theneighborhood. When the city fails to occupy all the apartments simultaneously , the empty apartments are turned into drug markets and brothels whose criminal bosses are literally the main local authority. In fact, in some areas I visited, there simply is no police presence.
by Pablo Rojas at July 14, 2009 09:47 AM -05:00 GMT
Updates: Emerald Violence and Illegal Wiretapping Colombia is the world's most dangerous country for union leaders and one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. The fact that elements of the government continue to treat opposition leaders as threats to the state, without any real proof of criminal or violent activity, is certainly worrying, especially given the historical context.
by Pablo Rojas at July 13, 2009 10:41 PM -05:00 GMT
Column Link I recently wrote a column for ColombiaReports.com on President Uribe's recent decision to allow opposition Senator Piedad Cordoba to help negotiate the release of hostages held by the FARC. Check it out here:
by Pablo Rojas at July 13, 2009 06:06 PM -05:00 GMT
After a visit to Cali, happy to be in Medellin Despite all the problems I've encountered at my internship , my time in Cali reminded me of how much the past two Medellin mayors have transformed the city. There was a time, in the mid-90s, when my family was considering moving to Cali. Back then, we didn't give Medellin a chance. These days, the exact opposite is true.
by Pablo Rojas at July 13, 2009 05:21 PM -05:00 GMT
Al Jazeera on Iran Protests
by Andy Blackadar at July 10, 2009 07:31 PM -05:00 GMT
updates and the benefits of working for a religious community Since I last posted, I've certainly had a busy work life. But now that July has come, I can officially announce that I have read through all 3,000 or so articles that in any way mention Pope Shenouda III within...
by Alexander Steven Wamboldt at July 9, 2009 06:56 PM +02:00 GMT
A Big Relief and More Paramilitaries For the Moravia project, paramilitarism is just one of the variables that we have to take into account as we move forward with projects. So far, budget issues are stressing us out much more than paramilitaries. For Colombia as a whole, however, paramilitary power is a growing menace that continues to deepen the influence of drugs and crime at all levels of socieety.
by Pablo Rojas at July 9, 2009 06:04 PM -05:00 GMT
News of the World involved in hacking and bugging public figures Nick Davies wrote in Flat Earth News about how the UK media have used ethically and legally dubious techniques in order to break stories. While he was criticised at the time, many of his arguments have been vindicated by a...
by jon_mendel at July 9, 2009 02:14 PM +00:00 GMT
News from Colombia: The Business of Violence During a Recession (also: Corruption and False Positives) This year, private security firms earned about double what hotels earned. This is especially ironic given the fact that Colombia's improving reputation in terms of security has recently contributed to a boom in tourism, both domestic and international. Apparently, however, the number of people who feel the need for armed protection greatly exceeds the number of people who have risked traveling in Colombia. Private security was bigger business than even the traditional banana and flower sectors.
by Pablo Rojas at July 8, 2009 03:17 PM -05:00 GMT
Thoughts on Colombia and Ecuador's Arrest Warrant Dispute Colombia, meanwhile, did little to apologize for the episode and instead launched continuous accusations of sympathy for and even collaboration with the FARC not just at Ecuador, but also at Venezuela. The whole thing became a massive regional political crisis that resulted in some significant troop movements on both sides of the Colombia-Venezuela border.
by Pablo Rojas at July 8, 2009 12:46 PM -05:00 GMT
Conservative Party and gay rights: the slow seeping of spirit? I was pleased to see that - in response to accusations of homophobia - the UK's Conservative Party has responded by emphasising their openness to gay men and women. Whatever one thinks of the Conservative Party, it is interesting that...
by jon_mendel at July 7, 2009 06:12 PM +00:00 GMT
The Eleventh Floor This is a city full of poor people who have endured devastating levels of violence for most of their lives. By some measures, Colombia has been at war for the past 61 years. Drug trafficking has devastated Medellin for much of the past 30 years. Having to go through the 11th floor is a hassle, but it is a nice break from the hours I spend in front of a computer. More importantly, my time on the floor below is a very direct reminder of who I'm working for.
by Pablo Rojas at July 7, 2009 10:00 AM -05:00 GMT
Uribe's Political Capital If he manages to even compete with the Uribistas, that alone will be a significant political achievement. Nevertheless, if anyone is capable of such a miracle, it is Fajardo. The more established left-leaning opposition is in the midst of bitter internal conflict and, even in times of more cohesion and coherence, has only managed to gain the support of about 15% of the Colombian population.
by Pablo Rojas at July 7, 2009 09:38 AM -05:00 GMT
This week at the office Unfortunately, while there are many social workers in Moravia, once people are relocated from Moravia in Pajarito, they are outside of the Moravia project's jurisdiction. In other words, nobody is monitoring the social and economic situation in Pajarito. Crime, conflict between neighbors, vandalism and otehr problems have become rampant. There may be plenty of other problems that we don't know about simply because the city administration does not have a strong presence in the sector.
by Pablo Rojas at July 6, 2009 04:51 PM -05:00 GMT
Colombia's Blood Emeralds The fact that the country's largest emerald trader is quite obviously involved with some mafia groups and paramilitary death squads only confirms the rumors about emeralds that used to circulate around crime scenes in Northern Bogotá.
by Pablo Rojas at July 6, 2009 04:00 PM -05:00 GMT
4. Highlights of the Week(s) II, part 2!! Fearing that you would become too exhausted to finish reading if I just posted one really long entry, I decided it could be beneficial to split it up and post a second: TWO OTHER MAJOR ACTIVITIES! • TindigNation launch: The...
by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at July 5, 2009 10:52 PM -05:00 GMT
3. Highlights of the Week(s) II, part 1!! This post will cover the highlights of the past two weeks at my internship. A few days were set aside for various cross-sector activities, and the next 10 days were devoted to ASSERT. No epic protest march this time, but...
by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at July 5, 2009 10:19 PM -05:00 GMT
MoD confuses mung beans with opium poppy seeds There was recently a big Ministry of Defence press splash about a seizure of so-called poppy seeds in Afghanistan. However, it turns out that the soldiers had captured nothing more than a giant pile of mung beans, a staple pulse...
by jon_mendel at July 2, 2009 12:38 PM +00:00 GMT
Iraqi Sovereignty Day: a poisoned gift? Iraq has declared June 30 - when US troops withdrew from Iraqi cities - to be a national holiday called Sovereignty Day. Looking at the current situation in Iraq, I'm reminded of Hardt and Negri's remarks on sovereignty in Empire...
by jon_mendel at July 1, 2009 12:15 AM +00:00 GMT
Medellin Street Art Medellin has a reputation for great weather, hospitality, beautiful mountains, attractive women, violent crime, etc, but it also deserves a reputation for great public art.
by Pablo Rojas at June 30, 2009 08:36 PM -05:00 GMT
Obama and Uribe Get Together While it is never entirely clear what happened behind closed doors, this meeting was more about continuity than it was about change. A recent Washington Post article argued that the Obama-Uribe meeting would have a markedly different tone from that of the Bush-era Uribe visits. Indeed, Bush and Uribe really disagreed about very little. What is remarkable, however, is how friendly the tone was.
by Pablo Rojas at June 30, 2009 11:41 AM -05:00 GMT
Thoughts on the Political Crisis in Honduras On the other hand, this coup is entirely unlike the coups of the Cold War Era. Every government in Latin America, regardless of ideological inclinations, has condemned the coup. So has much of the West. Despite the fact that ousted Honduran president Zelaya was an ally of Hugo Chavez, even Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, the region's foremost anti-Chavista, did the right thing and expressed opposition to the coup.
by Pablo Rojas at June 29, 2009 12:42 PM -05:00 GMT
More information about RECOM Here is the website for RECOM, by the Humanitarian Law Center..... http://www.hlc-rdc.org/Outreach/Koalicija-za-REKOM/1285.en.html...
by Tessa Lee at June 29, 2009 06:56 AM -05:00 GMT
Half Way and still finding new work I can't believe that I have already been living in Belgrade for nearly 5 weeks! I've really made a lot of friends and settled into life at the office; my colleagues in FRACTAL are all so friendly and welcoming, it...
by Tessa Lee at June 29, 2009 06:26 AM -05:00 GMT
Subtle timing In the past month, a quick succession of events has occurred that could significantly change the U.S. relationship with countries in the Middle East. Notable speeches by U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and important elections...
by Daniel Widome at June 27, 2009 02:40 PM -08:00 GMT
Another Movie Suggestion A warning: La Vendedora de Rosas is a very intense movie, without a traditional happy ending. It is an honest depiction of an unimaginably horrible reality. Nevertheless, if you are capable of digesting human tragedy on film, you will find it to be a movie that says a lot about humanity's ability to survive and find happiness in an environment marked only by death and abandonment.
by Pablo Rojas at June 26, 2009 05:03 PM -05:00 GMT
End of the Week Stress is building in my office because plenty of similar problems are, to varying degrees, plaguing nearly every project. This is by no means unusual in Medellin or, for that matter, any other city with an honest and ambitious administration. Indeed, at the office it is almost normal to be stressed out and angry at another agency for some sort of delay or mistake. Fortunately, however, the weather is quickly improving and, this afternoon, everyone will leave for a third consecutive long weekend.
by Pablo Rojas at June 26, 2009 12:46 PM -05:00 GMT
A Few Interesting Projects In reality, however, the battle for the hearts and minds of Medellin's underprivileged children has not been won. Criminal groups are sitll more powerful than the state in many peripheral areas. There is still a sense, which is probably somewhat accurate, that there are more criminals living in luxury than there are criminals suffering in prison. Finally, marginalization remains a huge social and pyschological problem despite integration projects like MetroCable: the young kids who make a few cents as informal tour guides at the Santo Domingo MetroCable station often ask tourists 'Did you come from Medellin?' as if Santo Domingo was a separate city.
by Pablo Rojas at June 25, 2009 12:45 PM -05:00 GMT
The Past Few Days: Violence in Moravia and The Fragility of Colombian Democracy For now, Uribe has established himself as a macho father figure for the entire country. His aggressive approach to politics and security was, according to most people, necessary to bring Colombia back under the control of the state. Whether the state under Uribe is honest, law-abiding, democratic and respectful of human rights is almost irrelevant.
by Pablo Rojas at June 25, 2009 12:41 PM -05:00 GMT
2. Highlights of the Week!! Highlights of the Week!! • Orientation: Got the lowdown on KPD and the affiliates, the national political spectrum, and the three main campaigns on which all the organizations are collaborating. The campaigns are those against: 1) Charter Change (constitutional amendment);...
by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at June 23, 2009 10:23 AM -05:00 GMT
Relocation Updates and the UN's Take on 'False Positives' Christian Salazar, who has just started as director of the UNHCR in Colombia, said extra judicial execution committed by the army, illegal wire-tappings, forced displacements and paramilitary violence are of primary concern to his office.
by Pablo Rojas at June 22, 2009 01:04 PM -05:00 GMT
1. My First Blog Post Ever: Some Background, before More Interesting Posts I’m now a full week into my internship here in the Philippines. The words which first come to mind: mosquitoes, really really hot, really really sweaty, rice. I suppose, though, that I have to give a better summary to...
by Isaac Jabola-Carolus at June 22, 2009 10:10 AM -05:00 GMT
More Interesting Video from Tehran Two different types of protest in Tehran. 1. A confrontation between police and demonstrators. http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2009/06/090621_ag_street_clashes.shtml 2. Protests shouted from the rooftops at night. http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2009/06/090620_og_nightly_protest.shtml...
by Andy Blackadar at June 22, 2009 08:53 AM -05:00 GMT
Relocation on Saturday What is clear, however, is that the relationship between Moravia residents and the city administration is increasingly fragile and that mysterious groups are emerging to challenge the authority of the city administration and the independent community leaders that have been orienting the project for years. Moravia is one of the oldest Strategic Projects currently underway. It started under the Fajardo administration and has visibly transformed the neighborhood. It would be sad to see the project stagnate or, even worse, to see criminal groups undo much of the progress that has been made.
by Pablo Rojas at June 18, 2009 04:27 PM -05:00 GMT
Red Juvenil de Medellin There are tremendous structural problems that preclude victory in the fight against organized crime: corruption, poverty, inequality, a flawed judicial system and robust demand for cocaine in the U.S., Europe and beyond. Of course, people who talk about structural problems are never popular in the political world. Far more popular are those who declare war and then declare victory. Many in Colombia and abroad have been talking about structural problems for years, but few people in power here and abroad (most importantly in the U.S.) seem to want to listen.
by Pablo Rojas at June 18, 2009 09:54 AM -05:00 GMT
Good News about the Displaced Family From Cali and More Bad News About Colombia The Office is no longer a myth, it is a very real drug trafficking organization with a firm hold on Medellin. Recently, they were found to have links with Hezbollah, with whom they collaborated to ship drugs throughout Asia. They have plenty of contacts throughout Mexico and Central America. While they don't have a single identifiable leader or a clear number of footsoldiers like rival druglords Los Rastrojos, Cuchillo and el Loco Barrerra, they may be the most powerful criminal organization in all of Colombia.
by Pablo Rojas at June 17, 2009 12:27 PM -05:00 GMT
Lost Tupperware As my taxi slowly made its way through a traffic jam, I looked for the displaced man through the afternoon crowds and found that he was already halfway done with the fruit. If he wasn't displaced, he was at least hungry. But I still feel guilty about losing the tupperware and have to find another one by lunchtime tomorrow.
by Pablo Rojas at June 16, 2009 07:26 PM -05:00 GMT
Coca, Corn and MetroCable It was definitely a strange ride full of contradictions: an award-winning high-tech transportation system surrounded by shacks, tourism in what was once (and to some extent still is) an urban warzone. But I guess that's the point of Medellin's past two administrations. The city's crisis of violence and poverty could not be confronted with gradual, cautious policies. Fajardo and Salazar brought the most investment, the prettiest buildings and the best schools to war-torn slums. It remains to be seen how much peace and prosperity their policies manage to achieve.
by Pablo Rojas at June 16, 2009 04:58 PM -05:00 GMT
Tehran Demonstrations Will the past be prologue? In the past, demonstrations of this size in Tehran have led to dramatic change followed by a backlash. This video also has historical echoes. A demonstration is set upon by motorized policeman. The crowds knock...
by Andy Blackadar at June 16, 2009 10:47 AM -05:00 GMT
trip to rural egypt Thursday was my first field assignment on the job, which meant going down 100km of industrial cement factories, then the farming villages of the Nile fluvial plain until making it to the two villages of Atfih and Deir al-Maymun in...
by Alexander Steven Wamboldt at June 13, 2009 07:02 PM +02:00 GMT
Community Policy-making in Action and Indirect Contact with Spanish Royalty Pamphlets are an effective way of doing dirty politics in poor neighborhoods. Guerrillas use it to stir up chaos and paramilitaries use it to make public death threats, impose curfews and announce social cleansing. This time, the pamphlet was being used to protest against bureaucratic inefficiency, which had resulted in serious problems for participants in the relocation process.
by Pablo Rojas at June 12, 2009 11:11 AM -05:00 GMT
Homosexuality in Medellin's Underworld He told me that some paramilitaries from his neighborhood immediately kicked out a loyal soldier after they discovered he had a boyfriend. In fact, after their unit had taken control of the neighborhood, this discovery was pretty much their most severe emergency. Pepe himself was the one who alerted the local commander that he had a homosexual in his unit, probably in full knowledge that the information could lead to the man's death.
by Pablo Rojas at June 12, 2009 11:04 AM -05:00 GMT
A Victory for Colombia, Several Losses for Moravia, and Busses Honking in Harmony Every day, I realize more and more that Medellin's highly praised transformation was essentially a series of creative, groundbreaking and inclusive but almost always incomplete projects. These projects, nonetheless, have begun to effect deep and far-reaching changes in the city's social landscape. I guess most cities are consistently behind schedule, cutting projects and rethinking priorities. Nevertheless, as long as the projects have the right fundamental idea - and Medellin projects certainly seem to - something will eventually get done that will positively transform an entire neighborhood.
by Pablo Rojas at June 11, 2009 12:40 PM -05:00 GMT
A Frustrated Fajardo Fights Back Many Colombians are still recovering from the brutal violence of the early 2000's and, while Colombia is by no means a peaceful country today, they simply will not risk electing a president who will mismanage their safety. The past seven years have created a sense here that a hardline security policy is the only security policy. Growing insecurity in major cities and some rural areas, rather than discrediting Uribe's approach, simply confirms that the country is still at war and needs some continuity in its leadership. Therefore, it will be quite difficult for Fajardo to present a politically viable alternative to Uribe´s mano dura.
by Pablo Rojas at June 10, 2009 10:47 AM -05:00 GMT
Bureaucratic Stalling and Soccer Violence It is just one display of Mayor Salazar's influence in the lower classes, as many fan groups are composed mainly of working class supporters, and of his awareness that, just as soccer has a potential for violence, it can be used as a force for peace. Further, it is the kind of initiative that has become common in Medellin, where people and political leaders remain committed to the idea that a crucial element of any successful anti-violence campaign is a plan to directly reform culture and behavior. In this case, the hope is that the display of unity by these mortal enemies will serve as a lesson for the city as a whole.
by Pablo Rojas at June 9, 2009 07:00 PM -05:00 GMT
Thoughts on Fajardo, Salazar and Organized Crime in Medellin As I see it, the city's current security challenges demand that the policies both at the national level and at the local level that were credited with saving Medellin from decades of mafia violence have to be re-evaluated.
by Pablo Rojas at June 9, 2009 03:28 PM -05:00 GMT
My first week with NGO FRACTAL An review of my initial involvement with NGO Fractal- Enclave tensions in Kosovo, decentralization and a conference on a regional truth and reconciliation commission for the Balkans.
by Tessa Lee at June 9, 2009 08:14 AM -05:00 GMT
Mass Cat Poisonings and A Welcome Visit by Llin The second floor, she says, has been inhabited in recent months by a street kid, whom she quickly kicked outt. He managed to enter the locked apartment through a window and unlock the door, which has made it much easier for other illegal inhabitants to move in. A displaced family stayed there for days and she finally had to call the police, who sent two cars and and a motorcycle to help kick them out. Most recently, drug addicts and criminals have used the second floor to use and sell drugs, steal, rape, and conduct express kidnappings. Edith frequently goes down there to kick them out, threaten them, and extinguish their fires and crack pipes with water so that she and her kids don´t inhale the fumes as they sleep. Further, the only thing separating her from the second floor is a loose wooden door. This woman clearly has some authority and plenty of experience in dealing with criminals. As Edith told me these stories, she pointed to a stick and a crowbar, hand weapons that she alternates between when evictions get complicated. I asked her, out of curiosity, how she felt about local security in general, and she rolled her eyes as if to complain and confirmed the rumors about forty police motorcycles.
by Pablo Rojas at June 8, 2009 04:50 PM -05:00 GMT
Golden Cellphones Get Psychoanalyzed by 10 Shaykhs (because Sunday's a Workday) My Pope Shenouda III project is well underway. As in, I have spent the last five days of work (meaning Friday and Saturday are excluded; Sunday is a workday here) going through the entirety of the Report's collection of articles...
by Alexander Steven Wamboldt at June 7, 2009 10:21 PM +02:00 GMT
Pictures of Moravia For photos of my first tour of Moravia, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/pablorojasmejia/Moravia#
by Pablo Rojas at June 6, 2009 12:57 PM -05:00 GMT
Trouble in Moravia Since then, the area has become a hideout for criminals, an open air drug market and an improvised local trash dump. It is the very sort of urban decay that the Moravia Project seeks to reverse and prevent.
When I visited Moravia last week, I saw a neighborhood booming with small-scale entrepreneurship, neighborhood solidarity, and optimism. Freshly painted houses, newly paved streets, a modern cultural center, and a brand new day care center were some of the achievements that greatly impressed some Catalan journalists who came to see Medellin´s transformation.
by Pablo Rojas at June 5, 2009 05:49 PM -05:00 GMT
The Refugee Camp in Front of the Mayor´s Office Displacement definitely puts a lot of pressure on offices like the one where I am currently working. Every day, people here strive to meet the most basic needs of Medellin´s poorest people, but we are all aware that thousands of people with urgent needs migrate to the city every month. While we try to reverse three decades of violence, marginalization and social decay in Moravia, as we look at the mountains that surround the city we know that new Moravias are already forming there, and that perhaps the people who most need our help have not even come to Medellin yet.
by Pablo Rojas at June 5, 2009 05:03 PM -05:00 GMT
The Park of Dreams, 11-year-old assassins and Botero´s Fat Birds Yesterday, just in front of my apartment building, two young hitmen - one of them 11 years old - shot and killed a local lawyer who was 8 months pregnant. They were both caught, and local doctors quickly performed a C section on the victim, saving the baby. The phenomenon of teenage hitmen, known as sicarios, used to be widespread in Medellin and even developed into a local subculture with its own religious mythology and vocabulary. This year´s 66% increase in the local homicide rate has some people nervous that the city may return to its brutal past.
by Pablo Rojas at June 4, 2009 05:17 PM -05:00 GMT
There's that whooshing sound of free-time escaping... My days of having nothing to do (but what a nice four days they were) are very much over. I have started my work for the Arab-West Report, and the last three days have kind of been a blur as a result. Though to be fair, some of that might be the fact that it was 110 today.
by Alexander Steven Wamboldt at June 3, 2009 01:23 PM +02:00 GMT
Moravia´s Transformation Moravia has a long history of marginalization and violence. The city administration kept the municipal trash dump there for ten years despite the growth of an entire community of people, many of them displaced by violence in neighboring regions of Colombia, on the site of the dump. When a terrible fire broke out in the late 1980´s and destroyed thousands of homes there, druglord Pablo Escobar relocated the victims of the fire in a neighborhood he built for them in Medellin, now called Barrio Pablo Escobar. Other drug trafficking organizations and armed actors would come to Moravia throughout the 1990´s to recruit footsoldiers. Further, Moravia´s strategic location near a local bus terminal, downtown Medellin, and several important roads made it a battleground where paramilitary groups, drug gangs and urban militias associated with Colombia´s guerrilla groups battled for control of drug routes and territory.
by Pablo Rojas at June 3, 2009 09:26 AM -05:00 GMT
Another article on PB in Chicago Similar to the last article posted, but with pictures: Tough budget choices? Ask an everyday citizen http://today.brown.edu/articles/2009/05/baiocchi By Alison Fairbrother, Today at Brown An experiment in democracy is brewing in Chicago’s 49th Ward. The neighborhood is vying to become the first community in the United States to use participatory budgeting, in which residents directly decide how to spend public money, to allocate its municipal funds. It is an experiment that imports concepts developed as far away as Brazil. And it takes on added significance as federal, state, and local officials across the country face greater public scrutiny in allocating federal stimulus funds and scarce budget dollars. read more...
by jlerner at June 1, 2009 10:22 AM -05:00 GMT
Orientation I have now been in Cairo for about two days, waiting another two days to begin my internship. My early impressions are pretty much summed up with: "It's hot." To be perfectly fair and honest, that is about what I had expected...
by Alexander Steven Wamboldt at May 29, 2009 11:37 AM +02:00 GMT
Tigers' tail This month, one of the world's longest and bloodiest wars drew to a close. After a massive months-long offensive, the Sri Lankan military cornered the remaining forces of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) into a small patch of...
by Daniel Widome at May 29, 2009 11:15 AM -08:00 GMT
Website changes We are currently going through a redesign of this website, and the new site should be up shortly. This site will soon be the home to both the international resource center on participatory budgeting and the North American organization The Participatory Budgeting Project. Thank you for your patience as we redesign!...
by jlerner at May 29, 2009 08:42 AM -05:00 GMT
Update on Participatory Budgeting in Chicago The Watson Institute published an update on the participatory budgeting process that Gianpaolo and I are helping to plan in Chicago: On April 29, Watson Institute Associate Professor Gianpaolo Baiocchi traveled to Chicago to help kick-start an experiment in democracy, along with Josh Lerner, from The New School for Social Research, and Karen Dolan, from the Institute for Policy Studies’ Cities for Progress project. Chicago’s 49th Ward is vying to become the first community in the US to use participatory budgeting to allocate its municipal budget funds. Alderman Joe Moore of the 49th Ward asked Baiocchi and his colleagues to train the community in participatory budgeting, a process in which residents directly decide how to spend public money....
by jlerner at May 29, 2009 08:31 AM -05:00 GMT
Arrival in Medellín My work here in Medellín will consist of supporting the mayor's office as they develop, monitor and evaluate what are known here as Strategic Projects. Medellín's Strategic Projects are for the most part urban development projects that the current mayor, Alonso Salazar, wants to leave behind as his personal mark on the city.
by Pablo Rojas at May 28, 2009 04:05 PM -05:00 GMT
Radio Update on Porto Alegre Mike Fox produced a 5-minute radio segment on this year's Participatory Budgeting process in Porto Alegre. This year marks the 20th anniversary of PB in Porto Alegre. This year’s round of budgeting began over the last month with two dozen regional assemblies, but while participation has been high, many residents say the process is in trouble. Listen to the report....
by jlerner at May 23, 2009 05:02 PM -05:00 GMT
Tamil Tigers surrender The Tamil Tigers have reportedly stated that we have already announced to the world our position to silence our guns to save our people Many in Sri Lanka are celebrating this victory. This is understandable. However, as Mark Tran argues...
by jon_mendel at May 18, 2009 12:27 AM +00:00 GMT
Tin Eye image search I was interested to see Tin Eye image search used in a blog post on BNP publicity. This search is a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how...
by jon_mendel at May 14, 2009 01:41 PM +00:00 GMT
PB Summer School in Portugal There will be a one-day focus on PB at this summer school in Portugal in July: Summer School eNEWed WAYS OF DOING POLITICS http://www.ces.uc.pt/cessummerschool/pages/en/home.php Date: 15-17 July, 2009 Hours: 10:00 am – 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm, daily Course language: English...
by jlerner at May 13, 2009 04:36 PM -05:00 GMT
Nadine Dorries MP: "Tridents are not weapons of mass destruction" I was surprised to hear the Conservative MP Nadine Dorries on the BBC's Question time (just before 49 minutes into the show, if you want to listen) arguing that "Tridents are not weapons of mass destruction". The UK's Trident programme...
by jon_mendel at May 11, 2009 02:40 PM +00:00 GMT
Human Rights Documentation Manuals on Burma Released Apologies for the prolonged absence in posting. I've been handling some sensitive information, and at the time, I thought it best to refrain from blogging. For the past year, I've been transitioning from human rights work into more purely environmental...
by social justice at May 6, 2009 11:18 PM +08:00 GMT
Pirates and Piety in Somalia and Pakistan What is remarkable is that the new Somali government has managed to form an alliance between a group of devoutly religious Islamists and a bunch of Western-educated technocrats. There is still a group of even more hardened young jihadists (known as Al Shabab) who continue to call for the retrogressive interpretation of sharia. However, they are being marginalised by the Islamic Courts Union itself and most religious clerics in the country as misguided absolutists. The country seems to finally be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel and got commitments of more than $300 million in development assistance at a donors’ conference in Brussels earlier in the week.
These developments augur well for Somalia but also have some important lessons for our own Islamist parties in Pakistan. It is high time that some of the educated Muslim scholars from the Jama’at-e Islaami and other religious institutions as well make it clear that the Taliban brand of Islam is a caricature of this great faith. Just as the Islamic Courts Union has disassociated itself from Al Shabab and Al Qaeda, and formed an alliance for the implementation of a pluralistic vision of Islam, the Pakistani ulema must actively sermonise to reclaim the minds of the youth in the Frontier from the infection of militancy.
