The Philanthropy Bridge Foundation - Concepts, Ideas and Projects

An overview of the Philanthropy Bridge Foundation

Central Asian integration as a way of guaranteeing regional security, economic growth, feasibility and prospects

Nowadays, CA countries are facing serious challenges. Their industries are slowly recovering from the disruption of “supplier-producer” ties among former Soviet republics and East European states. The transformation from centrally-planned economies into market oriented ones requires absolute reconsideration of political and economic values. The focus towards industrialization has been implemented. For instance, Uzbekistan is among the very few former USSR countries which have developed motor-car and aircraft industries. The textile industry is another sector which is currently experiencing a boom. Expansion of Turkish and South Korean businesses and inflow of substantial investments from these countries can be observed currently in several CA states. Financial inflows from these countries are directed towards motor-car and textile industries as well as hotel and tourist infrastructure. CA is a potentially good area for foreign investors. Besides the industrial sector, the financial sphere is another field where fruitful collaboration with foreign countries could take place. The financial system in most CA states is still restructuring and developing. Significant human resources and comparatively much lower wage rates and costs of production make CA attractive for investing. In order to attract foreign investments, a number of preconditions have to be met: - Political stability and security must be achieved; - Trade barriers should be removed; - Transportation infrastructure within the region needs to be improved. Achieving these points implies integration! Integrated CA is more likely to be able to cope with challenges of today’s insecure world. Moreover, integrated CA has better chances to assert its claims and interests, especially, CSR resources distribution, balancing interests of superpowers, and confronting external shocks and pressures. Adjacent to Russia, China, Iran, and Afghanistan, integrated CA states will be equipped with additional policy options due to its extremely important strategic location and geopolitical influence. Nowadays, the population of CA exceeds 60 million inhabitants. Abolishment of trade and tariff barriers will simplify labor mobility and free flow of capital. Since it represents vast markets, the region will be an extremely favorable environment for growth. Industries of consumer goods will have a boost. With influx of investments, textile and food industries, which are currently largely underdeveloped, will experience a continuous boom. Furthermore, these sectors also have considerable export potential, since, raw materials necessary for these industries are locally abundant. Over time, the abundance of cheaper labor resources will be a competitive advantage of CA industries compared to foreign producers. This might become the locomotive of integrated CA economy and will have profound effects, economic as well as social. The demographic profile of the CA area is unique with a high proportion of young people. Here, industrial development is crucial for eliminating the unemployment problem. Besides rich energy resources, the CA region also has plentiful ways to transport them, thanks to its strategic location: to China, to the sea (through Iran), to Turkey (through Caucasian states) and to Russia. This will make the region extremely important and powerful. The source of inter-ethnic conflicts is mainly rooted in social and economic hardships. Mostly, ethnic conflicts occur between indigenous populations and minorities. Sometimes, they are fueled by political reasons and inter-state disputes. Integration implies dissolution of such disputes. In fact, even historical evidence supports these ideas. During the Soviet period, all CA republics were part of single country. Back then, ethnic clashes were far less frequent than in the last 20 years. Between CA states, competition for the leadership in the region can be observed at present. This is a destabilizing factor, since outside powers frequently take advantage of such inter-state disagreements. Integration will prevent these trends and lead to one single powerful actor instead of several competing states. Some might argue that it is very unlikely for countries with different ethnic composition to integrate and actually the integration will intensify inter-ethnic tensions. But, there are examples of multi-ethnic states, such as Switzerland and Canada, which are quite successful and where various ethnic groups peacefully coexist and form single multi-ethnic society. One of the biggest fears among nations of CA is that they could lose their sovereignty through integration. They are afraid that one nation will dominate or even suppress the others. Nevertheless, the experience of European nations clearly demonstrated that such a situation can be avoided. Structure and system can be achieved if the principles of equality decision-making and benefits distribution are followed. The uniqueness of the European integration is characterized by the fact that smaller states are enabled to impose significant influence in decision-making and, subsequently, to enjoy significant benefits (Seidelmann 2004, p 3). Another good example would be the USA, where there is no “discrimination” among the states. The experience of European Union, which clearly demonstrated evident advantages of integration, might serve as an example and stimulus for the unification processes in the CA region in future

Measurement of the charged-pion polarisability

The COMPASS collaboration at CERN has investigated pion Compton scattering, $\pi^-\gamma\rightarrow \pi^-\gamma$, at centre-of-mass energy below 3.5 pion masses. The process is embedded in the reaction $\pi^-\mathrm{Ni}\rightarrow\pi^-\gamma\;\mathrm{Ni}$, which is initiated by 190\,GeV pions impinging on a nickel target. The exchange of quasi-real photons is selected by isolating the sharp Coulomb peak observed at smallest momentum transfers, $Q^2<0.0015$\,(GeV/$c$)$^2$. From a sample of 63\,000 events the pion electric polarisability is determined to be $\alpha_\pi\ =\ (\,2.0\ \pm\ 0.6_{\mbox{\scriptsize stat}}\ \pm\ 0.7_{\mbox{\scriptsize syst}}\,) \times 10^{-4}\,\mbox{fm}^3$under the assumption$\alpha_\pi=-\beta_\pi$, which relates the electric and magnetic dipole polarisabilities. It is the most precise measurement of this fundamental low-energy parameter of strong interaction, that has been addressed since long by various methods with conflicting outcomes. While this result is in tension with previous dedicated measurements, it is found in agreement with the expectation from chiral perturbation theory. An additional measurement replacing pions by muons, for which the cross-section behavior is unambigiously known, was performed for an independent estimate of the systematic uncertainty.Comment: Published version: 9 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

