Progress and prospects on water: For a clean and healthy world with special focus on sanitation

Over 2,300 leaders in science, government and civil society from more than 130 countries and 200 collaborating organisations gathered at the 2008 World Water Week in Stockholm to chart the path forward for a world where crises and opportunities are converging. Billions suffer ill health due to lack of access to safe sanitation or clean drinking water while growing, richer populations mount pressure on stressed water resources and global food, finance and energy sectors are in turmoil. Under the theme “Progress and Prospects on Water – For a Clean and Healthy World with Special..

The 3rd International Seville Conference on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis (FTA). Impacts and Implications for Policy and Decision Making

Following the success of 2004 and 2006 events, the International Seville Conference on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis (FTA) has become a major occasion for FTA experts, practitioners and decision-makers to bring their ideas and knowledge together in a highly interactive environment. Building upon this experience, JRC-IPTS organises the 2008 FTA Conference with specific focus on the ¿impacts and implications of FTA for policy and decision making¿. As with previous FTA events, the 2008 Conference places emphasis on diversity of views by attracting participants from a wide geographical base. Academics, practitioners as well as public and private sector decision makers from Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America, Africa and Australasia are invited to broaden the network and to increase understanding of advances in the field of FTA. During the conference posters and papers will be presented within 5 different themes. This book of abstracts gives an overview of all paper abstracts and poster's brief that will be presented during, and will be used as a conference guide by participants of the conference.JRC.J.3-Knowledge for Growt

NGO Sustainability in Central Europe: Helping Civil Society Survive

This anthology of studies includes chapters with information on NGOs resource centres in Romania, rural NGOs in Ukraine, and cultural associations in Estonia. It also provided examples of sustainability mechanisms, such as the one percent philanthropic tax system and endowments in Poland, and the one percent tax system in Hungary

Assessing the EU’s ‘new approach’ to enlargement policy: The case of rule of law reform in Serbia

Rule of law is an important European Union (EU) principle. The EU aspires to promote it externally, particularly in the context of EU enlargement. In new Member States such as Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, problems with rule of law ‘backsliding’ indicate that the rule of law was poorly embedded during previous accessions. Consequently, the EU’s ‘new approach’ has made rule of law reform central to the accession processes of Candidate States in the Western Balkans. Despite this policy shift, it remains unclear whether this new approach supports the construction of both formal rule of law institutions and corresponding norms and practices, or whether formal compliance is decoupled from a change in practice. This thesis analyses the EU’s new approach and its capacity to enact change by focusing on rule of law reforms in the Candidate State of Serbia. This thesis addresses two research questions: What are the key logics, imaginaries and interactions driving the delivery of rule of law reforms in Serbia? How effective is the EU’s approach for ensuring the institutionalisation of the rule of law in practice? To answer these questions, this thesis adopts a Cultural Political Economy approach. It analyses how key actors interact, understand, interpret and construct rule of law reforms. This analysis demonstrates the multiple understandings of rule of law that emerge and draws attention to the different political visions these understandings represent. The central argument of the thesis is that while the EU’s new approach increasingly draws actors’ attention to rule of law issues, it remains driven by a strategic logic. This reinforces the reproduction as opposed to contextualisation of its rule of law criteria, generates contestation and reinforces existing power relations. This leads to the partial institutionalisation of the rule of law in practice, while simultaneously creating contestation and resistance to reforms