If such a transformation is possible in Somalia, that has held the epithet of Islamist state failure for so many decades, it can surely be possible in Pakistan too.
by Saleem Ali at April 25, 2009 01:45 AM -05:00 GMT
Zero nukes? Barack Obama's recent trip to Europe and the Middle East was an important moment in his young presidency. Having spent much of his term so far focused on the deteriorating economy and other domestic concerns, Obama's trip to the G-20...
by Daniel Widome at April 23, 2009 11:38 PM -08:00 GMT
The search of Damian Green MP's computer: he was given a list of which words were searched for The police recently, very controversially, arrested opposition MP Damian Green, and searched his home, office etc. and his computer: with the stated purpose of looking for evidence re leaks he had received. They also, rather troublingly, searched for documents relating...
by jon_mendel at April 19, 2009 01:22 PM +00:00 GMT
Poor security trade-off from Alliance and Leicester bank: accounts so secure that customers can't access them UPDATE: Following a discussion with Alliance and Leicester, it looks like this is an issue affecting Firefox but not Internet Explorer. Alliance & Leicester have also informed me that dates do not need to be entered in long format (despite...
by jon_mendel at April 15, 2009 01:30 PM +00:00 GMT
Treating Pakistan's "Cancer" The metaphor of “cancer” is particularly apt for our purposes: highly targeted radiotherapy, analogous to commando-style raids that have yielded important Al Qaeda targets, are essential to kill cancer cells. But excessive radiation (in the form of repeated drone attacks) itself spawns further cancer cells
by Saleem Ali at April 11, 2009 09:58 AM -05:00 GMT
New UK regulations re foreign students and workers New regulations "requiring academics to monitor international students and report absences to immigration authorities" have proved controversial. Universities have tried to implement them in various ways, but I was surprised to hear one academic reporting that they were told that...
by jon_mendel at April 9, 2009 07:12 PM +00:00 GMT
Nuclear empathy In his first months as president, Barack Obama's focus necessarily has been on the rapidly deteriorating economic situation. But while he grapples with unexpected and fast-moving domestic issues, certain timeless international challenges remain, Iran foremost among them. Although the danger...
by Daniel Widome at March 27, 2009 11:40 AM -08:00 GMT
"progress" from NATO in Afghanistan: needs a better password? Interesting story, via Schneier: Wikileaks has cracked the encryption to a key document relating to the war in Afghanistan. The document, titled "NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative", details the "story" NATO representatives are to give to, and to avoid giving...
by jon_mendel at March 9, 2009 11:52 PM +00:00 GMT
Thomas Barnett on counterinsurgency: "what we're seeing are non-mainstream media venues increasingly serving as the center of gravity for new thinking and new consensus in all sorts of fields" Fascinating virtual round table on the new media and counterinsurgency at Small Wars Journal [PDF]. Thomas Barnett's contribution is particularly interesting: My sense is that what we're seeing are non-mainstream media venues increasingly serving as the center of gravity for...
by jon_mendel at March 2, 2009 02:39 AM +00:00 GMT
Diplomatic celebrity The first full month of Barack Obama's presidency was dominated by a debate over the economic downturn and by the administration's ultimately successful effort to pass a stimulus bill. But as the new president made his mark on the domestic...
by Daniel Widome at February 26, 2009 04:05 PM -08:00 GMT
"Facts that are Not Facts" in international politics Relating a discussion about international politics, Carlos drops a wonderful quote: "Those are Facts that are Not Facts". For Carlos:international audiences bond on their belief that the media lies/is biased. Then they disagree on what the bias or lie is...
by jon_mendel at February 9, 2009 10:30 PM +00:00 GMT
The News Isn't News ---- Thoughts On Radio Specifically and Journalism Generally in Ghana I recently returned home from a fall spent interning in production and broadcasting for a community radio station in Cape Coast, Ghana. Really poor internet kept me from sorting out my blog in Ghana, but now I’m back! And here...
by Chantal Berman at January 23, 2009 05:07 PM -05:00 GMT
Delegates and Councillors evaluate PB in Porto Alegre A new report out from CIDADE in Porto Alegre: Delegates and Councillors evaluate PB2009-01-14 11:11:00Delegates and Councillors evaluate PB and indicate goals to improve the processIn partnership with Cooperative Strategies for Sustainable Community Transformation (ETCS), from Barcelona (Spain), the NGO Cidade organized and carried out a participatory conference titled “Reflections on PB”, August 9 and 23, in the Sindiágua Auditorium in Porto Alegre. The principal objective of the meetings was to build a reflection on the principles, experiences and challenges of Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre, at the same time thinking about alternatives to improve the experience. The sociologist Ernesto Morales, one of the members of ETCS, coordinated the work done in the meetings and developed methodologies to secure the active participation of the 36 people present.PB councillors, ex-councillors and delegates were the target audience of this activity. Read more: http://www.ongcidade.org/site/php/noticias/noticias.php?area=noticias&completa&id_noticia=1115...
by Participatory Budgeting at January 23, 2009 12:30 PM -05:00 GMT
Strip mined This month's fighting in the Gaza Strip has dashed any hopes—never realistic to begin with—that the Israel/Palestine conflict would prove any less vexing for President Obama than it has for previous U.S. presidents. The fighting has earned condemnation all around,...
by Daniel Widome at January 22, 2009 11:04 PM -08:00 GMT
Soft power in Obama's inauguration speech Now that the text of Obama's inauguration speech is now online, it's worth following up Tuesday's look at the role of 'soft power' here. Obama asks listeners to: Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with...
by jon_mendel at January 22, 2009 12:28 PM +00:00 GMT
Obama on power and security Just listened to Obama's inauguration speech: a very well-written speech. What stood out on first listen was the discussion of power and security: Obama emphasised that US power and security will depend in part on the battle of ideas, and...
by jon_mendel at January 20, 2009 05:28 PM +00:00 GMT
Barnett: "we still don't have an agency that concentrates on getting postwars correct?" There's a lot of material on Thomas Barnett's often interesting - and frequently updated - blog. I'm someone who tends to write very long answers to even apparently simple questions - so it's bracing for me to see such sharp,...
by jon_mendel at January 15, 2009 03:33 PM +00:00 GMT
Remarkably ill-advised PR from BAA The Guardian reports a shocking piece of PR from BAA: Politicians are accusing BAA, Britain's largest airport operator, of "bullying" after it sent a warning letter to those due to take part in a mass protest at Heathrow tomorrow. John...
by jon_mendel at January 12, 2009 12:19 AM +00:00 GMT
Mumbai revelations As gruesome as they were, last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai were a bold wake-up call. The ten attackers entered Mumbai by boat, fanned out across the city, and attacked and laid siege to many of its most notable landmarks....
by Daniel Widome at December 29, 2008 09:53 PM -08:00 GMT
Electronic NHS records: security concerns Britain's National Health Service (NHS) is now starting to store our medical records electronically. Clearly, this can have benefits; however, these records can contain very sensitive information, and the security arrangements currently in place seem woefully inadequate. The BBC's All...
by jon_mendel at December 10, 2008 11:35 PM +00:00 GMT
Is violent disruption of medical care pathognomonic of civil war? From the Times today, "Hospitals Now a Theatre in Mexico's Drug War": Hit men pursuing rivals into intensive care units and emergency rooms. Shootouts in lobbies and corridors. Doctors kidnapped and held for ransom, or threatened with death if a...
by Ben Brown at December 5, 2008 08:13 AM -05:00 GMT
Mumbai attacks: "This was not terror...This was war." In an odd accident of timing, I gave a (pre-planned) lecture this week about counter-insurgency, and the blurring of boundaries between insurgency, war and other types of violence. I was talking about a trend towards an increasing escalation of the...
by jon_mendel at December 4, 2008 02:48 PM +00:00 GMT
On language and motherhood A couple weeks ago, I saw an article titled "Motherhood is not a Universal Experience" on the Global Health Policy blog at the Center for Global Development. The author writes, The difficult birth this week of a new baby girl...
by Ben Brown at December 2, 2008 12:00 PM -05:00 GMT
Great expectations The election of Barack Obama this month was a historic moment not just for the United States but for much of the world, as well. Polls taken in other countries prior to the election showed that Obama was an overwhelming...
by Daniel Widome at November 28, 2008 03:03 PM -08:00 GMT
The financial crisis and PB There is a new Interview with Sergio Baierle (of the Porto Alegre NGO CIDADE) in Lumpen Magazine, about the financial crisis and opportunities for PB: http://www.ongcidade.org/site/arquivos/noticias/lumpenbaierle4919b65903790.pdf Could PB inspire a solution for the global financial crisis?...
by Participatory Budgeting at November 20, 2008 01:12 PM -05:00 GMT
Global health goes local I've been thinking for a while about how to get this blog going. I've had it set up since May but haven't known quite where to start. However, some recent experiences at the Olneyville Health Center, where I work every...
by Ben Brown at November 17, 2008 01:27 PM -05:00 GMT
Teh Internets [heart] The Smith-Mundt Act? There's a prominent upcoming conference on The Smith-Mundt Act - an act which, among other things, means that the US government cannot legally direct propaganda towards the US population. Abu Muqawama argues that the act was also written in the...
by jon_mendel at November 3, 2008 12:24 AM +00:00 GMT
Electoral conclusion Election day is no longer weeks, months, or years away. In a few short days, Americans will elect either Barack Obama or John McCain as president. If the race has seemed interminable, that's because in many respects it has been....
by Daniel Widome at October 24, 2008 12:05 AM -08:00 GMT
Vice and virtues After months of presumption, Barack Obama and John McCain are now the official standard bearers of their respective parties. More newsworthy than the nominating conventions, however, were the relatively late announcements of each candidate’s vice presidential running mate. Obama proved...
by Daniel Widome at September 25, 2008 09:09 PM -08:00 GMT
Palin's Alaskan Approach to Natural Resources
Support of mining projects should not singularly discredit a candidate’s environmental credentials. However, the nuance and care with which such decisions are made deserve greater scrutiny by the public as a mark of leadership versus positional entrenchment. In coming months, Alaskan resource management may well become an unlikely touchstone of presidential acumen for voters.
by Saleem Ali at September 17, 2008 11:46 PM -05:00 GMT
The risk of terrorists using contagious psychosomatic illnesses Fascinating post on Wired: courtesy of wikileaks, a government document [PDF] has emerged which discusses how Americans' fear of a terrorism could create a mass outbreak of a psychosomatic illness -- even in absence of any real attack -- --...
by jon_mendel at September 15, 2008 11:42 PM +00:00 GMT
NYT article: Dexter Filkins on Pakistan, the Taliban and the US Quick follow-up to this post: there's an excellent NYT article by Dexter Filkins online now. Very much recommended....
by jon_mendel at September 9, 2008 02:17 PM +00:00 GMT
Dexter Filkins on Pakistan, the Taliban and the US There's a fascinating interview with Dexter Filkins on BBC Radio 4's The World this Weekend today - listen again here, from about 23:30 into the broadcast. Filkins reports that Pakistani forces in the border regions (with Afghanistan) have failed to...
by jon_mendel at September 7, 2008 06:16 PM +00:00 GMT
Abu Muqawama on insurgencies in the Southern Philippines and Southern Thailand I was interested to see the excellent Abu Muqawama blog posting about these insurgencies. Well worth reading the post in full but - maybe because I have just eaten - I was especially taken with the discussion of the utility...
by jon_mendel at September 2, 2008 01:41 AM +00:00 GMT
Application received In a month in which the Beijing Olympics, the impending party conventions, and vice presidential speculation should have been the main political news, an overseas war rudely interrupted. The conflict between Russia and Georgia, ostensibly over the breakaway Georgian regions...
by Daniel Widome at August 29, 2008 02:11 AM -08:00 GMT
Update from Porto Alegre Sergio Baierle, from the NGO CIDADE, just published a critical report on the status of Porto Alegre's PB. See the summary below, or the full report at: http://www.ongcidade.org/site/php/noticias/noticias.php?area=artigos&completa&id_noticia=1021 Whittling down the Potential of Participatory Budgeting? by Sérgio Baierle 2008-08-19 “PB is still alive!”, The government repeatedly and publicly claims, as if it is trying to convince itself. There are doubts about the validity of its statement, the most serious of which have been pointed out by participatory budgeting council members themselves. How can one defend the idea that PB still exists, they say, if 1) The decisions made by people do not translate into more resources being allocated in the Investment Plan?; 2) The neighborhoods that haven’t prioritized certain themes receive more of those resources than those that prioritize them?; and 3) When it comes to implementation, the city government cherry-picks initiatives that suit its needs without paying any attention to the priority scales that are voted on in each neighborhood and without setting up collective management teams to preside over the public works?...
by Participatory Budgeting at August 19, 2008 11:46 AM -05:00 GMT
Brazilian Participatory Budgeting Network The Brazilian PB Network has a nice new website (http://www.pbh.gov.br/redebrasileiraop), including some content in English, such as this interview with a PB consultant:http://www.pbh.gov.br/redebrasileiraop/newsletter/ing/ing_13.htm...
by Participatory Budgeting at August 18, 2008 03:31 PM -05:00 GMT
Participatory Budgeting on Facebook For those of you on Facebook, there's now a participatory budgeting group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22229870351There are around 300 members so far!...
by Participatory Budgeting at August 9, 2008 12:35 PM -05:00 GMT
National PB Conference in UK Coming up soon, for those interested in the rapidly increasing popularity of PB in the United Kingdom: Making Spending Count? A national conference on Participatory Budgeting and its role in Community Empowerment. Organised and hosted by the Participatory Budgeting Unit and supported by the Department for Communities and Local Government. Keynote speaker: Rt. Hon. Hazel Blears MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Date: Monday 15th September 2008 Venue: Midland Hotel, Manchester More info: http://www.participatorybudgeting.org.uk/events/national-participatory-budgeting-conference...
by Participatory Budgeting at August 6, 2008 09:17 AM -05:00 GMT
Kilcullen's views on the decision to invade Iraq My last post quoted David Kilcullen in the Washington Independent. However, there has been some discussion about the particular quote that jumped out at me (and that I highlighted). Kilcullen has since blogged that: Spencer Ackerman, in yesterday’s Washington Independent,...
by jon_mendel at August 3, 2008 11:55 PM +00:00 GMT
Back and Forth So I totally ended my last post in a cheesy and abrupt way—what a terrible combination. I promise to never again joke about rising fuel prices, or compare networking efforts to wildfires (did I really?). More importantly, I’ll try to...
by Belinda Navi at July 31, 2008 07:00 AM -05:00 GMT
David Kilcullen: the decision to invade Iraq was "f***ing stupid" Via the Small Wars blog, I learned about an interesting Washington Independent article on how After nearly seven years of costly strategic ignorance in the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a coming handbook written mostly by a former top...
by jon_mendel at July 28, 2008 12:32 PM +00:00 GMT
Foreign process Although the Iraq war has been a dominant foreign policy issue in the presidential election, it certainly is not the only conflict to demand the candidates' attention. The conflict in Afghanistan has gained increasing prominence in the campaigns of Republican...
by Daniel Widome at July 24, 2008 11:29 PM -08:00 GMT
Research Paper - A Hard Landing for Virtual War: Iraq, Land and Insurgency As I've blogged before, I've recently been doing some research for the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation: analysing the role that Iraqi resources have played in the post-invasion disorder in the state, and opportunities to improve the situation there. I'm pleased to...
by jon_mendel at July 24, 2008 02:20 PM +00:00 GMT
American Dreams: counterinsurgency and American, Iraqi and Afghan cultures As part of their American Dreams radio series, the BBC has ran an excellent programme looking at 'cultural' training for US forces in Fort Riley (listen here, while still available). 'Transition Teams' are trained here before heading out to Iraq...
by jon_mendel at July 20, 2008 02:23 PM +00:00 GMT
Schneier on chinese cyber attacks There's an interesting post on Bruce Schneier's blog, arguing that The popular media conception is that there is a coordinated attempt by the Chinese government to hack into U.S. computers -- military, government corporate -- and steal secrets. The truth...
by jon_mendel at July 14, 2008 04:18 PM +00:00 GMT
The Story and The Plan I took my first warm shower this morning, one week into my stay in the Philippines. I wanted to wait longer—perhaps two, three weeks (for dramatic effect)—but the opportunity presented itself, and I decided to end my winning (?) streak,...
by Belinda Navi at July 8, 2008 05:55 AM -05:00 GMT
i have a great respect for teachers i feel like my short stint as a teacher helps me empathize more w them and solidifies my belief that it is one of the most undeservedly underappreciated jobs there is. sometimes i feel like i'm bipolar b/c i want...
by Eunice Chyung at July 7, 2008 05:21 AM -05:00 GMT
The End of Theory, and the US Army on "the Cusp of Postpositivism"? In an interesting Small Wars Journal article, Christopher R. Paparone (associate professor in the Army Command and General Staff College’s Department of Logistics and Resource Operations) looks at the new Army FM 3-0, Operations - and argues that this shows...
by jon_mendel at July 3, 2008 02:19 PM +00:00 GMT
Glorious arrival I just arrived in the Philippines last night, and what greeted me upon exiting the airport building was nothing less, nothing more than expected: humidity, heat (at 11pm), and the excitement of crowds of families gathered to welcome their loved...
by Belinda Navi at July 2, 2008 07:10 AM -05:00 GMT
the brunonians have arrived all of us are officially in kolkata and volunteering. hooray! if i had my camera cord dealie, this is where i'd stick up a photo of me, ye sul, lisa, and melissa. and i met a traveller from japan who...
by Eunice Chyung at July 1, 2008 08:13 PM -05:00 GMT
Options for Health: Western Cape I know there's been a rather large delay between the first entry and this one which means that I'm not hovering over a computer all the time :). The primary reason I'm in Cape Town in the first place is...
by Reshma Ramachandran at June 30, 2008 06:43 AM -05:00 GMT
Occupation justification The war in Iraq is clearly one of the most important foreign policy issues in this year's presidential campaign. Arguably, it was the issue that single-handedly shaped the parties' nomination battles. The success of Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) rested in...
by Daniel Widome at June 26, 2008 01:22 PM -08:00 GMT
WELCOME TO CAPE TOWN I arrived to Cape Town on Saturday, the 7th of June. The first thing I saw upon landing was green. Not just patches of green among concrete like at home, but green encompassing and surrounding the airport. I had only...
by Reshma Ramachandran at June 17, 2008 11:11 AM -05:00 GMT
most epic journey ever so i use the word "epic" pretty often considering that it is such an extreme adjective, but seriously, this time it is absolutely justified b/c it WAS the most epic journey ever. a few days ago, a few other volunteers...
by Eunice Chyung at June 17, 2008 02:35 AM -05:00 GMT
profiles of different homes now that i've officially seen all of the places where volunteers can work: shanti dan - school for street kids and center for women who have either been abused, in prison, or have disabilities. the womens' building has 2 floors...
by Eunice Chyung at June 12, 2008 12:31 PM -05:00 GMT
Sudder St. Mafia It would be a funny thing if it weren't so serious. Basically, the beggars on Sudder (where most vols stay) are organized and specifically target foreigners for money. For example, just today, I was walking behind a beggar woman who...
by Eunice Chyung at June 10, 2008 04:12 AM -05:00 GMT
I think I can I've been in Kolkata a little over a week, and I think I'm beginning to adjust to life here (knock on wood). The heat isn't so bad if you're smart about it, like not being outside during the middle of...
by Eunice Chyung at June 8, 2008 04:22 PM -05:00 GMT
Appeasement politics Now that the Democratic nomination is all but settled, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is transitioning from the primary campaign to the general election. His Republican opponent, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), has been waiting for him there. But in recent days,...
by Daniel Widome at May 22, 2008 11:49 AM -08:00 GMT
Porto Alegre’s Participatory Budgeting at a Crossroads Mike Fox recently published an update in NACLA on the situation of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre:"Porto Alegre’s Participatory Budgeting at a Crossroads"http://nacla.org/node/4566...
by Participatory Budgeting at May 19, 2008 03:11 PM -05:00 GMT
Durham and Amsterdam's Data Wars project: website launch Just a quick post to say that the Amsterdam and Durham Universitys' Data Wars project (which I'm working on as research associate) has just launched its new website. As the website says, Data Wars is a three-year research project which...
by jon_mendel at May 16, 2008 02:58 PM +00:00 GMT
UK releases draft national participatory budgeting strategy The UK Secretary of Communities and Local Government has released a draft national participatory budgeting strategy, and is now seeking feedback on the plan.See http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/participatorybudgeting The plan adopts a fairly strong definition of participatory budgeting: "Participatory budgeting engages people in taking decisions on the spending priorities for a defined public budget in their local area. This means engaging residents and community groups to discuss spending priorities, make spending proposals, and vote on them, as well giving local people a role in the scrutiny and monitoring of the process." The strategy also includes a few case studies and models of PB, and proposals for launching pilot programs, with the goal of having PB used in every local authority by 2012....
by Participatory Budgeting at May 7, 2008 06:30 PM -05:00 GMT
Distribute Iraq's oil revenues directly to the public? Not many entries lately - I have been finishing up an article on the role of networks in the construction of the Afghan state, and a paper on Iraqi resources for the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. More on the latter paper...
by jon_mendel at May 1, 2008 10:43 PM +00:00 GMT
Bedside manner Despite appearances to the contrary, the recent vitriol between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama masks some genuine differences between the Democratic candidates. One particularly important difference involves health care. The difference, however, is not so much one of policy....
by Daniel Widome at April 30, 2008 12:17 AM -08:00 GMT
Update / Burma's Sham Referendum Many apologies for the prolonged absence in posting. Security concerns. Let me update you since last entry. At the end of last year, I finished my time editing papers for human rights and environmental activists from all around the Mekong...
by social justice at April 28, 2008 06:08 PM +08:00 GMT
Irish Government Calls for Participatory Budgeting Last week, Ireland's Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley, launched a Green Paper "Stronger Local Democracy" which calls for participatory budgeting, amongst other local democracy measures. Read the paper more on the Ministry's website....
by Participatory Budgeting at April 27, 2008 06:00 PM -05:00 GMT
Special interests By now, the Democratic primary has stretched on longer than almost anyone could have predicted. Senators Hilary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) are each well-funded and broadly supported candidates. But as the race has dragged on, the sparring between...
by Daniel Widome at April 24, 2008 08:13 PM -08:00 GMT
Encouraging Adoption Pakistan and the Muslim World Thus the history of Islam provides us with adequate encouragement for adoption as a worthy deed and one which families should consider more actively across the Muslim world but particularly in Pakistan. While Senator McCain might not be the most appealing U.S. presidential candidate for many Pakistanis on other accounts, his nobility as an adoptive parent must be admired and emulated.
by Saleem Ali at March 29, 2008 10:06 AM -05:00 GMT
Encouraging Adoption in Pakistan and the Muslim World Thus the history of Islam provides us with adequate encouragement for adoption as a worthy deed and one which families should consider more actively across the Muslim world but particularly in Pakistan. While Senator McCain might not be the most appealing U.S. presidential candidate for many Pakistanis on other accounts, his nobility as an adoptive parent must be admired and emulated.
by Saleem Ali at March 29, 2008 10:06 AM -05:00 GMT
Five years The fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq generated a good deal of reflection on the course of the war so far. Unsurprisingly, much of this commentary emanated from the presidential candidates. Each one underscored the distinctions on Iraq and...
by Daniel Widome at March 27, 2008 06:07 PM -08:00 GMT
RUSI lecture on military robots Prof Sharkey gave what sounds like an interesting lecture at RUSI last month. In particular, I'd draw out Sharkey's emphasis on how 'terrorists' and others might be able to take advantage of this technology - especially as prices fall and...
by jon_mendel at March 8, 2008 10:34 PM +00:00 GMT
The problem with language Partway through Arundhati Roy’s essay, “Power Politics”, she makes a memorable observation about the use of language in the development world: “In March 2000, I lived through a writer’s bad dream [the World Water Forum at the Hague]. I witnessed...
by gowriv at March 5, 2008 09:21 AM +05:30 GMT
AFRICAN REGIONAL SEMINAR ON PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING From 10 to 14 March 2008, 150 delegates from several Sub-Saharan Africans countries, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and North America will gather in Durban, South Africa to share views and experiences on how to improve citizens’ participation in budget setting at sub-national levels in Africa. The Seminar will be held at Ethekwini Municipal Council and participants will include: Ministers, government officials, heads of local authorities, and representatives of development agencies. The Seminar is designed to provide opportunity for participants from African to get to know each other, learn about each other’s interests and about the kind of progress that is being made on issues of Participatory Budgeting. Besides, they will have the opportunity to hear from their counterparts from other Latin America, Asia, Europe and North America about their experience with Participatory Budgeting. As democratization and decentralization reforms advance around the globe, State and non-State actors are creating new channels of dialogue in local governance. Under this context, Participatory Budgeting (PB) is rapidly gaining attention from governments, civil society, and international development agencies as an effective platform and tool for strengthening transparency, voice, and accountability in revenue generation, expenditure planning, and delivery of public services and infrastructure. From an experimental innovation in Brazil, PB initiatives have been growing exponentially in many countries in Latin America, Europe, and Asia, and more recently in Africa. Lessons from these experiences have shown that PB is an effective mechanism to increase transparency, voice, and accountability in local governance. PB, thus, opens real opportunities in Africa towards enhancing trust between state and non-state actors in public resource management, with the potential to improve tax compliance, fight corruption, reduce poverty, and promote economic growth. The overall objective of the Seminar therefore, is to bring together key representatives from African institutions which are committed to participatory budgeting...
by Participatory Budgeting at March 3, 2008 07:35 AM -05:00 GMT
Pakistan's political heir The mourning period of Benazir Bhutto’s tragic assassination has passed this week with a surprisingly calm election and Pakistanis will no doubt begin to approach her son and political heir Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in various ways to express their hopes and fears for the country. As one such citizen, I write this article at the eve of the publication of his mother’s notable book and also after a pivotal election victory for her party. You may ask why I write to give advice to a nineteen year old who couldn’t even run in the election? The answer is simple: reform is far easier to advocate to those who are new to the process than to those who are entrenched in entitlements of the old system. Perhaps that is why so many Americans are gravitating towards an inexperienced but youthfully optimistic senator named Barack Obama.
by Saleem Ali at March 1, 2008 08:12 PM -05:00 GMT
All apologies Earlier this month, Australia's parliament passed a resolution formally apologizing for one of the country's most egregious practices of institutionalized mistreatment of indigenous Australians. In issuing this apology, Australia is not alone. Apologies for past, state-sponsored misdeeds have become a...
by Daniel Widome at February 28, 2008 12:30 PM -08:00 GMT
From Alma Ata to the Global Fund From Alma Ata to the Global Fund: The history of International health policy is a report prepared by the Italian Global Health Watch, published in the journal of Social Medicine (Volume 3, Number 1, January, 2008). This paper traces...
by Syamak Moattari at February 14, 2008 07:03 PM -05:00 GMT
Fair and balanced assessment of the risks of modernity Sometimes satire can be the best response to fear-mongering, and eclectech's wonderful response to scare stories about the Internet is a good example. Here in the UK, we're regularly warned about the dangers of the Internet: paedophiles, identity theft, hackers,...
by jon_mendel at February 14, 2008 12:40 AM +00:00 GMT
Health, market or essential human right that is the question Last week in a Medical Care Class at the BU school of public health, we discussed about the health market, professor said that the health market is an imperfect market, because it doesn't have the characteristics and assumptions adhered...
by Syamak Moattari at February 10, 2008 11:56 AM -05:00 GMT
Participatory Budgeting with Young People in the UK The UK consulting organization The Campaign Company has been working on a project for the East Sussex County Council to help young people decide how to spend £20,000. You can read a brief report on the project here....
by Participatory Budgeting at February 6, 2008 05:36 PM -05:00 GMT
Mistaken identities Identity politics has become a defining force in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. From New Hampshire to Nevada to South Carolina, some uncomfortable questions have been raised: Do whites tell pollsters they support Sen. Barack Obama but privately...
by Daniel Widome at January 31, 2008 07:15 PM -08:00 GMT
PB at the Movement Vision Lab I contributed a piece on PB for the Movement Vision Lab's blog, which is focusing on participatory democracy this week: Money Talks: How Participatory Budgeting Can Transform PoliticsJosh LernerJanuary 28, 2008 Money may be killing democracy, but it can also bring it back to life – if we learn new ways to manage it. Progressives often complain that the influence of big money has corrupted politics, leaving us with elite politicians that don’t represent most Americans. Once in power, these politicians decide how to spend our taxpayer money, often in unwanted ways. Community groups are forced to fight for budgetary scraps, be they for social services, housing, schools, health facilities, or other services or infrastructure. This is an exhausting and often demoralizing struggle. It encourages competition rather than collaboration and reliance on politicians rather than democratic community control. For most people, this struggle is not very appealing, so they choose not to participate. It doesn’t have to be this way. [Read more]...
by Participatory Budgeting at January 31, 2008 05:51 AM -05:00 GMT
Indonesian Islam is "greening" In a remote part of Central Java, Indonesia’s most populous island, there is a rather unusual form of environmentalism taking root. Shadowed by the great Merapi volcano and surrounded by fertile fields of rice and sugarcane, a small school is graduating environmentalists whose commitment to the earth is not based on Western conservation texts but rather predicated in values derived from Islam. The head of the school, Nasruddin Anshari, frequently uses the refrain “one earth, for all”, just as much as he does the usual Islamic invocation of Allah-u Akbar (God is Great).
by Saleem Ali at January 21, 2008 12:14 PM -05:00 GMT
Incident with Iran was almost a horrible accident? There's a fascinating story in today's Guardian - it looks like the "heckling radio ham known as the Filipino Monkey, who has spent years pestering ships in the Persian Gulf" might have been responsible for the recent incident between the...
by jon_mendel at January 14, 2008 03:15 PM +00:00 GMT
Health and Human Right Surprisingly Health and Human Right as a unique field (one concept) is a young, but rapidly growing and dynamic field. When we think about public health, unconsciously we consider it as a human right, these two words had evolved...
by Syamak Moattari at January 9, 2008 11:44 AM -05:00 GMT
Results of the Election 2008 I wrote this note last week before knowing about Iowa caucus's result. Today is the day of New Hampshire primary vote. We are looking forward to learn about the results of "Super Tuesday" and so on. It is too...
by Syamak Moattari at January 8, 2008 11:58 AM -05:00 GMT
Needs Assessment, a weapon for change Needs assessments play a vital role in strategic planning and in program and policy development process. In the needs assessment process, we try to learn about current needs for services and an assessment of effectiveness of past programs to...
by Syamak Moattari at January 7, 2008 12:54 AM -05:00 GMT
Why Public Health? When I was a medical student in 80s a friend of mine who studied Philosophy at that time, always quoted a message from one of the Greek ancient philosophers about “Physicians”, the quote was something like: The “mean Docs” want...
by Syamak Moattari at January 6, 2008 01:45 PM -05:00 GMT
Benazir Bhutto's Tragic Demise
Benazir was a charismatic yet polarizing politician who showed remarkable courage in returning to Pakistan earlier this year despite numerous threats to her life. It is a tragedy for the country that those who follow absolutist ideologies are armed to the teeth and can inflict such damage both literally and figuratively to Pakistani society. The only way to address the problem is to have a massive campaign to disarm militants, and also strengthen civil institiutions so that people have a voice and the fanatics lose their recruiting ability. At the same time it is important for Americans to keep things in perspective about Pakistan. While this is a terrible tragedy, America has also shown to the world that strong societies can recover after such dreadful assassinations and the vast majority of Pakistanis have a vibrant national commitment that will allow them to recover as well. The next few weeks will be crucial in terms of how fast this recovery will be -- the international community must remain engaged with Pakistan's transition towards democracy and keep the pressure on President Musharraf to hold free and fair elections in coming months.
