What Is the Role of Civil Society in Multisectoral Nutrition Governance Systems? A Multicountry Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-260
Author(s):  
Heidi Busse ◽  
Namukolo Covic ◽  
Ashley Aakesson ◽  
Wellington Jogo
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Media Campaigns ◽  
Civic Capacity ◽  
Community Ownership ◽  
Governance Systems ◽  
Nutrition Service ◽  
Political Commitments

Background: Solutions to create enabling nutrition environments must come from within communities and involve multiple sectors. As vital actors in community mobilization, rights-based advocacy, and accountable public institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs) can help ensure nutrition programs and policies represent and reach all community members to achieve impact. Objectives: To review attributes of civic engagement in multisectoral nutrition governance systems and to provide recommendations to increase CSO participation. Methods: We reviewed 7 national case studies of Civil Society Networks involved with the Scaling Up Nutrition movement and characterized 6 functional attributes of CSOs in multisectoral nutrition governance: identify needs of all community members, mobilize and build civic capacity, advocate for political commitments, inform program design and evaluation, ensure accountability mechanisms in public institutions, and report challenges and successes using broad media campaigns. Results: All studies described government agencies involved with multisectoral nutrition governance systems, at national and subnational levels; however, there was limited evidence of subnational platforms for CSO engagement. Although countries increased investments in public institutions for nutrition, it was unclear whether nutrition service quality improved and none reported corresponding investments in civil society. Conclusion: Our characterization identifies strategies to engage CSOs in multisectoral nutrition governance at multiple ecological levels. We hope future adaptation and application of this characterization will increase community ownership and diverse representation in nutrition governance systems. Both of these are key to enabling national and international entities to address malnutrition’s underlying determinants in ways that align with local contexts, values, and systems change processes.

Article 2 from Series of 5: Empowering African-Canadian Career Excellence

10.31355/52 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 131-155
Author(s):  
CEDEC CEDEC
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Black Youth ◽  
Career Path ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Black African ◽  
African Youth ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
African Canadian

NOTE: THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED WITH THE INFORMING SCIENCE INSTITUTE. Aim/Purpose...................................................................................................................................................................................................... The African-Canadian Career Excellence (ACCE) initiative was developed to address the loss of highly-educated, English-speaking Black youth from the Greater Montreal Area (Quebec, Canada) facing issues of unemployment and underemployment. Background........................................................................................................................................................................................................ The ACCE initiative partners – African and Caribbean Synergic inter-organizational Network of Canada (ACSioN Network), Black Community Resource Center (BCRC) and Community Economic Development and Employability Corporation (CEDEC) – worked to mitigate the exodus of educated Black youth through building their professional capacities to attain meaningful, sustainable local employment; encouraging their contribution to Quebec’s vitality, and assisting employers to diversify their workforce. Methodology....................................................................................................................................................................................................... The Black undergraduate students of African descent who were surveyed were English-speaking youth from the Greater Montreal Area; these included Canadian citizens, landed immigrants and temporary and permanent residents. Survey respondents will be referred to as Black African undergraduate students for the remainder of this article. In the 2011-2012 academic year, Black African undergraduate students from five Montreal post-secondary institutions were surveyed. On-campus promotion and in-person solicitation resulted in a non-random convenience sample of 92 individuals. Data from the 34 categorical and open-ended questions in an English-language online survey were analysed using SurveyMonkey, Microsoft Excel and SPSS. Contribution........................................................................................................................................................................................................ Montreal's English-speaking Black African undergraduate students represent an under-documented demographic in migration studies, specifically in terms of career plans, workplace skills, career path, employment resource awareness and discrimination. This portrait highlights the experience and career expectations of Montreal Black African undergraduate youth and is relevant within the contexts of Black history, community development, skills and career development, education and employment. Findings.............................................................................................................................................................................................................. These results suggest that English-speaking Black African undergraduates expected to follow an appropriate career path in their desired field by attaining meaningful and sustainable local employment commensurate with their skills. Many of these youth were not able to access the same career opportunities as their peers, and therefore left before fully participating in Quebec’s economy. Recommendation for Practitioner................................................................................................................................................................... This article suggests that businesses seeking to diversify their workforce can collaborate with public institutions and civil society organizations to better prepare and integrate Montreal’s skilled Black African youth. It is suggested that career-advancement training focus on addressing job security and skills gap concerns, in addition to awareness of discrimination in the workplace and strategies for identifying and redressing the situation. Recommendation for Researcher.................................................................................................................................................................... Future research could be conducted within the same Montreal population to compare the findings a decade later. Subsequent outreach to targeted employers might reveal progress and additional recommendations in diversifying their workplace. Impact on Society.............................................................................................................................................................................................. Collaboration among public institutions, private businesses and civil society organizations can lead to increased integration of Black African youth into the labor market.

