scholarly journals The Role of UNESCO in Contemporary Global Cultural Processes

Author(s):  
Lamia Askar Guliyeva

The article examines the role of UNESCO in the modern global cultural processes, with the specific focus on Azerbaijan. The mankind owes awakening of a genuine interest in key global problems of a new rank at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries primarily to the leading social structures. While the entire civil society of the world today is being challenged, it is gratifying to know that some structures accept and respond to such challenges. In our opinion, UNESCO, being a representative, authoritative, and prestigious organization, isthe most striking example ofsuch effective response. The paper examines the permanent public forums in the field ofscience, culture, and education that are directly supervised by the largest international non-governmental organizations, namely, UNESCO.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Adrian Ruprecht

Abstract This article explores the global spread of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement to colonial India. By looking at the Great Eastern Crisis (1875–78) and the intense public ferment the events in the Balkans created in Britain, Switzerland, Russia and India, this article illustrates how humanitarian ideas and practices, as well as institutional arrangements for the care for wounded soldiers, were appropriated and shared amongst the different religious internationals and pan-movements from the late 1870s onwards. The Great Eastern Crisis, this article contends, marks a global humanitarian moment. It transformed the initially mainly European and Christian Red Cross into a truly global movement that included non-sovereign colonial India and the Islamic religious international. Far from just being at the receiving end, non-European peoples were crucial in creating global and transnational humanitarianism, global civil society and the world of non-governmental organizations during the last third of the nineteenth century.


2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Albin

Abstract This special issue of International Negotiation explores from different perspectives how multilateral trade negotiations, primarily within the World Trade Organization (WTO), can become more effective. The challenges associated with this task have grown, as the parties and issues involved in such talks have increased in number and diversity. The specific topics addressed include the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and domestic-level factors, agenda management, legitimacy and procedural issues, turning points, the challenge posed by the pursuit of bilateral and regional alternatives, and the question of gains to be had from multilateralism. The conclusions drawn from these studies are wide-ranging and relevant for multilateral negotiations generally. They highlight, among other matters, the significance of decision-making procedures used in the negotiation process.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Berry

This paper presents basic empirical research about the role of religion and religious actors in the global politics of sustainability. Drawing on insights from three overlapping fields of study—environmental politics, religious transnationalism, and religion and ecology—this study analyzes data gathered through ethnographic interviews with representatives of religious non-governmental organizations at the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, known as Rio+20. These interviews asked respondents to discuss their understanding of the meaning, role, and position of religion within civil society efforts to address sustainability concerns. Content analysis of interview responses suggests that religious actors hold divergent views about the salience of religion to global sustainability politics. The central finding is that the boundary between religious and secular civil society groups is a permeable one.


1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 587-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus S. Schulz

This paper analyzes the dynamics of the Zapatista uprising with research tools inspired by recent social movement theory. It finds that the insurgent indigenous peasants of Chiapas rose up in arms under conditions of relative economic and political deprivation at a particularly opportune moment after developing a project of insurgency and acquiring significant organizational strength. Militarily, the Zapatistas would not have been able to hold out long against the overwhelming force of the federal army. But enormous media attention and massive national and international protest prevented the regime from military crackdowns. The Zapatistas' ability to link personal, organizational, and informational networks has helped to gain crucial support. Using globalized means of communication, they were able to disseminate their messages around the world where they touched a chord in the discourse of an incipient global civil society linked by non-governmental organizations, fax machines, and the internet.


MEST Journal ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-81
Author(s):  
Marek Stych ◽  
Beata Pawlica ◽  
Malgorzata Kmak

This article tackles the issue of aid for African states. Africa is one of the poorest continents, with many people living on the verge of poverty and suffering from malnutrition or famine. Hence, the humanitarian aid provided to the people of this continent is of particular importance. In Poland, such aid activities undertake entities defined in the Polish legal system as non-governmental organizations (NGOs). NGOs also conduct many other kinds of activities. The Act on public benefit and volunteer work is an example of creating legal mechanisms for the functioning of civil society in the legal system to provide international aid to those it needs. Assisting other societies is important for modern civil society the same as political or economic cooperations are. The role of NGOs operating in health protection, education, or entrepreneurship areas is crucially important. The authors of this paper discuss the issue of the said aid provided by selected Polish NGOs. The article aims to determine the extent and scope of the assistance to African countries provided by the NGOs, based on the respondents' experiences, whether such assistance is necessary, and what form it should take.