Linked below is a long audio interview that I gave to our local press about the Bhutto tragedy which they have posted online with a slide show about Bhutto's life and tragic passing which can be heard from the link below:
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/legacy/slideshows/122707bhutto/index.html
by Saleem Ali at December 27, 2007 10:38 PM -05:00 GMT
Balancing Islam in Academe Defying the stereotype of many Muslim youth who are often branded as killjoys, Isra also knows the importance of enjoying life. She is an avid fan of American football and plays sports regularly (one of the criteria for evaluation in Cecil Rhodes bequest for the scholarship). The ability to connect with youth through sports and peer-mentoring programs is so essential among social activists and Isra has used these skills in her work with the Inner-city Muslim Action Network in Chicago. Such programs bring positive competition to youth that might otherwise be indoctrinated with radical absolutist ideologies and are gaining momentum in Muslim communities.
by Saleem Ali at December 23, 2007 06:20 PM -05:00 GMT
Home stretch As the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary rapidly approach, the “real” presidential campaign is about to begin. The first actual votes are about to be cast, lending a visceral certainty to a campaign season that has at times...
by Daniel Widome at December 20, 2007 11:54 AM -08:00 GMT
The costs of meeting the global demand for oil I'm doing some research for the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation - looking at the post-invasion ab/use of Iraqi resources. I'm going to be using this blog to write about some of what I find out. A good place to start, I...
by jon_mendel at December 5, 2007 01:40 PM +00:00 GMT
Salvaging Peace with Syria We are once again at the brink of a Middle East peace conference and Syria's attendance remains unlikely. U.S. and Israeli policy makers continue to speculate about the sincerity of Syrian involvement, and consequently the Syrians have dismissed the forthcoming meeting as a "waste of time." The most significant point of contention between Syria and Israel remains the disputed mountainous region of Golan, which Israel has occupied since 1967. In order to have meaningful engagement from Syria, creative solutions to the Golan conflict must be on the agenda of the proposed Annapolis meeting that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is planning.
by Saleem Ali at November 24, 2007 06:09 PM -05:00 GMT
Pakistani perils In recent weeks, Pakistan has been wracked with a level of turmoil and uncertainty unique to that already unsteady state. Given its proximity to Islamic extremists—in Afghanistan, in Kashmir, and possibly within the government itself—as well as its nuclear arsenal,...
by Daniel Widome at November 22, 2007 08:50 PM -08:00 GMT
Participatory Budgeting in India News update from India: Pune citizens to decide how the municipality spends money Pune, Oct 23 - If all goes well, Pune's residents will become the first in India to play a major role in deciding how the city municipality should spend its budget.Read more: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/128795.html...
by Participatory Budgeting at November 22, 2007 05:34 AM -05:00 GMT
AVAAZ's call on ASEAN to ACT NOW ***The 19 ONLINE PETITIONS/PLEDGES FOR BURMA HERE.*** __________________________ For those in Asia, please help put the pressure on ASEAN to act now! from AVAAZ: Asia: Act Now for Myanmar's People On November 21, China, India, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia...
by social justice at November 20, 2007 10:47 AM +08:00 GMT
Burma the Most Corrupt and Worst Government in the World ***The 19 ONLINE PETITIONS FOR BURMA HERE.*** __________________________ Transparency International, the global coalition against corruption, puts out an "annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), first released in 1995, is the best known of TI’s tools. It has been widely credited with...
by social justice at November 19, 2007 04:02 PM +08:00 GMT
NEED-Burma and the Food Security Crisis in Burma ***The 19 ONLINE PETITIONS/PLEDGES FOR BURMA HERE.*** __________________________ Last week, I began helping out part-time with the Network for Environment and Economic Development (NEED-Burma), an NGO that works on training Burmese on sustainable agriculture methods. Because of poor economic policies,...
by social justice at November 19, 2007 03:54 PM +08:00 GMT
AVAAZ's Boycott on Total Oil, Chevron, and Their Subsidiaries ***The 19 ONLINE PETITIONS/PLEDGES FOR BURMA HERE.*** __________________________ ***The petitions and pledges are now up to 19.*** AVAAZ also is launching a global boycott of Total Oil and Chevron and all their subsidiaries that operate in Burma. You can sign...
by social justice at November 19, 2007 03:50 PM +08:00 GMT
TAKE ACTION! The Petitions for Burma For those who care about human rights, please sign the NINETEEN(19) PETITIONS below if you have not done so already. Please take the 5 minutes to do this. It's easy and CAN and WILL bring concrete results to the suffering...
by social justice at November 17, 2007 11:58 PM +08:00 GMT
US Citizens, Help get the Block Burmese JADE and the Burmese Democracy Promotion Acts Passed ***The 17 ONLINE PETITIONS FOR BURMA HERE.*** __________________________ US Citizens, please help get the Block Burmese JADE (Junta Anti-Democratic Efforts)Act and the Burmese Democracy Promotion Act passed. Put the pressure on your Representatives and Senators for the toughest US Sanctions...
by social justice at November 17, 2007 11:46 PM +08:00 GMT
LA Times: "Airport tests reveal major security flaws" The LA Times reports that Los Angeles International Airport screeners failed to spot simulated bombs in 75% of tests last year...
by jon_mendel at November 16, 2007 06:31 PM +00:00 GMT
Human Terrain System, Memory and "A CORDS for the 21st Century" Being forwarded the American Anthropological Association's statement on the Human Terrain System (HTS) Project, I looked back over some of the materials on this project. One thing that surprised me was a reference [PDF link] to HTS as "A CORDS...
by jon_mendel at November 13, 2007 06:18 PM +00:00 GMT
A Football Club tries Participatory Budgeting? In the UK, a mass of football fans has banded together to pool their money, buy a football club, and democratically decide on all major club spending and decisions. From a BBC report: "Fans' community website MyFootballClub has agreed a deal to take over Blue Square Premier outfit Ebbsfleet United. The 20,000 MyFootballClub members have each paid £35 to provide a £700,000 takeover pot and they will all own an equal share in the club. Members will have a vote on transfers as well as player selection and all major decisions." See the MyFootballClub website for more info, or to join the club yourself! Any volunteers to research this and report on its progress? This reminds me of a like-minded website - PledgeBank, which lets people pledge to contribute a certain amount of money (or anything else) to some purpose, but only if a certain number of other people do the same. If enough other people sign on, the pledge becomes reality. An interesting model for bottom-up decision-making......
by Participatory Budgeting at November 13, 2007 05:37 AM -05:00 GMT
Toronto Community Housing PB Update Toronto Community Housing (the city's public housing authority) recently posted on its website a new overview of its participatory budgeting process. This is probably the clearest description of a PB experience in North America, and of PB in public housing. See: http://www.torontohousing.ca/key_initiatives/community_planning...
by Participatory Budgeting at November 12, 2007 08:54 AM -05:00 GMT
Pakistan's Lessons from Lebanon Peace is fragile in a fractured world and until institutions of human tolerance and economic and political justice are carefully nurtured at the most fundamental level in societies, there is little chance that either elections or martial law can salvage countries as far afield as Pakistan or Lebanon from such perennial cycles of crises.
by Saleem Ali at November 10, 2007 01:08 PM -05:00 GMT
About Dasara and documentation A few weeks ago, with some excellent company, I had the opportunity to see the Dasara festival in Mysore for the first time. Up until now, my experience of Bangalore only held validity between the months of June and August....
by gowriv at November 7, 2007 12:04 PM +05:30 GMT
Inferiority complex In recent weeks, the House of Representatives has dipped its toe into a pool of international and historical animosity. The partial success of a resolution condemning the 1915 mass killings and deportations of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire—it passed a...
by Daniel Widome at October 25, 2007 05:17 PM -08:00 GMT
Please Help Stop the Bloodshed in Burma The 12 petitions for Burma HERE....
by social justice at October 23, 2007 10:59 PM +08:00 GMT
A couple of Resources on Participation In response to some recent requests, I am posting here a couple of resources for thinking about participation. One is the article by myself, Patrick Heller, and Marcelo K. Silva, called Making Spaces for Civil Society.. Also, a course on participatory democracy and community development I taught last Spring at MIT. There's also a nascent wiki on some of those themes that we never finished: www.urban-democracy.wikispaces.com....
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at October 22, 2007 05:47 PM -05:00 GMT
Tell the EU: SQUEEZE THE BURMESE JUNTA http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_squeeze_the_junta/tf.php?cl_tf_sign=1 the European Union will decide this Monday, October 15, whether to adopt stronger sanctions and incentives to press the repressive Burmese military junta into dialogue with the opposition. Avaaz.org is mobilizing citizens of every EU country to send messages...
by social justice at October 12, 2007 11:13 PM +08:00 GMT
The Nobel Prize and Gore Climate change continues to be a pervasive source of dissent and discord within the scientific community as well as among policy-makers. However, such dissent should not be an excuse for inaction, specially in these heady days of preventative warfare. Comparative security analysts might also argue that since the United States is willing to incur over $500 billion dollars in preventative wars in the Middle East over a five-year timeframe, some measure of serious consideration to preventative strategies on climate change is also in order. Towards this larger goal of prioritizing policy, Al Gore must be commended for drawing our attention to issues of global salience beyond our all-consuming fear of terrorism.
by Saleem Ali at October 12, 2007 01:44 PM -05:00 GMT
Blog post taken down by homeopathic complaint: a chill wind is blowing I've previously blogged about attempts to censor a UK blogger, and the problems that this caused to the would-be censor. It seems like chill winds are blowing, again: the Quackometer blog has just been forced to take down a post,...
by jon_mendel at October 11, 2007 12:41 PM +00:00 GMT
Update http://freeburmaactioncenter.blogspot.com/...
by social justice at October 9, 2007 12:22 PM +08:00 GMT
Bush administration lobbying to use pesticides to eradicate Afghan opium poppies - what are they smoking? Reported in today's NYT: After the biggest opium harvest in Afghanistan’s history, American officials have renewed efforts to persuade the government here to begin spraying herbicide on opium poppies, and they have found some supporters within President Hamid Karzai’s administration,...
by jon_mendel at October 8, 2007 03:48 PM +00:00 GMT
About bubbles and numbers Maybe it’s a good sign, but I’ve stopped pausing every few days to remark to myself about how long I’ve been in Bangalore, how long I’ve been at Akshara, and what on earth I’ve been doing. A cause (or maybe...
by gowriv at October 8, 2007 12:12 PM +05:30 GMT
The Oil and Gas Industry is the Junta's Lifeline *****Again, the NINE (9) online PETITIONS HERE, including a new petition against the Shwe Gas Project, and one calling for Chevron to divest.***** _____________________________________________________________________________________________ American company Chevron, France's Total SA, South Korea's Daewoo, and the Gas Authority of India are...
by social justice at October 7, 2007 12:09 PM +08:00 GMT
The First Blow and The "Revolution of the Spirit" **As of now, there are a total of 9 ONLINE PETITIONS calling for collective action on the parts of the UN Security Council, the UN General Body, China, and Myanmar. Please consider signing HERE. (This entry's going to be a...
by social justice at October 6, 2007 11:03 PM +08:00 GMT
Myanmar sets conditions for meeting Suu Kyi / Sanctions Analysis / Lack of Human Rights Discourse in China from AP Hoping to deflect outrage over images of soldiers gunning down protesters, Myanmar's hard-line leader announced Thursday he is willing to talk with detained democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi -- but only if she stops calling for international...
by social justice at October 5, 2007 10:37 AM +08:00 GMT
For Burma: National Campus Day of Action Oct 5 /Global Day of Action Oct 6 !!!!!!!!!!A Global Day of Action is currently being organized. Get involved. Show that you care.!!!!!!!!!! _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Chinese Support for Myanmar's Junta Sparks Olympics Boycott Epoch Times Article - from the US Campaign for Burma We are writing this urgent...
by social justice at October 5, 2007 01:31 AM +08:00 GMT
Burma in Crisis: 1988 Part 2 Download file">Download an article I just wrote for newspapers entitled Burma in Crisis: 1988 Part 2. If you can, please forward it to your school and city newspaper editors, and tell them to edit and publish it, to use it...
by social justice at October 4, 2007 09:21 PM +08:00 GMT
Military Accidents Interesting RAF story in the news yesterday - they accidentally dropped a 14kg bomb from a plane during an exercise. Luckily, it was a practice bomb (with a fuse, not live) and didn't hit anybody but, still, it's quite a...
by jon_mendel at October 4, 2007 07:55 PM +00:00 GMT
Patriot Act surveillance provisions ruled against by US courts Sorry for the lack of blog entries - just got my PhD submitted :) which has been keeping me fairly busy lately - but in terms of getting back into the swing of things, here's a link to an interesting...
by jon_mendel at October 3, 2007 04:09 PM +00:00 GMT
Indigenous Rights and the Quartet After two decades of deliberations, the United Nations General Assembly finally adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples on September 13. The voting demographics were most interesting: 143 nations in favour, 11 abstaining and 4 against. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States were the quartet that voted to deprive indigenous people of a largely ceremonial endorsement of their fundamental rights. Pakistan happily voted in favour of this resolution, though I wonder how much our government really appreciates the status of our tribal populations.
by Saleem Ali at September 28, 2007 07:45 PM -05:00 GMT
Hyperbolic insight As the first primaries of the 2008 presidential election rapidly approach, the campaign rhetoric has heated up. Desperate to consolidate their leads or topple the front-runners, the presidential candidates have become increasingly comfortable with hyperbole, exaggeration, and obfuscation. Although these...
by Daniel Widome at September 28, 2007 11:11 AM -08:00 GMT
Conference: Learning Democracy by Doing, October 2008 This conference will have a strong focus on participatory budgeting and other emergent practices of participatory democracy: Learning Democracy by Doing: Alternative Practices in Citizenship Learning and Participatory DemocracyAn international conference organized by the Transformative Learning Centre (TLC)Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (OISE/UT)October 16-18, 2008Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto252 Bloor St. West, Toronto, CanadaThis conference, which celebrates the 15th anniversary of the Transformative Learning Centre at OISE/UT, will provide a space for mutual learning and critical reflection about innovative and inspiring international initiatives. The conference will take place in Toronto, one of the most diverse cities in the world, and it will build on Canadian experiences in social action learning and participatory democracy, including indigenous models of democratic self-governance, the Antigonish Movement of Nova Scotia, the Citizens Forum, the Citizens Assemblies in British Columbia and Ontario, the Practicing Democracy initiative in Vancouver, and the emerging participatory budgeting initiatives in municipalities, public housing units and schools.See http://tlc.oise.utoronto.ca/tlc2008/info.html for more information and the call for proposals. ...
by Participatory Budgeting at September 27, 2007 12:08 PM -05:00 GMT
Global spread of PB According to the Worldwatch Institute, roughly 1,200 cities had developed participatory budgets by 2006. This rapid growth is at least party due to the increasing number of national governments passing (if not always thoroughly implementing) laws that make participatory budgeting obligatory for local governments: Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, and now the Dominican Republic, amongst others....
by Participatory Budgeting at September 27, 2007 10:02 AM -05:00 GMT
The Church Likes Participatory Budgeting The Church of England recently came out in support of participatory budgeting, following the UK government's white paper "Planning for a Sustainable Future" (which itself calls for PB). From The Church's Urban Bishops Panel: “We have recently welcomed the Secretary of State’s announcement regarding participatory budgeting at neighbourhood and local authority level and would hope that some consideration can be given to similar participatory processes being in place for community planning." See the full article in Christian Today....
by Participatory Budgeting at September 24, 2007 10:49 AM -05:00 GMT
Seminar in Porto Alegre on the Future of Participatory Democracy On October 25-27, 2007 there will be an international seminar in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on participatory democracy and participatory budgeting in particular. The seminar is titled "The Future of Participatory Democracy: Technical Fix or Popular Sovereignty" and its aims are: a. To analyze and debate the place of the state and the urban popular classes in the emerging urban landscape of the 21st century.b. To evaluate the limits and possibilities of:(1) participatory budgeting experiences;(2) community-based organizations’ direct management of social policies; and(3) sectoral councils for co-management of public policies.c. To provide a space for analyses and discussion of existing alternatives around the theme of participatory democracy as social emancipation and social transformation.d. To raise suggestions and guidelines for building an international network of grassroots-based participatory democracy activists. For more information in Portuguese, Spanish, English, and French see:http://www.ongcidade.org/site/php/seminario/arquivos/folder.pdf and http://www.ongcidade.org/site/php/seminario/seminario.php...
by Participatory Budgeting at September 24, 2007 10:14 AM -05:00 GMT
Israel and Pakistan: comparative perspectives on the judiciary At the end of the day, Israelis, Palestinians and Pakistanis alike seek justice just as much as any other human community. The perception of how justice is configured and dispensed on either side of an issue is just as significant for conflict resolution as the substance of the cases themselves. It is high time that the West and the East become more discerning about giving credit and censure where it is due, regardless of our own political proclivity.
by Saleem Ali at September 16, 2007 04:42 PM -05:00 GMT
TOTAL DENIAL SCREENING @ BROWN 9/16 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL is having a screening of the film TOTAL DENIAL this Sunday (9/16) from 6-8 pm in Salomon 001. Total Denial- a film by Milena Kaneva - and winner of the 2006 Vaclav Havel Human Rights Award is a...
by social justice at September 14, 2007 11:09 AM +08:00 GMT
China's Support of Burma's Oppressive Military Junta This is not an ad, this is a plea for humanity. Ever since I saw Burmese migrant worker shantytowns in Thailand and the grinding poverty in Burma 2 years ago, the situation in Burma is currently deteriorating. I have...
by social justice at September 14, 2007 10:55 AM +08:00 GMT
R-E-F-O-C-U-S As my time in China draws to an end, I have decided to shift my focus and transform this blog mainly into an advocacy mouthpiece for social change, democracy, and human rights in Burma. The issue is multilayered and complex....
by social justice at September 13, 2007 03:01 PM +08:00 GMT
Climate Change and the Way of the Peaceful Warrior Recently, I have been reevaluating my values and how they influence my environmental impact. I've just come back from a trip to both Inner Mongolia and Mongolia, where the Chinese and Mongolian officials are using seabuckthorn as their main weapon...
by social justice at September 12, 2007 03:10 PM +08:00 GMT
Goodbye Dar-es-Salaam Hello Blog Readers, Much time has passed since my last substantial blog entry and I have returned to the States just a few days ago. My last weeks in Dar were bittersweet. Saying good bye to my friends and leaving...
by Julia Hazen at September 5, 2007 09:51 PM -05:00 GMT
Greening Pakistan's Cities With growing urbanisation rates, Pakistan will have to contend with the challenge faced by our cities immediately. The solutions are not as far-fetched as we may initially consider. The amount of money needed for green planning is usually no more than what is invested in many other misguided infrastructure projects
by Saleem Ali at September 5, 2007 08:10 PM -05:00 GMT
Bleak comparison Parallels between the war in Iraq and the war in Vietnam practically draw themselves. Many have long since noted the most obvious similarities: In each conflict, the United States struggled to defeat an unconventional enemy, using unorthodox tactics, in an...
by Daniel Widome at September 3, 2007 11:43 PM -08:00 GMT
Back in the U.S.A. The one thing I appreciate after being in the land of green and yellow is the proliferation of the stars and stripes in Washington, D.C. Here Connecticut Avenue expresses its patriotism with its multiple "flagation." (Maybe I'll start a...
by Hazen Kazaks at September 1, 2007 07:55 PM -05:00 GMT
Petits Plaisirs “This is the best kind of voyeurism; hearing joy from your neighbors.” - Chuck Sigars (August 12th) Nyamirambo is the Muslim neighborhood of Kigali. There are two mosques, lit up with white and green fluorescents so they look somewhat like...
by Caitlin Lee Cohen at August 31, 2007 04:06 PM -05:00 GMT
What, exactly, is Caitlin doing in Rwanda? I work for WE-ACT, a group that does HIV-related care for women who are positive as a result of rape during the genocide. They also have a family program, income generation, peer education, and numerous other related programs.
by Caitlin Lee Cohen at August 31, 2007 04:02 PM -05:00 GMT
Betwixt the tealeaves and gorillas, Rwanda has a macabre industry: genocide tourism. (July 26th) At Ntarama I found a pass card. It had holes in it, the photo was torn off, but the boxes next to Hutu and Twa were empty, and there was a small innocuous looking X next to Tutsi....
by Caitlin Lee Cohen at August 31, 2007 03:56 PM -05:00 GMT
US PB Network and US Social Forum sessions As a result of two sessions on participatory budgeting at the US Social Forum, a new United States PB Network is forming. To be involved in the discussions, please join the network's listserv at http://groups.google.com/group/participatory-budgeting-us or by emailing participatory-budgeting-us-subscribe@googlegroups.com See below for a reportback on the workshops at the US Social Forum. Stay tuned for more news and updates on the US network. Participatory Budgeting at the US Social ForumAtlanta, GeorgiaJune 27-July 1, 2007 Interest in Participatory Budgeting has been growing here in the United States, as communities and organizations face budget shortfalls and wake up to the fact that the politicians they elect are not spending tax dollars according to community priorities. The US Social Forum in Atlanta in June was an ideal place to educate about Participatory Budgeting (PB), identify people in organizations and community groups across the country interested in working on PB, and discuss what is needed to support the work of those groups. Among the 900 workshops and sessions over the course of the week, two focused exclusively on PB. The first session, "Participatory Budgeting: Community Control over Public Money", took place in the early afternoon, during the same time slot as 200 other workshops. Despite this competition, the session drew over 70 people. The participants started with a round of introductions, and got the sense of the incredibly wide variety of experience with PB, ranging from former residents of Porto Alegre, Brazil (PB's shining example) to those who had heard of PB to people who had just read the session description and been intrigued by the idea of community control over resources. The session started with a half-hour panel, aimed at presenting basic information on PB and highlighting some examples. Mike Menser, a CUNY (City University of New York) professor and PB organizer,...
by Participatory Budgeting at August 28, 2007 12:30 PM -05:00 GMT
Smoke and Mirrors What does this title mean? In the development sector, It alludes to the phenomenon called "selective targeting." When NGOs, governmental bodies, and other relief agencies identify "favorable" groups to help, in essence, choose areas where it is relatively easier to...
by social justice at August 24, 2007 03:59 PM +08:00 GMT
Open policy Over the past few weeks, amid of the summer's political doldrums, the 2008 presidential campaign has heated up. On the Democratic side, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) has found his foreign policy views placed under increasing scrutiny by his competitors and...
by Daniel Widome at August 24, 2007 02:25 PM -08:00 GMT
To quantify justice. One can define justice broadly, but IJM’s definition has a clear, straightforward component, and that is the abuse of power used to take from another human what is rightfully theirs—life, dignity, or the fruits of their love and labor. Such...
by Carrie Lutjens at August 20, 2007 08:15 PM -05:00 GMT
Approaching "the end", but really "just the beginning"... My time in Uganda is rapidly coming to an end. To my sadness I will shortly be departing. To my joy, I will leave with a large collection of things that one can’t put their hands around, so called “intangibles”: diverse experiences, accomplishments, challenges, frustrations, friendships, lifelong friendships that border...
by Vijay Narayan at August 20, 2007 11:44 AM +02:00 GMT
Data in the classroom? After almost two months at Akshara I can finally claim to have interacted with at least a few people at almost all levels of the system; the core of KLP, teachers, the most recent addition to my list of people...
by gowriv at August 17, 2007 12:11 PM +05:30 GMT
Images of Poverty ..one... As he reaches down into the trash can, I think about telling him that there's nothing to be had. Two or three other scavengers have already picked the trashcan clean of any and all valuable refuse able to be...
by social justice at August 15, 2007 05:23 PM +08:00 GMT
Work and Play A child outside a Christian church in Umpium Camp. A playground in Tham Hin. Waiting for the volleyball game to begin. A cow herder and his cattle in Nupo Camp. Playing under a house. Launching a kite in Umpium....
by Bremen Donovan at August 15, 2007 09:34 AM -05:00 GMT
Names People in the camps have occasional access to television, where Western cultural norms are learned through the filter of popular media interpretations of those norms. One of the quirky results of this particular situation is the late profusion of Western...
by Bremen Donovan at August 15, 2007 08:51 AM -05:00 GMT
David Shayler is the reincarnation of a BCE Jewish revolutionary. Apparently. I've previously blogged about the MI5 whistleblower, and prominent 9/11 'truth' movement member, David Shayler: he allegedly advocated a lot of David Icke-style beliefs around aliens etc (although, when Schnews reported this, he denied much of it). However, things get...
by jon_mendel at August 10, 2007 12:16 AM +00:00 GMT
Suggested Reading about Dar es Salaam and microfinance Hello Watsonblog readers! Work is pretty hectic right now but I thought I should suggest some resources for those who might be interested in learning more about microfinance, Dar es Salaam or microfinance market research. For a very thorough introduction,...
by Julia Hazen at August 9, 2007 05:50 AM -05:00 GMT
Election Images 2 MHP banners in Eyup, Istanbul...
by Jill Luxenberg at August 8, 2007 04:16 AM -05:00 GMT
Election Images I meant to post these during the campaigns, but they got lost in the excitement. I wish I had pictures for all of the parties, but I only managed to snap a few. Here is an image of CHP banners...
by Jill Luxenberg at August 8, 2007 04:08 AM -05:00 GMT
Privacy and Harassment on the Internet - Kassiane Sibley Privacy on the Internet is clearly a concern - pictures, e-mails, blog entries etc. that one would not want the world to see can now circulate incredibly easily. Online harassment can also be a concern (for example, the problems faced...
by jon_mendel at August 8, 2007 12:37 AM +00:00 GMT
Moving ahead with the actual "adolescent transition clinic and peer support program" The research study assessing the needs of adolescents has been a core part of my work this summer, laying the groundwork for creation of the adolescent transition clinic and peer support program by ascertaining whether it is even needed, why it is needed, and in what ways such a program...
by Vijay Narayan at August 7, 2007 11:56 PM +02:00 GMT
The Pope's Woods, my cool buildings, and an UFO? After going to the Oscar Niemeyer museum (also called the "Eye" museum because that's what it resembles), I got this shot from an adjacent park. A wooded area dedicated to John Paul II is also nearby. Can you spot...
by Hazen Kazaks at August 7, 2007 09:41 PM -05:00 GMT
Vibrant Mural Downtown Curitiba This mural is located near where I work, and on the way to a good vegetarian restaurant. The Governor's Palace is right next door....
by Hazen Kazaks at August 7, 2007 09:35 PM -05:00 GMT
T minus Two Days Well, well, well, My 9 weeks in Brazil are almost up. In 48 hours, I hope to be in some stratosphere-plying vehicle headed for North America. However, in the meantime, I am in the process of organizing my data, acting...
by Hazen Kazaks at August 7, 2007 01:44 PM -05:00 GMT
On foreign policy: Obama's choice After months of enduring repeated accusations that he lacked policy substance, Barack Obama now faces the opposite problem. In recent weeks, as the Illinois senator has fleshed out his foreign policy agenda, he has encountered increasing criticism from across the...
by Daniel Widome at August 7, 2007 04:01 AM -08:00 GMT
Camp Conditions 1: Housing and Life at Home Building a new house in Umpium Camp. A house in Tham Hin Camp. Children playing in the street between their houses, Nupo Camp. A child waiting on his porch. A grandmother and her grandchild in the living room of...
by Bremen Donovan at August 6, 2007 06:59 AM -05:00 GMT
The Campaign Continues The goal of our information campaign, a collaborative effort between the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Rescue Committee’s Overseas Processing Entity (IRC-OPE) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), is to ensure that...
by Bremen Donovan at August 6, 2007 03:02 AM -05:00 GMT
About data and how to use it It’s amazing that after over a month at Akshara I continue to learn more about how the organization works. In the past two weeks, I’ve met more cluster volunteers, two BEOs, some BRPs and CRPs, P, the academic who designed...
by gowriv at August 4, 2007 12:09 PM +05:30 GMT
Not as Easy as I Thought As an outsider coming in to do development work, it's very easy to see the flaws in the clogs of the system. However, it's also very easy to assume and misunderstand why the situation is so. Take the following for...
by social justice at August 1, 2007 04:27 PM +08:00 GMT
Finding out the needs: the research study (Part 2) Continuing with describing the study tools: after finalizing the needs assessment questionnaire, we formulated focus-group discussion guides---to guide the moderators in facilitating the discussions. The questions and probes were most carefully conceived to find very specific data just as the quantitative questionnaires were. Yet as I mentioned, FGDs (focus-group discussions)...
by Vijay Narayan at July 31, 2007 04:05 AM +02:00 GMT
Wanderings in the Haven of Peace Sorry for the inexcusably long blog silence. Things here are at FINCA Tanzania have been really hectic. I am working with the newly formed Marketing Office. We have been undertaking a market survey of Dar-es-Salaam. To situate our research within...
by Julia Hazen at July 30, 2007 04:42 AM -05:00 GMT
Somehow it's been a month... Sorry for the delay—I have to make sure to only post State-approved information, so there can be a bit of a delay sometimes! The past week has probably been my busiest and most exciting so far. I went on a...
by Jill Luxenberg at July 30, 2007 01:51 AM -05:00 GMT
Terror questions As Congress engaged in another round of contentious debate over the Iraq war—this time, complete with a successful overnight filibuster by Republicans—the country was reminded of the nagging, perpetual fear of terrorism. A spate of attempted and botched terrorist attacks...