scholarly journals The Civil Society Organization Media Manager as Critical Communicator

2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (Special-Issue) ◽  
pp. 189-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lemish ◽  
Kelly Caringer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
New Media ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
User Participation ◽  
Substantial Improvement ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Development Communication ◽  
Media Campaigns ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Holistic Management

Abstract Substantial improvement in civil society organizations’ [CSOs] management of communication and media endeavors requires a shift from business and marketing models to a development communication perspective. Acting beyond the platform driven model of the current conception of the media manager, the critical communicator will be guided by a rights-oriented, civil society-driven social change vision; critique of the corporatization and marketization of CSOs; lateral, holistic management strategies in facilitating the efforts of the communication - media team; use of multiple media including new media technologies, in particular Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, in order to advance audience-user participation in knowledge production and dissemination [participatory informatics]; and media campaigns that seek to maximize the CSO’s contributions to the advancement of justice, equality, democratization and civic engagement in governance and public policy debates.

scholarly journals The Working Conditions in The Mining Sector: The Case of Mchenga and Kaziwiziwi Coal Mines in Malawi

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalani Geone Fungameza Malema
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Coal Mines ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Mining Sector ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
Lack Of Knowledge

The purpose of this paper is to examine the working conditions in the mining sector in relation to Mchenga and Kaziwiziwi coal mines in Rumphi district in Malawi. The paper reports that the working conditions in the mining sector are generally poor and that the workers’ organizations and their activities in the mining sector are effective tools for the improved working conditions. The paper however, argues that, to a greater extent, it is over expectations compounded by lack of knowledge on part of (amongst the) the employees and/or the community members around the mining workplaces regarding aspects of legal and non-legal liabilities of the workplace employers towards the implementation of labour practices and of corporate social responsibility interventions that complicates the sufferings of most mining sector employees in Malawi. It is thus important to encourage the establishment of workers’ organizations at a workplace and for stakeholders such as Civil Society Organizations to be conclusive in their complementary roles to government when it comes to the implementation of advocacy activities to the communities (employees) around the mining workplaces especially in the event that such activities’ implications have potential effects to cause some forms of conflicts between the mining workplace employers and their employees including the surrounding community members thereby likely to complicate workers’ sufferings as a result of some unresolved consequences.  

scholarly journals Does Social Media Promote Civic Activism? A Field Experiment with a Civic Campaign

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Florian Foos ◽  
Lyubomir Kostadinov ◽  
Nikolay Marinov ◽  
Frank Schimmelfennig
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Environmental Groups ◽  
Media Campaigns ◽  
Civic Society ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Randomized Field Experiment ◽  
Causal Impact

Abstract Social media may help civil society organize and mobilize for different campaigns. However, the extent to which social media campaigns simply recruit like-minded individuals as compared to exerting a causal impact on joiners’ attitudes is difficult to disentangle. We test both the organizational and transformative potential of a civil society campaign in a randomized field experiment deployed via Facebook or an email newsletter in collaboration with a Bulgarian environmental campaign. As expected, we find that Bulgarian Facebook users who are active in pro-environmental groups, and those who decide to follow the campaign, are more highly educated than those who decide to stay at the sidelines. Moreover, beliefs in the effectiveness of civic society, character traits and prior activism systematically predict whether a Bulgarian Facebook user decides to join the cause on Facebook, or subscribe to the email newsletter. In contrast, we find little evidence that the campaign affected opinions, knowledge, or self-reported behavior. We conclude that social media campaigns that are commonplace among civil society organizations are effective at selecting activist-types, but changing the views and behaviors of the broader social media population may be more difficult than assumed.

