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The objective of this paper is to review and analyze the best practices in developing and implementing city strategies, particularly in lower-income environments. It reviews available evidence to formulate the list of basic criteria that good strategies should meet, discusses three key questions that city strategies should address, and suggests how the widely applied LED and CDS approaches can be improved in the future.

This paper argues that Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) can be understood as a technology of ‘social control’, which seeks to shape domestic political space. Despite widespread recognition that the World Bank and the IMF continue to impose orthodox policy conditions on debt relief and loans to African countries, many suggest the requirement in PRSPs for civil society ‘participation’ introduces a progressive element that could, in time, subvert the logic of coercion. In contrast, this paper suggests that it is precisely through participation that international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and bilateral donors are working with the IFIs** to secure ever more intimate supervision of African political communities. Thus, if the answer to Hanlon's (1991) rhetorical question ‘who calls the shots?’ under structural adjustment was ‘the IFIs’, the answer under PRSPs is ‘an uneasy coalition of NGOs, donors and the IFIs’. These groups share an agenda of securing consent to liberal systems of politica...

This article assesses the various accounts put forward to explain the disappointing outcomes thus far of ‘civil society participation’ in the design and implementation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (prsps) in aid-receiving countries throughout the world. While donors' technical and depoliticised explanations prove particularly unhelpful, other more radical perspectives, though insightful, often lack sufficient subtlety in their analyses. The article goes on to consider and critique commentators' various visions and prescriptions for prsp participation. Finding within participation aid's classic paradox—where it can work it is not needed and where it might be needed it cannot work—the article predicts a bleak future for prsp participation and argues that the project's failure may exacerbate the crisis of legitimacy faced by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, a crisis that led these organisations to launch the prsp initiative in the first place.

Management of pandemic influenza relies on complex coordination of many different dimensions of the health and social care systems, emergency services, levels of national and local government, civil society, communications and media, and cultural expectations. Law is one small but important component of those arrangements, which touch on fundamental ethical debates. This review demonstrates that the Asian region is actively engaging those issues in diverse ways in light of their varied socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, but scope remains for prioritising further research into these relationships.

What will the “data revolution” do? What will it be about? What will it count? What kinds of risks and harms might it bring? Whom and what will it serve? And who will get to decide? This brief discussion paper is intended to advance thinking and action around civil society engagement with the data revolution. It looks beyond the disclosure of existing information, towards more ambitious and substantive forms of democratic engagement with data infrastructures. It concludes with a series of questions for discussion about what practical steps institutions and civil society organisations might take to change what is measured and how, and how these measurements are put to work.

This Issues Paper, requested by the former Ministry of Water Resources Development and Management as a recommendation of the National Water Policy (NWP), will contribute to the National Climate Change Response Strategy (NCCRS) by examining opportunities for adaptation to climate change in the water resources sector, using both structural and non-structural measures. It uses models to provide preliminary estimates of the possible impacts of climate change in 2050 and 2080 on these water resources. A number of opportunities to adapt to these impacts are discussed. Many of these adaptation opportunities constitute no-regrets actions, in that they are actions that are worth undertaking in their own right, irrespective of the severity of impacts from climate change.

Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore. By Jothie Rajah. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012. 352 pp. $29.99 paper.Despite its status as one of the most dynamic global economies that is buttressed by a sizeable educated middle class, Singapore has remained a one-party-dominant authoritarian state governed by the People's Action Party (PAP) since 1959. The city-state's authoritarian longevity stands in stark contrast to other comparable developmental states in East Asia, such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, whose democratic trajectories have conformed to the modernization theory of political development. Not surprisingly, the city-state has become a popular destination for senior state functionaries from authoritarian regimes in China, Vietnam, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe eager to emulate the institutional and ideational components of the Singaporean political and economic model.Instructively, many critical scholarly works that have interrogated the Singapore governance model have been written and published beyond its borders. In this mold, Jothie Rajah's Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore adds to the growing list of penetrating works on Singapore's authoritarian governance written by Singaporean scholars based overseas. In the preface, Rajah frankly acknowledges the intellectual benefit of writing about Singapore from distant shores: "I have found it invaluable to exit the ideological fortress that Singapore can sometimes be in order to peel off, layer by layer, some of the assumptions embedded in Singapore speak-assumptions that have, until recently, been invisible to me" (xv).The book focuses on the way the Singaporean state has manipulated the "rule of law" while dismantling the constitutional and civil rights of its citizens through "rule by law" processes. Rajah asserts that the law has been pivotal in legitimizing and consolidating the authoritarian state while subverting the dispersal of power that is inherent in plural democracies. In other words, the "rule of law" has served as a "crucial prop" for the authoritarian state (284). Legislative initiatives have undermined opposition parties (Chapter 3), dismantled the independent press (Chapter 4), and stunted the development of an autonomous civil society (Chapters 5, 6, and 7). These claims, in effect, challenge the veracity of ratings agencies and organizations such as the World Bank Report of Governance, IMD World Competitiveness Report, Transparency International Corruption Perception Index and the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report and expose their uncritical endorsement of the PAP government's "rule of law" claims. These "rule of law" claims are largely restricted to matters pertaining to foreign investment, trade, and the economy, supporting Singapore's reputation as a regional economic hub and commercial center. …