by Daniel Widome at July 28, 2007 11:05 AM -08:00 GMT
Falls, Fog, and Frontiers I traveled out to the city of Foz do Iguaçu to kick off another round of interviews with sugarcane growers. This time, we talked to farmers who grew sugarcane not for fuel ethanol, but for the potable type of...
by Hazen Kazaks at July 28, 2007 12:56 AM -05:00 GMT
Iguaçu (Iguassu) Falls Here we are at the falls....
by Hazen Kazaks at July 28, 2007 12:53 AM -05:00 GMT
Water, Water, Everywhere Here is another closer, view. With this volume of water, it’s no wonder how the nearby Itaipu (Itaipú) Dam can claim to be the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world. We also got a lot of spray being...
by Hazen Kazaks at July 28, 2007 12:46 AM -05:00 GMT
Paraguay! With Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil forming a triple border near Foz do Iguaçu, we took advantage of their proximity and visited all three nations. While in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, I took the obligatory shot of some Paraguayan flags...
by Hazen Kazaks at July 28, 2007 12:43 AM -05:00 GMT
The ethics of translation in Iraq I have just found a fascinating BBC piece on the use of translators in Iraq by US-led forces. Given the unfortunately limited language skills of many UK troops in Iraq, the translators used clearly play a significant role. They can...
by jon_mendel at July 28, 2007 12:09 AM +00:00 GMT
Local Geopolitics While in the southwest corner of the state of Paraná, my translator André and I entered into Argentina (we also visited Paraguay-see other entry.) As you can see, the Argentine-U.K. dispute over the Falklands-Las Malvinas still nurses unsettled feelings....
by Hazen Kazaks at July 27, 2007 11:40 PM -05:00 GMT
Finding out the needs: the research study (part 1) The study we are in the process of conducting seeks to determine the needs of HIV-infected adolescents at the IDI, and what specialized care they may require. There is a dearth of literature and knowledge on transitional care of adolescent/young adult patients in general. In the initial literature review I...
by Vijay Narayan at July 23, 2007 02:43 AM +02:00 GMT
My tongue, the spoiled hedonist I guess I should be writing on how my thesis research is going, how I have been having outstanding meetings with Brazilian sugarcane experts, and how even with serious linguistic barriers, I have managed to have productive, informative, and...
by Hazen Kazaks at July 21, 2007 10:05 PM -05:00 GMT
The occupation in Iraq and international law Earlier this week, there was a very interesting BBC radio programme on the occupation in Iraq: listen again here. The programme discusses how the occupation was viewed in international law, and how this relates to issues of sovereignty. There's also...
by jon_mendel at July 21, 2007 03:47 PM +00:00 GMT
Election correction: Turkey and the EU On Sunday, Turks will go to the polls to elect a new parliament. This earlier-than-expected election will be the latest chapter in the decades-long debate over secularism and democracy that has defined modern Turkey, as well as the culmination of...
by Daniel Widome at July 19, 2007 09:22 PM -08:00 GMT
Getting Things Moving For the past couple of weeks, I've had a bit of displeasure at the slow pace of work. Sometimes I'd have nothing to do, so I would read books or websites on development (sand filters, microfinance), or worse, get sucked...
by social justice at July 19, 2007 04:57 PM +08:00 GMT
The Why After all we are talking about love, passion, happiness, beauty and popularity, not something practical or definable.
by Leona Rosenblum at July 19, 2007 02:01 PM -05:00 GMT
New OECD/World Bank paper with PB case studies The OECD / World Bank paper "Beyond Public Scrutiny: a stocktaking of social accountability initiatives in OECD countries" profiles 40 government accountability programs, including interesting examples of participatory budgeting in Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK.http://www.zebralog.net/open/BeyondPublicScrutinycoverandtext.pdf...
by Participatory Budgeting at July 19, 2007 09:18 AM -05:00 GMT
Bearings and Famous 'Abolitionists' An entire month into my internship, I've found my bearings at IJM, started my own assignments, and gained a sense of how much I can share without jeopardizing the efforts of the organization's field offices around the world. So welcome...
by Carrie Lutjens at July 18, 2007 03:37 PM -05:00 GMT
PB in Germany There is a nice new website on PB in Germany: http://www.buergerhaushalt.de...
by Participatory Budgeting at July 17, 2007 06:19 AM -05:00 GMT
Conceptualizing the model for the "Adolescent Transition Clinic and Peer Support Program" I left off in the last entry giving the background of my project to create a specialized support and clinical care model for HIV-infected adolescents. The idea for this project—way back when— came from the observations and testimonies of a number of people involved in the care of IDI adolescent...
by Vijay Narayan at July 16, 2007 02:19 PM +02:00 GMT
About fractals and mountain-climbing It’s now the beginning of my fourth week at Akshara. It seemed impossible at first, but I feel I’m starting to find a place for myself here. Reviewing literature on libraries worldwide gave me a chance to do what I...
by gowriv at July 16, 2007 12:07 PM +05:30 GMT
A Day in the Life... Reading over my last entries, I realized that I haven’t given a very good picture of what I actually do on a daily basis. Every day is different here, but I’ll try to give a sense of my work life....
by Jill Luxenberg at July 16, 2007 04:25 AM -05:00 GMT
Field Work I briefly mentioned in an earlier entry that I am in Brazil to research the social and environmental dimensions of sugarcane production in Brazil (particularly for ethanol). Well, as my absence from the blog scene for about a week and...
by Hazen Kazaks at July 15, 2007 11:39 PM -05:00 GMT
Tropical Scene While north of the Tropic of Capricorn and south of the Tropic of Cancer, I took this picture along the banks of the Paranapanema River, which divides the states of Paraná and São Pauo. I was also far enough...
by Hazen Kazaks at July 15, 2007 11:18 PM -05:00 GMT
Mmm...Sugarcane...Yum! Here I am in one of the sugarcane fields, doing research, and...chewing on a piece of sugarcane and enjoying it. If you never have tried it, the consistency and after-taste of the stuff hints at watermelon, besides being watery...
by Hazen Kazaks at July 15, 2007 10:57 PM -05:00 GMT
Northern Paraná landscape Here's what the landscape of the sugarcane growing area of Paraná, a southern state of Brazil, looks like. My guide and I were on our way to getting lost when this picture was taken. Haha....
by Hazen Kazaks at July 15, 2007 10:54 PM -05:00 GMT
Peril in Pakistan The challenge of preventing cooptation of Islamic institutions by external interests for political conflict, while preserving their independence and social service is reaching a critical juncture in Pakistan and across the Muslim world.
by Saleem Ali at July 15, 2007 05:23 PM -05:00 GMT
The Bureaucracy and Politics of Working in a Large INGO The Bureaucracy of working in a large INGO can be suffocating...endless and somewhat pointless meetings, paperwork, and more paperwork...It's difficult to accept that this is how things work in NGO circles. More frustrating is the fact that a leading way...
by social justice at July 12, 2007 12:14 PM +08:00 GMT
Update on the project! I’ve now been in Kampala, Uganda for over a month, and it’s more than about a time I provide some updates on my work here! To start it has been wonderful to back in Uganda. I was here for four weeks over winter break, working with a rural development NGO...
by Vijay Narayan at July 10, 2007 04:34 PM +02:00 GMT
Sleek High Rise
by Hazen Kazaks at July 9, 2007 08:53 PM -05:00 GMT
My Place of Work
by Hazen Kazaks at July 9, 2007 08:38 PM -05:00 GMT
sin bandas, drogas, y Colombianos I guess political freedoms and rights don’t always seem like the most important things. And dictatorship has always been attractive for the vast scale and efficiency of what can be accomplished when no one has a chance to disagree, (under Mussolini, the trains ran on time).
by Leona Rosenblum at July 8, 2007 07:50 PM -05:00 GMT
Look Both Ways I’m never quite sure what wakes me up. Sometimes it’s the traffic, other times it’s the welder across the street. There are even times where going to bed at 10 pm has paid off, and I wake up naturally....
by Guy Bloembergen at July 8, 2007 09:57 AM -05:00 GMT
Solutions to Rural Energy Demands and Global Waste Disposal Dilemmas For those interested...here is my research paper from Viet Nam on the promises of nutrient recycling and how it can solve much of today's waste disposal and environmental problems, both in the context of rural third world development and...
by social justice at July 6, 2007 10:52 AM +08:00 GMT
Cool Buildings Well, here are the photos of the cool looking buildings. Don't they resemble what you might find inside an iphone or other high-tech gadget? Anyway, these high rises are near where I work (the blue and black one with the...
by Hazen Kazaks at July 5, 2007 09:53 PM -05:00 GMT
Kiziba The Kiziba camp is nestled onto one of the hilltops just under the highest mountain in the region, a 45-minute wash-board drive with some incredible views of the lake. When you round the corner to the road that continues to the camp, you can see the white tarpaulin cover from afar. The camp looks almost organic, like a fungal growth on a log. Even when you draw close it is hard to imagine that it is home to 18,000 people. You can see the schoolhouses first, long and rectangular, and the sprinkling of students dressed in strikingly sharp blue-colored uniforms wandering in and out for their morning break. Some of the students had wandered a little far on their recess; on the road to the camp we passed several youth dancing a little jig of freedom, the dance of “youth-cutting-class”. We pulled the car over to scold them in several languages for their lack of attendance.
by Caitlin Lee Cohen at July 5, 2007 10:37 AM -05:00 GMT
Resettlement and Refugee Camps along the Thai/Burma Border A small child is standing before me, with a haphazardly shaven head and two quarter-sized gold hoop earrings. His wobbly legs indicate that he has only recently learned how to walk. The child’s sweater has the look of a tenth...
by Bremen Donovan at July 4, 2007 08:32 AM -05:00 GMT
O livro está na mesa In Brazil, if someone does not know English very well, their fall back phrase is "the book is on the table." Because não falo o português muito bem, I use a parallel phrase. If I can't quickly respond to something...
by Hazen Kazaks at July 4, 2007 12:01 AM -05:00 GMT
Elections Background As promised, this entry will deal with the hottest topic in Turkish politics right now, the July 22nd parliamentary elections. These elections were originally supposed to be held in the fall, but because the Grand National Assembly (GNA) failed to...
by Jill Luxenberg at July 3, 2007 01:49 AM -05:00 GMT
First Visit to the Chinese Countryside One of my co-workers convinced me to go with him hiking on a mountain range southwest of Xian, and of course, wanting to get out of the city, I agreed. Our plans weren't really set, and, to be honest, we...
by social justice at July 1, 2007 02:23 PM +08:00 GMT
Slip Sliding... Today, I played soccer with my Brazilian neighbors. The only *ahem* interesting aspect of the game was it was not on grass, but on sand, which apparently is routine down here, but I was not used to it. I guess...
by Hazen Kazaks at June 30, 2007 03:04 PM -05:00 GMT
Freedom of speech for academic bloggers - a good result I've previously blogged about Prof. David Colquhoun at UCL being forced to remove his blog from UCL's servers. However, UCL has relented: the blog will be restored, when Prof. Colquhoun has time to move it back. Clearly, this is something...
by jon_mendel at June 30, 2007 12:37 PM +00:00 GMT
Potholes Maybe this desire to travel back in time is why seeing Blockbusters, Dominos, McDonald’s, and Office Depots everywhere you go is so frustrating for the tourist.
by Leona Rosenblum at June 29, 2007 08:42 PM -05:00 GMT
Immigration compromise Of all the praise and criticism he has received over the past seven years, one thing can be said with certainty about President Bush. He has painted his presidency in big, bold strokes, displaying a remarkable degree of political stubbornness...
by Daniel Widome at June 29, 2007 07:05 AM -08:00 GMT
From the macro to the micro In a few hours I’ll have spent a week at the Akshara Foundation, or almost a week, excluding this weekend’s somewhat undeserved vacation. Looking back on it, the week went by quickly. When I left Harvard, I had the impression...
by gowriv at June 27, 2007 12:05 PM +05:30 GMT
Introductions and Arrival This is my first official blog, so bear with me while I try to figure things out. I’m a rising senior and I’m concentrating in modern European and Middle Eastern history. I’m keeping a Watsonblog because I was given the...
by Jill Luxenberg at June 26, 2007 01:54 AM -05:00 GMT
Gesundheit! Brazil has a similar overarching history to the United States. Both countries have had their own experience with European colonialism beginning in the early modern era, and the subsequent exploitation of continent-sized swaths of land, where the ocean-crossers found plenty...
by Hazen Kazaks at June 24, 2007 10:44 PM -05:00 GMT
Mwenge English class and Microfinance Market Research So the big news around here is that the Tanzanian National Football team (the Taifa Stars) beat Burkina Faso (1-0) in Ougadougou this weekend. If they beat Mozambique in September, they will proceed to the African Cup of Nations in...
by Julia Hazen at June 23, 2007 11:41 AM -05:00 GMT
pizza and pizza As part of being abroad in a foreign land, in my case Brazil, I have attempted to experience many interesting sights and sounds. However, there is something to be said about revisiting one place over time to get a good...
by Hazen Kazaks at June 21, 2007 03:23 PM -05:00 GMT
first entry Well, I arrived here in Brazil two weeks ago and only now getting around to blogging. (There have been some hiccups getting online, plus I only recently ridded myself of an unwanted Brazilian virus.) fast 1.45 AM impressions? Brazil is...
by Hazen Kazaks at June 20, 2007 12:38 AM -05:00 GMT
Ntarama altar- sight of the massacre of 5000 The Ntarama church, sight of the massacre of an estimated 5000 people. It has been left essentially as found: there are bibles, clothing, and bones between the pews. Photo courtesy of Kresa King Cutcher (camera_rwanda@yahoo.com), with permission....
by Caitlin Lee Cohen at June 19, 2007 05:21 AM -05:00 GMT
Mail me the carbon...
The road by my house is undergoing construction. This morning, when digging the sewer, three men uncovered several bones from a human’s remains. There was little ceremony. They dusted them off with a rag, purchased a plastic hallmark-style gift bag covered in hearts, and placed the bones inside delicately, though they had been driven on top of for years. I didn’t see what they did with the bag, but I imagined them leaving the cheesy valentines present on the doorstep of some neighbor. I imagined little kids ringing the doorbell and running away, and the horror on the face of the recipient. Is there any good way to receive half a dead body? Can the kitchy hearts, an expensive gesture in such a poor country, cushion the blow?
by Caitlin Lee Cohen at June 19, 2007 04:53 AM -05:00 GMT
They really do sell Panama hats here, just so you know... After a week of being lost in a new country, of the solitude of living alone for the first time, of trying to translate for people from dozens of countries in a language I’m not sure of myself, of immersion in the corporate culture of the UN, of struggling to make sense of a thousand acronyms, we ended with a few brief moments of actual human interaction with a bunch of little boys who would really like to play soccer. It all suddenly makes slightly more sense.
by Leona Rosenblum at June 18, 2007 06:47 PM -05:00 GMT
The seed of wisdom The seed of wisdom did I sow, And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow, And this was all the harvest that I reap'd, I came like water, and like wind I go -- Omar Khayyam Source :...
by Syamak Moattari at June 15, 2007 10:07 PM -05:00 GMT
A sign in Seoul's city plaza on June 5, 2007 -- South Korea has the highest per capita emissions in all of Asia
by Saleem Ali at June 12, 2007 09:35 AM -05:00 GMT
RIP Richard Rorty Sad to hear, but the philosopher Richard Rorty died on June 8th. I remember struggling to get to grips with his writing for years - his work on human rights (especially a lecture delivered as a fundraiser for Amnesty) was...
by jon_mendel at June 11, 2007 12:58 PM +00:00 GMT
Karibu Dar es Salaam Hello blog readers, This summer I am working for a microfinance organization called FINCA Tanzania. FINCA Tanzania is affiliated with the American organization FINCA International, based in Washington DC. FINCA Tanzania has been operating since 1998 and has over 37,000...
by Julia Hazen at June 11, 2007 06:42 AM -05:00 GMT
Freedom of speech for academic bloggers - UCL forces Prof Colquhoun to remove his blog David Colquhoun's a chemistry professor at UCL, and also runs an Improbable Science blog - criticising dodgy 'scientific' claims. Sadly, Colquhoun has been forced to remove his blog from UCL's servers: Colquhoun reports that an item about claims made for...
by jon_mendel at June 10, 2007 04:38 PM +00:00 GMT
Kacyiru: Can a sewer be beautiful? I have moved from the downtown neighborhood to a place called Kacyiru, a mixed-class neighborhood tucked on the side of the hill under many of the government ministries. The road is soon to be paved, and thus the roads have been torn up and rained on. The mud forms thick cakes on the bottom of my flipflops, making them snap heavily against my heels and spray me with dirt. Rwanda’s compulsory community service program is funding the materials for a sewer system, and everyone comes out on the weekend to make solid and surprisingly beautiful stone-walled sewers. The sassiest women take part, wearing green caps and pants, straddling the edge of the sewer with their masonry tools. They shout “Muzungu! Witwande?” (Hey Whitey, what is your name?), and are surprised when I respond “Nitwan Caitlin” (I am called Caitlin).
by Caitlin Lee Cohen at June 10, 2007 05:03 AM -05:00 GMT
Mr. Ahmadinejad, please turn your volume down What is your definition of National Interests? Each time you address something in your verbose talks, we start mourning in this country. Every time you start showing a hostile picture of our nation, I have to show hundreds of slides...
by Syamak Moattari at June 8, 2007 03:40 PM -05:00 GMT
The Moroccan-American Dialogue Comes to a Close...For Now And just a soon as it had begun, it was over. The two-day Rabat, Morocco, conference was a great success, drawing inquisitive, engaged young people from the US and Morocco to discuss two big issues: democracy and security. While...
by Laurel Rapp at June 6, 2007 01:37 PM -05:00 GMT
Settling In It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve arrived in Cambodia. My time has flown here – on the one hand I feel like I touched down in Phnom Penh yesterday, but on the other hand I feel like I’ve...
by Guy Bloembergen at June 6, 2007 04:45 AM -05:00 GMT
The Moroccan Democracy Conference Begins The first day of the Rabat, Morocco, conference has just come to a close! We’re all exhausted, but very pleased with the way it turned out! Al Jazeera (Qatar-based pan-Arab TV station) was there broadcasting introductions and two of...
by Laurel Rapp at June 2, 2007 08:15 PM -05:00 GMT
Dispatches from North Africa My name is Laurel Rapp and I’m a recent Brown grad (’06) and Watson Associate currently on a Rotary fellowship in Rabat, Morocco, for the year. I’m conducting research on female veiling practices, but I’m also planning a conference series...
by Laurel Rapp at June 1, 2007 12:47 PM -05:00 GMT
Watson as a international community After spending four monthes of happy time at Watson Institute, I am excited to come back Beijing to join my family and old friends to resume my normal life. However, I become to miss Watson Institute and the WISE guys...
by Shenghe Liu at May 30, 2007 08:14 PM -05:00 GMT
View from WE-ACT office, R. Noelle Bates
by Caitlin Lee Cohen at May 30, 2007 01:34 PM -05:00 GMT
Delphine, Perfectionism, and Recovery. The president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, runs a tight ship. The streets are named and numbered, there are public trashcans, the public parks have manicured lawns, there are no street markets, and moto taxi drivers are required not only to wear helmets but to bring them for their passengers as well. When I arrived in Kigali my plastic bags were confiscated at the airport, because they have been make illegal to cut down on trash. Kagame has been accused of micromanagement, and yet this country was in need of considerable structure, even if structure is manifest in neurotic details.
by Caitlin Lee Cohen at May 30, 2007 11:56 AM -05:00 GMT
Development Studies honors thesis Shortly, I will post something here outlining my idea for this blog. Until then, I've decided to use this as a portal to make my thesis available. It is entitled: "Dynamics of Transnational Advocacy: The Case of the Free Trade...
by Nick Renzler at May 29, 2007 05:23 PM -05:00 GMT
Critical Education The use of educational institutions for political ends is a well-established tradition across cultures and societies. Exemplified recently by anti-war activism at universities in the West as well as the rise of Marxist movements in schools in South America or the Ayatollah ascendancy at Tehran University, institutions of learning are often places of revolution. Ideas invigorate young minds to action but Alexander Pope’s prescient observation of “a little learning being a dangerous thing” is just as true today. While the independence of educational institutions must be maintained, some level of quality assurance and critical reasoning is also essential to ensure that captive audiences of students are not manipulated.
by Saleem Ali at May 28, 2007 01:37 PM -05:00 GMT
Climate change With each new scientific study and extreme weather event, the consensus that climate change is a real and man-made challenge grows stronger. Although a few politicians continue to be skeptical of the severity of the problem, their numbers are dwindling,...
by Daniel Widome at May 25, 2007 09:09 PM -08:00 GMT
Cyberattacks on Estonia - a move to netwar? Some interesting arguments around cyberattacks on Estonia: The computer attacks, apparently originating in Russia, first hit the Web site of Estonia's prime minister on April 27, the day the country was mired in protest and violence. The president's site went...
by jon_mendel at May 21, 2007 02:14 PM +00:00 GMT
Arrival Sometimes you can't help but laugh. As a child, I had a sort of surrogate grandmother who used to cycle to our house to see us all the time. When it rained, she wore this ridiculous clear vinyl raincoat that,...
by Guy Bloembergen at May 20, 2007 03:50 AM -05:00 GMT
Blair, Brown and ongoing foreign policy failures If you haven't been living under a stone lately, you probably know that Tony Blair has announced that he will soon be going as UK Prime Minister; Gordon Brown is as near as possible to a sure thing for the...
by jon_mendel at May 14, 2007 01:26 PM +00:00 GMT
Degrees of Fortune American academia was shocked by the resignation of MIT’s dean of admissions Marilee Jones on April 26 for pretending to have degrees which she did not actually receive. As an alumnus of MIT, I feel obliged to consider this incident further since it raises fundamental questions about contemporary meritocracy.
by Saleem Ali at May 11, 2007 08:34 PM -05:00 GMT
Grief, anxiety, and the politics of remembering the 7/7 attacks With new information emerging about the 7/7 London bombings, there have been new calls for an independent inquiry. I'm particularly interested in what Blair had to say about this in the UK Parliament: "We have to be clear about the...
by jon_mendel at May 5, 2007 10:19 PM +00:00 GMT
New website launched as Social Network for HIV/AIDS Community Launched on March 1st, HIVConnect.net is a unique site that connects all sectors of the HIV/AIDS community. This new social network is a place of free dialogue for people with HIV/AIDS, Community Based Organizations, AIDS Service Organizations, and the family...
by Syamak Moattari at April 30, 2007 10:30 PM -05:00 GMT
Demography of Terror Former secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld, in a recently released confidential memorandum, posed the central question about the American war on terror: “Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassahs and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?” Starting with Rumsfeld’s question, journalist, Mark Danner has commendably approached this issue in detail and his answer is a resolute “no”.
by Saleem Ali at April 28, 2007 11:56 AM -05:00 GMT
PB Training Course in Portugal There will be an advanced training course on participatory budgeting in Europe June 22-23 in Coimbra, Portugal. For more info (in spanish or portuguese), see:http://www.ces.uc.pt/curso-op/indexesp.php...
by Participatory Budgeting at April 27, 2007 12:36 PM -05:00 GMT
Iraq pushback In the past few months, the Congressional debate over the Iraq war has come into much greater focus. In January, Democrats in the House and Senate—freshly installed as the majority party in each chamber—generated a raft of proposals to rein...
by Daniel Widome at April 26, 2007 11:44 AM -08:00 GMT
US Corporations and Chinese Labor Standards During my second year in China, while working for Yale Law School's China Law Center, I was intensively researching labor issues in China. The National People's Congress is currently in the process of revamping the legal structure of the labor...
by Aaron Halegua at April 18, 2007 08:55 AM -05:00 GMT
Hilary Benn "In the UK, we do not use the phrase 'war on terror'" UK International Development Secretary Hilary Benn has recently been in the news - arguing that In the UK, we do not use the phrase 'war on terror' because we can't win by military means alone, and because this isn't us...
by jon_mendel at April 17, 2007 01:17 AM +00:00 GMT
Downing Street petition about Navy prisoners selling stories The Prime Minister's Downing Street website now allows member of the public to post online petitions. One petition - about the recent decision to allow those Navy personnel held prisoners by Iran - has recently been getting media attention. The...
by jon_mendel at April 13, 2007 05:18 PM +00:00 GMT
Reportback on International Participatory Budgeting Conference in Spain From March 28 - April 1, 2007 the city of Málaga, Spain hosted an international conference on participatory budgeting. I’m posting the conference program and most of the powerpoint presentations below, as well as some of the most interesting bits of information. This is all based on my understanding of the speakers’ presentations of course, but it's accurate to the best of my knowledge.Conference ProgramSpain- Most of the PBs in Spain, or at least those at the conference, have a strong emphasis on “autorreglamento” – a process in which the set of rules of the PB are written by the participants themselves. Often the first step in initiating a PB is an extended process of autorreglamento, in which city residents plan the initial rules and structure of the PB.- Many Spanish municipalities with PB are now trying to find ways to coordinate annual PB processes with medium and long-term strategic planning.- In Sevilla, the largest European city with a PB, the budget assemblies are generally organized autonomously by “grupos motores” (motor groups): local residents that are particularly enthusiastic about the process. During the election of budget delegates in assemblies, each person votes for 2 women and 2 men, to promote gender equity. - In the small Spanish town of Las Cabezas de San Juan, organizers used some very creative and provocative imagery to inspire people to participate in the PB. The process was called “El Reparto” (no good translation, but roughly “the divvying up”), and posters portrayed different animals partitioned to be carved up: As Javier Encinas, one of the organizers, explained, this imagery aimed to bring the PB to the level and language of everyday life, to better provoke people and get them to associate with the process.- In Palomares del Rio, another small Spanish town, these same organizers...
by Participatory Budgeting at April 12, 2007 02:22 PM -05:00 GMT
Update on Porto Alegre Aaron Schneider published an update on participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre yesterday: Crisis in the Home of Participatory Budgeting: Technical Accuracy and HierarchyCidade11/04/2007Excerpt: "My high hopes are based on ideas and practices that are core to participatory budgeting,even if not always present. The ideas of which I speak include deliberation, which is theconstruction of common understandings among citizens to create a self-conscious, independent and innovative civil society. The practices to which I refer include participation, by which civil society organizations are mobilized to support and legitimate state efforts to address pressing social needs, especially those associated with poverty and inequality.(...)They are being replaced by an alternative idea, technical accuracy, and an alternative practice, hierarchy. I do not argue that technical accuracy and hierarchy have no place in urban administration. Indeed, they are constructed from a proud Brazilian tradition of positivism and rationality, particularly strong in Rio Grande do Sul culture and history. Yet, this reorientation is dangerous in the current context. This was made clear to us in a preparatory meeting in the Northeast Region of the city on Saturday, March 24th, 2007." full article...
by Participatory Budgeting at April 12, 2007 07:11 AM -05:00 GMT
Mapping the killing in Darfur with Google Earth The US Holocaust Museum has now released Google Earth layers, mapping out the crisis in Darfur. This looks like an interesting political use of the sparial and visual aspects of mapping - and apparently something that the Holocaust Museum plans...
by jon_mendel at April 10, 2007 05:44 PM +00:00 GMT
Max Clifford on propaganda and Iran With controversy building about the decision to allow the British Navy Personnel captured by Iran to sell their stories, the BBC has an interesting interview with the PR specialist Max Clifford - listen again here (about 10mins in). Clifford argues...
by jon_mendel at April 9, 2007 08:09 PM +00:00 GMT
A Success Story, Population Policy in Iran As health professionals interested in International health a lot can be learned from the Iran population policy story. The process of implementing the policy shows the importance of census data in developing countries, and also the value of a powerful...
by Syamak Moattari at April 8, 2007 09:41 AM -05:00 GMT
The joys of serious organised crime Just been trying to get on with my PhD work at the same time as laughing (harder than you'd think - my Dragon software doesn't know what to make of laughter). I've been listening to a Mark Thomas show -...
by jon_mendel at April 5, 2007 01:49 PM +00:00 GMT
Drugs, again - discussion of legalising Afghan opium production Interesting story in last Independent on Sunday: The 'IoS' can reveal Tony Blair is considering calls to legalise poppy production in the Taliban's backyard. The plan could cut medical shortages of opiates worldwide, curb smuggling - and hit the insurgents...
by jon_mendel at April 2, 2007 07:08 PM +00:00 GMT
Drug-taking troops provoke UK army crisis Lorna Martin in Sunday's Observer reports that: Fifteen British soldiers a week are being thrown out of the army for taking drugs, including heroin, ecstasy, cannabis and cocaine...Almost 800 troops were discharged last year after failing random drug tests. But,...
by jon_mendel at March 26, 2007 05:00 PM +00:00 GMT
Baghdad - Mapping the Violence Last week, I was talking with some of the people studying the 'war on terror' at Durham. One response to reports of sectarian violence in Iraq was to note how maps of the country would soon be coloured in with...
by jon_mendel at March 23, 2007 01:45 AM +00:00 GMT
Balance of power When Democrats won control of Congress last year, many speculated about how the Bush administration would respond. Without a supportive Republican-controlled Congress, would the administration become more conciliatory in its expansive interpretation of executive prerogative? Or would it become even...
by Daniel Widome at March 23, 2007 01:00 AM -08:00 GMT
International PB Conference in Spain There will be an international conference on participatory budgeting in Málaga, Spain, March 28-31. See details at http://redfal.org/en/node/98...