2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie A. Brand

One of the most important lessons development agencies claim to have learned over the past decades is that the absence of local participation at various stages of project planning and implementation leads to what at best can be termed “inferior results.”1 The conclusion that community participation is necessary (if not sufficient) for project success has developed concomitantly with the belief in the halls of power that the state is not the ideal executor of a variety of tasks previously deemed its proper realm. Both of these changes in development thinking converged in practical terms beginning in the 1980s in the emergence of a greater stress on the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Not only were NGOs and other civil-society actors (including the private sector) seen as untainted by the rent-seeking behavior attributed to state bureaucracies; they were also seen as products of more local or community-based and -interested organizing, a critical vehicle for local participation that so many development projects had lacked. Some of this literature also regarded such institutions as the forerunners of and central to democratic transitions.2


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Manal Farouk Sayed Ali

Although there are numerous definitions and theories of the concept of development, many developing countries continue to suffer from problems associated with lack of development and environmental degradation. It seems that states in developing countries are not effectively facing the increasing requirements for development. In response, institutions and organizations of civil society stepped-up to promote the realization of social development and self-reliance among the citizens. In consequence, the past twenty years witnessed the birth of many national and international non-governmental organizations which started to deliver social services to the population. However, and with reference to Egypt, conflicting opinions questioning the relationship between these organizations and the development of civil society have started to emerge. This paper attempts to investigate first the role of these societies in the development of civil society and review the controversy over this role. The attempt will also touch upon and evaluate several studies which relate to the role of these organizations in the development of civil society in Egypt.  


2017 ◽  
pp. 40-48
Author(s):  
Alla Kononenko

The article says that young people, starting with kindergarten, school, higher education institution, along with their mentor mentors, should deal with the issues of consolidation of Ukrainians. By the way, uniting Ukrainians, for whom the unresolved war with Russia is a big problem, there is a falsification of real facts in mass media, changing worldview, vital values and judgments is rather difficult. After the restoration of Ukraine's independence, the issue of the dissemination of truthful information about Ukraine and Ukrainians around the world became very relevant, which directly involves the Ukrainian Ukrainian Civic Congress (UCU), whose activities help to bring the full political, social, economic and other aspects to the Ukrainian and world community. the life of the Ukrainian diaspora and the Ukrainian state. I think that the most important thing in this issue is the formation of a national identity. I set myself before the goal to find out how the world can influence or help a person who does not realize which national group she belongs to. What does she know about her own historical territory, does she owns and uses the language of the state of Ukraine, which (its) citizen considers himself ... Not the formation of a national identity leads to a threat to the national security of the state - the layered society, the low level of culture and political culture (it prompts buckwheat), separatism intensifies, civil society is not seriously formed or in any way formed ... Returning to the main task of the UWC - the preservation of the national identity of Ukrainians, we must emphasize that this is the support and development of Ukrainian culture, the protection of the rights and interests of Ukrainians both in the diaspora and in Ukraine, the coordination of the international ties of their constituent organizations that support and develop Ukraine's national identity, spirituality, language, culture and heritage of Ukrainians around the world. The UWC assists in the development of public life of Ukrainians in the countries where they live, and also strengthens the positive attitude towards Ukrainians and the Ukrainian state and protects the rights of Ukrainians, regardless of their place of residence, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So the article is intended for educators in the first place. To sum up, it should be noted that the formation of a national identity is one of the main tasks of the Ukrainian state at the present stage. To implement it, it is necessary to actualize the efforts of educators of all levels and non-governmental organizations in the field of public and, above all, interethnic relations.


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