EconStor Collection:
https://hdl.handle.net/10419/44602
2024-03-28T12:36:02ZThe Great Green Wall: An overview and lessons learnt
https://hdl.handle.net/10419/265880
Title: The Great Green Wall: An overview and lessons learnt
Authors: Ladekjær Gravesen, Marie; Funder, Mikkel
Abstract: This DIIS Working Paper provides a broad overview of the Great Green Wall initiative to draw out lessons learnt from the first half of the programme. Overall, the authors find it unrealistic for the Great Green Wall to significantly alter root causes of migration and conflict in the Sahel region and the programme cannot be considered a nature-based solution (NbS) in its entirety. However, the paper recommends wider use of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria for NbS in the Great Green Wall's subprojects. This would ensure inclusion of stakeholders and expand consideration to rights and access when changes in tenure are implemented as part of tree planting. Collaboration with national level organisations, who understand contextualised livelihood vulnerabilities, is also recommended. Moreover, overall support to the GGW through the Global Environment Facility, the Green Climate Fund etc. should promote improved coordination of activities and consistent monitoring across partner countries and subprojects. More qualitative analyses of project site contexts should also be included among monitoring tools.2022-01-01T00:00:00ZFragile states: Analytically vacuous, politically useful
https://hdl.handle.net/10419/265883
Title: Fragile states: Analytically vacuous, politically useful
Authors: Clausen, Maria-Louise; Albrecht, Peter
Abstract: Why is it still relevant to probe the notion of fragility when the concept has been so heavily criticised? Because it continues to be used in policy on conflict, security and development. For example, the United Nations names fragility as a major challenge to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and a threat to global security. This working paper explores how the concept of fragility has evolved and been adapted since the inception of the failed state concept in the 1990s to the current focus on fragile situations. The paper then argues that this reflects the vacuous character of the concept, which makes it politically flexible rather than a precise diagnostic tool. It provides justifications for interventions that are often prioritised due to the impact of fragile states on 'our' (Western) security. We trace how this evolving understanding of fragility has been utilised in two cases, Somalia and Iraq, through the prism of security-related programming, often referred to as Security Sector Reform. We illustrate how the concept is applied to very diverse cases in ways that tend to prioritise the interests of the interveners over those of the people who are purportedly intervened on behalf of.2022-01-01T00:00:00ZWorldviews: Competing perceptions of the world
https://hdl.handle.net/10419/265884
Title: Worldviews: Competing perceptions of the world
Authors: Sheikh, Mona Kanwal
Abstract: In a DIIS Working Paper that summarizes earlier contributions, Mona Kanwal Sheikh describes the development in her work on worldview analysis. She has worked on two intertwined concepts and frameworks for thinking; first sociotheology (Juergensmeyer & Sheikh 2013) and secondly worldviews (Sheikh, 2018; Sheikh and Juergensmeyer 2019). While the first was initially an identification of a scholarly approach that integrates theology and social sciences, the second collaboration developed into a methodological elaboration of how scholars can embrace an insider-oriented understanding of how their religious research subjects view the world, published in the volume Entering Religious Minds - The Social Study of Worldviews (2019). The approach to worldview analysis outlined here is based on the dissolvement of dichotomies between inside-outside, mind-body, rationalities-emotions, and highlights the social dimension of worldviews and its significance for conflict analysis. The paper is part of the Worldview Initiative at DIIS coordinated collaboratively by Lars Erslev Andersen and Mona Kanwal Sheikh. It is part of a series of papers on the concept of worldviews, and among others based on a workshop with scholars and practitioners from the mediation field convened in collaboration with Harvard University.2022-01-01T00:00:00ZBelarus 2022: The "bridge" or the "corpse on the road" between Russia and Europe?
https://hdl.handle.net/10419/265887
Title: Belarus 2022: The "bridge" or the "corpse on the road" between Russia and Europe?
Authors: Dubinka-Hushcha, Lizaveta
Abstract: Domestic repression and external autonomy of Belarus have developed in cyclical patterns since its independence. The country's narrowed action space that followed its elections in August 2020 has affected, not least, the security situation in the Baltic Sea region. Relations between Minsk and Kyiv being crucial, war events in Ukraine in 2022 have significantly played into this already complex picture. Following this analysis, the paper delineates four major scenarios for developments in and around Belarus.2022-01-01T00:00:00Z