by Participatory Budgeting at March 22, 2007 11:24 AM -05:00 GMT
How serious is Iran nuclear program Maybe you are overwhelmed with the news about our nuclear program, I don’t know much about this issue, and I have absolutely no idea about the standards of the nuclear scientists. Recently president Ahamdinejad gave a talk and he mentioned...
by Syamak Moattari at March 18, 2007 06:22 PM -05:00 GMT
Gen. Pace - homosexual acts are immoral Anyway, as far as international politics goes, the latest thing to catch my attention has been Gen. Pace's claim that "homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts". On the one hand, this...
by jon_mendel at March 16, 2007 01:50 PM +00:00 GMT
Pricing Nature and Harmonizing Economics Economists have successfully branded themselves as scientists with mathematical exactitude that allows them to artfully negotiate the vagaries of human consumption patterns through pricing mechanisms. Yet the life support systems that sustain the planet have eluded their grasp and have often been relegated to the residual category of externalities.
by Saleem Ali at March 14, 2007 11:21 PM -05:00 GMT
Is really Iran President is an Israeli secret agent? I am not a politician, and I do not know a lot about politics, but I found a note in an Isreali website by Guy Bechor, who writes periodically at Ynetnews, the leading source for Israel news, on his article...
by Syamak Moattari at March 13, 2007 10:33 AM -05:00 GMT
The Power of Hollywood for making Good and Bad Nations Despite the fact that 300 is not a historical film, and it is just a fiction, but Iranian community takes position against it, because of the fact that this film tries to show our ancestor like uncivilized, gory, bloody and...
by Syamak Moattari at March 12, 2007 12:23 PM -05:00 GMT
RIP Baudrillard Working late and listening to the radio, I've just heard that Jean Baudrillard has died, aged 77. At a time when Baudrillard's analyses of how "Virtuality retranscribes everything in its space [and] human ends vanish into thin air in virtuality"...
by jon_mendel at March 7, 2007 12:50 AM +00:00 GMT
No War With Iran Forget the NEWS and Propaganda against Iran, people in Iran like the other Nations are full of love and life. please check this out...
by Syamak Moattari at March 5, 2007 02:51 PM -05:00 GMT
Budget brawl Earlier this month, President Bush sent his proposed budget for FY 2008 to Congress. At this point, the “proposed” aspect of the $2.9 trillion, 2500 page document should be emphasized. By the time Congress gets done with it, the federal...
by Daniel Widome at February 25, 2007 11:20 AM -08:00 GMT
Ministry of Defence psychic research - remote viewing has "little value" There's echoes of Ronson's The Men Who Stare at Goats in recently revealed UK MoD research into the use of psychic phenomena. In these experiments: The previously secret tests - conducted in 2002 - involved blind-folding volunteers and asking them...
by jon_mendel at February 23, 2007 04:55 PM +00:00 GMT
UK Iraq troop withdrawal - now is not the time to 'move on' It was announced today that the UK is withdrawing about 16,00 troops from Iraq, and hopes to withdraw more over time. Surprisingly, I find myself with mixed feelings about this. The partial withdrawal may be a sign that, having dug...
by jon_mendel at February 21, 2007 11:54 PM +00:00 GMT
Demographic Transition, Population Policy and Fertility Change in Iran Since the adoption of a new population policy in 1988, Iran’s population growth rate dropped dramatically from 3.2 percent in 1986 to1.2 percent in 2001 and 1.1 percent in 2006.This reduction in an Islamic developing country in the Middle...
by Syamak Moattari at February 18, 2007 06:30 PM -05:00 GMT
Today is the constitutional referendum in Egypt. N... Today is the constitutional referendum in Egypt. Not a whole lot is being reported yet, though I am reading that very few Egyptians have decided to go to the polls.Abu Aardvark: Al-Jazeera is reporting "very low" turnout in the referendum...
by Watsonblogs at February 18, 2007 02:05 PM -05:00 GMT
bird flu update - problems with hygiene at Bernard Matthews The DEFRA report on the birdflu outbreak at Bernard Matthews points out that the firm had been warned several times before about hygiene lapses. There were several possible avenues for bird flu to move from imported turkey meat to its...
by jon_mendel at February 17, 2007 12:26 AM +00:00 GMT
Ex-BNP man with large arms stockpile - update I wrote a few months back about a large cache of arms found by UK police, with a man with links to the BNP. This has now gone to trial in Manchester, and is getting a bit of media coverage....
by jon_mendel at February 16, 2007 12:17 AM +00:00 GMT
Global Warming and Population Robert Hardaway and Judy Swearingen
As the global warming debate degenerates into a proxy fight between competing political ideologies which have little to do with global warming itself, it becomes clear that both sides to the debate have lost sight of the underlying issues.
Those who claim that global warming caused by human activity will be the cause of an imminent environmental catastrophe are essentially beating a dead horse—namely that the planet is being environmentally degraded by modern civilization and the inevitable consequences of the industrial revolution. True enough, although the experts continue to debate both the percentage of global warming due to human activity and the significance of recent warming when measured on a scale of billions of years and countless cycles of global cooling and warming. Not to be forgotten is that some of the same “experts” who are now predicting catastrophic global warming, twenty five years ago were predicting a catastrophic ice age.
by Saleem Ali at February 15, 2007 05:47 PM -05:00 GMT
When the BBC hits the blogosphere (or should that be the other way round?) The BBC's Profile programme recently ran a show about the political blogger 'Guido Fawkes'. The show was broadly positive, but the BBC's Nick Robinson was critical about the style and accuracy of the blog. This appears to have caused something...
by jon_mendel at February 15, 2007 12:29 AM +00:00 GMT
Google Earth in Iraq again - survival by satellite? According to a BBC story, the Iraqi League has included Google Earth in its advice to Iraqis on how to survive the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq. Iraqis are advised to "draw up maps of their local area using Google...
by jon_mendel at February 13, 2007 09:48 PM +00:00 GMT
Arming the Iraqi insurgency - who's responsible? The Bush administration is currently emphasising that weapons are coming from Iran to Iraqi insurgents, and arguing that this is happening directly with Iranian government approval. In itself, this is pretty feasible, although it may be hard to establish any...
by jon_mendel at February 12, 2007 11:55 PM +00:00 GMT
Obama and Islam Obama’s connections with Islam could be a means of improving America’s strained relations with the Muslim world through empathy and erudition. Sadly the American political landscape is still not ready to break the glass ceiling for a truly multicultural candidate.
by Saleem Ali at February 10, 2007 06:40 PM -05:00 GMT
bird flu and globalisation I'm sitting here shivering with a big box of tissues, so issues around (bird) flu are looming larger in my mind at the moment. Bird flu (the H5N1 strain) has been found in turkeys in Suffolk in the UK, and...
by jon_mendel at February 9, 2007 05:14 PM +00:00 GMT
Independent Jewish Voices on Israel Interesting move towards more critical British Jewish stances on Israel. It looks like the debate on this will run - both on how open UK Jewish communities are to critical positions on Israel, and on what type of stances towards...
by jon_mendel at February 8, 2007 10:36 PM +00:00 GMT
Fukuyama "could not understand why everyone was applauding" An interesting interview with Francis Fukuyam was published weekend. He's talking about his turn against neoconservatism (the subject of his After the Neocons book). It starts by describing a dinner attended by rightwing thinkers at the Hilton hotel in Washington....
by jon_mendel at February 6, 2007 03:46 PM +00:00 GMT
Obama's challenge As events of recent weeks have only reiterated, Barack Obama is the early superstar of the 2008 presidential race. The charismatic Illinois senator draws massive and enthusiastic crowds wherever he speaks, and the media seems to hang on his every...
by Daniel Widome at February 6, 2007 09:50 AM -08:00 GMT
International Mother Language Day International Mother Language Day was proclaimed by UNESCO in November 1999, and observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. Today, about half of the 6,000 or so languages spoken in the world are...
by Syamak Moattari at February 5, 2007 12:12 AM -05:00 GMT
"Operation Persian Freedom is drawing ever closer"?
by jon_mendel at February 4, 2007 06:23 PM +00:00 GMT
Tony Blair's law Just been listening to this fascinating radio programme - with a panel of legal experts discussing the changes that Tony Blair has made to UK law (and the international impacts of this). Well worth a listen, both for a good...
by jon_mendel at January 30, 2007 04:28 PM +00:00 GMT
Missing the point Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) is a smart guy, and it was totally in character for him to hold these hearings today on the extent of Congress' war powers. It appears he's planning to follow-up on them: Tomorrow, I will introduce...
by Daniel Widome at January 30, 2007 02:40 PM -08:00 GMT
Report on the latest WSF We have a guest post from Marc Becker, who has attended the latest WSF. These and other writings are available at www.yachana.org The World Social Forum comes to Africa Marc Becker marc@yachana.org January 28, 2007 The last week of January, 50,000 activists from around the world gathered under the theme “People’s Struggles, People’s Alternatives” in Nairobi, Kenya for the seventh World Social Forum. After meeting four times in Porto Alegre, Brazil; once in Mumbai, Indian; and last year in a ‘polycentric’ fashion in Mali, Venezuela, and Pakistan, this was the first time the annual gathering of civil society had a unified meeting in Africa. “Words alone cannot capture the vibrancy, the potency, the promise and the excitement of a World Social Forum event,” organizers wrote in the introduction to the 174-page program. “There is no alternative to being there.” In reflections on a panel of scholar-activists, Jai Sen argued that a critique of the forum can only be done by direct engagement, not by a disinterested outsider. “The forum needs to get under one’s skin,” he said. “We have to critique it from the inside” in order to make it better. Planning for the forum took several years, and some activists questioned whether Kenyan organizers could pull off the feat. Some participants complained about logistical nightmares that are almost inevitable in a country marginalized and ravished by capitalism. Kenyan organizer Njoki Njoroge acknowledged and apologized for problems with translation, signage, security, traffic. Others noted that simply holding the forum in Africa meant that it was a success. There is, however, a problem of lowered expectations that does not encourage us to reach higher levels of achievement. Njoroge noted that it was important for the forum to come to Nairobi because it will change Africa, and Africa will change the forum....
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at January 28, 2007 06:14 PM -05:00 GMT
Tony Blair, Iraq and responsibility I've just watched Tony Blair give a fairly extensive interview to The Politics Show. Ugh - 'toe-curling' is the first word that springs to mind. There's no sense of regret, no sense that things could have been done better or...
by jon_mendel at January 28, 2007 12:31 PM +00:00 GMT
Irish State TV decides not to show Loose Change Just a quick update after this post. Apparently, after receiving a lot of complaints, the RTE TV station decided (correctly, to my mind) that Loose Change isn't suitable for broadcast. Yay :D From what I can tell, lots of the...
by jon_mendel at January 26, 2007 01:28 PM +00:00 GMT
Surge protection On January 10, President Bush announced plans to send a “surge” of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq. By most accounts, this was a bold move on his part. In November, the Democrats won control of Congress due largely to the...
by Daniel Widome at January 25, 2007 10:30 PM -08:00 GMT
PB in Porto Alegre Continues to Disappoint Under New Administration We are fortunate to have a guest posting below by Corinne Tatcher, who has been observing the PB process in Porto Alegre. “Fogaça: A Cara da Cidade.” I still remember José Fogaça’s campaign slogan for his mayoral bid in 2004. Fogaça: The Face of the City. Unfortunately, Fogaça has indeed been promoting his own image at the expense of the Participatory Budget since he took office in 2005. Despite having promised to improve upon the PB when elected to City Hall–“keep what’s good and change what isn’t” had been a second slogan of his campaign–so far, he has not lived up to the expectations he created. The Participatory Budget in Porto Alegre has reached a critical phase in its 18-year life span. Whether for lack of competence or lack of interest, the new administration–the first non-PT administration to lead Porto Alegre since 1989–has relegated the PB to the sidelines of the political playing field. A handful of PB councillors have become so frustrated by the administration’s lack of follow through that they have resigned from the PB Council and joined a movement they’ve deemed Basta ao Desmonte do OP–Stop the PB’s Dismantling. Others who are continuing to participate expressed their frustration at a recent Council meeting held on 9 January 2007. At the meeting, a discussion surfaced about the decline in PB’s image in Porto Alegre. Complaints were raised that the government was not including the PB logo on new public works that were decided upon through the mechanism of the PB as had been done in the past, and that fewer people were participating in the PB each year. In order to keep the PB image alive, a councillor from the Northeast region suggested printing t-shirts with the PB’s logo for distribution throughout the regions, an idea that many...
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at January 25, 2007 07:25 PM -05:00 GMT
Exploding pigs force far-right party out of Second Life The virtual world of Second Life became a better place last week: Jean Marie Le Pen's far-right Front National tried to establish an HQ there, but were forced to leave. When the Front National arrived, they drew protestors and (virtual)...
by jon_mendel at January 25, 2007 05:41 PM +00:00 GMT
Loose Change 9/11 Conspiracy movie to air on Irish RTE TV Oddly, it seems that the Irish public TV station RTE TV has decided to show the Loose Change documentary next month. Loose Change is a movie which argues and implies that the 'official' story that Al Qaeda were behind the...
by jon_mendel at January 24, 2007 05:37 PM +00:00 GMT
Tribal Targets For much of the Pakistan’s history the federally administered tribal areas (FATA) have been off limits to the central government both in terms of governance systems as well as social services. Governing the tribal belt was a tabooed topic that no one dared to advance in Islamabad’s halls of power. There was a stale sense of sanctity ascribed to this terrain that most were too afraid to tread upon. With scant investment in educational infrastructure and social development the tribal areas became a twilight zone for those who wished to cling to a bygone warrior era.
by Saleem Ali at January 22, 2007 09:45 PM -05:00 GMT
Police "colluded" with Loyalist murders in Northern Ireland While the bloodshed in Iraq continues, UK news has provided a reminder of a more 'old fashioned' type of terrorism. Nuala O'Loan - Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland - has reported that: Special Branch officers gave [Ulster Volunteer Force] killers...
by jon_mendel at January 22, 2007 07:11 PM +00:00 GMT
The Independent: How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches Writing in the Independent, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb report that: Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected...
by jon_mendel at January 20, 2007 09:43 PM +00:00 GMT
Google Earth used to target British bases in Basra It was reported last week (I've only just been forwarded the story) that "Terrorists attacking British bases in Basra are using aerial footage displayed by the Google Earth internet tool to pinpoint their attacks" This is a surprising (and creative)...
by jon_mendel at January 19, 2007 05:00 PM +00:00 GMT
Experiments in Democracy on Open Source Radio Show On October 25th, the NPR radio Show Open Source featured a special show on "Experiments in Democracy," with participation from Launi Guinier, Shoni Field (of the BC Citizen's Asembly), Daniel Kemmis (former mayor of Mizzoula, Montana), and Gianpaolo Baiocchi. According to the Show's producers, Back in September we introduced the idea of doing a show about race, class and voting with Harvard Law professor and voting rights activist Lani Guinier. While prepping for that show, I had an amazing conversation with Professor Guinier. A conversation that, as it turned out, had almost nothing to do with race and class. Instead, we spent an hour talking about “experiments in democracy” — small but radical, hyper-local examples of people re-defining democracy to be more about civic participation and less about a few minutes in a voting booth. Specific examples she cited included a citizen assembly in Vancouver that redesigned British Columbia’s election system, deliberative citizen roundtables in Los Angeles, and participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil. So as the election approaches and we near the end of our midterms series, we’re taking a break to focus on the nature of democracy and civic engagement beyond the ballot box. How are people trying to re-invent democracy in small but significant ways? How are their efforts important or different — successful or not? And could these case studies in LA or Porto Allegre be applied on a wider scale?...
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at January 19, 2007 02:22 PM -05:00 GMT
New Thesis on PB in Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte Terence Woods has recently defended his masters' thesis on participatory democracy in Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre. It is a very accessible and clear piece that many readers will find useful. The thesis is available here....
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at January 19, 2007 02:15 PM -05:00 GMT
PB in Berlin Some news about PB in Berlin, from http://www.zebralog.de/en/000191.html Track your budget proposal - Berlin-Lichtenberg 2008 Berlin, the capital of Germany with 3.4 million inhabitants, has to cope with debts of 61 billion Euro. Therefore it's interesting to note, how the citizens of Berlin-Lichtenberg have their say in budget decisions. Okay, it's not about billions, but at least about all steerable tasks, which add up to 30 millionen Euro. Last year the Berlin borough of Lichtenberg started its pilot participatory budget. Now it is not a project any more, but a continous workflow which includes the administration, citizens and politicians. Based on last years evaluation, the whole process became more transparent. Proposals are collected in a media-mix from three different sources: live-events, online-discussions and written statements. Every single proposal is now documented on the internet. Not only the proposal and its discussion, but the whole workflow from online-voting, to editorial changes, to the council-decision, to the implementation can be retrieved through the online-database. Imagine it like a FedEx-Tracking System for your political proposal... More details in German: http://www.buergerhaushalt-lichtenberg.de/...
by Participatory Budgeting at January 19, 2007 12:00 PM -05:00 GMT
Bush in a hole in Iraq, digging As I'm sure you've heard, the US is increasing troop numbers in Iraq; the hope is improve 'security' for Iraqis (in Baghdad in particular), to take military action against anti-occupation insurgent groups, and to take military action against Iranian and...
by jon_mendel at January 12, 2007 05:01 PM +00:00 GMT
Civil disobedience Fifty years ago, an African-American woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus to a white man. Her act of civil disobedience and subsequent arrest and trial triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott,...
by Syamak Moattari at January 11, 2007 04:31 PM -05:00 GMT
Respect to Communities Thanks God to give me the chance to visit almost every single point of my country .I had this chance to see all of Iran’s borders with our neighbors including all of provinces. And also as a development activist and...
by Syamak Moattari at January 10, 2007 05:19 PM -05:00 GMT
Africa Command After years of general speculation and months of more specific rumors, I see that the Pentagon will officially create an Africa Command. This will replace the current arrangement, whereby military responsibility for the continent is divvied up among Central Command...
by Daniel Widome at January 4, 2007 10:38 AM -08:00 GMT
Saddam Hussein and European Responsibility The former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, has been hanged in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity. I believe Saddam was executed when American soldiers captured him in a whole near Tikrit in March 2003. We saw a mountain man...
by Syamak Moattari at December 30, 2006 11:20 AM -05:00 GMT
Salvaging Islam in Sudan The perpetuation of the Darfur crisis has thus led to some soul-searching on the part of ideologues such as Turabi who now conclude that a culture of violence in many Muslim states is to blame for such conflicts. Inequality of resource distribution and competing land use policies, sparked by a cultural acceptance of weapons to resolve disputes are the key ingredients of Sudan’s predicament. If there is a silver lining to this tragic tale, it would be that extreme elements such as Turabi have been forced out of their martyring determinism. The dogmatic chapters, which such clerics still hold from their defunct political ideology, are maintained merely to calm the remnants of religious militias that have not yet been demobilised. Whether the peace agreement in Darfur holds or not, the West should pay close attention to the way this conflict is transforming the vanguards of Islam in Sudan.
by Saleem Ali at December 24, 2006 04:33 PM -05:00 GMT
At the Annual Earth Dialogues event in Brisbane, Australia with Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi and colleagues...
by Saleem Ali at December 23, 2006 10:13 PM -05:00 GMT
Curing the Resource Curse We need an integrated natural resource management strategy that considers energy and material sources for our modern lifestyles across the supply chain. While society must be better prepared for depletion of non-renewable resources such as oil, we should not be constrained from harnessing resources to benefit communities that have limited alternatives.
by Saleem Ali at December 22, 2006 02:10 PM -05:00 GMT
Trading places Although the Iraq war was the main driver behind the Democrats’ victory in the mid-term elections, it was not the only issue that fueled the change of power in Congress. Democrats also relied on the issue of international trade, linking...
by Daniel Widome at December 22, 2006 12:28 AM -08:00 GMT
Holocaust Conference, a Conference of Hate As an Iranian Citizen, I ask for forgiveness from all of Holocaust Victims and all of women and men who fight against discrimination in the world, who try to reduce hate between Whites and Blacks, among followers of different religions...
by Syamak Moattari at December 16, 2006 06:11 PM -05:00 GMT
New PB paper: Embedded Public Finance in Porto Alegre The Institute of Development Studies just published a new paper on PB. See the abstract copied below, or the full article at: http://www.ongcidade.org/site/arquivos/artigos/buku%20sumber%20IDS%20Aaron%20Scheneider%20Wp26645819f48b1433.pdf IDS WORKING PAPER 266 Get What You Want, Give What You Can: Embedded Public Finance in Porto Alegre Aaron Schneider and Marcelo Baquero Abstract The problem of public finance in Latin America is a structural contradiction. The historical pattern of insertion in the international economy creates a large number of poor who have very real material needs for public services, but they cannot individually or collectively contribute the funds to pay for them. Rich people hold wealth, but they are unwilling to contribute to public services that go to other groups while they turn to private schools, education and transportation. They are especially unwilling to hand over their wealth to governments perceived as corrupt, inefficient, and illegitimate. This raises a basic puzzle: how do governments provide for those in need while securing the compliance of those with wealth? In this context, the innovation of participatory budgeting is a striking example of embedded public finance in which taxes and expenditures are rooted in government legitimacy. Three elements comprise embedded public finance: - Democratic participation in which an increasing number of citizens participate in public decisions, and different groups, especially the poor, have been incorporated; - Progressive public spending in which investment in poor neighbourhoods has increased both in absolute terms and in relation to rich neighbourhoods; - Competent governance in which perceptions of corruption have decreased, and administrative structures riddled with clientelism and patronage have been reformed. These three elements rest atop a political coalition that joins middle sector and poor voters. Because these citizen groups have different needs, the state had to tailor the benefits it extended to the demands of each group. This strategy allowed the...
by Participatory Budgeting at December 15, 2006 02:17 PM -05:00 GMT
Re-elected Chavez stronger than ever As expected, Hugo Chavez handily won re-election as Venezuela’s president on Sunday. Beyond demonstrating Chavez’s widespread popularity across certain segments of Venezuelan society—he won about 60 percent of the vote—the election provided a more general reminder of Chavez’s greatest attribute:...
by Daniel Widome at December 12, 2006 10:22 PM -08:00 GMT
Frontiers of Development Economics -- The Future in Perspective With contributions from 35 leading economists, this book (Frontiers of Development Economics) explores the future of development economics against the background of the past half-century of development thought and practice. The volume offers an analysis of the broad range of...
by Syamak Moattari at December 11, 2006 06:57 AM -05:00 GMT
Iraq Study Group report More news on Iraq, of course - anyone whose been living under a stone recently might not have heard that the Iraq Study Group Report has just been released. I won't say much on this - partly because there's been...
by jon_mendel at December 7, 2006 05:13 PM +00:00 GMT
HIV/AIDS in Iran While Iran enjoys a low prevalence of HIV/AIDS, it does not mean that the risk is not high. Timing is critical in working on HIV/AIDS and nations have to work on it without any delay. In this report we try...
by Syamak Moattari at December 2, 2006 12:32 AM -05:00 GMT
Fresh start In the midterm elections on November 7, Democrats secured majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. These majorities in the legislature, however, will be balanced for the next two years (at least) by continued Republican control of...
by Daniel Widome at November 24, 2006 10:27 PM -08:00 GMT
British Troops in Iraq - withdrawal? Listening to the PM news on BBC Radio 4, it seems that government minister Margaret Beckett has been dropping hints about a British withdrawal next year (at least, suggesting a 'handover' of Basra to the Iraqis in spring). This is...
by jon_mendel at November 22, 2006 05:19 PM +00:00 GMT
Why HIV/AIDS is so important in the Middle East? Over the past two decades, HIV/AIDS shows its power to destroy most of economies in sub Saharan Africa. The epidemic is now threatening to spread with equal force in Russian Federation, India, China, and many other transition economies including the...
by Syamak Moattari at November 19, 2006 10:44 PM -05:00 GMT
Long time, no see I am back again, it was a long time of absence, since I started my new post graduate program at Boston University in International Health, I was overwhelmed with my course works and not able to write here, but I...
by Syamak Moattari at November 17, 2006 11:57 AM -05:00 GMT
The Addiction of our Time: Orhan Pamuk and the Nobel Prize By Marinos Pourgouris Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Brown University On October 12, I woke up to the news that a Turkish novelist, Orhan Pamuk, had been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Later that day, I spoke to...
by Marinos Pourgouris at November 3, 2006 02:15 PM -05:00 GMT
more on the Lancet study Since my last post, the BBC website has given the Lancet study authors an opportunity to defend their views. Medialens has also released a very critical account of the (lack of) media coverage given to this article. One other interesting...
by jon_mendel at October 31, 2006 07:52 PM +00:00 GMT
Proliferation legislation North Korea's recent nuclear test only confirmed what had long been suspected: the global non-proliferation regime has failed spectacularly. Although the powers of East Asia, the United States, and the United Nations have each issued stinging condemnations of the test...
by Daniel Widome at October 26, 2006 06:33 PM -08:00 GMT
Counting the Dead in Iraq The media response to the recent Lancet article on ‘excess’ deaths in Iraq is interesting*. After a couple of days, it appears to have largely vanished from the news bulletins (here in the UK, at least). The US and UK...
by jon_mendel at October 24, 2006 07:31 PM +00:00 GMT
Media coverage of Islamist and neo-Nazi terrorism Have just had an interesting e-mail from the Red Pepper discussion list. Pendle's local newspaper has reported that two men with links to the far right political party the BNP have been found with a large cache of weapons -...
by jon_mendel at October 9, 2006 11:28 AM +00:00 GMT
Schnews on lizard aliens Right. I really shouldn't write any more about lizards, but there's something oddly compelling about this stuff. To give me an excuse to post more, the wonderful Schnews (e)newsletter has e-mailed me some more detail on their story on Shayler...
by jon_mendel at October 5, 2006 05:42 PM +00:00 GMT
The PT's New Accent and Lula's Near-Miss by gianpaolo baiocchi The results of the recent election show that Lula may still be vulnerable to questions about corruption in his party and faces a tough run-off election, but also that the PT is changing. A party borne of striking industrial workers in Sao Paulo state now has as its electoral base the poorer North and Northeast, the traditional bastion of landed elites. But will the PT, if it wins the election, speak with this new accent? Yesterday, late in the evening Brasilia-time, Brazi's Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) announced results that surprised many observers, but which had been feared inside the PT. Instead of a clear victory in yesterday's national election as predicted by some, Lula fell short, capturing only 48.61% of valid votes (against his main oponent Geraldo Alckimn's 41.64%), and forcing a run-off election in about a month. The election may prove difficult for Lula because it will be a polarizing contest in which the allegations of recent weeks and the earlier scandals of the last year and a half will likely play a central role. In 2002 Lula also faced an opponent from the PSDB in a run-off election, but at that time the PT was able to head a coalition of those dissastified with the previous eight years of Cardoso and able to mobilize anti-incubent sentiments. This run-off election may wind up being about the missteps of the administration and lingering sentiments about the corruption scandals, issues on which the PT is considered vulnerable. Some analysts in Brazil have pointed to two very recent events that may have just tipped the election, despite Lula's relatively favorable rating coming into it. One was the last-minute decision on Lula's part to avoid a televised debate last Thursday. The other was the so-called "dossier scandal," or more precisely,...
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at October 3, 2006 11:16 AM -05:00 GMT
There to stay As the midterm elections rapidly approach, the calls for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq have grown louder and more consistent. In some cases, they have even come in a bipartisan flavor. Such sentiment is only natural. The bloodshed in Iraq...
by Daniel Widome at September 29, 2006 08:45 AM -08:00 GMT
Multidimensional lizard aliens and David Shayler I'm feeling a bit bad about my last post. This raised David Shayler's alleged belief in multidimensional lizard aliens. However, what he did or didn't say is disputed, and I wouldn't want to jump to conclusions (the guy did blow...
by jon_mendel at September 29, 2006 01:35 AM +00:00 GMT
Congressional rush As the November mid-term elections rapidly approach, Congress finds itself rushing against the clock. Out of concern for the campaigning requirements of its members, it has set October 6 as its target adjournment date for the year. This means that...
by Daniel Widome at September 28, 2006 11:06 AM -08:00 GMT
Participatory Budgeting in Cordoba, Spain A recent piece, published in Re-public describes the PB process in Cordoba, Spain. The Cordoba process is well-documented and is known throughout Europe as an example of a successful process....
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at September 19, 2006 06:28 PM -05:00 GMT
"The Gay Bathroom Controversy" and the PB A small story has been circulating in the internet about the controversy in the small town of Pombos, in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil. The actual controversy involves project for a public bathroom for travestis (cross-dressers) is going to be discussed at the next PB Council meeting in the town. The issue, according to a travesti advocacy group is that cross-dressers face recrimination when using women's or men's bathrooms. In fact, there have been numerous documented instances of violence against cross-dressers using public bathrooms throughout Brazil. This appears, on the face of it, to be a human rights issue and an issue of workers' rights (as some of the street-walking described in the news pieces implies sex work). It seems like the kind of project that PB ought to bring to the fore - by bringing in traditionally disenfranchised into decision-making, the boundaries of discussion ought to be expanded, and controversy should occasionally be an outcome. What is surprising is that relatively few such instances have been noted in the literature on PB. We'll follow this news story if more is published....
