Clear all

35 results found

reorder grid_view

Nations in Transit 2023: War Deepens a Regional Divide

May 24, 2023

In 2023, Democracy Scores declined in 11 out of the 29 countries in the report, and 7 countries earned improvements. Yet civic activists and democratic leaders continued to strive for better governance across the diverse region.Key Findings:For the 19th consecutive year, democratic governance suffered an overall decline in the region stretching from Central Europe to Central Asia.Democratic institutions stood strong in Ukraine but collapsed further in Russia.On illiberal populism, European Union member states pursued diverging paths.EU hopefuls made democratic progress, but still face daunting obstacles.Autocracies remained trapped in a vicious circle of repression and instability.

Opportunities and Challenges Facing Ukraine’s Democratic Transition

February 16, 2022

According to new polling by the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Ukrainians are steadfast in their commitment to their country's democratic future. 76 percent of respondents want Ukraine to become a fully functioning democracy,  with human rights protection, equal justice for all, freedom of speech and free and fair elections. Ukrainians want stability, security and peace. A strong majority of Ukrainians support a  European future: 58 percent of respondents said they want to see Ukraine become a member of the European Union; and 48 percent want to see Ukraine become a member of NATO. Russian military aggression is the biggest perceived threat: 60 percent of respondents said that it's a big threat to their way of life, followed by economic uncertainty at 57 percent. Nationally, 52 percent of respondents say that Ukraine is going in the wrong direction, significantly more than in July 2021 (46 percent). While demand for change and greater government accountability is high, Ukrainians respect the rule of law and expect their leaders to do the same: 89 percent of respondents believe that the President should always respect the rule of law when working to deliver results. The survey was designed and conducted by the National Democratic Institute in Ukraine. The fieldwork was conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology from December 1, 2021 to January 10, 2022, via face-to-face method with 6,232 completed interviews. The survey is nationally representative. Areas outside the control of the Ukrainian government were excluded. The average margin of error for the national sample is +/- 3%. The research is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Sweden, UK Aid and Global Affairs Canada

Making Peace in a time of political Conflicts

November 30, 2018

Experiences of working with grassroots peace structures to address electoral conflicts and violence in Kenya.

Stemming the Tide of Coastal Overfishing: Fish Forever Program Results 2012–2017

July 1, 2018

Fish Forever is the first global solution that brings together 30-plus years of Rare's experience in community empowerment, social marketing and behavior adoption with the technical, policy and financial skills needed to secure lasting results for people and nature.This report describes the results of 41 Fish Forever sites, representing over 250 communities across Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines. It is the first opportunity to analyze the past five years of design (2012–14) and implementation (2014–17). Using a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation protocol, the report synthesizes information from three country learning reports, 2,400 in-water surveys of coral reefs, 15,000 individual and household surveys, and the landing records from nearly 56,000 fishing trips — and represents the work of 70 Rare staff and 80 partner organizations who have committed the time of more than 557 global staff to this project.Ecological and social responses to three years of program implementation are promising, and importantly, results from the data infer that Fish Forever is working:* Ecologically, fish are recovering — fish biomass is increasing, both inside and outside no-take reserves;* Socially, communities are empowered — social resilience, pride and livelihoods are improving;* 51 legal and functional management bodies were established across the 41 sites;* 63 managed access areas were built or strengthened, encompassing nearly 600,000 hectares of coastal waters with 27,000 hectares secured in fully protected reserves; and* Strengthened policies and governance provide a clear path to scale.The initial implementation period has been an enormously valuable learning experience for Rare and our partners. This report is an opportunity to reflect on Fish Forever's impact and consider our work in the coming years.

Facilitating Financial Sustainability: Executive Summary

May 30, 2018

Financial sustainability remains a critical challenge for civil society organizations (CSOs) around the world. Although a variety of toolkits and research papers exist examining specific sustainability strategies, many CSOs continue to struggle to develop and maintain the resources they need to carry out their missions. This constraint limits organizational autonomy by inhibiting long-term planning and flexibility in designing and implementing activities. Financial sustainability is also a key piece of the puzzle to empower local organizations to take greater ownership of the development process, as a robust resource base provides the resilience needed for organizations to experiment with new models that reduce long-term donor dependence. This paper synthesizes the findings from the analyses of both funders and CSOs. This represents one part of the three-part FFS research series, and is best considered alongside the other two papers in the series to give a holistic perspective on CSO financial sustainability: Funder Approaches to CSO Sustainability, which includes a deep-dive analysis of the landscape of strategies used by funders interested in supporting sustainability, and Understanding Factors Driving CSO Financial Sustainability, which lays out the full findings from interviews with representatives from more than 30 CSOs.

The Regulatory Framework for Fundraising in Europe

November 1, 2017

This study compares the legal framework for fundraising in 16 European countries.The research focuses on the regulation of fundraising by CSOs, defined as soliciting voluntary philanthropic contributions from individuals, corporations and grant-making organizations.It examines options for both statutory regulation and self-regulation.It draws upon international legal instruments, country laws and regulations, articles and studies, and maps out a broad spectrum of issues affecting fundraising, from reporting requirements to penalties to restrictions on cross-border donations.It features case studies on Slovakia, the United Kingdom, and Spain, which provide concrete insights on the regulation of fundraising in countries from different regions and with different legal system and philanthropic cultures.The report covers 16 countries from all regions of Europe; 21 international and regional documents; 65 laws and regulations; 101 secondary resources; 30 links and websites; 3 case studies.This report is a first step towards further research to assess the impact and implementation of legislation and self-regulation fundraising. A summary is available: http://ecnl.org/publications/regulatory-framework-fundraising-europe/

