Re-politicising South-South development cooperation: negotiating accountability at home and abroad

Accountability is a ubiquitous issue in international development cooperation. Development accountability means different things to different actors in the field and has been framed and negotiated in different ways. Governments and civil society groups in the South have historically played an important role in problematising development cooperation accountability, challenging ‘traditional’ donor priorities, ways of working and outcomes. In the 2010s—as Southern development providers grew in material, symbolic and political importance—accountability also emerged as a disputed issue within South-South development cooperation (SSC). This thesis follows a multi-sited and multi-scalar approach to understanding how accountability is being conceived and disputed in the field of SSC, in global and domestic arenas, using Brazil, China and India as paradigmatic sites for inquiry. The study examines how different forms of discursive problematisations of accountability in SSC—coming from different transnational and domestic stakeholders—interact with the politicisation of SSC at different scales, and generates new forms of accountability politics and new instances of negotiation of SSC by different actors. Assessing a kaleidoscopic and rapidly shifting landscape, this thesis shows instances where particular SSC accountability narratives and policy instruments are being generated and travelling across boundaries. It explores the kinds of sociopolitical disputes (development knowledges, geopolitical, bureaucratic and state-society relations) they create. Mapping, tracing and analysing contemporary forms of disputes over SSC accountability across scales and geographies, this study emphasises prevalent global development ‘measurementalities’ pushing Southern providers to craft alternative ways to measure (quantify and evaluate) their ‘development effort’; and the paradoxes counting and showing SSC create domestically. It also emphasises the materiality and thus political salience of certain SSC modalities, notably agricultural development and infrastructure building, as important drivers for other ongoing sociopolitical intermestic SSC accountability disputes in the three countries. Unpacking multiple global and domestic negotiations over responsibilities for doing development at home and abroad, this study offers a contribution to understanding the politicised consolidation of SSC in some of its emblematic protagonists. By doing so, it illuminates the shifting expectations of appropriate, good and just foreign policy and development cooperation in rising powers, like Brazil, China and India, in times of change

BLOCKZIEGELMAUERWERK UND VERBUND AN DER MÖRTELFUGE

Ako se pri izvedbi konstrukcijskog ziđa upotrebljevaju opečni zidni elementi s vertikalnim šupljinama i mort opće namjene, tijekom ispunjavanja sljubnica nastupa prodiranje morta u šupljine zidnog elementa. Otpornost pri posmiku određuje se na jednak način za ziđe od punih ili šupljih opečnih zidnih elemenata te stoga utjecaj međusobnog spoja zidnih elemenata i sljubnica morta nije uzet u obzir. Pomoću prostornih nelinearnih proračunskih modela i usporedbom s odzivom fizikalnih modela provjeren je utjecaj međusobnog spoja šupljih zidnih elemenata i sljubnica morta na posmičnu nosivost.If clay blocks with vertical voids and general-purpose mortar are used in masonry construction, interlocking will occur during placement of units and mortar. Shear strength of the clay block and solid brick masonry is usually determined in the same way, without taking interlocking into consideration. With interlocking, the tensile strength of clay blocks is reached before mortar bed joint sliding occurs. In order to consider the effect of interlocking in nonlinear analyses, three-dimensional design models were built and verified using physical model response. The shear resistance function was adopted to enable proper description of masonry response.Wenn für tragendes Mauerwerk Blockziegel und Allzweckmörtel verwendet werden, kommt es bei der Ausführung zur Verknüpfung von Ziegelsteinen und Mörtel. Der Schubwiderstand wird normalerweise gleicherweise für Mauerwerk aus Hohlziegel und für Vollsteinmauerwerk ermittelt, so dass Einflüsse der gegenseitigen Verbindung nicht berücksichtigt werden. Aufgrund der Verknüpfung wird der Zugwiderstand der Blockziegel erreicht, bevor der Schubwiderstand der Mörtelfuge ausgeschöpft ist. Um den Effekt der Wechselwirkung in nichtlinearen Analysen zu berücksichtigen, wurden dreidimensionale Berechnungsmodelle aufgestellt und aufgrund physischen Modellverhaltens verifiziert. Die Schubwiderstandsfunktion wurde eingeführt, um das Verhalten des Mauerwerks auf geeignete Weise darzustellen

VULNERABILIDADE ESCOLAR FRENTE A DESASTRES NO BRASIL

Este trabalho teve por objetivo apresentar um diagnóstico da situação de vulnerabilidade das escolas perante desastres socioambientais no Brasil. Foi possível identificar cinco tipologias principais de impacto: sobre a integridade física das pessoas, sobre a rotina da escola por mudança de uso e ocupação em situação de desastre, sobre a estrutura física do edifício, sobre os materiais e equipamentos escolares e sobre o exercício educativo propriamente dito. Por fim, ressalta-se que os formuladores de políticas e os gestores da área de gestão de riscos e de desastres precisam envolver o setor educativo na formulação de políticas para reduzir sua própria vulnerabilidade