The unravelling of the human genetic code whose first draft was announced in June 2000 has rightly blood been hailed as a momentous achievement, opening thc book of life, certain to be the dominant technology of the 21st century, which will inform all about medicine and biology. and lead us to a total understanding of life. Simultaneously, concerns have been expressed about thc implications of this work. In the past, major new technologies have been used intensively for hostile purposes. What is thc challenge that biotechnology poses in this regard'? This review paper looks at the enormous changes in civil society that thc genomics revolution could bring. Against this background, thc growing concerns about its potential misuses have been reviewed. Thc strengths and weaknesses or the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) are then touched upon. The BTWC presently lacks an adequate verification mechanism. Although biotechnology has been used by human beings since prehistoric times (eg. making of bread. cheese. wines) its scientific understanding came only in the latter part of the 19th century. Thc decisive turning point in the field came in the 1970s with the advent of genetic engineering. In the military context classical agents like anthrax and toxin remain the threat today. Although thc current level or sophistication for many biological agents is low, there is enormous potential for making more sophisticated weapons. It might be possible to specifically target the genetic makeup of different ethnic groups. The limited varieties of staple crops and the limited strains of modern animals make agriculture particularly open to attack. Another serious possibility is the impact of genomics in neuroscience. With a better understanding of cellular receptor systems and bioregulators, it is not inconceivable that new means would be evolved for disturbing the functions of the nervous system. Thc genomics revolution can be used for peaceful purposes. However, a key requirement is the political will to bring into force a Protocol to strengthen thc BTWC.

This concise and accessible introduction to the subject of Islamist movements in Egypt will be useful for those seeking a point of entry. More experienced students of the subject, however, may not find much new empirical material in this book. They may also disagree with the authors' reliance on the civil-society interpretive paradigm to the exclusion of other approaches and their sometimes schematic treatment of Islamist groups.

Anne Marie Goetz and Shireen Hassim, eds. No Shortcuts to Power African Women in Politics and Policy Making. London: Zed Books, 2003. ix + 239 pp. Notes. References. Index. $31.95. Paper. Goetz and Hassim provide a significant contribution to theorizing about women and political parties in Africa, and they offer useful guidance to feminist activists by combining analytical analysis with clear case studies of what has worked and what has failed. They place their work within the current move in feminist scholarship from analyzing women's activism in democratic transitions to examining women's capacity to push a gender equity agenda once they are in office. They specifically reject the "antipolitical" focus of much policy research, which concentrates on bureaucratic gender machinery as the significant mechanism for advancing feminist goals. As they argue, gender machinery can easily become an underfunded dead end for activists, who find themselves far from the centers of party and parliamentary power. Goetz and Hassim, along with the other authors in this book, seek instead to look at the politics in parties and parliaments and local councils, hoping to promote more analysis of how women "can enter and make an impact in the key institutions of representative democracy" (12). The book focuses on Uganda and South Africa, current "trailblazers" in bringing greater numbers of women into formal politics, but it goes well beyond the specifics of those countries. Introductory chapters by the editors provide analytical overviews, and succeeding pairs of chapters on Uganda and South Africa provide case studies of attempts to advance gender equity in national and local government. The overview chapters succinctly synthesize current scholarship on women's activism in "new democracies," and provide a sophisticated and nuanced analytical frame for future comparative work on possibilities "for the entry of feminists into politics" (8; authors' emphasis). They distinguish "descriptive" representation (counting women) from "substantive" representation (a significant presence of active feminists), considering the former necessary but insufficient. They examine issues of access, influence, "voice," and accountability, and they evaluate the different mechanisms to guarantee women significant power and influence. On the basis of original empirical work and reference to existing scholarship, the authors identify four key variables for the success of gender equity agendas: formal party commitment to gender equity, strong left parties, the organization of women's structures within parties, and the continuing presence of a strong women's movement outside parties-which requires a political space for civil society organizations outside the control of a dominant party. …

Since the 1990s the literature on CSR has given extensive framework of theories and illustrated various implications of CSR practices. Both the government and business/market have participated in developing CSR products, including sustainability programs. However due to a variety of economic, social and political factors there are certain limitations which constraint business-society-government relationship. In the last decade social scientists have advocated a concept of social enterprise as a potentially viable alternative to the government and market failures. The notion of social enterprise as it developed in the recent times has demonstrated a significant scope for innovations in products, services and process. In this sense social enterprise as an alternative conception has highlighted the need for social innovations in the decentralized process of economic and social governance. This paper briefly provides an overview of the concepts, practices, together with illustrations of innovations in CSR by corporations as also innovations by civil society organizations. Towards the end in place of conclusion the paper reflects on future directions.

Violent conflict is the multifaceted and cyclical problem that the international community is trying to grapple with. To date, there has been a clear hierarchy concerning what forms of violence are seen to matter most, with political violence that threatens the state taking pole position. In examining this argument, this paper sets out a number of issues relating to security and justice definitions. It will then examine some of the problems associated with placing conflict into a box-set typology: mass violence associated with war and genocide carries unique features but also spawns new challenges which are often being ignored. The paper will then examine in brief some of the measures used by communities, governmental actors and international partners in contending with violence before outlining some key conclusions and recommendations. In reading this paper two further points need be borne in mind: 1) this does not provide a comprehensive overview of violence and security - that is the role of the World Development Report (WDR) itself, and 2) this paper does not present fresh research, but more an overview, along with the other papers in the security-justice series, of some of the key issues confronting policy makers in the domain of security and development.

If horizontal inequalities (HIs) are a source of conflict (Stewart 2008), what should be the policy response? In this chapter I argue that the risks of conflict can be reduced by addressing and reducing HIs through appropriate economic, social and governance policies.1 The chapter reviews the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) as a policy vehicle that could achieve these objectives and examines the cases of Haiti, Liberia and Nepal, countries characterized by high levels of HI that have also experienced protracted conflict in recent decades. The next section outlines relevant development policies for correcting HIs. Section 4.3 presents the three country cases. Section 4.4 contrasts the ways in which HIs have been addressed in post-conflict PRSPs, and identifies some key constraints. The final section draws lessons from these country cases to identify some key policy issues concerning PRSPs as a policy vehicle that involves not only national governments, but also donors and civil society, as stakeholders in a coordinated development strategy.