RE: What I wrote once ...

In south Sudan, as elsewhere in Africa, the Church is often seen as
'civil society, indeed at times to represent it. In Afghanistan, as in
Sri Lanka it seems, there is much rhetoric about the 're'(?) emergence
of civil society as a way of securing peace. Yet here in most areas of
the country this means older men whose views are seen to represent
others. Some support the Taliban and very few have any kind of
commitment to the principles of democracy that empowering them is
argued to do.

NGOs in Afghanistan are calling for more support, more funding to civil
society. Yet there is almost no real understanding of what impact this
has. The National solidarity programme, international funding through
the Govt to NGOs, claims to empower civil society and women (two
different things) yet there is no baseline by which to judge any
advance.

Empowerment (whatever that means) seems to neglect the issue of who is
being empowered and what impact that has on other dynamics, especially
at a local level. It also seems to assume that civil society is
homogonous where in reality it is usually polarised ethnically, in
class terms, occasionally (but increasingly rarely) in terms of
ideology which is not necessarily self interest.

I once wrote (but can't find) a piece on meaningless words used by
humanitarian agencies. Did I include Civil society? Probably.

Graham Wood

Humanitarian Consultant
Now in Afghanistan

==

In pre-Tsunami Sri Lanka civil society strengthening became a key
criteria for selection of projects by donors, this based on the
theories that a
peace dividend and increased social cohesion (another famous word here)
would
stabilize the peace process. This was despite the fact that the largest
and
most mobilized civil society groups, including Buddhist movements, were
continuously
demonstrating for a return to conflict.

One could still argue however that they were civil.

Vance Culbert