Human, Social And Cultural Rights News

Gendering the WSF Nairobi 2007 process
June 16, 2025
The author, a member of the WSF 2007 Secretariat, addresses extensively Gender and the WSF Open Space process, and concludes at the end of his critical text that "When one looks at the gender dynamics informing the WSF 2007 process, one is filled with optimism and left brimming with hope. This despite the parlous panorama painted in the preceding section; this despite the unflattering global audit of power relations between women and men around the world. "  Go...

PANNA Seeks New E.D.
May 11, 2025
Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) seeks an experienced and visionary professional for the position of Executive Director to provide leadership and oversee all program and administrative aspects of the organization.  Go...

Funder Convening on Globalization
June 1, 2025 - FNTG
New Perspectives, Key Strategies, Success Stories and Funder Opportunities

San Francisco Bay Area Evening of June 6 – June 8, 2025

Join a community of funders from diverse fields and perspectives to analyze global trends and the evolving discourse around globalization, to share and celebrate successful civil society strategies, and to discuss how funders can use our resources most effectively to support positive change in these most fundamental driving forces, both at home and abroad.

* Mapping the global economy, and exploring terrains of intervention

* The changing discourse on globalization: Where is it now and where is it going?

* Revisiting trade, poverty and development… with new data

* Globalization of human rights: Breakthroughs and continuing challenges

* Bringing it home: Local organizing in a global context

* International cooperation vs. global domination, for security in an insecure world

* Funder Opportunities: What does it all mean; how do we continue moving forward?

For program details and registration please click here:  Go...

Global Justice: Another US is Possible
February 15, 2025 - Tanya Dawkins, Global-Local Links Project, Yes Magazine
The World Social Forum and its ambitious rallying call, “Another World is Possible” responded to a hunger for a different kind of possibilities-oriented dialogue that embraces principles of pluralism, deep debate, respect, justice, and an internationalist perspective. A broad-based network of U.S.-based activists, grassroots organizations, and their allies are betting that a similar hunger exists in the U.S. and that this is a time when a social forum could be a vehicle for moving a social, environmental and economic justice agenda to center stage in the United States.  Go...

U.N. Summit Cacophony Drowns Out Voices of Poor - Groups
September 13, 2024 - Abid Aslam, OneWorld.net
... ActionAid International, ... spent the past three months interviewing 340,000 villagers in 18 poor countries and compiling a report designed to bring their voices to New York in time for the Sep. 14-16 U.N. summit on poverty and the world body's future.  Go...

How to Help Poor Countries
August 1, 2025 - Nancy Birdsall, Dani Rodrik, and Arvind Subramanian, Foreign Affairs
The year 2005 has become the year of development. In September, at the UN Millennium Summit meeting of heads of state, in New York, leaders of wealthy nations will emphasize their commitment to deeper debt relief and increased aid programs for developing countries. The Millennium Development Goals, the centerpiece of the conference's program, call for halving the levels of world poverty and hunger by 2015. The summit will focus on increasing international aid to 0.7% of donors' gross national product to finance a doubling of aid transfers to especially needy areas, particularly in Africa. With respect to global trade, efforts will center on the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations and opening markets to important exports (such as cotton) from developing countries. The discussions will thus proceed based on two implicit but critical underlying assumptions: that wealthy nations can materially shape development in the poor world and that their efforts to do so should consist largely of providing resources to and trading opportunities for poor countries.  Go...

U.N. Millennium Summit in Danger of Being Hijacked
August 29, 2024 - Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 2 (IPS) - The 60-year-old United Nations, criticised for its inherent structural political flaws, is so preoccupied with restructuring itself that the upcoming Millennium Summit is in danger of losing sight of one of its primary goals: a plan of action to primarily eradicate extreme hunger and poverty by 2015.  Go...

