By Ingrid Srinath, CIVICUS Secretary General. Issued Date: e-CIVICUS 398, 16 July 2008 - When I was a teenager, in Mumbai, India, my parents hired a new maid. She was exactly the same age as I was, but unlike me, had never been to school. While I probably attributed my academic ‘success’ to my own hard work, and my parents probably believed they’d paid for it through theirs, the stark reality was that my education had been paid for by our new maid and her brothers and sisters all over India. Hundreds of millions whose life choices were limited virtually from birth by a deeply entrenched system of privilege that, for instance, granted me access to a subsidised education all the way up to the post-graduate level, while excluding her from even basic literacy.   more »

By Ingrid Srinath, CIVICUS Secretary General. Issued Date: e-CIVICUS 397, 9 July 2008 - This issue of e-CIVICUS goes to press as the G8 meeting winds down in Japan. The inclusion of the O5 countries as guests went some way towards redressing the melanin deficit in the club of the planet’s most powerful, but continued to present a chromosomally-challenged picture. It is no surprise therefore that the outcomes represent not simply lack of progress, but several steps backward on the issues that most affect the majority of civil society.   more »

By Ingrid Srinath, CIVICUS Secretary General. Issued Date: e-CIVICUS 396, 2 July 2008 - The crisis of democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe is a stark, ongoing reminder of the inadequacies of political leadership and civil society in Africa and around the world. While ordinary Zimbabweans fight a life and death struggle for their basic human rights and for their rights to democratic voice, the rest of us - politicians, civil society organisations and the media - seem to be able to do little more than wring our hands in despair and issue appeals for sanity and balance. Despite the clamour of voices seeking decisive action from African governments, especially in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, an ‘election’ that most people agree was an utter sham of democracy has been conducted and a victor declared with utter impunity.   more »

By Ingrid Srinath, CIVICUS Secretary General. Issued Date: e-CIVICUS 395, 27 June 2008 - The 8th CIVICUS World Assembly in Glasgow was, in my view, momentous in more ways than one. Marking the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the World Assembly provided a grim reminder of the growing threats to civil society globally, whilst simultaneously highlighting the opportunity to build partnerships and alliances of unprecedented width and depth.   more »

By Ashraf Patel, Independent Development Policy Analyst. As global leaders meet at the G-8 Sapparo in Japan this week, the spectre of super high food and fuel prices further blots an already gloomy economic outlook. This news is bound to burden Africa’s ‘development agenda’ at the G-8 which is already grappling with stalled trade talks, aid effectiveness, fighting HIV-Aids, meeting MDG ’s and expanding infrastructure development.   more »

By Renate Bloem, CIVICUS UN Representative in Geneva. The recent CIVICUS World Assembly promoted and discussed human rights, particularly reflecting on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also lent support to a campaign focusing on the realisation of the Declaration - “Every Human Has Rights” led by the influential group, the Council of Elders. These discussions led me to think more about how we can further promote and deepen civil society’s engagement with international human rights processes, such as those at the United Nations.   more »

By Archbishop Njongo Ndungane, President and Founder of African Monitor. The Group of Eight (G8) summit has come and like other previous summits gone. A lot of anticipation preceded this year’ summit against a backdrop of an escalation of the usual problems and new challenges bedeviling the world, particularly the African continent.   more »

By Tanzilya Salimdjanova, CIVICUS Civil Society Watch programme. "Our voice from our region is very weak because we do not unite. At the international level we try to work independently, focusing on our internal country issues, and ignoring the fact that we have a lot in common. We should develop a platform for our voices to be heard at the global level", says Anara Moldosheva, a gender expert from Kyrgyzstan.   more »