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at September 19, 2006 06:17 PM -05:00 GMT
Alex Jones' Terrorstorm - more details and more errors I've been going through Terrorstorm a bit more closely, to pick out some more of the problems with its account of the LOndon bombings. Here's the details from the first 28mins of the film (will add more later on, but...
by jon_mendel at September 17, 2006 02:04 PM +00:00 GMT
PB Session at Africities Summit On September 20th in Nairobi there will be a PB session as part of the Africities Summit: "Participatory Budgeting: Building Inclusiveness in Policy Making and Municipal Finance for the Implementation of the Millennium Development Goals" For additional information, see the session announcement or contact George Matovu at gmatovu(at)mdpafrica(dot)org(dot)zw...
by Participatory Budgeting at September 14, 2006 01:59 PM -05:00 GMT
Small diameter solutions The latest conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has elicited plenty of comparisons with the U.S. war in Iraq. In each case, a technologically superior foreign state fought a less-advanced, indigenous, non-state foe. And in each case, the latter appeared to...
by Daniel Widome at September 12, 2006 11:23 AM -08:00 GMT
PB in England The PB Unit, a British NGO supported by the Office of the Prime Minister and Oxfam, has recently sent out one of their E-Newsletters that describes, among other things, a couple of PB-like efforts underway in the UK. By going on their site, above, it is possible to sign up for regular E-Newsletters, and to link to a number of resources about PB and about their work. We copy below the excerpt about one of their projects. Keighley residents to decide on spending priorities for their neighbourhoods using Neighbourhood Renewal budget Residents in Keighley are to decide on the spending priorities for improving their areas using money from the Neighbourhood Renewal budget. Bradford Vision, supported by the PB Unit, is developing its own model of PB in which local people will choose priorities from the Local Strategic Partnership’s 7 themes and propose projects to improve their area. Their priorities will shape the budget of the Stage 3 Neighbourhood Renewal / Neighbourhood Action Planning allocation and an assembly of local people will decide which projects to implement. Service providers and local initiatives will be commissioned to carry out the projects, monitored by a group of local delegates from the assembly. Keighley Participatory Budgeting is the latest development in Bradford Vision’s work to involve local people in spending decisions, where local people have already come together to decide how to spend £700k on environmental improvements. A video of a past Bradford Vision PB event can be seen at www.bradfordvision.net/forum.php...
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at September 12, 2006 06:52 AM -05:00 GMT
Porto Alegre's PB continues to deteriorate A recent story posted on CIDADE's website gives credence to the notion that Porto Alegre's PB has not been the same since the PT left power in the city, official versions of events nonwithstanding. It describes chaos and confusion and a constant climate of unproductive conflict at the COP - the highest tier of the PB, at the last two meetings of the council. But more shocking to Porto Alegre watchers are the reports of the city government's malfeasance with regards to the PB - for example, producing two versions of the city budget, one to be discussed at the PB, and another (one presumes more correct) version to be discussed at city council. Unfortunately Porto Alegre's newspapers were never big fans of the PB in the first place so we don't have news coverage of these events. But these, and other reports like it, do confirm the suspicion that the PB under the new administration has maintained little more than the formalities of the process, as discussed by Daniel Chavez in Red Pepper....
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at September 8, 2006 06:33 PM -05:00 GMT
Our Communities, Our Water A forum on Water Privatization, Our Communities, Our Water: Connecting the Local and The Global will be held at UMASS Amherst on Sept 22-24, organized by Mass Global Action, in partnership with several sponsoring organizations, including Alliance for Democracy. The keynote speaker is Frances Moore Lappe, on Saturday. For the press release, see this link....
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at September 8, 2006 07:47 AM -05:00 GMT
E-Forum on Participation and Social Control in the Management of Water and Sanitation Public Services Participation and Social Control in the Management of Water and Sanitation Public Services September 11 through 29th 2006 Hosted by: CESU and Center for Water Promoted by CGIAB/IC/CONCERTAR At the site: www.aguabolivia.org Background In a continuous effort to create spaces of debate over issues that we consider important, CGIAB CESU/Center for Water are organizing an Electronic Forum on the issue of Participation and Social Control in the Management of Water and Sanitation Public Services. This forum will have an emphasis on the case of the public water company; SEMAPA, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, yet will also include references to the case of the new water company in El Alto and La Paz, to foster broader national and international interest and participation. The principal thematic focuses of this e-forum will be presented in a National Seminar in which various academic and activist organizations will participate to critique the current models of social control developed in Cochabamba and El Alto/La Paz and work to create a comprehensive proposal on how to improve the current practices. How to participate: Registration Form: (please complete and send to: ida@aguabolivia.org) 1. Full Name 2. Profession 3. Organization or Institution 4. City and Country 5. Email Address 6. Background Information and Research Interests...
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at September 8, 2006 07:29 AM -05:00 GMT
Let me see! I'm blind! 1701 UN resolution! Take off arms from (Hezbollah)! Keep Israel 's army intact! A lesson of Democracy! 2 soldiers captured by a "terrorist" organization (Hezbollah!) and all Libanon pays! It recalls me "Le loup et l'agneau" (the wolf and the...
by Mohamed Kchouk at September 4, 2006 06:18 PM +01:00 GMT
Past imperfect As expected, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the controversial Yasukuni war shrine this month. It was Koizumi's sixth visit to the shrine and most likely his last, as he is due to step down as prime minister in September....
by Daniel Widome at August 30, 2006 01:20 AM -08:00 GMT
Outcomes of the Toronto AIDS Conference Organizers of the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto chose the theme "Time to deliver" to urge the international community to act. The scientific community delivered rich data and directions to one day find a vaccine against HIV. With...
by Syamak Moattari at August 28, 2006 03:28 PM -05:00 GMT
Limited powers Although the culmination of this election year will not arrive until November, political battles are already being won and lost. In Connecticut, challenger Ned Lamont defeated incumbent Joseph Lieberman in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. Many suspect that Lieberman's...
by Daniel Widome at August 25, 2006 09:26 AM -08:00 GMT
Alex Jones - Terrorstorm Have been watching this film bit by bit - and the really striking thing about this documentary is that they don't seem to have bothered to 'fact check' the film with any particular rigour. To be blunt, I find this...
by jon_mendel at August 22, 2006 11:57 PM +00:00 GMT
Conspiracy Theories, again Firstly, the Glenn and Helen Show podcast's latest episode has David Dunbar and Brad Reagan - editors of Popular Mechanics - debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories. They say some of what I was trying to say in my last post about...
by jon_mendel at August 21, 2006 12:17 AM +00:00 GMT
Citizen's Budget Committee in Olympia, Washington The City of Olympia, Washington is organizing a "Budget Ad Hoc Committee" of ordinary city residents that is perhaps a variation of participatory budgeting:http://www.ci.olympia.wa.us/citygovernment/advisory/budgetahc/http://olyblog.net/blog/emmettoconnell/one-week-left-to-apply-to-the-citizens-budget-committee...
by Participatory Budgeting at August 20, 2006 11:02 AM -05:00 GMT
The value of human life Was almost stopped dead in the gym today, listening to Radio Open Source's wonderful episode on the value of human life. Aside from being horribly inappropriate listening when you're on a cross-trainer, this episode featured Feinberg, Singer and Hirschfield discussing...
by jon_mendel at August 18, 2006 12:10 AM +00:00 GMT
I love my students. I am teaching two classes but I am an especially close to my main class, class 2. I became very close to them even just in the first week of classes. They are smart, kind and...
by Jessica Gordon at August 16, 2006 06:52 PM +08:00 GMT
Conspiracy Theories and 10 August Attempted Bombings There seems to have been something of a merging between US and UK conspiracy theories: using the Internet to respond to the recent reports of a foiled plot to bomb UK planes, the British 9/11 Truth Campaign began arguing that...
by jon_mendel at August 15, 2006 06:15 PM +00:00 GMT
Terrorist attack on UK planes disrupted At the time of writing, it looks like the security services in the UK (working with those from other countries as well) have prevented a planned terrorist attack on flights from the UK. Though this may change as more information...
by jon_mendel at August 10, 2006 12:19 PM +00:00 GMT
The students have no idea what the United States or the rest of the world is really like. They have never heard any languages other than their local dialect, Mandarin and English. Their ideas of the world are based solely...
by Jessica Gordon at August 7, 2006 06:58 PM +08:00 GMT
Participatory Budgeting Experiences in Venezuela On July 20-22 there was a conference in Caracas on participatory budgeting experiences in Venezuela, organized by the Centro Internacional Miranda. Some of the powerpoint presentations on the PB processes in different Venezuelan municipalities are now available on the Examples page. A couple observations of interesting techniques used in the Venezuelan PBs: - In Iribarren, there is a first round of training and information workshops throughout the city focused on explaining the city budget and the PB process, and *only* those residents who attend the training workshops can participate in the latter rounds of budget deliberation and decision-making. The purpose of this requirement is to ensure that participants are sufficiently informed about the budget before making decisions. - In Merida and Iribarren, organized community and district walks are designated as a full phase of the PB process, rather than an additional activity. PB delegates and staff spend at least one day visiting potential project sites in their area before proceeding with the budget process. - Venezuela's newly forming Communal Councils are gradually being incorporated into the PB processes. The councils, which are being organized at the very local neighborhood level, are being used to mobilize PB participation and help identify local needs and projects to propose through the PBs....
by Participatory Budgeting at August 7, 2006 02:28 PM -05:00 GMT
After a week of travelling I am very happy to be back home in Cape Coast. It scares me how much this does feel like home now- how many friends I had to visit and say I was home, how...
by Anne Friedman at August 4, 2006 09:56 AM -05:00 GMT
Balanie and Bolle After weeks of work and teaching, the pilot of the Here Bolo project culminated in the Balanie de L’Espoir, which took place in downtown Sikoro. Each peer educator brought something unique and different to the celebration as they talked about...
by Madeline DiLorenzo at August 3, 2006 11:00 AM -05:00 GMT
So much has happened since I last wrote. My other class has finished and English camp has begun. English camp is organized for the incoming students to get them started on their English before the school year begins and...
by Jessica Gordon at August 2, 2006 05:56 PM +08:00 GMT
Conflicts at the Clinic I guess one thing that I have discovered from spending time in Mali is that development really cannot happen overnight. No matter how much you plan, or how much money you have, something is bound to go wrong, and you...
by Madeline DiLorenzo at July 28, 2006 09:48 PM -05:00 GMT
Unwarranted powers There can be no question that President Bush has expanded the national security prerogatives of the executive branch. Events in recent years have made a persuasive case that the executive alone possesses the necessary tools for expedient and confidential action...
by Daniel Widome at July 28, 2006 01:06 AM -08:00 GMT
Followup 1) The primary reason Foriegn Service Officers are forced to switch posts every 3-4 years is so they don´t go "native," that is, become too connected to the local people and get roped in by the foreign governments. It makes...
by Brett Heeger at July 26, 2006 06:36 PM -05:00 GMT
No One To The Father Except Through Mehavioralism Is God a Behavioralist?for the last few weeks my work has mostly consisted of reviewing current literature and research on youth mentoring for the disadvantaged that has come out of the US and Europe over the last few decades, and...
by Johnny po Lin at July 26, 2006 10:34 AM -05:00 GMT
Interesting Travel Experiences: -In Kaneshi station in Accra, I saw a trotro that had so much stuff piled on top that it was stuck under the tree where it was parked. Each time it tried to go forward, the stuff...
by Anne Friedman at July 25, 2006 08:23 AM -05:00 GMT
Side Projects I have been working on a side project for a few weeks now, which I realized I have not yet mentioned. While it sounds slightly boring, it has been a nice to have an emotionally neutral alternative to the bulk...
by CJ Adams at July 24, 2006 02:19 PM -05:00 GMT
liberalism at age 20 If you aint a liberal at age 20 you gots no heart, says Winston Churchill, allegedly. well to be a young liberal in Argentina is a different story all together from what we Americans have in mind when we think...
by Johnny po Lin at July 24, 2006 12:15 PM -05:00 GMT
How to Create International Development and Real Social Change I've recently attended a wonderful conference in San Fran (yes, still my dream area) put on by an org called Grantmakers without Borders (GWOB). GWOB is a wonderful organization that brings grassroots grantmakers (and others) that focus on int'l development...
by Katy Love at July 23, 2006 08:25 PM -05:00 GMT
Complaints I need to do some complaining. Not just to make myself feel better (I admit it does) but also to complain for all the people around me who live like this all the time. 1. I am living at the...
by Jessica Gordon at July 23, 2006 04:53 PM +08:00 GMT
Women in Progress is opening a new office in Krobo-Odumasi, about 2 hours north of Accra. Krobo is the area where most of the beads in Ghana are made, and WIP is starting a bead and jewelry cooperative much like...
by Anne Friedman at July 21, 2006 10:18 AM -05:00 GMT
Strained alliance By all outward appearances, the recent summit between President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was a tremendous success. It certainly seemed that way as Koizumi—an avid Elvis fan—beamed from behind his gold-rimmed sunglasses during a visit to Graceland...
by Daniel Widome at July 20, 2006 11:48 PM -08:00 GMT
I have been incredibly busy with La Main de l’Espoir since my last post. Last week, we finished training the peer educators, and now we are preparing for the Balanie de l’Espoir, which will take place on July 29. The...
by Madeline DiLorenzo at July 20, 2006 09:47 PM -05:00 GMT
Hometowns I have been teaching 7 students daily. They are some of the best English students in the school that have been chosen and have agreed to continue classes although the school year is over. Although this is a middle school,...
by Jessica Gordon at July 20, 2006 04:50 PM +08:00 GMT
Training/Skiing One of the biggest perks about working for the government overseas appears to be the extensive training that is available. My new boss has taken classes 3-7 month long courses in Spanish, German, and Cambodian all while getting paid as...
by Brett Heeger at July 17, 2006 06:09 PM -05:00 GMT
This weekend was really wonderful. Our travel posse left the house at 3:30 am on Friday morning in order to catch the 4 am bus to Accra. The timing of this was necessitated by the fact that none of the...
by Anne Friedman at July 17, 2006 07:44 AM -05:00 GMT
Shelterforce issue on participatory budgeting in North America The summer issue of Shelterforce magazine has several articles on participatory budgeting experiences and campaigns in North America, and it's now available online at http://www.nhi.org/ or http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/sf146.html Budgeting for Democracy By Alma B. Couverthie and Marianna Leavy-Sperounis Citizen engagement is changing the way one city develops its budget. Let The People Decide By Josh Lerner Two Canadian cities are trying different approaches to participatory budgeting. Following the Money Trail By Jacqueline Leavy For 18 years, Neighborhood Capital Budget Group has supported Chicago’s grassroots community groups in understanding where and how their public dollars are spent....
by Participatory Budgeting at July 15, 2006 01:56 PM -05:00 GMT
Yay! I'm back...with more thoughts, ideas and resources! Well there's nothing like procrastinating while packing. And of course I found lots of resouces that Kath Connolly and the Careers in the Common Good program bequeathed to me. And now, having conducted about 20 informational interviewers (and now, with...
by Katy Love at July 15, 2006 12:20 PM -05:00 GMT
July Briefing: Here are some things that I wanted to catch everyone up on: Congressional Hearing on Trafficking: I was able to go to a hearing that was addressing the spike in demand for commercial sex that was created by the world...
by CJ Adams at July 15, 2006 12:40 AM -05:00 GMT
Security Clearance Granted Ok.. Here we go. I was able to clear up what parts of my work are confidencial, and so now i will be posting regularly and catching everyone up on what i have been doing this past week. First i...
by CJ Adams at July 14, 2006 11:44 PM -05:00 GMT
John McDonnell MP: Another World Is Possible John McDonnell has just announced that he'll stand as a candidate for Labour Party leadership (and therefore as a candidate for UK Prime Minister) when Blair resigns. The idea is to offer a left-wing candidate for leadership, to try to...
by jon_mendel at July 14, 2006 07:56 PM +00:00 GMT
Rest and Relaxation For a foreign service officer (FSO) in the US Department of State, much of one´s career is spent in some of the more exotic and hard to reach places of the world. To allow FSOs the freedom to see friends...
by Brett Heeger at July 14, 2006 07:04 PM -05:00 GMT
For the past few days I have been working on synthesizing much of the data about each woman involved in Global Mamas, for many of them are repeatedly interviewed for information that has already been recorded. However, this has made...
by Anne Friedman at July 13, 2006 11:28 AM -05:00 GMT
Orwell for the U.S. today Things are seeming a little "Orwellian" these days, no? On a re-reading of a few Orwell essays, especially "The Lion and the Unicorn" it occurred to me that Orwell's take on pre/early-WWII England -- a great power beyond its peak,...
by Sam Hodges at July 11, 2006 10:10 PM -05:00 GMT
Le Premier Jour de Formation Today was a truly wonderful day. After many months of planning, we finally kicked off the first day of Here Bolo (the Bambera translation of La Main de l’Espoir) and began training 20 peer educators – 10 men and 10...
by Madeline DiLorenzo at July 11, 2006 08:27 PM -05:00 GMT
Context I am spending the summer teaching at The Dandelion Middle School or Pugongying Zhongxue in suburbs of Beijing, China. The school was opened last fall to provide affordable and quality education for migrant children. These migrants though are not from...
by Jessica Gordon at July 10, 2006 06:52 PM +08:00 GMT
The UN Security Council So I realize that in addition to not being particularly good about blogging lately, I have also neglected to talk about one of the most pressing issues in Chilean politics these days: the UN Security Council. The UNSC has 15...
by Brett Heeger at July 10, 2006 06:08 PM -05:00 GMT
"Taleban 'energised' by UK troops": back to the future in Afghanistan? UK troops deployed to assist with 'development' in the South of Afghanistan are currently encountering much more violence than expected. The UK Defense Secretary Des Browne has acknowledged that their presence has "energised" the Taliban resistance. I've been reading and...
by jon_mendel at July 10, 2006 11:37 AM +00:00 GMT
This weekend we were meant to go to the stilt village, but decided against it on Friday morning when the weather didn’t look optimal for taking a canoe trip. Saturday was the big festival, and it seems more apparent that...
by Anne Friedman at July 10, 2006 06:51 AM -05:00 GMT
Participatory Democracy in Catalunya Since its transition from Francoism, Spain has been home to a number of experiences in local democracy. Some of the first ones are well-described in the writings of Jordi Borja, Manuel Castells, and others in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But in the last 5 years there has been a real ressurgence of activity, with instances of direct citizen participation such as the forums for the Agenda 21 process, citizen juries, deliberative polls, and of course, at least a dozen cases of Participatory Budgeting. One of the organizations active in promoting direct democracy in Barcelona, and in the autonomous community of Catalunya, has been the Seigle XXI Foundation. Some of their work is described in the book, Democratizar la Democracia...
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at July 9, 2006 07:54 AM -05:00 GMT
The Non-State Blog: Introduction As suggested in the title, this weblog focuses on the non-state actors (NSAs) – the tran-national and sub-national players that crucially shape global affairs yet also complicate the often state-centered discourse of international relations and international law. This project is...
by Kate C. Roll at July 6, 2006 08:11 PM -05:00 GMT
Round III - Chez Clinique I haven’t posted for a long time as it has been a very busy week. La Main de l’Espoir has been coming together really nicely. I spent most of this week revising the curriculum and identifying our first ten peer...
by Madeline DiLorenzo at July 6, 2006 07:00 PM -05:00 GMT
Yesterday morning was pretty typical; here’s the picture: I need to interview a woman named Mansa about her business in the last 6 mos. Lizzy, Renae’s second hand, also needs to visit Mansa to yell at her about her sewing....
by Anne Friedman at July 6, 2006 08:39 AM -05:00 GMT
36 Goals Comment First, I had a comment that someone was looking for a copy of Bachelet´s 36 goals (see earlier entry on 100 days). I couldn´t find a non Sate Department version in English but for a spanish version I would recommend...
by Brett Heeger at July 5, 2006 08:31 PM -05:00 GMT
on conspiracy theories and the defiant south on the way down here i bought a copy of the Economic Hitman by John Perkins, which I have been reading during busrides around Buenos Aires. Few books have been so mindblowing, i think. Perkins talks about a grand conspiracy...
by Johnny po Lin at July 5, 2006 06:36 PM -05:00 GMT
getting to buenos aires arrived at Ezeiza International Airport on June 25, after a horrendous 3 day delay stretched out across three different airports on both sides of the equator. but alas, now settling into my room in the neighborhood of Palermo, the barrio...
by Johnny po Lin at July 4, 2006 06:30 PM -05:00 GMT
Teamwork So lately I´ve been working on a cable about Chilean President Bachelet´s proposal to create a new Ministry of Public Security. Crime is growing problem in Chile and a recent wave of more violent crimes (including attacks on some prominent...
by Brett Heeger at July 3, 2006 06:42 PM -05:00 GMT
We volunteers had a very quiet and lazy weekend. On Saturday, Carolyn, Jenny and I walked into Elmina proper and visited the old slave fort. The whole experience was very…eerie. First, it’s a total tourist destination so we were mobbed...
by Anne Friedman at July 3, 2006 07:37 AM -05:00 GMT
this picture was taken after the Ghana-US match. I love that the one girl is still carrying her tomatoes....
by Anne Friedman at July 3, 2006 07:33 AM -05:00 GMT
where do government websites go when they die... Have just been reading around the Coalition Provisional Authority administration in Iraq again - and remembered that their website was due to be taken offline a couple of days ago. There's a huge amount of information online here (more than...
by jon_mendel at July 2, 2006 10:49 PM +00:00 GMT
La Deuxieme Partie I have made a lot of progress on my project during the past few days. I’m really excited because I am working with an amazing Malian woman named Ramatoullaye who is the director of HIV Education at the Point G...
by Madeline DiLorenzo at June 30, 2006 07:46 PM -05:00 GMT
Office Confidential I am so sorry that I have not been posting on the website yet. I am writing blogs, but I am required to send them through my superiors before I can publish them, and not a single one has...
by CJ Adams at June 30, 2006 04:29 PM -05:00 GMT
The other day Lorna, Sue and I went to visit a batiker named Gifty. There is another woman named Marian who is also working out of Gifty’s “workshop” right now, as her store was robbed last year and all of...
by Anne Friedman at June 30, 2006 10:25 AM -05:00 GMT
Cultural Experiences and Other Blogs Well it´s been over a week since my last post. Sorry. I´m sure there are hundreds of people waiting anxiously for my next post. With that in mind I have entitled this entry "Cultural Experiences and Other Blogs." First, I...
by Brett Heeger at June 29, 2006 08:52 PM -05:00 GMT
Work’s going really well these days- I’m getting over my lack of confidence about interviewing women. I think this can largely be attributed to the girls with whom I’m conducting the interviews- Lorna from Ireland and Sue from D.C. They’re...
by Anne Friedman at June 28, 2006 11:32 AM -05:00 GMT
Mali - Les Premiers Jours I finally arrived in Mali to start my internship with the Global Alliance to Immunize against AIDS (GAIA) on Saturday at 4 am after a very long flight. Anyone who is ever planning on flying to Africa, should fly Royal...
by Madeline DiLorenzo at June 27, 2006 07:10 PM -05:00 GMT
Entry from June 26th... The internet has been really shaky today which is a bit frustrating... Our work week ended a bit early last week because the Ghana game on Thursday was so crazy. After the big win, we went out to the street...
by Anne Friedman at June 27, 2006 07:58 AM -05:00 GMT
Prisons and policy The vast network of overseas U.S. military bases has long been a source of international discontent. Most bases generate this ill will by taking up valuable local real estate, through the misbehavior of U.S. servicemen based abroad, or by use...
by Daniel Widome at June 26, 2006 01:26 AM -08:00 GMT
PB in Montreal An article was recently published in the Montreal Gazette on the PB experiment in one of the city's boroughs: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=2e7df5be-8d2b-4bbd-8c9b-cc71e0285169 More information about the PB process is available in French at http://www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/plateau/budgetparticipatif...
by Participatory Budgeting at June 25, 2006 01:22 PM -05:00 GMT
Whew, it's hot today!! Everyone is really excited for the big match today against the US, but we volunteers are slightly nervous and are watching the game right next to the office so we can retreat and hide if the...
by Anne Friedman at June 22, 2006 06:36 AM -05:00 GMT
Akwaaba to Cape Coast Hello! Yesterday we came to Cape Coast on a bus ride that took about three hours. A lot of it was really bumpy but it was interesting seeing how the different sorts of communities changed as we left the city....
by Anne Friedman at June 21, 2006 06:05 AM -05:00 GMT
Reflections of an Ambassador The chief of the Economic/Political Section is leaving on Thursday to become the Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) in the embassy in Uganda. DCM is the highest position in an embassy directly under the Ambassador. Anyway, last night I went...
by Brett Heeger at June 20, 2006 06:58 PM -05:00 GMT
Southeast Asian Security Article Updated Dr. Amitav Acharya's article "Constructing Security and Identity in Southeast Asia." from XII.2 has been updated. The most current version can be downloaded. Download file...
by BJWA at June 20, 2006 04:42 PM -05:00 GMT
PB networking session at WUF There will be a participatory budgeting networking session at the World Urban Forum in Vancouver: Date: Wednesday June 20, 2006. Time: 16:30-18:30 Location: MR 12 Co-organizers: Municipalities of Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre, CIGU from Ecuador and PDM from Harare...
by Participatory Budgeting at June 20, 2006 10:23 AM -05:00 GMT
I'm here I'm here!!! (And very excited!!!) I arrived last night after a very long day of travel. Some short observations from the journey: 1. only Americans fly in pajamas 2. people with broken legs on long flights are even more uncomfortable than people with long legs...
by Anne Friedman at June 19, 2006 08:51 AM -05:00 GMT
Kristin (who runs Women in Progress on the US side) told me that she had just shipped a big order of clothing to the zoo here in Pittsburgh. It was really exciting to see all of the neat batiked...
by Anne Friedman at June 16, 2006 09:23 PM -05:00 GMT
40 lbs of t-shirts ready to go!...
by Anne Friedman at June 16, 2006 07:17 PM -05:00 GMT
100 Days of Domestic Policy In her inaguration speech, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet announced a series of 36 domestic policy initiatives for her administration to complete in her first 100 days in office. These initives include: a variety of subsidies, grants and scholarships for...
by Brett Heeger at June 15, 2006 06:02 PM -05:00 GMT
Zizek in London/Police Shooting I’ve just been down in London while the stories about police shooting a unarmed man have been unfolding (this is being typed on the train back home). The Slovenian social theorist Slavoj Zizek is giving some lectures at Birkbeck College,...
by jon_mendel at June 14, 2006 10:59 AM +00:00 GMT
It is not really fare Iranian women held a protest on Hate Tir Squar in Tehran on June 12th against the gender discrimination under current Iran’s laws. Unfortunately police violently attacked a small group of women who were peacefully started to demonstrate their idea. Today...
by Syamak Moattari at June 13, 2006 03:29 PM -05:00 GMT
Chilean President in U.S./Crime Scene Investigation Chilean President Michelle Bachelet visited the United States for the first time last Thursday. The official press release can be found on the embassy's website here: http://www.usembassy.cl/OpenNews/asp/pagDefault.asp?argInstanciaId=2&argNoticiaId=2764. President Bachelet met with President Bush for a press conference and a working...
by Brett Heeger at June 12, 2006 08:27 PM -05:00 GMT
Orientation Hello Everyone! This summer the Watson Institute is sponsoring me to work for the Polaris Project in Washington DC through the Marla Ruzicka Human Rights Fellowship. Polaris is a Non-Profit organization which was created to combat all forms of human...
by CJ Adams at June 12, 2006 12:14 PM -05:00 GMT
Audio Meeting - Governance Systems and Political Effectiveness In the past, when African countries attempted to increase accountability and decrease corruption in their governments, they were often advised to reform politically. But do accountability institutions actually lead to stronger governance? In this B-Span report Robert Bates, professor at...
by Syamak Moattari at June 12, 2006 12:03 PM -05:00 GMT
Peace I'm wondering if peace is not the beginning of the end of Israel! If this si true, I understand why we can't install peace in Middle-East! Imagine a democratic country where you have a quarter of the population made of...
by Mohamed Kchouk at June 11, 2006 12:26 PM +01:00 GMT
The New Store Once we had the "Iron Store", one old way to separate convictions. The Iron Store fall down. The new store is not visible. It has yet to be defined clearly. Although it entered into force by 'force'. What's that? It's...
by Mohamed Kchouk at June 10, 2006 01:56 PM +01:00 GMT
A Roller Coaster Well, the last week has certainly been a roller coaster. I was supposed to depart yesterday, June 7th, but surprise! I'm still in the US. I was excitedly awaiting my visa in the mail, and when it had not arrived...
by Anne Friedman at June 8, 2006 08:50 PM -05:00 GMT
First week So my first three days have been filled with courtesy calls to all of the different departments and agencies that work in the embassy. I have spoken with everyone from DEA and FBI to the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce...
by Brett Heeger at June 8, 2006 08:15 PM -05:00 GMT
First Entry: Long and maybe not interesting yet... Alright; so I´ve never done a blog before so it might take a while before I catch on to how everything works. Please bear with me if things aren´t that interesting at first--I´m sure I´ll get better. I was...
by Brett Heeger at June 6, 2006 07:32 PM -05:00 GMT
Terror and Policing There have recently been a couple of issues around terrorism and policing come to light in the UK. Most recently, Scotland Yard has been criticised for an armed raid -- against suspected terrorists -- which led to an unarmed man...
by jon_mendel at June 6, 2006 05:23 PM +00:00 GMT
In response to the killing of civilians in Haditha, by US troops, there are to be additional ethics lessons for US Iraq troops. They appear to hope that an emphasis on "core warrior values" will help avoid similar incidents in...
by jon_mendel at June 1, 2006 04:31 PM +00:00 GMT
Riots in Kabul I've been revising my PhD thesis over the past couple of days. Not long ago, I took a pessimistic view and wrote that one of the failures of Operation Enduring Freedom was that Karzai's government had little control outside of...
by jon_mendel at May 29, 2006 10:29 PM +00:00 GMT
Porto Alegre after the PT Daniel Chavez has written a very insightful piece on the changes in Porto Alegre under the new administration, which has kept the form, but "watered down" the substance of PB. It's in the most recent Red Pepper. For those who read portuguese, CIDADE has been reporting about the precisely this, and importantly, how civil society organizations like CIDADE have kept a close watch on these developments. The big question is now wehther organized civil society will be able to pressure this, or subsequent administrations to reintroduce a real PB....
