scholarly journals MITIGATION AND MANAGEMENT OF COVID-19: PRACTICES FROM INDIA’S STATES & UNION TERRITORIES

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Urvashi Prasad ◽  
Rakesh Sarwal ◽  
K Madan Gopal ◽  
Vinod K Paul
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Phone Calls

This compendium details information about various practices and initiativesimplemented by States, Districts and Cities in India for containing and managing theCOVID-19 outbreak. It is important to note that these initiatives are not being termedas ‘best practices’ by NITI Aayog as that would require a separate and comprehensiveevaluation exercise as well as longer term follow-up. Moreover, in a rapidly evolvingsituation, it can be challenging to consistently and fully correlate practices withoutcomes - a practice might yield good results for a certain period of time but cease todo so thereafter.An email was sent to all States and Union Territories (UTs) in July, 2020 requestingthem to share any practices or models that they believe had been useful for COVID-19mitigation and management. The email was followed up with phone calls to officials fromthe health departments in States and UTs. Ten States/UTs responded in writing to thisrequest for information. Additional information was provided by States telephonically aswell as during review meetings with Member (Health), NITI Aayog.Literature searches were conducted using various combinations of keywords inPubMed, ScienceDirect, Google and Google Scholar. Relevant case studies andpapers were also identified by searching the websites of State/UT Governments andthe National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). The last literature search wasconducted on November 10, 2020.Only case studies/reports/papers published in English between 1 February-10November, 2020 were considered. While efforts have been made by all States and UTsto follow the broad guidelines issued by the Central Government pertaining to differentaspects of COVID containment and management, this review captures the specificpractices adopted by State and UT Governments to make the implementation of theCentral Guidelines effective and relevant to their local context.All case studies/reports/papers highlighting practices/interventions/models implementedby State or Sub-State Governments on their own or in collaboration with civil society,private sector, volunteers were included in this review. Case studies/reports/papersfocusing on interventions implemented by civil society organizations, private sectoror individuals independent of any partnership with State/Local Governments wereexcluded from this review.Practices have been categorized into the following broad themes: public health andclinical response, governance mechanisms, digital health, integrated models as well 10 Report on Mitigation and Management of COVID-19as welfare of migrants and other vulnerable groups. While governance and technologycut across several themes, they have been included separately to highlight certainpractices adopted by States which pertain primarily to putting in place governancemechanisms or leveraging technology for COVID containment and management.A summary of the relevant Government of India guidelines has been included for theaforementioned categories, wherever applicable. It is important to note that theseguidelines are continually revised based on the emerging scenario with respect to theCOVID-19 outbreak.

scholarly journals Seducing for Truth and Justice: Civil Society Initiatives for the 1965 Mass Violence in Indonesia

2013 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 115-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sri Lestari Wahyuningroem
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
The World

The article examines both civil society initiatives that seek to address the mass violence of 1965 and 1966 and the state's responses to them. Unlike other political-transition contexts in the world, a transitional justice approach is apparently a formula that state authorities have found difficult to implement nationally for this particular case. The central government has, through its institutions, sporadically responded to some of the calls from civil society groups and has even initiated policy reforms to support such initiatives. Nevertheless, these responses were not sustained and any suggested programmes have always failed to be completed or implemented. Simultaneously, however, NGOs and victims are also voicing their demands at the local level. Many of their initiatives involve not only communities but also local authorities, including in some cases the local governments. In some aspects, these “bottom-up” approaches are more successful than attempts to create change at the national level. Such approaches challenge what Kieran McEvoy refers to as an innate “seductive” quality of transitional justice, but at the same time these approaches do, in fact, aim to “seduce” the state to adopt measures for truth and justice.

scholarly journals Decentralization in self-government bodies

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-70
Author(s):  
Kateryna Malyuk
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Central Government ◽  
The State ◽  
Government Reform ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Country Formation ◽  
Voluntary Basis

The article analyzes the theoretical and practical aspects of decentralization as a foundation for the formation of local governments in Ukraine. The importance of introducing the reform of decentralization of power on the path of development of Ukraine as a democratic, social, legal state is proved. The activity of local self-government in the conditions of decentralization is currently a priority among the reforms in Ukraine, as new trends in state building of our country, formation of civil society institutions, optimization of the system of local self-government determine new conditions for decentralization. Traditionally, a constant view of decentralization as a process in which independent units that form the bearers of local self-government are formed in a centralized state requires the development of new approaches to the analysis of its content and, accordingly, the search for new opportunities to achieve the goal. The role of decentralization in the formation of the institution of local self-government is crucial. After all, decentralization is a kind of management system, in which part of the functions of central government is transferred to local governments. Decentralization is one of the forms of democracy development, which at the same time preserves the unity of the state and its institutions while expanding the possibilities of local self-government. It aims to activate the population to meet their own needs, to narrow the sphere of state influence on society, to reduce expenditures on the maintenance of the state apparatus. This process promotes direct democracy, as it involves the transfer of control of a number of local affairs directly into the hands of stakeholders. Thus, we can say that decentralization helps to build the civil society we so strive for. As a result of local government reform and decentralization of power, the basis of the new system of local self-government should be united territorial communities, which are formed on a voluntary basis in accordance with the statutory procedure with their own self-government bodies, including executive bodies. The reform should help improve the lives of Ukrainian citizens, as well as build a legal, modern, efficient and, most importantly, competitive European state.

