A new Members Forum discussion--Does Cultural Identity Lead to Violence?--has been posted on the dgCulture online community. This discussion is in response to the new book "Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny" by Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen who argues that people of the world can be partitioned into civilizational categories that can either reinforce their differences or contribute to mutual understanding of our shared identities that can lead to peace. Members of the Development G more...

Glenn Kessler - Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, May 19, 2006; Page A16:
Two federal judges in the past two weeks have ruled unconstitutional the government's policy of forcing U.S. health groups to denounce prostitution as a condition for receiving funds for international AIDS work.Both judges said the requirement violated the First Amendment right to free speech.

Twenty years after an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine unleashed one of the world's worst environmental disasters, the effects of radiation pollution on local populations continue to be felt. Despite a wide range of health problems, including high infant mortality and rising numbers of thyroid cancer cases, local citizens have little access to government information on the health and environmental impacts of the Chernobyl disaster, or of other polluting industries, says ARTICL more...

This is a web site for students, teachers, and others interested in the causes and consequences of prejudice. Its pages contain more than 2,000 links to prejudice-related resources, as well as searchable databases of researchers studying prejudice and of social justice organizations.

Broadcasthivcarib.org provides the latest information on the media response to HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean. This site is a product of an historic summit of Caribbean broadcasters, held May 8-10, 2006 in Barbados, at which executives from top media corporations joined in forming the Caribbean Broadcast Media Partnership on HIV/AIDS. The Partnership creates a structured framework for sharing information and resources among broadcasters that will significantly expand HIV/AIDS-related programming and more...

The directory of development organizations, listing 47.500 development organizations, has been prepared to facilitate international cooperation and knowledge sharing in development work, both among civil society organizations, research institutions, governments and the private sector. The directory aims to promote interaction and active partnerships among governments, private sector and key development organisations in civil society, including NGOs, trade unions, faith-based organizations, indig more...

El Centro para la Sociedad Civil de CompaЯeros de las AmИricas tiene el agrado de lanzar este nuevo libro denominado Integrando Ciudadanos en Presupuestos PЗblicos: Mecanismos para la PlaneaciСn de Presupuestos Transparentes y Participativos. Esta publicaciСn es una compilaciСn de estudio de casos del programa de subvenciones de ?Transparencia en las AmИricas?, que trabajС con diez organizaciones de sociedad civil de LatinoamИrica para implementar proyectos nuevos e innovadores con el p more...

The Center for Civil Society at Partners of the Americas has released a new book entitled Involving Citizens in Public Budgets: Mechanisms for Transparent and Participatory Budgeting. The publication is a compilation of case studies from the Transparency in the Americas grant program, which worked with ten Latin American civil society organizations to implement new and innovative projects aimed at opening public budgeting processes to citizen participation and creating mechanisms for greater bud more...

For the first time ever, a civil society organization hosts an open forum to discuss the right to access information. Hosted by the National Center for Peace and Development, members of acedemia, government, press and civil society discuss the relevance of this topic in the context of Sudan´s new found peace. The role of information to curb and prevent corruption play a central role in the discussions. Oct. 2005. PDF, 28 pp.

This paper by Philip Keefer, the World Bank Development Research Group, identifies for the first time systematic performance differences between younger and older democracies and argues that these are driven by the inability of political competitors to make credible pre-electoral promises to voters. Younger democracies are more corrupt; exhibit less rule of law, lower levels of bureaucratic quality and secondary school enrollment, and more restrictions on the media; and spend more on public inve more...