Global Nutrition Report 2017: Nourishing the SDGs

October 1, 2017

A better nourished world is a better world. Yet the 2017 Global Nutrition Report shows that, despite the significant steps the world has taken towards improving nutrition and associated health burdens over recent decades, nutrition is still a large-scale and universal problem. Too many people are being left behind from the benefits of improved nutrition. Yet when we look at the wider context, the opportunity for change has never been greater. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by 193 countries in 2015, offer a tremendous window of opportunity to reverse or stop these trends.The 2017 Global Nutrition Report shows there are five core areas of development that run through the SDGs which nutrition can contribute to, and in turn, benefit from:sustainable food productioninfrastructurehealth systemsequity and inclusionpeace and stability.Through these areas, the report finds that improving nutrition can have a powerful multiplier effect across the SDGs. Indeed, it indicates that it will be a challenge to achieve any SDG without addressing nutrition. The report shows that there is an exciting opportunity to achieving global nutrition targets while catalysing other development goals through 'double duty' actions, which tackle more than one form of malnutrition at once. Likewise, potential 'triple duty actions', which tackle malnutrition and other development challenges, could yield multiple benefits across the SDGs.If readers take away one message from this report, it should be that ending malnutrition in all its forms will catalyse improved outcomes across the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The challenge is huge, but it is dwarfed by the opportunity.The 2016 Report was funded through the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition & Health, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, the European Commission, the Governments of Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands, Irish Aid, UK Department for International Development (DFID), US Agency for International Development (USAID), and 1,000 Days.The Report is delivered by an Independent Expert Group and guided at a strategic level by a Stakeholder Group, whose members also reviewed the Report. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) oversees the production and dissemination of the Report, with the support of a virtual Secretariat. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition managed the blind external review process for the Report, which was launched on June 14, 2016. Check our events page throughout the year for news on follow-up events.

Improving Water Security: A Process to Address "Too Little, Too Much, Too Dirty, Too Erratic"

September 15, 2017

The Sustainable Water Partnership is proud to present Toolkit #1, a resource for working to improve water security.  This is the first in a series of six toolkits which present an effective and efficient process to address water risks, including long-term water stresses that constrain social and economic development and sudden shocks that can quickly ruin the health and livelihoods of vulnerable populations. It provides a brief introduction to water security, as well as a detailed walkthrough of SWP's five-step Water Security Improvement (WSI) process.

A Ward-by-Ward Approach to Eliminating Open Defecation: Experience from Visakhapatnam, India

February 1, 2017

The Government of India launched the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) in 2014 with the ambitious aim to ensure hygiene, waste management and sanitation across the nation by the 150th anniversary of Gandhi's birth in October 2019. This document aims to build on existing knowledge by detailing how the challenge of achieving universal sanitation and Open Defecation Free (ODF) status has been approached by Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, presenting nine stepping stones which together constitute a pathway towards citywide ODF status.

Humid Tropical Forest Disturbance Alerts Using Landsat Data

March 2, 2016

Landsat represents the world's longest continuously acquired collection of space-based moderate-resolution land remote sensing data. Four decades of imagery provides a unique resource for those who work in agriculture, geology, forestry, regional planning, education, mapping, and global change research. Landsat images are also invaluable for emergency response and disaster relief. A Landsat-based humid tropical forest disturbance alert was implemented for Peru, the Republic of Congo and Kalimantan, Indonesia. Alerts were mapped on a weekly basis as new terrain-corrected Landsat 7 and 8 images weremade available; results are presented for all of 2014 and through September 2015. The three study areas represent different stages of the forest land use transition, with all featuring a variety of disturbance dynamics including logging, smallholder agriculture, and agroindustrial development. Results for Peru were formally validated and alerts found to have very high user's accuracies and moderately high producer's accuracies, indicating an appropriately conservative product suitable for supporting land management and enforcement activities. Complete pan-tropical coverage will be implemented during 2016 in support of the Global Forest Watch initiative. To date, Global Forest Watch produces annual global forest loss area estimates using a comparatively richer set of Landsat inputs. The alert product is presented as an interim update of forest disturbance events between comprehensive annual updates.

Our Strategy for 2016-2019

January 21, 2016

Act will continue to focus on capacity development- a core function of its development work, as well as strengthening partnerships with governments both at national and county level and with the private sector with a view of influencing policies and best practice to address development challenges in Kenya."The challenges and the changing global environment in which we operate calls for new ways of management and strong partnerships as alluded in the new plan. This strategy marks a major paradigm shift towards a more partner-centered approach as we seek to sharpen our development approach and better demonstrate the impact of our work", said Mr. Francis Aywa, Board Chairman, Act!.The key strategic priorities of the Plan include:Improved participation of citizens'-groups in governance processes in Kenya.Sustainable environmental and natural resources management and utilizationImproved coexistence and peaceful resolution of conflictEnhanced capacity of our partners to execute their mandateEnhanced organizational and financial sustainability.The meeting was attended by representatives from USAID, Royal Danish Embassy, French Development Agency and Ford Foundation.

Sustainability and Replicability of Multiple-Use Water Systems (MUS)

February 11, 2015

The concept of multiple-use water services and systems (MUS) has received increasingattention in international water and development fora and has emerged as a promising wayto enhance the social and gender equity and productivity of water systems designed forsingle use, e.g. for irrigation or water supply. In Nepal, several MUS models have beenpiloted and implemented for more than a decade by the International DevelopmentEnterprises (iDE) and a few other development organizations. Whereas the short-termbenefits of these systems on gender relationships, women's empowerment, nutrition andhealth have been documented, the sustainability and resilience of these systems has not yetbeen analyzed. The latter is the focus of the research study presented in this report, whichwas conducted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in Western Nepalas part of the USAID-funded Market Access and Water Technology for Women (MAWTW)project.