Taking Stock of Regional Democratic Trends in Asia and the Pacific Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The World

This GSoD In Focus Special Brief provides an overview of the state of democracy in Asia and the Pacific at the end of 2019, prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, and assesses some of the preliminary impacts that the pandemic has had on democracy in the region in 2020. Key fact and findings include: • Prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries across Asia and the Pacific faced a range of democratic challenges. Chief among these were continuing political fragility, violent conflict, recurrent military interference in the political sphere, enduring hybridity, deepening autocratization, creeping ethnonationalism, advancing populist leadership, democratic backsliding, shrinking civic space, the spread of disinformation, and weakened checks and balances. The crisis conditions engendered by the pandemic risk further entrenching and/or intensifying the negative democratic trends observable in the region prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. • Across the region, governments have been using the conditions created by the pandemic to expand executive power and restrict individual rights. Aspects of democratic practice that have been significantly impacted by anti-pandemic measures include the exercise of fundamental rights (notably freedom of assembly and free speech). Some countries have also seen deepened religious polarization and discrimination. Women, vulnerable groups, and ethnic and religious minorities have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic and discriminated against in the enforcement of lockdowns. There have been disruptions of electoral processes, increased state surveillance in some countries, and increased influence of the military. This is particularly concerning in new, fragile or backsliding democracies, which risk further eroding their already fragile democratic bases. • As in other regions, however, the pandemic has also led to a range of innovations and changes in the way democratic actors, such as parliaments, political parties, electoral commissions, civil society organizations and courts, conduct their work. In a number of countries, for example, government ministries, electoral commissions, legislators, health officials and civil society have developed innovative new online tools for keeping the public informed about national efforts to combat the pandemic. And some legislatures are figuring out new ways to hold government to account in the absence of real-time parliamentary meetings. • The consideration of political regime type in debates around ways of containing the pandemic also assumes particular relevance in Asia and the Pacific, a region that houses high-performing democracies, such as New Zealand and the Republic of Korea (South Korea), a mid-range performer (Taiwan), and also non-democratic regimes, such as China, Singapore and Viet Nam—all of which have, as of December 2020, among the lowest per capita deaths from COVID-19 in the world. While these countries have all so far managed to contain the virus with fewer fatalities than in the rest of the world, the authoritarian regimes have done so at a high human rights cost, whereas the democracies have done so while adhering to democratic principles, proving that the pandemic can effectively be fought through democratic means and does not necessarily require a trade off between public health and democracy. • The massive disruption induced by the pandemic can be an unparalleled opportunity for democratic learning, change and renovation in the region. Strengthening democratic institutions and processes across the region needs to go hand in hand with curbing the pandemic. Rebuilding societies and economic structures in its aftermath will likewise require strong, sustainable and healthy democracies, capable of tackling the gargantuan challenges ahead. The review of the state of democracy during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 uses qualitative analysis and data of events and trends in the region collected through International IDEA’s Global Monitor of COVID-19’s Impact on Democracy and Human Rights, an initiative co-funded by the European Union.

Beyond Colombia and Mérida

2019 ◽  
pp. 46-67
Author(s):  
Horace A. Bartilow
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Institutional Analysis ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Relative Power ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Drug Enforcement ◽  
Plan Colombia ◽  
Enforcement Policy ◽  
Heckman Selection

Plan Colombia and the Mérida Initiative case studies showed that corporate congressional lobbies not only shaped the militarization of foreign drug enforcement but also drove the federal government’s drug war expenditures. However, how generalizable are these finding beyond Colombia and Mexico? This chapter answers this question by first discussing theories of congressional lobbying and provides an institutional analysis of the relative power of corporations and civil society organizations in shaping U.S. drug enforcement policy. The hypotheses that emerge from these discussions are empirically tested using the Heckman selection estimator that analyze cross-national data of thirty-three corporations who were active in lobbying for drug enforcement in Colombia and Mexico, and eighty countries that were recipients of U.S. counternarcotic aid during the period 2003–12. The finding showed that increases in corporate congressional lobbying expenditures are associated with increases in counternarcotic aid flows to the eighty recipient countries in the data set and that the outcome observed in the Columbia and Mexico case studies are indeed generalizable.