The institutionalization of the concept of corporate social responsibility : opportunities and prospects

Modern social and economic development in Russia requires active rethinking of ideas and views on formation and development process of the business in terms of implementation of the foundations of corporate social responsibility in its activities. The solution of the problem, in our opinion, is possible with the active introduction of institutional reforms into practice of business activities of socially responsible companies. In this regard, the present study proves the growing role of the institutionalization of the concept of corporate social responsibility, which, on the one hand, will allow achieving positive results in social and economic, organizational and business activities of modern market participants, and on the other, ensuring a significant increase in the efficiency of the economic order in the operation of such companies. The study identifies key institutional prerequisites of formation and development of socially responsible business behavior in the modern conditions of prosperity of the Russian Federation, including social partnership, social accountability, responsible financing, social expertise, etc. It is concluded that the institutional reforms in the field of business social responsibility must meet civilized business "rules of the game" . In the direction of orientation to facilitate the formation of the institute of corporate social responsibility (CSR), taking into account Russia's institutional specifics, it is found that review of the views of authorities is very important, because the institute CSR considers the necessary rules and regulations of social partnership, i.e. operation and development of cooperation between private, public and nonprofit sectors. They in their turn provide (produce) social orientation and/or orientation inside of the economic system for both the micro, meso and macro levels. The aim of this study is to substantiate the increasing role of institutional foundations of the formation and development of CSR in Russia and the development of tools to facilitate the institutionalization of the concept of socially responsible behavior of national business. Article is created by means of the system analysis tools.peer-reviewe

Corporate social responsibility, coexistence and contestation:large farms’ changing responsibilities vis-à-vis rural households in Russia

This article investigates the regionally varied changes in social support and responsibilities of large-scale farms vis-à-vis household plot holders and their rural communities in post-Soviet Russia. Ongoing marketisation puts pressure on the Soviet-inherited symbiosis between large farms and household plots. We observe that large farms’ shift to Anglophone-style, explicit Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) hides declining support for villagers and sometimes even dispossession. In the second of our two case studies, a less well-endowed region, the inherited symbiosis continues with modifications (“implicit CSR”) and helps sustain comparatively higher household plot production.</p

Central Asian integration as a way of guaranteeing regional security, economic growth, feasibility and prospects

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Transformation Processes of the Corporate Development in Russia: Social Responsibility Issues

The financial and economic crisis made visible the level of readiness to changes in the different types of organizations throughout the world and Russia. The variation of social and economic programs implemented by governmental and corporate sectors is widely seen; not all of them work positively for population, especially in the emerging markets countries. In the same time 20 years of the market economy in Russia, for instance, have definitely built a new social and economic system; but has Russia changed fundamentally in the management techniques? The presented paper generalizes some trends of the corporate development in Russia in the context of social responsibility and socio-economic transformation. The author attempts to define the place of Russia on the world map of corporate social responsibility. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York

Policy and Governance in Russia: Ideas and Discourses in Social Policymaking and Governance

The article focusses on policy ideas as explanatory variables for understanding policymaking and governance in Russia. Following Schmidt’s definition of the ideational process as a ‘discourse’ in which actors promote their preferred policy ideas in competition with their opponents, the article argues that in Russia the character of discourses varies between three state levels: the President, ministerial bureaucracy and the regional & local levels. This variegated landscape of policy discourses involves the intensive communicative discourse of the Russian President, which seeks legitimation of main policy approaches with the public and provides signals for the lower level officials. The middle level of policy bureaucracy is characterised by a vigorous coordinative discourse in which officials and non-state experts defend their ideas and seek agreement on policy details. Finally, at the local level political communication and technical coordination of policy ideas coexist and involve, apart from the officials and experts, members of the public. The benefit of the ideas-based perspective on policy and governance in Russia is that it allows not only tracing the origins and evolution of various policy initiatives, but also seeing the sources of presidential popularity and regime flexibility associated with the accommodation of different ideational positions. The argument is illustrated with examples of policymaking in the social sphere, the Maternity Capital programme and the Moscow programme of housing renovation.Non peer reviewe

Experimental and theoretical evidences for an intermediate σ\sigma-dressed dibaryon in the NN interaction

Numerous theoretical and experimental arguments are presented in favor of the generation of intermediate $\sigma$-dressed dibaryon in $NN$ interaction at intermediate and short distances. We argue that this intermediate dibaryon can be responsible for the strong intermediate-range attraction and the short-range repulsion in the $NN$ interaction, and also for the short-range correlations in nuclei. The suggested mechanism for the $\sigma$-dressing of the dibaryon is identical to that which explains the Roper resonance structure, its dominant decay modes and its extraordinary low mass. A similar transformation mechanism from the glue to the scalar field was discovered in $J/\Psi$ decays. The new experimental data on 2$\pi$-production in the scalar-isoscalar channel produced in $pn$- and $pd$-collisions and in particular the very recent data on $\gamma\gamma$ correlations in $p$C and $d$C scattering in the GeV region seems to corroborate the existence of the $\sigma$-dressed dibaryon in two- and three nucleon interactions.Comment: 14 pages,4 figure

EU - Russia relations: "try again, fail again, fail better"

This study argues that the security dimension - broadly defined to include both more traditional military security and “soft security” – of the EU-Russia relationship is becoming increasingly important. The relationship is of strategic significance for both sides, and some important progress has been made in establishing a closer bureaucratic relationship. There is, however, a tension between this progress and a series of differences on key political issues, including energy security and crisis management. Moreover, despite some improvements, there are problems in the decision-making structures on both sides that hinder the development of a positive practical relationship