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at May 26, 2006 01:13 PM -05:00 GMT
Blair acknowledges that Iraqi government is not in control of Iraq Blair has welcomed the new Iraqi government with a statement that "The question now is can they...make their writ run throughout the country and get to the point where Iraq can take control of its own destiny". This looks like...
by jon_mendel at May 25, 2006 07:14 PM +00:00 GMT
Here we go What bodes well is the fact that the server can't find the Official Website of the Republic of Ghana....a "dot gov" address. Ha!...
by Anne Friedman at May 23, 2006 01:08 AM -05:00 GMT
Eek? Ok- Just trying this new blog out! I've never done this before so we'll see how it goes......
by Anne Friedman at May 23, 2006 01:00 AM -05:00 GMT
Information Age serves Terror Age Why do terrorists make video from execution of their victims? And why do they try to show these awful videos on Satellite or websites? Terror means the ability to instill intense fear or one that instills intense fear and terrorists...
by Syamak Moattari at May 20, 2006 11:18 AM -05:00 GMT
Rising prices In recent weeks, the nation has been wracked with rising gasoline prices and the ensuing consternation. For Congress and the president, the politics of high gasoline prices are relatively straightforward: high prices are bad, lower prices are better. But sometimes,...
by Daniel Widome at May 18, 2006 07:52 PM -08:00 GMT
Important bases The U.S. military is cleaning house. Existing bases are being retooled or eliminated, and new ones are popping up in some unexpected places. These are the overseas bases that are now vital to the U.S. military—and the new ones that...
by Daniel Widome at May 18, 2006 07:43 PM -08:00 GMT
PB in New York New York Participatory Budgeting Initiative is a new coalition of community organizations, activists, and otherwise interested individuals working towards economic security and fulfillment of human rights by increasing accountability and participation in the city budget process and other public budgets. NYPBI is committed to public education on the budget, facilitating direct involvement in the budget process, and serving as a public watchdog and catalyst of public participation. Please Join us in the first General Meeting to find out more about Participatory Budgeting and the NYPBI May 23 @ 5:00 666 Broadway 6th FL. CCR Board Room BQF to Broadway Lafayette 6 To Bleeker contact: rortega at urbanjustice.org...
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at May 18, 2006 07:27 AM -05:00 GMT
Little Green Data Book 2006 This annual World Bank publication, which monitors global pollution and climate change issues, was launched at UN headquarters on the occasion of the Fourteenth Session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. This year's edition says carbon dioxide emissions...
by Syamak Moattari at May 16, 2006 10:19 AM -05:00 GMT
Hi-Jacking, Asylum and Afghanistan Immigration seems to be in the news a lot lately - both in the US and the UK. In 2000, nine Afghans hijacked a plane and flew it into Stanstead Airport, London - in order to claim asylum from the...
by jon_mendel at May 11, 2006 11:19 AM +00:00 GMT
Chilean immigrant faces deportation to Jamaica Among the problems being faced by the UK government at the moment, the current mess surrounding the failure to deport convicted non-British criminals is making it horribly clear how arbitrary immigration policies are. The same government that persecutes those who...
by jon_mendel at May 2, 2006 05:31 PM +00:00 GMT
On the revolt of the ex-generals The latest wave of criticism to target Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has come from a cadre of distinguished, retired generals. It differs significantly, however, from previous attacks on the secretary of defense. More than simply calling for Rumsfeld's resignation, it...
by Daniel Widome at May 2, 2006 09:40 AM -08:00 GMT
World No Tobacco Day 2006 The purpose of World No Tobacco Day is to encourage countries and governments to work towards strict regulation of tobacco products. It does this by raising awareness about the existence of the wide variety of deadly tobacco products. Tobacco...
by Syamak Moattari at May 1, 2006 08:24 AM -05:00 GMT
Covering Nepal I have to remind myself five times a day that what I'm doing at Open Source, and here at Thayer and Charlesfield, is not reporting, but collecting commentary and testimony that reflect diverse stories. I am supposed to act as...
by Henry Shepherd at April 29, 2006 03:51 PM -05:00 GMT
Beneficial inaction As events this year have already demonstrated, Congress has a great capacity to shape U.S. foreign and national security policy. Certain institutional realities, however, limit its abilities in these policy realms. Perhaps foremost among these limitations is Congress' deliberative nature....
by Daniel Widome at April 28, 2006 10:05 AM -08:00 GMT
Global Monitoring Report Sees Progress on MDGs Evidence of reduced child deaths in nine out of 10 developing countries surveyed, gains in primary school enrolment, and reduced HIV/AIDS infection rates suggest that strong economic growth, improved policies in developing countries and increased aid, is delivering results. The...
by Syamak Moattari at April 24, 2006 06:30 PM -05:00 GMT
The definition of "spin" After reading the below article in the New York Times about how Hu Jintao was shafted by Bush who didn't give him a State Dinner, I was surprised to see how the China Daily -- the state-run English-language paper --...
by Aaron Halegua at April 23, 2006 11:06 PM -05:00 GMT
U.S. Vaccine Diplomacy Article Updated Updates have been made to Dr. Peter Hotez's article "The 'Biblical Diseases' and U.S. Vaccine Diplomacy." The most current version can be downloaded here....
by BJWA at April 22, 2006 01:51 PM -05:00 GMT
Reading the Iraqi Insurgency Just a quick post - having been distracted into spending most of my Friday night reading a report on the insurgency in Iraq, thought I may as well share this with anyone who's interested before heading out. The International Crisis...
by jon_mendel at April 21, 2006 11:04 PM +00:00 GMT
Le CPE: France, 2006 The 'Death of Milosevic' story gave me the kind of charge that frequently reminds me that I love communicating. At the suggestion of the Open Source staff, I switched from looking for web content that relates to the radio shows...
by Henry Shepherd at April 21, 2006 09:56 PM -05:00 GMT
Sustainable development grants The Nordic Council of Ministers is inviting applications for sustainable development grants.The deadline is 1 May and the applications will be processed by the Nordic Committee for Co-operation on 13 June. The strategy 'Sustainable development - A New Course...
by Syamak Moattari at April 19, 2006 09:51 AM -05:00 GMT
Issue XII.2 of the Journal Released Cutting-edge analysis of Iran, global health, oil, China, and more. Check your local newsstand for updates....
by BJWA at April 17, 2006 05:08 PM -05:00 GMT
World Ethics Forum Ends at Oxford University The first "World Ethics Forum" on leadership, ethics, integrity in public life ended at Oxford University. Participants concluded that corruption and poor governance around the world would only be overcome through much greater emphasis on ethics and integrity in leadership....
by Syamak Moattari at April 17, 2006 09:16 AM -05:00 GMT
Big Business Remittances Henry and I are working toward producing a show from Watson on May 12. We're hoping to get Chris and the gang in for that Friday to tape a show to be aired sometime this summer. At this point, we'd...
by Greta Pemberton at April 13, 2006 10:09 AM -05:00 GMT
nuclear strike on Iran "completely nuts" Governments can often rather fudge what they say. However, responding to New Yorker reports of a possible US nuclear attack on Iran's weapons bunkers , UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that this suggestion was "completely nuts". I can only...
by jon_mendel at April 10, 2006 08:02 PM +00:00 GMT
World Ethics Forum Opens at Oxford University Strong leadership and ethics are the missing link in governance reform, according to the organizers of the first World Ethics Forum, which opened at Oxford University. The forum focused on leadership, ethics and integrity in public life by bringing together...
by Syamak Moattari at April 9, 2006 08:25 PM -05:00 GMT
More Aid for Countries Fighting Avian Flu More than 20 countries are expected to receive assistance this year under the World Bank's global program for avian flu. The funding program, approved by the Bank's Board of Directors, allows for up to US $500 million to help...
by Syamak Moattari at April 6, 2006 11:18 AM -05:00 GMT
Dubious dialogue On March 18, the foreign ministers of Australia, Japan, and the United States met in Sydney for a "Trilateral Strategic Dialogue." As usual, the United States was the primary driver of the agenda, and, invariably, the focus was on China....
by Daniel Widome at April 4, 2006 10:51 PM -08:00 GMT
Fire Thunder Challenges South Dakota Abortion Ban “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.” Cecilia Fire Thunder, Giago: Oglala Sioux president on...
by Greta Pemberton at April 3, 2006 11:54 PM -05:00 GMT
New Forum in Boston Review The site is finally up, basically functional, if not aesthetically perfect yet. In the coming days we'll fix the formatting on the main and subsidiary pages. Please let us know if you find broken links. Boston Review has just published an essay of mine, The Citizens of Porto Alegre, as part of a symposium on "Can the People Rule" , with essays by James Fishkin, Josiah Ober, and by John Gastil, Dan M. Kahan, and Donald Braman....
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at March 29, 2006 07:20 PM -05:00 GMT
Blair's Leadership Mistake As the proverbial brown stuff continues hitting the fan around the Blair government, Blair has now acknowledged the he may have made a "mistake" in acknowledging that he would not seek a fourth term of Prime Minister. The first response...
by jon_mendel at March 27, 2006 02:19 PM +00:00 GMT
Port passions Politicians love nothing more than to be on the popular side of a contentious debate. In recent weeks, they had the quintessential chance to do just that. The revelation that an Arab company, Dubai Ports World (DP World), would soon...
by Daniel Widome at March 23, 2006 10:17 PM -08:00 GMT
Hubris and Nemesis Strike a pose [fuego81/flickr] Last night, Open Source recorded Neo-Conservatism: The Last Throes? with Niall Ferguson and Francis Fukuyama. The show gave these two prominent public intellectuals a chance to reflect in the state of American foreign policy ideology on...
by Henry Shepherd at March 21, 2006 12:19 PM -05:00 GMT
Happy Norous Today is the first official day of spring and the first day of Iranian New Year, Iranian calendar is a solar calendar and has 4 seasons and 365 days. On Norouz, everyone should wear new clothes, and should have...
by Syamak Moattari at March 20, 2006 04:38 PM -05:00 GMT
Avian Flu Would Have Short-Lived Global Impact A severe avian flu pandemic would trigger a "sharp but short-lived impact" on the global economy, according to the International Monetary Fund. In an assessment of the global economic and financial impact of an avian flu pandemic, the IMF recommends...
by Syamak Moattari at March 20, 2006 04:18 PM -05:00 GMT
Government-Opposition Coalition Unusually (for us in the UK) the Labour Government here has had to rely on votes from the official opposition party to get through education reforms that are an important part of its policy programme - enough Labour MPs voted...
by jon_mendel at March 19, 2006 10:30 PM +00:00 GMT
Mitt? Short for Mitten? The BBC's From Our Own Correspondent allows seasoned journalists to share the stories behind their stories. The result is often as insightful as it is pithy. They read like charming letters to a friend back home, telling the tales of...
by Henry Shepherd at March 19, 2006 11:08 AM -05:00 GMT
Saturday afternoon reflection Listening to Open Source's show on Convergences, I was moved to add a note before digging into my work. This blog is the realization of my passion for seeing the connections between the seemingly disparate aspects of my life, work...
by Henry Shepherd at March 18, 2006 03:58 PM -05:00 GMT
Aleksandar Macasev, Belgrade Milosevic is dead, long live Milosevic spectre over Serbia (again) The problem with Slobodan Milosevic's death is that he is still alive. Milosevic, like every other leader, does not appear on the scene by incidental strike of faith. Every leader...
by Henry Shepherd at March 15, 2006 09:14 AM -05:00 GMT
"Seesaw," Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina ["Seesaw" blogs at Balkan-Scissors]As for the reactions in Bosnia, they are devided as you can guess (and read), most Serbs in Republic Srpska think Milosevic was a hero, and behave according to that, Bosniaks (Moslems) and Croats in Federation BiH...
by Henry Shepherd at March 14, 2006 06:34 PM -05:00 GMT
Ed Alexander; Zagreb, Croatia [Note: Ed Alexander made this post to his blog, Balkan Baby.]With regards to Milosevic, the scene has been very reserved. No street celebrations, but a quiet pleasure that he has finally died. Here in zagreb, not as many people were...
by Henry Shepherd at March 14, 2006 01:10 PM -05:00 GMT
Zeljka Grzinic; Rijeka, Croatia [Zeljka blogs at green-mind.com.]When the war started, I was 12. From the very beginning I was very aware of the things that were happening - but after some years you get numb - the pictures of rotting children corpses on...
by Henry Shepherd at March 14, 2006 01:00 PM -05:00 GMT
Economists for Sweatshops Henry and I are reading Jeff Sachs’ The End of Poverty this week. The gist of his argument is that it’s unjustifiable to have a sixth of the global population in such desperate poverty that they must struggle for day...
by Greta Pemberton at March 14, 2006 12:43 PM -05:00 GMT
Sasa Nikolovski, Bečej, Serbia [Sasa Nikolovski blogs at Bečej - Óbecse: My town, my river, my people.]I was on job today (I'm working at a school) and nobody was talking about him. Only comment was about his funeral (where he will be buried). I...
by Henry Shepherd at March 14, 2006 12:43 PM -05:00 GMT
Blog Search by Location Often for ROS web features we try to find bloggers who can speak authoritatively about the place where they live (or hail from originally). Unfortunately, none of the blog searches I know of allow you to restrict your search by...
by Greta Pemberton at March 14, 2006 12:40 PM -05:00 GMT
Rachel Long, Belgrade [Rachel Long blogs at Pustolovina: adventure in Serbian.]I heard about the death when someone rushed into a seminar on the future of Kosovo to proclaim "Milosevic died in The Hague." My first thought (and the first though of everyone else)...
by Henry Shepherd at March 14, 2006 12:40 PM -05:00 GMT
Dubai? If Congress’ reaction to the ports mess was any indication, we were blind-sided by Dubai. But while Congress was tearing their hair out over national security and xenophobia, the real story takes place on their shores, not ours. Dubai is...
by Greta Pemberton at March 14, 2006 12:33 PM -05:00 GMT
Milosevic story for Open Source I'm working on a story about Milosevic's death for Radio Open Source. If you have any comments, please make them on this post.If you are in South/Eastern Europe or have a connection to the region: what did you and the...
by Henry Shepherd at March 14, 2006 12:18 AM -05:00 GMT
Scare tactics Well, when those missiles slam into the Iranian nuclear facilities, don't say I didn't warn you. Niall Ferguson's Telegraph Op-Ed, Watch out, this lame duck president has nothing to lose, is the most recent in a series of articles that...
by Henry Shepherd at March 13, 2006 11:12 AM -05:00 GMT
Habermas on intellectuals and new media Jürgen Habermas [minmax/flickr] Der Standard is running the transcript of Jürgen Habermas' Bruno Kreisky Prize acceptance speech to the Karl Renner Institute. Unfortunately, only a short segment is available in English (I've contacted the Institute for a full English version):...
by Henry Shepherd at March 12, 2006 01:49 PM -05:00 GMT
Under construction: Dubai, Shanghai, and this blog Sometimes, when I am exposed to a cluster of related ideas or topics, I fall between the cracks and end up in a new world, in which I am held captive by my own obsessive curiosity. True to form, in...
by Henry Shepherd at March 11, 2006 06:27 PM -05:00 GMT
The impact of war on women and children source of picture As an Iranian witness and civilian victim of the bloody war between Iran and Iraq in 80s and as a Peace advocator, during these days of Iranian nuclear spotlight and a possibility of another war in...
by Syamak Moattari at March 11, 2006 10:58 AM -05:00 GMT
La subida del resto del mundo del béisbol Qué lástima que no haya más personas que sean aficionados del béisbol en los EE.UU. que estén siguiendo El Clásico Mundial de Béisbol en el castellano (en ESPN en Español u otro canal). Uno realmente se da cuenta de que...
by Geoffrey Kirkman at March 9, 2006 11:28 PM -05:00 GMT
Christianity and Politics The role of Christianity in UK politics has been in the news a lot lately. This is partly because of Blair's acknowledgement that he prayed to God when deciding whether to send UK troops to war in Iraq, and expects...
by jon_mendel at March 9, 2006 05:22 PM +00:00 GMT
Sovereignty at the WBC How strangely inconsistent the question of sovereignty is dealt with at the World Baseball Classic and other international sporting events. While the American announcers in the first round of the WBC made such a point of never saying that Taiwan...
by Geoffrey Kirkman at March 8, 2006 10:55 PM -05:00 GMT
The World Baseball Classic - A Must Watch I just cannot understand why there seem to be so many naysayers about the just-begun World Baseball Classic. Since the first pitch last Saturday night, I have caught bits and pieces of about five or six games, and I find...
by Geoffrey Kirkman at March 8, 2006 10:45 PM -05:00 GMT
Heifer Project and heartache I spent the first month of my year off between high school and college at Overlook Farm in Rutland, Mass. The farm is run by Heifer Project as a demostration of the sustainable agriculture and livestock breeding that it puts...
by Henry Shepherd at March 8, 2006 12:55 AM -05:00 GMT
Housing is the most critical need...right up there with levees Six months on: steps that used to lead to part of Physicians' Hospital, New Orleans, now lead to rubble. [Bart Everson/Flickr] I spoke with Bart Everson a few weeks ago about his experience returning to New Orleans after Katrina...
by Henry Shepherd at March 6, 2006 06:17 PM -05:00 GMT
For these I set no limits, world or time,/ But make the gift of empire without end. Nilotic pool at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli, outside Rome [Benjamin Stevens/Rome 2005] So Jupiter promised Venus as her favorites, the Trojans, were scattered and barred from entering Latium. We are reading Virgil's Aeneid in "Odysseus Across the Ages," and I...
by Henry Shepherd at March 6, 2006 11:13 AM -05:00 GMT
International Women's Day March 8 - Global -- In 1975, during International Women's Year, the United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day on 8 March. The day is now celebrated in many countries around the world. It is a day when women...
by Syamak Moattari at March 6, 2006 10:03 AM -05:00 GMT
Ashgabat hosts regional forum on sustainable development The forum was organized by the Ministry of Nature Protection of Turkmenistan within the framework of the Interstate Commission on the Sustainable Development of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea. Representatives of state institutions on nature management and...
by Syamak Moattari at February 28, 2006 11:53 PM -05:00 GMT
Marvel for the ages I had a bit of a triumph today when I realized that I am working on similar issues in all of my courses. Comparative Literature Professor Marinos Pourgouris humbled me when he asked me to present my interpretation of Book...
by Henry Shepherd at February 27, 2006 07:39 PM -05:00 GMT
Blair: "this is not an issue of liberty but of modernity" I'm trying to put together a broadly poststructuralist account of the 'war on terror' at the moment - thinking through what 'modern' war might be. Unfortunately, it seems that Prime Minister Blair is well ahead of me on this -...
by jon_mendel at February 27, 2006 03:35 PM +00:00 GMT
An "American" City in Africa I have been doing a lot of reading recently on Johannesburg, and a friend recommended that I check out the Fall 2004 issue of Public Culture, which focuses on Johannesburg in particular. One article by AbdouMaliq Simone is especially interesting....
by Cindy Wise at February 25, 2006 09:56 PM +02:00 GMT
Brunelleschi be damned? Is the epoch of the solitary master craftsman over? [sco/Flickr] The Cathedral and the Bazaar, by Eric S. Raymond We're trying to understand the cultural and technological roots of the internet, and we've been reading testimony from people who...
by Henry Shepherd at February 25, 2006 11:08 AM -05:00 GMT
Re-energizing the debate In terms of ceremony, a president's state of the union address can serve as a compelling vehicle to launch the political year. In policy terms, however, the constitutionally mandated address often has been rich in rhetoric but weak in substance....
by Daniel Widome at February 23, 2006 06:53 PM -08:00 GMT
Guantanamo Bay - A Savage Anomaly? The US prison at Guantanamo Bay is not popular here in the UK, or within the Labour Party. However, due to Tony Blair's close relationship to the Bush Administration, he has not been willing to condemn it - instead taking...
by jon_mendel at February 23, 2006 01:04 AM +00:00 GMT
Midwest Social Forum MIDWEST SOCIAL FORUM 2006 JULY 6-9, 2006 Milwaukee, WI University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Union http://www.mwsocialforum.org Preparations for Midwest Social Forum (formerly aka RadFest) 2006 are well under way. See below for updates on how you can get involved in this annual gathering of grassroots organizations, community activists, and others committed to social justice movement building. CONTENTS: 1. Call for Participation and Proposals 2. Regional Info Meetings 3. Call for Artists 4. Help Publicize/Volunteer 5. Donate/Sponsor 6. Individual Registration begins March 15 1. CALL FOR PARTICIPATION & PROPOSALS ============================== ===== The Midwest Social Forum Organizing Committee invites you to organize activities and submit proposals for Midwest Social Forum 2006. There is no hard deadline. However, to be assured of acceptance and advanced publicity, registration and proposal forms should be submitted by NO LATER THAN APRIL 15. Fill out an online form at http://www.mwsocialforum.org/get_involved/ 2. MWSF REGIONAL INFO SESSIONS ============================= A series of info meetings about the forum will be held across the Midwest starting March 2. MILWAUKEE - Thursday, March 2, 6:30 pm, Washington Park Library, 2121 N. Sherman Blvd. (Corner of Sherman Blvd. & Lisbon, across the street from Washington Park, 414-286-3066). TWIN CITIES - Thursday, March 23, 7:00 pm, Resource Center of the Americas, 3019 Minnehaha Ave., Room 55406 (612-276-0788 , ext.22) MADISON - Saturday, March 25, 2:00 pm, Neighborhood House, 29 S. Mills St. CHICAGO - Saturday, March 25, time and location TBA For maps and more info, check http://www.mwsocialforum.org/get_involved/infosessions.htm for more details as they become available. To organize your own information in another city or area, get in touch with us at info@mwsocialforum.org or 608.262.0854. 3. CALL FOR ARTISTS ================= The Midwest Social Forum is also a space for showcasing the artistic movements that are the creative force of our diverse communities. The Forum's location--the University of...
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi at February 21, 2006 05:23 PM -05:00 GMT
Commander-in-Mischief Executive power seems to be the hot political topic these days, and with good reason. The NSA’s unwarranted domestic surveillance and last year’s fight over Senator John McCain’s anti-torture amendment demonstrate the Bush administration’s desire for ever-greater executive prerogatives. On...
by Daniel Widome at February 20, 2006 01:21 PM -08:00 GMT
Yasukuni, Yomiuri, & Asahi Fine summary of all things Yasukuni in the latest issue of the Economist. Nothing new or groundbraking, but this bit caught my attention: ... [O]pposition to a rising mood of nationalism is coming from an unlikely source from within the...
by Daniel Widome at February 17, 2006 01:12 AM -08:00 GMT
Accra to Ulaanbaatar From Ghana... [Stig Nygaard/Flickr] Fifty years ago, communication between Ghana and Mongolia would have taken months and transpired via postal mail. Ten years ago, it would have required international phone calls costing several US dollars a minute and required...
by Henry Shepherd at February 15, 2006 06:05 PM -05:00 GMT
Our friend from China There are some people you meet who you will never forget and may never see again. Until this week, I couldn't help but feel Krace Zhou was one of those people for me. She came to Brown in November...
by Henry Shepherd at February 15, 2006 05:15 PM -05:00 GMT
World Information and Communication for Development Report 2006 Information and communication technologies are rapidly evolving, changing rich and poor societies alike. They have become a powerful tool for participating in the global economy and offering new opportunities for development efforts. This report examines the ICT-related roles of the...
by Syamak Moattari at February 14, 2006 08:45 PM -05:00 GMT
ID cards, Rock and Regime Change Have just got back from a nice night watching Dawn of the Replicants play, to find out that the UK Government has successfully got a bill on ID cards through our lower house of parliament - meaning that they will...
by jon_mendel at February 14, 2006 12:15 AM +00:00 GMT
Senate considers repealing normal trade relations with China: not quite deja vu all over again I was actually quite struck by the reasons offered by the Senators proposing to repeal PNTR (see news links below). I remember watching the MFN debates in the mid-1990s, and much fo the rhetoric of opponents of normalizing trade was...
by Aaron Halegua at February 10, 2006 11:12 PM -05:00 GMT
Ronald Reagan and a Week in Review Open Source producers are working on a wide range of shows today. An example of how diverse the show topics are here: Greta is researching online dating for a Valentine's Day show; I'm researching Richard Reeves' book about Ronald Reagan....
by Henry Shepherd at February 10, 2006 02:21 PM -05:00 GMT
GLOBAL WARMING A HEALTH RISK Global warming is already causing death and disease across the world through flooding, environmental destruction, heat-waves and other extreme events according to Australian scientists. And the scientists say it’s likely to get worse. In a review published in The Lancet...
by Syamak Moattari at February 9, 2006 09:33 PM -05:00 GMT
Mohammed, Cartoons, and "the Brutal Enlightenment" I put my blogtrolling for the ROS post on hold for a few hours to go to class on Tuesday. The class is Gordon Wood's senior historiography seminar, The Practice of History. Great class. At one point in the discussion,...
by Greta Pemberton at February 9, 2006 01:39 PM -05:00 GMT
Islam, Cartoons ...and New Zealand? Muslims all around the world are pissed. Pissed at those people who are publishing irrelevent pictures of our prophet, Muhammad (peace be upon him). These people, who are ignorant and pathetic include Kiwis here as well....NZ is the latest country...
by Greta Pemberton at February 9, 2006 01:20 PM -05:00 GMT
Religious Hatred and Censorship? C***s, Cartoons and Clerics When I wrote about religious hatred and censorship last week, I thought this was a pretty parochial UK issue. However, the argument about the printing of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad -- which many have viewed as offensive and/or blasphemous...
by jon_mendel at February 7, 2006 03:23 PM +00:00 GMT
Globalization for Development This book identifies ways in which globalization can either overcome poverty or make it worse. It defines historical trends, identifies principal global flows such as trade, finance, aid, migration and ideas, and examines how each can contribute to undermining economic...
by Syamak Moattari at February 6, 2006 11:24 AM -05:00 GMT
Chipping away The view of downtown Providence from the Rock is a worthy background for a Sunday spent immersed in great questions. From Jared Diamond: why did some people shift, albeit slowly and unknowingly, from hunting and gathering to domestication (including herding)...
by Henry Shepherd at February 5, 2006 06:50 PM -05:00 GMT
Zheng He Revisited China's space program boosts national pride. But it also produces high-tech spinoffs that improve Chinese bargaining power in securing access to natural resources. Frank Braun interviews Fernando Henrique Cardoso about the role of China's space program and whether Brazil is...
by BJWA at February 5, 2006 03:00 PM -05:00 GMT
A down day One of the most captivating stories of the past few days involves a neo-nazi hate crime that ended in a killing spree a thousand miles away. I'll get into the details at some point; this is a story that, like...
by Henry Shepherd at February 4, 2006 11:11 PM -05:00 GMT
Cumulative Risk Assessment The public is exposed to multiple contaminants fiom a variety of sources, and tools are needed to understand the resulting combined risks. The Framework for Cumulative Risk Assessment represents an important milestone for EPA in expanding our focus from...
by Syamak Moattari at February 3, 2006 04:51 PM -05:00 GMT
From the Open Source Office We find ourselves on this eerily warm, rainy day in the Radio Open Source studio, 15 Mt. Auburn, Cambridge. It is a pretty typical Friday here at Open Source; the show is only Monday-Thursday, so Friday is dedicated to long-term...
by Henry Shepherd at February 3, 2006 03:11 PM -05:00 GMT
Blair loses vote on incitement to religious hatred bill The Government lost another vote in the House of Commons yesterday - MPs voted to retain an amendment that the House of Lords (our second chamber in the UK) made to the Government's Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. This means...
by jon_mendel at February 2, 2006 10:53 PM +00:00 GMT
Syllabus approved We were informed this morning that our syllabus for this independent study was approved by the department head. That means I'm headed to the bookstore for International Relations Theory: A Critical Introduction. I started The Language of New Media, by...
by Henry Shepherd at February 2, 2006 04:12 PM -05:00 GMT
Links and Resources Participatory Budgeting has captured the imagination of policy makers, political activists and academics. The list of organizations, resource sites, and advocates of participatory budgeting is extremely varied, and runs all the way from “socialists for participatory budgeting” in Buenos Aires to the Bertelsmann foundation, in Germany, which advocates transparency and free markets. The academic literature is also extremely varied. Below is an abridged list of resources. For additional information on each area click the "more resources" link below it. - English: General Info - Porto Alegre - Case Studies - Evaluations - Analysis - Portuguese - Spanish - German - Resource Websites - PB Campaigns and Organizations English General Information on PB “Participatory Budgeting,” The World Bank Guide to Participatory Budgeting, including definitions, How-To’s, and descriptions of Bank-funded projects http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ESSD/sdvext.nsf/68ByDocName/ EmpowermentResourcesToolsandPracticesParticipatoryBudgeting “Participatory Budgeting” presentation at the World Bank by Zander Navarro (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre) (Power Point) http://www.worldbank.org/participation/navarroppt_files/frame.htm “72 Frequently Asked Questions about Participatory budgeting.” Urban governance toolkit series. July 2004 UN –Habitat: GLOBAL CAMPAIGN ON URBAN GOVERNANCE. http://www.unhabitat.org/campaigns/governance/ Bringing budgets alive: participatory budgeting in practice. Community Pride Initiative/Oxfam UK http://www.participatorybudgeting.org.uk/Downloads/ Bringing%20budgets%20alive.pdf A Guide to Participatory Budgeting. Brian Wampler's Guide at IBP http://www.internationalbudget.org/resources/library/GPB.pdf more resources PB in Porto Alegre Website of the city of Porto Alegre. http://www.portoalegre.rs.gov.br/ Orçamento Participativo: The remarkable experience of direct democracy in a Brazilian town. http://www.chs.ubc.ca/participatory/docs/op.pdf UN Habitat II, Best Practices Database. Description of PB in Porto Alegre, by United Nations in several languages. 2002. Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre: Toward a redistributive democracy Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Politics & Society; Stoneham; Dec 1998. http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/santosweb.html Slicing Up the Pie: Community involvement in PB in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Bridget O’Rourke, Community Pride Initiative. http://www.participatorybudgeting.org.uk/Downloads/ Slicing%20up%20the%20Pie.pdf Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil. By William Goldsmith. Planners Network Online, no. 140. Available online:...