scholarly journals FORUM KORDINASI PENANGGULANGAN TERORISME (FKPT) DAN GERAKAN DERADIKALISASI AGAMA DI INDONESIA: STUDI KASUS DI MALUKU

TAHKIM ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abd. Rauf
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Community Members ◽  
The Social ◽  
Implementation And Dissemination ◽  
Terrorism Prevention

One of the best ways to eradicate terrorism is through de-radicalization programs. Deradicalization is an attempt to neutralize radical notions for those involved in terrorists and their sympathizers and community members who have been exposed to radical understandings, through reeducation and resocialization and instilling multiculturalism. Strategic steps in the implementation and dissemination of de-radicalization programs in the regions are by involving Indonesian civil society organizations, given that the social environment is the main locus for the spread of seeds of radicalism. In this context the role of the Terrorism Prevention Coordination Forum (FKPT) has become very strategic. By involving FKPT as a public/civil society representation, the implementation of deradicalization programs has become more effective in the long term.

The elimination of violence and terrorism in Iraq strategy

2019 ◽  
pp. 375
Author(s):  
Mona Ali Duaij ◽  
Ahlam Ahmed Issa
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The State ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Terrorist Organization ◽  
The Media ◽  
Causes Of Crime ◽  
Religious Aspect

All the Iraqi state institutions and civil society organizations should develop a deliberate systematic policy to eliminate terrorism contracted with all parts of the economic, social, civil and political institutions and important question how to eliminate Daash to a terrorist organization hostile and if he country to eliminate the causes of crime and punish criminals and not to justify any type of crime of any kind, because if we stayed in the curriculum of justifying legitimate crime will deepen our continued terrorism, but give it legitimacy formula must also dry up the sources of terrorism media and private channels and newspapers that have abused the Holy Prophet Muhammad (p) and all kinds of any of their source (a sheei or a Sunni or Christians or Sabians) as well as from the religious aspect is not only the media but a meeting there must be cooperation of both parts of the state facilities and most importantly limiting arms possession only state you can not eliminate terrorism and violence, and we see people carrying arms without the name of the state and remains somewhat carefree is sincerity honesty and patriotism the most important motivation for the elimination of violence and terrorism and cooperation between parts of the Iraqi people and not be driven by a regional or global international schemes want to kill nations and kill our bodies of Sunnis, sheei , Christians, Sabean and Yazidi and others.

The Meritocratization of Civil Society

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bovens ◽  
Anchrit Wille
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
Interest Representation ◽  
The People ◽  
Professional Advocacy ◽  
Education Gap

Civil society organizations are, if not schools, at least pools of democracy. In the ‘third sector’, too, active engagement and participation ‘by the people’ have given way to meritocracy, or, in other words, to rule by the well-educated. Many popularly rooted mass organizations have witnessed a decline in membership and political influence. Their role as intermediary between politics and society has been taken over by professionally managed advocacy groups that operate with university educated public affairs consultants. First, the chapter describes the associational revolution, the enormous increase in the number of civil society organizations. Then it in analyses the education gap in membership and the shift from large membership organizations to lean professional advocacy groups, which has occurred over the past three decades. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the net effect of this meritocratization of civil society for political participation and interest representation.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Arneil
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Rural Land ◽  
Internal Colonialism ◽  
Key Terms

Chapter 1 defines the volume’s key terms: domestic colonization as the process of segregating idle, irrational, and/or custom-bound groups of citizens by states and civil society organizations into strictly bounded parcels of ‘empty’ rural land within their own nation state in order to engage them in agrarian labour and ‘improve’ both the land and themselves and domestic colonialism as the ideology that justifies this process, based on its economic (offsets costs) and ethical (improves people) benefits. The author examines and differentiates her own research from previous literatures on ‘internal colonialism’ and argues that her analysis challenges postcolonial scholarship in four important ways: colonization needs to be understood as a domestic as well as foreign policy; people were colonized based on class, disability, and religious belief as well as race; domestic colonialism was defended by socialists and anarchists as well as liberal thinkers; and colonialism and imperialism were quite distinct ideologies historically even if they are often difficult to distinguish in contemporary postcolonial scholarship—put simply—the former was rooted in agrarian labour and the latter in domination. This chapter concludes with a summary of the remaining chapters.

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