Voluntary Citizen or Civil Society Sector

Introduction

VIKSAT (Vikram Sarabhai Centre for Development Interaction), established in 1977, is an activity of the Nehru Foundation for Development (NFD), Ahmedabad. VIKSAT, engaged in promotion of participatory management of natural resources, believes that the goal of sustainability in natural resources development and management can be achieved only through decisive participation of the local communities aided by an enabling role of the government agencies.

VIKSAT is looking for Field Coordinator for its Radhanpur Field Office, in Patan District of Gujarat.

Digital Green (DG) is an international, non-profit development organization that builds and deploys information and communication technology to amplify the effectiveness of development efforts to affect sustained, social change. The Digital Green system combines technology and social organization to improve the cost-effectiveness and broaden the community participation in existing best practices.

This pan-Indian outreach effort involved dialogues with tens of thousands of citizens, demanding that the nation should devote urgent attention to the continuing agricultural crisis and allocate highest priority to the agriculture sector, ending decades of neglect.

The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) is a joint initiative of l’Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International, the Global Environment Facility, the Government of Japan, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the World Bank. A fundamental goal is to ensure civil society is engaged in biodiversity conservation. CEPF provides strategic assistance to NGOs, community groups and other civil society partners to help safeguard biodiversity hotspots. This conservation investment is guided by region-specific investment strategies, developed with inputs and in consultation with diverse stakeholders. The Ecosystem Profile for the Western Ghats was developed by conservation and scientific institutions, with inputs from civil society, to guide the strategic and catalytic conservation investment in the Western Ghats.

Open Space, the civil society and youth outreach programme of  the Centre for Communication and Development Studies (CCDS), Pune, engages with citizens – especially young citizens - on contemporary social, economic and cultural issues through film screenings, performances, literary readings, music concerts, art, storytelling, capacity-building workshops, discussion and study forums, public lectures, youth festivals and campaigns. Open Space aims to be a vibrant place for youth to volunteer, learn, share ideas, and express themselves. Equally, Open Space supports CSOs and citizens to take their work/ideas/processes to a wide audience of concerned citizens, and also to build action networks.

Sanitation in Women’s Hands

Women in the villages of Chhattisgarh, India have banded together to bring some decent sanitation facilities in their homes—something which has been missing in their lives for a very long time.

 Most of the people threatened to be displaced cannot be relocated until their rights over forestland are recognized under the Forest Rights Act. How did the Andhra Pradesh government meet this immense challenge? It quietly told the Union environment and forests ministry that all claims have been settled.

The ministry gave forest clearance to the project last year. Now over 50 villages have written to the ministry, saying their forest rights have not been settled. Richard Mahapatra visited the villages and found the state had indeed lied.

Following similar complaints, the ministry had scrapped Vedanta’s proposal to mine Niyamgiri hills and withheld forest clearance to the POSCO steel plant in Odisha. Will it apply the same yardstick to Polavaram?

Residents of Teladibbalu did not know they had forest rights. The village is in the dam’s submergence zone and accessible only by boat. (Photo: G Srinivas).