by Watsonblogs at February 1, 2006 04:16 PM -05:00 GMT
Examples of PB There are hundreds of municipalities and institutions implementing PB, and it is impossible to keep track of them all. The following is the best available running tally of programs that are or can be described as participatory budgeting. Please email us if you know of others. Latin America Argentina - Brazil - Chile - Dominican Republic - Ecuador - Guatemala - Mexico - Peru - Venezuela Europe France - Portugal - Spain - United Kingdom North America Canada Latin America Argentina Buenos Aires Córdoba La Plata Rosario Brazil Rio das Ostras, RJ: Ipatinga, MG: Dourados, MS Olinda, PE Santa Maria, RS: Natal, RN: Londrina, PR Aracaju, SE Cuiabá, MT Concordia, SC Serra, ES Goianésia, GO São Luis, MA Dourados, MS Teixeira, PB: Serra, ES: Concordia, SC: Aracaju, SE: Sobral, CE Parademinas, MG: Chile San Joaquin - Hacia una Democracia Deliberativa [PDF] Dominican Republic Villa Gonzalez Ecuador - Experiencias de Presupuesto Participativo en Ecuador (website) Archidona - Experiencia de Presupuesto Participativo del Gobierno Municipal de Archidona (PowerPoint) - Proceso de Presupuestación Participativa (PowerPoint) Cascales - Ciclos y momentos del PP (PowerPoint) Colta - Plan de equidad y vida y PP (PowerPoint) - Qué equipos municipales integran la elaboración del PP (PowerPoint) Cuenca - Estudio de caso: PP de Cuenca (PDF) El Pangui - Proceso de PP (PowerPoint) Francisco de Orellana - Presupuesto Participativo 2004-2005 (PowerPoint) - Control y seguimiento de la implementación de los PP (PowerPoint) - Evaluación de los PP y participación ciudadana (PowerPoint) - La Presupuestación Participativa de Francisco de Orellana (Word) Ibarra - El camino recorrido del proceso de participación ciudadana en el Cantón Ibarra (PowerPoint) Montúfar - Presupuesto Participativo en el Cantón Montúfar (Word) - Presupuesto Participativo en el Cantón Montúfar (PowerPoint) Morona - Operacionalización del plan de desarrollo estratégico participativo del Cantón Morona Presupuesto Participativo (PowerPoint)...
by Watsonblogs at February 1, 2006 03:34 PM -05:00 GMT
History of PB Citizen participation in budget making is not a new idea. For over 300 years, citizens in New England and elsewhere have decided on budget spending through town meetings. Many cities have involved residents in budgeting through community boards, councils, and public consultations. In 1989, the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre developed a different model of budget participation, which has become known internationally as "participatory budgeting". Driven by social movements and Workers Party politicians, the municipality invited residents to not only give input on budget spending, but to directly decide how funds were to be allocated. Since then, participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre has developed into an annual process of deliberation and decision-making, in which as many as 50,000 city residents per year decide how to spend as much as 20% of the municipal budget. In a series of neighborhood, regional, and citywide assemblies, residents and elected budget delegates identify spending priorities and vote on which priorities to implement. After its emergence in Porto Alegre, participatory budgeting soon spread to hundreds of cities in Brazil, and then elsewhere in Latin America. In the past decade, many cities and towns in Europe, Africa, and Asia have also launched participatory budgets. In North America, several Canadian local governments have developed PB processes, and new initiatives are underway in the United States. Countries such as the United Kingdom and Dominican Republic have recently mandated that all local governments implement PB. States, counties, public housing authorities, schools, and community organizations have also experimented with PB for their budgets. In recognition of these experiences, the United Nations has promoted PB as a best practice of democratic governance....
by Watsonblogs at February 1, 2006 03:30 PM -05:00 GMT
What is PB? Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. There are over 1,200 participatory budgets around the world, according to the Worldwatch Institute. Most of the well-known examples of participatory budgeting involve city administrations that have turned over decisions around municipal budgets, such as overall priorities and choice of new investments, to citizen assemblies. Other examples involve school budgets, housing project budgets, and the budgets of cooperatives and non-profit organizations. These diverse experiences generally follow a basic process: diagnosis, discussion, decision-making, implementation, and monitoring. First, residents identify local priority needs, generate ideas to respond to these needs, and elect budget representatives for each community. These representatives then discuss the local priorities and develop concrete projects that address them, together with experts. Next, residents vote for which of these projects to fund. Finally, the government implements the chosen projects, and residents monitor implementation. For example, if residents identify recreation spaces as a priority, their budget representatives might develop a proposal for a new basketball court. The residents would then vote on this and other proposals, and if they approve the basketball court, the city pays to build it. Various studies have suggested that participatory budgeting can lead to more equitable public spending, higher quality of life, increased satisfaction of basic needs, greater government transparency and accountability, increased levels of public participation (especially by marginalized residents), and democratic and citizenship learning....
by Watsonblogs at February 1, 2006 03:27 PM -05:00 GMT
About Us The Participatory Budgeting Project provides support and technical assistance to local governments and organizations that are interested in starting participatory budgeting processes in the U.S. and Canada. Josh Lerner and Gianpaolo Baiocchi founded the organization in 2006, first as an online resource center. The PBP has received institutional support from The Watson Institute in Providence and the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the site, please contact us at info@participatorybudgeting.org...
by Watsonblogs at February 1, 2006 03:17 PM -05:00 GMT
Projects Participatory Budgeting in Chicago's 49th Ward In February 2009, Alderman Joe Moore, of Chicago’s 49th Ward, decided to launch an experiment in democracy. Moore agreed to allow residents of his ward to decide how to spend his $1.4 million discretionary budget, through a democratic and inclusive process. The 49th Ward’s PB marks the first time in the US that ordinary residents are invited to directly allocate city budget funds. The Participatory Budgeting Project has accompanied Alderman Moore through all stages of the initiative. To begin, we brought together over 30 local organizations and institutions (including schools, religious institutions, grassroots community organizations, NGOs, and neighborhood associations) to form a PB Steering Committee. In April and May we designed and facilitated a series of participatory workshops and meetings, in which the Steering Committee decided the basic structure and rules of the PB process. This exercise in participatory rule-making grounded the PB process in the particular characteristics and preferences of the 49th Ward, while also bringing together community leaders around a common project. Throughout the process, we have advised both the Alderman’s office and the Steering Committee on meeting facilitation, staffing arrangements, educational materials, publicity materials, and a variety of other issues. For more information see the 49th Ward PB website. Participatory PB Evaluation in Toronto In April 2009, Josh Lerner began a participatory evaluation of the PB process at Toronto Community Housing (TCH). Together with a team of 12 tenants, he is evaluating the building meetings, allocation days, and other parts of the PB, in order to suggest potential improvements. The evaluation began with a series of capacity-building and planning workshops with tenant researchers, in which they helped design the research methodology and developed qualitative and quantitative research skills. Lerner then accompanied the tenants in observing meetings, interviewing fellow tenants, analyzing research...
by jlerner at February 1, 2006 11:39 AM -05:00 GMT
Services We offer a variety of services to local governments, public agencies, and community organizations that are interested in developing or improving participatory budgeting processes. - Speakers & Workshops - Technical Assistance - Evaluation - Research Speakers & Workshops - Introduction to PB talks - Demo workshops - Customized talks and workshops for schools, housing authorities, and community organizations Technical Assistance Support and accompaniment for: - Building broad community partnerships - Participatory rule-making and process design - Development of technical tools, such as budget matrices and voting systems - Planning and facilitation of community workshops, assemblies, and meetings - Preparation of budget literacy and educational materials - Staff training and capacity-building - Production of publicity materials Evaluation - Participatory evaluation - Development of evaluation frameworks, including monitoring indicators and survey, interview, and observation tools - Preparation and dissemination of evaluation reports - Facilitation of evaluation and planning workshops Research - Feasibility and scoping studies - Research on best practices from other cities - Participatory action research...
by jlerner at February 1, 2006 11:12 AM -05:00 GMT
Who We Are Directors Gianpaolo Baiocchi is Associate Professor of Sociology and International Studies, and Director of Development Studies at Brown University. He has been involved with PB since 1997, when he began his dissertation research on the topic in Porto Alegre. He has written widely on participatory democracy and participatory budgeting, in publications ranging from the American Sociological Review to the oston Review and Labor Notes. His comparative research on multiple cities with PB is the topic of his book Making Spaces for Civil Society (with P. Heller and M.K. Silva, 2008). His book on Porto Alegre's PB (Militants and Citizens, 2005) has been taken up widely in planning and activist circles, and has led to a number of meetings with groups and individuals attempting PB campaigns in North America, from city officials in Los Angeles to community activists in Willimantic, CT. Josh Lerner is a PhD candidate in Politics at the New School for Social Research. In addition to teaching at Fordham University and The New School, he has worked as a popular educator with the Center for the Urban Environment and as a community development specialist on UNDP projects in Slovakia. He became involved in PB in 2003, when he wrote a PB guide for the City of Toronto as his Masters thesis. Since then, he has researched PB in several countries in Latin America and Europe, and advised diverse organizations and institutions on PB, ranging from the Right to the City Alliance to Toronto Community Housing to the Municipality of Rosario (Argentina). He has published in venues such as The Good Society, Shelterforce, The Movement Vision Lab, and the Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management. Associates Michael Menser is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College. His research explores participatory democracy efforts at the local and global...
by jlerner at February 1, 2006 10:55 AM -05:00 GMT
Radicals in Power: The Workers' Party and Experiments in Urban Democracy in Brazil Radicals in Power: The Workers' Party and Experiments in Urban Democracy in Brazil...
by Watsonblogs at February 1, 2006 10:51 AM -05:00 GMT
The US renews push for AIDS research and care The US health policy has a direct effect of the International Health Policy and each new statement especially on the International Health issue by US government can affect on the Global movement on Health Issues. One of the most important...
by Syamak Moattari at February 1, 2006 09:14 AM -05:00 GMT
Reforms in Developing Countries Can Boost Exports, Study Says A study from the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, entitled "Trading on Time," says that delaying exports hurts developing countries' economies. In some countries, an export container requires 116 days to move from the factory or farm to...
by Syamak Moattari at January 30, 2006 09:41 AM -05:00 GMT
A Dream My Mother in Low loves this poem, you can see the clip of this song in Persian with English subtitle here Imagine " Even if it is hard " the world in which each person is so blest . the...
by Syamak Moattari at January 27, 2006 11:13 PM -05:00 GMT
Whale dies; UK Education Bill in death throes? Firstly, I am sad to say that the whale in the Thames has died -- apparently, after getting lost it suffered from "dehydration, muscle damage and failing kidneys". A less cute casualty may well be our Government's Education Bill --...
by jon_mendel at January 25, 2006 11:33 PM +00:00 GMT
Avian Flu Pledging Conference Beats Target Global efforts to fight avian flu were given a boost in Beijing when donors surpassed initial targets and raised $1.9 billion for developing countries at a funding conference co-sponsored by the World Bank. Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, in a videotaped...
by Syamak Moattari at January 25, 2006 03:45 PM -05:00 GMT
Whose turn? Iran Iran is going to experience the very hard days in near future, there is no hope for avoiding of a worse situation, I really scared and I don't know what we can do. I wish some of policy makers in...
by Syamak Moattari at January 23, 2006 09:09 PM -05:00 GMT
A whale heads for Downing Street For a while now, I've been wanting to start a blog -- to track what is very likely to be the final period of Tony Blair's time as Prime Minister of Britain. This government has been responsible for some radical...
by jon_mendel at January 20, 2006 05:34 PM +00:00 GMT
Congressional winter In the final weeks of 2005, the battle lines were drawn for a political struggle that may define 2006. This struggle was about more than just policy or ideology. It concerned the very role that Congress should play in the...
by Daniel Widome at January 20, 2006 01:12 AM -08:00 GMT
Insurgent insurgents Interesting piece in the NYTimes today about divisions among the collective Iraqi insurgency: In October, the two insurgents said in interviews, a group of local fighters from the Islamic Army gathered for an open-air meeting on a street corner in...
by Daniel Widome at January 12, 2006 12:33 AM -08:00 GMT
Health and sanitation: a crucial determinant? The goal of water and sanitation intrinsically links up with many other MDGs and particularly has strong links with poverty, hunger, health, and environmental sustainability. 1.1 billion people worldwide currently lack access to safe drinking water and 2.4 billion do...
by Syamak Moattari at January 11, 2006 10:30 AM -05:00 GMT
Health, Nutrition, and Population Services for the Poor A World's Bank study titled "Reaching the Poor with Health, Nutrition, and Population Services" concludes that delivering health services coverage can be difficult, and that the rich are often better able to take advantage of these services although their...
by Syamak Moattari at January 9, 2006 06:16 PM -05:00 GMT
The World Development Corporation (WDC) At the today's publication of theYale Global Online a publication of Yale center for study Globalization, you may find an article with the title" Multinational Corporations: A Key to Global Poverty Reduction " by George C. Lodge and Craig Wilson....
by Syamak Moattari at January 5, 2006 01:25 PM -05:00 GMT
Asian mice From the good folks at Kyodo, here's a nice round-up of Koizumi's latest news conference: ''China and South Korea should not close the doors for talks due to this one issue [visits to Yasukuni],'' Koizumi said when asked how he...
by Daniel Widome at January 5, 2006 12:45 AM -08:00 GMT
Militants and Citizens: The Politics of Participatory Democracy in Porto Alegre Militants and Citizens: The Politics of Participatory Democracy in Porto Alegre...
by Watsonblogs at January 1, 2006 10:42 AM -05:00 GMT
Peaceful development A new white paper from the Chinese government represents its latest attempt to downplay fears of its rapid growth: "To stick to the road of peaceful development is the inevitable way for China to attain national prosperity and strength and...
by Daniel Widome at December 23, 2005 04:45 PM -08:00 GMT
Global Integration and Technology Transfer Developing countries have long sought to use both national policies and international agreements to stimulate international technology diffusion. Now, new technologies may be embodied in goods and transferred through imports of new varieties of differentiated products or capital goods and...
by Syamak Moattari at December 19, 2005 11:30 PM -05:00 GMT
Off to the land of palm trees, samba, passionfruit... oh, and extreme poverty, inequality, racism, and unequal access to resources and education ....but nonetheless I am still extremely excited to go to BRAZIL on Friday! Though it's been absolutely incredibly difficult to get there, I could not believe my...
by Katy Love at December 14, 2005 09:45 PM -05:00 GMT
Trade Reforms Would Reduce Poverty More Quickly A World Bank study shows that an agreement in the WTO's Doha Development Round of trade talks would reduce poverty more quickly in some countries than others. The study, entitled "Poverty and the WTO -- Impacts of the Doha...
by Syamak Moattari at December 13, 2005 04:01 PM -05:00 GMT
Bad NEWS from Tehran, According to the Sever Air Inversion in Tehran, all schools would be closed in 4 coming days. It seems nobody in Iran can solve this problem; the point is that the new administration under President Ahmadi Nejad claimed last week...
by Syamak Moattari at December 6, 2005 04:41 PM -05:00 GMT
We’re in it ‘til “Victory” President Bush has out and said it, and his message was clear and quickly repeated: the United States will stay the course to “victory” in Iraq. Given the recent widespread calls for a scale-down if not full withdrawal of the...
by Sam Hodges at December 5, 2005 11:02 PM -05:00 GMT
Enjoying the mandate Koizumi has obviously been enjoying his recently renewed electoral mandate. A couple weeks ago, he announced proposed revisions to the Japanese constitution: [Koizumi] urged Japan to match its weight as the world's second biggest economy by cooperating more with the...
by Daniel Widome at December 5, 2005 08:51 PM -08:00 GMT
More interesting resources Of course there are tons of resources out there for young people, but I like the ones that the Washington Post has to offer: * "New Advice: First Jobs and Internships" * From there you can read "The Complete Guide...
by Katy Love at December 5, 2005 07:19 PM -05:00 GMT
HIV/AIDS Global Plan Launched The World Bank's global plan to fight HIV/AIDS, launched on the eve of World AIDS Day, aims to strengthen its response to the epidemic at country, regional and global levels, through no-interest lending, grants, analysis, technical support and policy dialogues.آ...
by Syamak Moattari at December 5, 2005 12:26 PM -05:00 GMT
Commendation and caution long overdue A Nobel for an Influential Scholar and a Word of Caution for Today Earlier this year the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to Thomas Schelling, in recognition of his work in the area of applied game theory...
by Sam Hodges at December 4, 2005 08:45 PM -05:00 GMT
Conference of the Parties Canada is currently hosting the first Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in North America. Combining the Eleventh Conference of the Parties and the first Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, the Montreal 2005: United Nations...
by Syamak Moattari at December 2, 2005 10:46 PM -05:00 GMT
I will never waste my food This was found in Kevi's diary Dear God, I promise I will never waste my food no matter how bad it can taste and how full I may be. I pray that He will protect this little boy, guide...
by Syamak Moattari at December 1, 2005 11:13 AM -05:00 GMT
Finding a Way to Continue International Travel If you're like me, you're shocked about how you've survived thus far without the 4 months of school vacation. Instead, you've got two weeks. Or three if you're lucky. Or four if you work at Human Rights Watch. Or five...
by Katy Love at November 29, 2005 10:45 PM -05:00 GMT
Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development "Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development : A Strategy for Large Scale Action" is a report that recently has published by World Bank,this report makes the case for development partners and developing countries to focus on nutrition, and to fund...
by Syamak Moattari at November 28, 2005 03:02 PM -05:00 GMT
Trimming the Fat A major challenge of editing academic prose is "trimming the fat." Despite word limits of 10,000-12,000 words, some authors will weigh in with 15,000. Richard Lanham's Revising Prose, for example, offers some effective ways to reduce what he calls the...
by Fred Fullerton at November 23, 2005 10:45 AM -05:00 GMT
Medical Ecology Medical Ecology is an emerging science that defines those aspects of the environment that have a direct bearing on human health. The concept of ecosystem functions and services helps to describe global processes that contribute to our well-being, helping to...
by Syamak Moattari at November 21, 2005 12:26 PM -05:00 GMT
Articles on US/Chinese mediation... For anybody interested, below are the weblinks to the three articles that I wrote for a Chinese newspaper comparing mediation in the US and China. After realizing that I was only 19-years old when I started doing mediations, they asked...
by Aaron Halegua at November 20, 2005 10:59 AM -05:00 GMT
Update... Hello everyone. I had an alumni interview for Brown today and my interviewee, who had viewed my Watson Blog, reminded me that it exists. Figured I would at least send out a quick update to the Watson community. I finished...
by Aaron Halegua at November 20, 2005 10:53 AM -05:00 GMT
Cautious approach In advance of Bush's visit to China, the Christian Science Monitor has run a great little series on China's military modernization and the threat it represents. The first article looks at China's emerging "army within an army," a modern nub...
by Daniel Widome at November 18, 2005 10:43 AM -08:00 GMT
Disease, death loom in Pakistan quake zone One month after Pakistan's devastating earthquake aid agencies are facing a cash crisis as the threat of disease and death looms over vast numbers of homeless survivors and a bitter winter closes in. The United Nations is struggling to raise...
by Syamak Moattari at November 18, 2005 09:22 AM -05:00 GMT
How to use your network: Be strong, be persistant! Over the past few weeks I've met with many recent grads and even a few students. I always feel a few similar emotion with everyone I meet: I'm a bit excited for them to undertake this job search and to...
by Katy Love at November 17, 2005 05:19 PM -05:00 GMT
Iran Major Cities Air Polution Increasing population density in urban areas and expanding industry in the oil and gas sectors are putting pressure on Iran’s environment. Air pollution in major cities such as Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Tabriz and Ahwaz pose a serious environmental problem, exceeding...
by Syamak Moattari at November 16, 2005 11:43 AM -05:00 GMT
Intellectual Property Law: Theory Versus Implementation BJWA Online: Edgardo Buscaglia examines the gap between the letter of international IP law and the facts on the ground. (Click here to download)...
by BJWA at November 14, 2005 02:07 PM -05:00 GMT
New Guide on Sport, Environment and Sustainable Development At the VI World Conference on Sport and Environment in Nairobi, co-hosted by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the IOC presented its new Guide on Sport, Environment and Sustainable Development. The Guide was created...
by Syamak Moattari at November 13, 2005 08:54 PM -05:00 GMT
Article about Generation Y at the workplace We're obviously the youngest, hippest generation of workers out there...and why does no one else get that?! ;) Check out this USA Today article: Generation Y: They've arrived at work with a new attitude "They're young, smart, brash. They may...
by Katy Love at November 13, 2005 10:10 AM -05:00 GMT
Tehran Environmental Problems Recently one of my friends asked me “what has caused heavy urban migration and why did the government not plan accordingly in the past? Was it due to corruption, or lack of understanding, or a general disinterest, or what? "...
by Syamak Moattari at November 10, 2005 05:02 PM -05:00 GMT
Interceptions The pace of aerial training in East Asia has evidently picked up in recent months: Japanese fighter jets have been scrambled 30 times to turn away Chinese planes approaching Japan's airspace in the last seven months, more than twice the...
by Daniel Widome at November 9, 2005 08:43 PM -08:00 GMT
Elements of Successful Poverty Reduction Reducing poverty on a global scale depends on several factors including leadership and commitment, institutional innovation, learning and experimentation, external catalysts such as donor assistance and sometimes even economic shocks, according to a World Bank report. "Reducing Poverty on...
by Syamak Moattari at November 8, 2005 10:19 AM -05:00 GMT
Headhunters First, I apologize for "taking a break." I've been pestering lots and lots of other people to write about their experiences for me. Let's see if anything happens here. Eh hem. Anyway, I realy want to write about headhunters, something...
by Katy Love at November 6, 2005 09:08 PM -05:00 GMT
Sustainable Development a Responsibility, Says Vatican The Holy See's permanent observer to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, made these comment Thursday in an address to the U.N. General Assembly's Commission on Sustainable Development. "My delegation believes that development plans and poverty reduction strategies must...
by Syamak Moattari at November 6, 2005 01:02 PM -05:00 GMT
Trading planes Hugo Chavez, weapons proliferator: If they don't comply with the contract ... we can do whatever we want with these aircraft, whatever the hell we want. Maybe we'll give 10 [U.S.-built, Venezuelan-operated F-16s] to Cuba or to China so they...
by Daniel Widome at November 3, 2005 02:12 AM -08:00 GMT
Brain Drain from Poor Countries Grows A World Bank publication shows that remittances from migrants contribute to poverty alleviation and help raise levels of child health, school attendance and investment in their home countries. However, the report also shows that some of the world's most...
by Syamak Moattari at October 31, 2005 09:09 PM -05:00 GMT
HMS center honors Al Gore for environmental work Former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore was recently chosen as the recipient of the 2005 Global Environmental Citizen Award by the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School (HMS). He worked with President...
by Syamak Moattari at October 28, 2005 02:04 PM -05:00 GMT
Rich world 'failing' on quake aid Many of the world's richest countries have so far failed to support a UN appeal for victims of the South Asian quake, a top UK-based charity has said. The charity, Oxfam, said less than 30% of the $312m (£175m)...
by Syamak Moattari at October 26, 2005 09:11 AM -05:00 GMT
Reaching Rural Areas via Radio A program to support local government capacity-building and community empowerment through radio is making a difference in the lives of the people of Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.Africa Good Governance on the Radio Waves†is a joint program of...
by Syamak Moattari at October 24, 2005 10:41 AM -05:00 GMT
Global estimate of burden disease caused by the environmental and occupational factors WHO has coordinated the development of global estimates of burden of disease caused by 26 risk factors, published in the World Health Report 2002 in cooperation with numerous experts around the world. Five of these risk factors are environmental and...
by Syamak Moattari at October 20, 2005 07:15 PM -05:00 GMT
Richard Epstein Article Updated Download Richard Epstein's updated "Untying the Grokster Knot" from the Patents & Piracy section of the Summer / Fall 2005 Journal....
by BJWA at October 18, 2005 03:41 PM -05:00 GMT
Serious condemnation Predictable feedback from the neighbors over Koizumi's recent trip to Yasukuni. First, from China: The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday to condemn Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, a place where World War...
by Daniel Widome at October 18, 2005 12:22 AM -08:00 GMT
Water, Electricity and the Poor Consumer utility subsidies are widespread in both the water and electricity sectors, but their effectiveness in reaching and distributing resources to the poor is the subject of much debate. A World bank's report brings together empirical evidence on subsidy performance...
by Syamak Moattari at October 17, 2005 09:52 AM -05:00 GMT
Electoral license I suppose when you gamble in calling a snap election, win that election, and then push through a rather bold reform of the postal system, a prime minister is entitled to a little mischief. Nothing too unexpected in Koizumi's latest...
by Daniel Widome at October 17, 2005 12:32 AM -08:00 GMT
Northern dimension I've been meaning to link to a great piece the NY Times ran earlier this week (conveniently permalinked at the IHT) that describes a budding "great game" over the Arctic Ocean and its defrosting attributes: ... [T]he Arctic is undergoing...
by Daniel Widome at October 12, 2005 07:11 PM -08:00 GMT
Environmental Degradation Increases Death and Disease Some 1.7 million premature deaths each year are caused by unsafe water, poor sanitation and poor hygiene, and about 800,000 more deaths are the result of urban air pollution, according to the World Bank's annual publication, "Environment Matters." An...
by Syamak Moattari at October 12, 2005 09:23 AM -05:00 GMT
Economics Nobel prize for game theory An American and an Israeli won the 2005 Nobel prize for economics today for their work on "game theory," which can help resolve trade and business conflicts, and even play a role in avoiding war. "Game theory" is the science...
by Syamak Moattari at October 10, 2005 11:02 AM -05:00 GMT
Tehran is the best city to live in the 10-bottom list The EIU ranked 127 cities in terms of personal risk, infrastructure and the availability of goods and services. All the cities that fell into the top "live ability" bracket were based in Canada, Australia and Western Europe. According to...
by Syamak Moattari at October 8, 2005 10:19 AM -05:00 GMT
My daughter presidency campaign Recently my daughter told me she wants to be the president of the United States, I told her you can't be, because you are not a US citizen and also you didn't born in the US ,so if you are...
by Syamak Moattari at October 7, 2005 10:12 AM -05:00 GMT
Helping marketers to benefit from sustainable development How can marketing strategies be shaped to build trust, develop new business opportunities and create competitive advantage? The World Business Council for Sustainable Development releases the second in a series of functional briefings aimed at helping marketing managers understand how...
by Syamak Moattari at October 6, 2005 02:36 PM -05:00 GMT
The Decision to Go Abroad I’ve been bugging my friends lately who have worked abroad to give me their pieces so I can post to have more diverse perspectives (!!!!!send me them!!!!), but in the mean time, I’ll have to do with my own ideas...
by Katy Love at October 5, 2005 07:43 AM -05:00 GMT
Close call It appears that the EU and Turkey have stopped just short of the precipice: After two days of dramatic negotiations, European foreign ministers agreed on terms for talks to start, overcoming Austria's insistence that the EU offer Turkey the possibility...
by Daniel Widome at October 4, 2005 03:07 AM -08:00 GMT
Not a privilege It looks like Turkey's EU accession odyssey has reached an impasse, courtesy of Austria: European Union foreign ministers have failed to end the stalemate over Turkey's bid to join the bloc. Late-night talks in Luxembourg ended without agreement on a...
by Daniel Widome at October 2, 2005 11:14 PM -08:00 GMT
Rusty tools Looks like Canada's military is stretched too thin: The military budget should double and the Canadian Forces should sign up thousands of new recruits, a Senate committee said Thursday. The budget should be $25-billion to $35-billion a year instead of...
by Daniel Widome at September 29, 2005 08:21 PM -08:00 GMT
Vietnam sets up agency for sustainable development Prime Minister Phan Van Khai signed Tuesday a decision to establish a state-funded national council for sustainable development. The council is authorized to help the Prime Minister draw up strategies for the country's sustainable development, and will coordinate action among...
by Syamak Moattari at September 29, 2005 04:34 PM -05:00 GMT
Report Says Equity Reduces Poverty The 2006 edition of the World Bank's annual World Development Reportfinds that equality of opportunities among people should be an integral part of a successful poverty reduction strategy anywhere in the developing world. Titled "Equity and Development," it states that...
by Syamak Moattari at September 26, 2005 09:20 PM -05:00 GMT
Solutions to Burnout in the Job Search: Travel Internationally! If you do have time off while job searching, or post-college, let me say this once and I hope you all acc