Federal Arrangements and the Provision of Public Goods in India

Asian Survey ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pradeep Chhibber ◽  
Sandeep Shastri ◽  
Richard Sisson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
National Survey ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
The State ◽  
State Governments ◽  
National Governments

Current intellectual trends advocate devolution of authority from national governments to local governments and civil society, especially for the provision of public goods. This paper, based on a large national survey conducted in India, shows that most Indians still look to the state, and state governments in particular, to address the problems that they face.

scholarly journals Global Authenticity, Local Authority: Epistemic Power, Discursive Geographies, and the Creation of Civil Society Knowledge Networks

2021 ◽  
pp. 209-232
Author(s):  
E. Fouksman
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Knowledge Networks ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Creation

AbstractHow do networks of civil society organizations spread and contest ideas around the globe? This chapter focuses the ways practitioners within development-focused civil society organizations use spatial discursive practices to label, organize, defend, and undermine the spread and application of ideas. In particular, I look at the way members of civil society organizations defend and promote ideas as authentic and/or authoritative, navigating the need to have their knowledge and practices accepted both by beneficiaries and elite international epistemic communities. I draw on ethnographic fieldwork with two multi-sited case studies of civil society organizations, ranging from global foundations in the USA and Switzerland to their national and regional NGO partners in Kenya and Kyrgyzstan. Actors in both of these networks defend a varied array of ideas that underpin their ecological interventions through invocations of local particularity and global expertise. This chapter thus addresses the ways epistemic communities are formed and knowledge is produced and legitimized via discursive geographies and identities.

scholarly journals Strengthening Sub-national Systems for Area-wide Sanitation and Hygiene

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mimi Coultas
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Sanitation And Hygiene ◽  
Government Leadership ◽  
Practical Experiences ◽  
National Governments ◽  
National Systems

From late 2020 to early 2021, the Sanitation Learning Hub (SLH) collaborated with local government actors and development partners from three sub-national areas to explore ways of increasing local government leadership and prioritisation of sanitation and hygiene (S&H) to drive progress towards area-wide S&H. For some time, local government leadership has been recognised as key to ensuring sustainability and scale and it is an important component of the emerging use of systems strengthening approaches in the S&H sector. It is hoped that this work will provide practical experiences to contribute to this thinking. Case studies were developed to capture local government and development partners’ experiences supporting sub-national governments increase their leadership and prioritisation of S&H in Siaya County (Kenya, with UNICEF), Nyamagabe District (Rwanda, with WaterAid) and Moyo District (Uganda, with WSSCC), all of which have seen progress in recent years. The cases were then explored through three online workshops with staff from the local governments, central government ministries and development partners involved to review experiences and identify levers and blockages to change. This document presents key findings from this process.

ELITE STRATEGIES, CIVIL SOCIETY, AND SECTARIAN IDENTITIES IN POSTWAR LEBANON

2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 731-749 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janine A. Clark ◽  
Bassel F. Salloukh
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Recursive Relation ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethnic Identities

AbstractThis article explains the endurance of sectarian identities and modes of political mobilization in Lebanon after the civil war. This is done by examining three case studies that demonstrate a recursive relation between sectarian elites and civil society actors: on one side of this relation, sectarian elites pursue their political and socioeconomic interests at the expense of civil society organizations (CSOs); on the other side, civil society actors instrumentalize the sectarian political system and its resources to advance their own organizational or personal advantage. These mutually reinforcing dynamics enable sectarian elites to penetrate, besiege, or co-opt CSOs as well as to extend their clientelist networks to CSOs that should otherwise lead the effort to establish cross-sectarian ties and modes of political mobilization or that expressly seek to challenge the sectarian system. The article fills a gap in the literature on sectarianism in postwar Lebanon and helps explain a puzzle identified by Ashutosh Varshney in the theoretical debate on ethnic conflict, namely the reasons behind the “stickiness” of historically constructed ethnic identities.

scholarly journals The Impact of Governmental Policy on the Effective Operation of CSOs: A French Case Study

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damien Mourey ◽  
Philippe Eynaud ◽  
Carolyn Cordery
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Public Procurement ◽  
Public Funding ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
The Impact

AbstractWorldwide, civil society organizations (CSOs) are an integral component in the complex network that comprises the public sphere improving the welfare of our communities. In the second half of the twentieth century French CSOs’ contributions to their citizens’ welfare have become increasingly valued. Nevertheless, radical changes to employment policies during the Sarkozy regime (2007–2012) impacted social services to unemployed migrants. In addition, central government constrained local governments’ ability to fund social services, pushing a shift from a culture of “granting subsidies” to one based on “public procurement contracting” (Langlais 2008). These environmental changes are likely to transform CSO-government relationships.This research asks two questions: what is the impact of such radical changes and what possible responses can organizations make, if they are to survive? To answer these, we utilize a case study of a French CSO (Association), which is highly dependent on public funding to deliver its urban-based migrant programs. We utilize the lens of resource dependency, focusing on the interrelationships and interactions that impact CSOs’ legitimacy and support. Effects of the reforms include a change from relatively cooperative relationships with government to adversarial exchanges. Moreover, this CSO’s activities are apprehended by public funders as short-term single projects considered in isolation from one another so that its overall outcomes are not quantitatively measured. As a result, the CSO’s overarching and long-term social and economic contribution to the territory’s public sphere is in jeopardy.

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