Poverty is widely conceived to be the largest moral and economic challenge of this century, and thus it comes as no surprise that the first Millennium Development Goal attempts to tackle the issue of poverty eradication. One increasingly significant instrument of poverty alleviation and community development is that of microcredit and microsavings, popularized by Professor Muhammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank.
However in Indonesia alone over half of the national population live on -or under- a mere US 2% daily.The successful establishment of microfinance institutions in the Muslim world could prove to be a valuable asset in the fight against poverty. However, an additional obstacle is posed by Islamic shariah which challenges conventional banking principles, mandating and promoting its own Islamic banking principles instead.
In this paper, the main question that will be addressed is whether the application of Islamic banking principles to microfinance in Indonesia has been more beneficial in promoting economic growth among the Muslim poor than conventional microfinance practices. And further, what this application can imply for the rest of the Muslim world.
Author:Amina Samy
Allah and Micro-Finance? Investigating Islamic Banking Principles in Indonesia's Microfinance Sector, and its Potential for Economic Empowerment (555)
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Allah and Micro-Finance? Investigating Islamic Banking Principles in Indonesia’s Microfinance Sector, and its Potential for Economic Empowerment
Burnt Out Borneo
One of our nearest biological relatives, the Orang-utan, is facing extinction because of deforestation taking place to make way for palm oil plantations. Recent Greenpeace analysis and investigations confirm that expansion in these plantations is having a serious impact on the Orang-utans habitat.
Kate Leslie investigates how palm oil concessions are destroying the Orang-utans habitat and causing climate change.
Featured Projects
The Learn Africa Project: Public Health, Applied Learning and Research Internship
Trevor Mattos is a Pike Scholar at Gordon College, Massachusetts. Earlier this year he and a colleague Miranda MacKinnon travelled to Togo, West Africa to direct a Development and Public Health project that had been planned since the previous year.
This project report details the establishment of the ‘The Learn Africa Project’ and highlights some of the challenges and planning required in establishing a community development and public health project from the base up in a Developing Country. It also highlights the principle research undertaken in preparation for the estabishment of the project.
Report Author: Trevor Mattos
Demographic Dimensions and their Implications on the Incidence of Street Begging in Urban Areas of Central Tanzania: The Case of Dodoma and Singida Municipalities
This study explores the implications of demographic dimensions on the incidence of street begging in urban areas of central Tanzania with Dodoma and Singida Municipalities as case studies. This study was conducted on different days at different streets and public spaces in Dodoma and Singida Municipalities to obtain data on incidence of street begging. A cross-sectional survey was employed and involved 130 street beggars. Structured questionnaires were administered on randomly selected beggars to obtain data on their demographic dimensions. Group discussions, key informant interview, and observations were also used to collect data relevant for the study.
Authors:Baltazar M.L. Namwata, Maseke R. Mgabo and Provident Dimoso
Demographic Dimensions and their Implications on the Incidence of Street Begging in Urban Areas of Central Tanzania (747)
Dadaab Refugee Camps, Kenya
With conflict and continuing uncertainty affecting the future of Somalia following the US backed Ethiopian invasion it is little wonder Somalis continue to flee their disintegrating country. Since the early 1990’s when large scale civil war broke out the Somali Diaspora has spread far and wide. Nearly a million have fled to already poor neighbouring countries and 400,000 of those headed south to Kenya. Though many have managed to return since there remains over 100,000 mostly Somali refugees in Northern and Eastern Kenya.
Featured Articles & Papers
On International Women’s Day Tanzanian women were still far from achieving a measure of equality
International Women’s Day earlier this month gave German based Governance student Dorosella Bishanga a moment to reflect on the levels of inequality faced by Women in her native Tanzania and citing recent studies comment on whether and when Women may yet gain greater participation in Tanzania’s social, economic and political spheres.
Focus on Corruption: How to secure the aims of decentralization in Peru by improving good governance at the regional level
Decentralization holds out the promise of improving democratic participation and public service delivery, but this can be undermined where week institutions allow corruption to flourish. In this joint policy analysis paper, the authors create an econometric model of corruption at the regional level in Peru to inform policy recommendations aimed at the Peruvian National Council of Decentralization and the Office of the Public Defender. The paper was awarded Most Outstanding Policy Analysis in 2005 at the MPA/ID program at Harvard Kennedy School.
Authors: Aaron Ausland and Alfonso Tolmos
Focus on Corruption: How to secure the aims of decentralization in Peru by improving good governance at the regional level
‘Money does not always talk’ – Reassessing the Empowerment Potential of Women’s Employment
It has often been assumed that, as a result of access to financial resources, women’s employment would lead to their empowerment. However, this link is not as straightforward as examples from Kenya and Bangladesh show: Firstly, intra-household dynamics shape women’s control over income and secondly, even when they have control, it does not necessarily lead to a transformation of their subordinate status. This paper examines fundamental problems in defining and measuring empowerment and in this context depicts underlying normative Western ideas about agency, emancipation and modernity. The paper argues for the inclusion of the women concerned in policy-making in order to construct locally relevant indicators for empowerment.
Author:David Parduhn
‘Money does not always talk’ - Reassessing the Empowerment Potential of Women’s Employment (306)
Can Zardari uphold Pakistani Democracy?
On Tuesday 9th September 2008 Asif Ali Zardari the husband of the former two times Prime Minister the late Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as President of Pakistan. In a special article for Hii Dunia Faisal Hanif asseses Zardari’s past and asks if Pakistan’s first democractic leader this century is fit and able enough to guide this most fragile of democracies through possibly its most difficult of days.
Posted in Democracy, Governance, Pakistan