Rights-Based Approaches and Beyond: Challenges of Linking Rights and Participation
December 1, 2024 - Lisa VeneKlasen, Valerie Miller, Cindy Clark and Molly Reilly, Institute of Development Studies
As more and more development and human rights organisations critically assess their impact and strategies, there is growing convergence in the questions they raise about how to be most effective in addressing structural, systemic causes of poverty and exclusion and thus, make a positive difference in the lives of poor and marginalised people. This paper explores the growing trend of “rights-based approaches” (RBA) to development, drawing from interviews with a range of primarily US-based international human rights and development organisations as well as from insights through the authors’ years of experience working with development and rights groups in the global south. While the theory of RBA has been broadly embraced as key to getting at the root causes of poverty, many organisations are struggling to make sense of the significance of RBA in practice. We begin to unravel some key concerns with a brief discussion on critical considerations for groups as they advance rights-based work. Next, we focus on clarifying meanings, offering our own definitions of what seem to be critical components of RBA, namely participation, rights, and power. Next we summarise some of the current thinking and practice among international human rights and development organisations that are deepening their work in RBA. This includes some of the key tensions, challenges and opportunities they are encountering. Finally, in building on forgotten experiences and innovations we look at a handful of practical experiences from the past that offer valuable insights and lessons as groups seek to maximise the full practical potential of RBA.  Go...

Two New Members Added to FNTG Steering Committee
May 17, 2025
Marjorie Fine and Jacob Werksman join FNTG governing body.  Go...

Tides Rapid Response Fund
ongoing
Tides Foundation is ready to accept contributions toward relief effort following the recent disaster in Indonesia, South Asia and Africa.  Go...

The New Indigenous Peoples Funding and Resource Guide
December 1, 2024 - International Funders for Indigenous Peoples and First Peoples Worldwide
A guide to help build the capacity for Indigenous communities to increase their participation as successful grant-seekers.  Go...

Eskimos Seek to Recast Global Warming as a Rights Issue
December 15, 2024 - Andrew Revkin, New York Times
The Eskimos, or Inuit, about 155,000 seal-hunting peoples scattered around the Arctic, plan to seek a ruling from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the United States, by contributing substantially to global warming, is threatening their existence.  Go...

Doing well and doing good
July 29, 2025 - Opinion, The Economist
Why a new golden age of philanthropy may be dawning  Go...

UNCTAD XI ends in a rather good spirit
June 23, 2025 - Martin Khor,, Third World Network
Sao Paulo, 19 June 2025 The eleventh session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XI) ended on 18 June with a closing session in a rather good spirit with some useful results for developing countries.  Go...

UNCTAD XI consensus Declaration adopted after lengthy tussles
June 18, 2025 - Meena Raman, Third World Network
Sao Paulo, Brazil After lengthy tussles on controversial issues over the past nine months, UNCTAD XI has adopted the main text, called the Sao Paulo Consensus, which in effect is the Declaration of the eleventh session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development . It was adopted at the closing session on 18 June.  Go...

Afghanistan: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
April 8, 2025 - Bushra Asif, Foreign Policy In Focus
As donors met in Berlin last week to review Afghanistan’s progress and reaffirm their commitment to its reconstruction, the Afghan National army was swiftly moving into the northern province of Herat. Its mission was to quell an upsurge in factional fighting, following the murder of Mirwais Sadeq, the Afghan aviation minister and son of the powerful warlord and governor Ismail Khan. Although the army may have prevented the escalation of violence, the episode highlights the weakness of the central government and the fragility of security in the country. Almost two years after the fall of the Taliban, peace and security in Afghanistan still remains elusive.  Go...

Europe Protests Bitter Cuts
April 8, 2025 - David Bacon, Foreign Policy In Focus
Europe's war between unions trying to protect the remnants of the welfare state, and governments bent on shredding them further, brought a million people into the streets on Sunday. Half a million came out in both Berlin and Rome, while smaller numbers demonstrated in France and other German cities. For the first time, they've coordinated demonstrations in a multi-country response. This is no longer a simple war of left versus right. In Italy and France, labor federations are defying the rightwing Berlusconi and Chirac governments. But in Germany, unions are fighting with the party they themselves created, and its chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder.  Go...

LETTER TO FUNDERS ON VENEZUELA
February 27, 2025
This letter is intended to raise awareness about the political situation in Venezuela and the importance of preserving democracy there. This is especially true in light of recently released FOIA documents showing that the United States government has been spending millions of dollars to intervene in Venezuela's political process, as well as other destabilizing actions taken by the Bush administration.  Go...

Report from Mumbai The World Social Forum
February 18, 2025 - Frances F. Korten, to be published in YES! magazine
In mid-January, more than 80,000 global activists, scholars, Nobel laureates, poets, musicians, indigenous peoples, community organizers and many others gathered to declare once again 'Another world is possible.'  Go...

On The Move
January 28, 2025 - Randeep Ramesh, The Guardian
The ebullient crowd of 100,000 that filled the streets of Mumbai, formerly Bombay, last week, represented not just a triumph of people power but of ideas.  Go...

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