Brazil's Engagement in International Development Cooperation: The State of the Debate

The international development cooperation architecture has changed dramatically over the last decade. The global context, characterised by a lingering financial crisis and the emergence of new powers, has brought South–South Development Cooperation (SSDC) to the core of international development debate. The growing influence of emerging countries, such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), as development cooperation providers requires a deeper understanding of how and to what extent these countries are promoting sustainable and inclusive development by cooperating with partners in the global South. To be able to answer these questions, the national dynamics need to be unpacked by mapping institutions, ideas, and interests informing decision-making processes, and shaping, not only policy priorities, but also the effectiveness of development cooperation. Brazil is in the spotlight and Brazilian cooperation, in all its different modalities (from technical, scientific and technological, educational, and humanitarian cooperation to contributions to international organisations, refugee support and protection, and peace operations), has risen to unprecedented levels in recent years. According to official data, Brazilian development cooperation increased from US$160 million in 2005 to more than US$900 million in 2010. In that period, the country’s technical cooperation disbursements grew almost fourfold and its humanitarian cooperation expanded from less than half a million dollars in 2005 to US$161 million in 2010. However, interviews and the current budget freeze on the Brazilian Cooperation Agency’s (ABC) activities indicate that the upward trend may have changed in the last three years.UK Department for International Developmen

Educação ambiental como política pública

A educação ambiental surge como uma das possíveis estratégias para o enfrentamento da crise civilizatória de dupla ordem, cultural e social. Sua perspectiva crítica e emancipatória visa à deflagração de processos nos quais a busca individual e coletiva por mudanças culturais e sociais estão dialeticamente indissociadas. A articulação de princípios de Estado e comunidade, sob a égide da comunidade, coloca o Estado como parceiro desta no processo de transformação do status quo situado, segundo Boaventura de Souza Santos, como um "novíssimo movimento social". A tal Estado cumpre o papel de fortalecer a sociedade civil como sede da superestrutura. No campo ambiental, o Estado tem crescido em termos de marcos regulatórios sem uma capacidade operacional que condiga com a demanda em vista da redução do Estado (década de 1990) e da ausência de reformas que não sejam a do Estado mínimo. À educação ambiental cumpre, portanto, contribuir com o processo dialético Estado-sociedade civil que possibilite uma definição das políticas públicas a partir do diálogo. Nesse sentido, a construção da educação ambiental como política pública, implementada pelo Ministério da Educação e Cultura (MEC) e pelo Ministério do Meio Ambiente (MMA), implica processos de intervenção direta, regulamentação e contratualismo que fortalecem a articulação de diferentes atores sociais (nos âmbitos formal e não formal da educação) e sua capacidade de desempenhar gestão territorial sustentável e educadora, formação de educadores ambientais, educomunicação socioambiental e outras estratégias que promovam a educação ambiental crítica e emancipatória. As políticas públicas em educação ambiental implicarão uma crescente capacidade do Estado de responder, ainda que com mínima intervenção direta, às demandas que surgem do conjunto articulado de instituições atuantes na educação ambiental crítica e emancipatória.Environmental education emerges as one of the possible strategies to face up to the double-order, cultural and social, civilization crisis. Its critical and emancipative perspective intends to trigger processes in which the individual and collective searches for cultural and social change are dialectically intertwined. The articulation of State and community principles, with the sanction of the community, establishes the State as the latter's partner in the process of transformation of the status quo referred to by Boaventura de Souza Santos as a "brand new social movement". Such State must play the role of strengthening civil society as the mainstay of superstructure. In the environmental field, the State has advanced in terms of regulatory marks without an operational capacity befitting the demand, owing to the reduction of the State (in the 1990s) and to the absence of reforms other than that of the minimal State. Environmental education must, therefore, contribute to a State-civil society dialectical process that allows the definition of public policies based on dialogue. In this sense, the construction of environmental education as a public policy implemented by the Ministry for Education and Culture (MEC) and by the Ministry for the Environment (MMA) includes processes of direct intervention, regulation and contractualism that strengthen the articulation of various social actors (in both formal and non-formal education contexts) and their ability to carry out sustainable and educative territorial management, training of environmental educators, socio-environmental educommunication, and other strategies that promote a critical and emancipative environmental education. The public policies in environmental education will require a growing capacity of the State to respond, even if with minimal direct intervention, to the demands emerging from the articulated set of institutions acting on the critical and emancipative environmental education