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DEVELOPMENT-
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DEFINITIONS,
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Accompaniment |
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Accountability |
Responsibility, reliability, confidence and transparency in the context of development cooperation; associated specifically with financial issues, but includes all relevant matters of development concern and cooperation between partners.
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Activity |
LFA : Action taken or work performed within a project in order to transform input (funds, materials, technical know-how etc.) into output (improved capacities, produced assessment/baseline studies, enhanced public awareness on specific issues etc.)
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Added value |
In a development context, A refers to the presumed development advantage/benefit/gain (social, professional, political) when considering/comparing the approach of various development actors (e.g. government, NGO, consultancy firm). A has a distant correlation to the concept of "value added" in economy, denoting the net value of a specific production (after input costs have been subtracted).
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Advocacy |
A is seen as the umbrella term for a range of activities, including lobbying, campaigning, networking, public awareness work etc. A by international NGOs is often undertaken on behalf of the organisations and people whose work they are assisting, as a way to maximise the impact of conventional project funding, and to support the goals and needs of partner organisations. NPA context : A rests heavily on the notion of solidarity and is seen as an important vehicle to challenging repressive socio-political structures. One important commitment for NPA is to strengthen the capacity of the partners to undertake their own A work, both nationally and internationally. NPA also launches and supports A -endeavours and initiatives independent of conventional project or program funding.
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| Affirmative action kvotering, "positiv diskriminering" |
A policy or a program that seeks to redress past discrimination - e.g. of women and minority groups - through active measures of "positive discrimination" in favour of these groups, to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment. See: equity, gender equity, empowerment, Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM)
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African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) |
An instrument voluntarily acceded to by Member States of the African Union (OAU) as an African self-monitoring development
mechanism. The primary purpose of the APRM is to "foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable
development and accelerated sub-regional and continental economic integration through sharing of experiences and reinforcement
of successful and best practice, including identifying deficiencies and assessing the needs for capacity building". See: New Partnership for Afraca's Development (NEPAD)
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Agreement |
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AIDSNET |
A Norwegian network focussing on global challenges related to the AIDS pandemic. The network primarily gathers three main groups of actors:
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| Anti-Personnel Mine (APM) anti-personell mine |
a mine designed to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person, and that will incapacitate, injure or kill one or more persons.
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Appraisal |
Overall consideration of the relevance, feasibility and sustainability of a project prior to making a decision on whether or not to undertake it. An A may be based on one or several impact assessment studies (social, environmental, institutional, economic, gender etc.), which represent the anticipated and "policy neutral" pros and cons of project planning and implementation. The A represents the "policy level" of analysis and decision-making, where pros and cons (as presented in previous impact assessment studies) of a project are carefully considered prior to final decision.
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Appropriate technology |
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| Appropriation document tilsagns-dokument |
A document which assigns resources (financial, material) for specific purposes.
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Assessment |
Strictly professional/technical analysis of pros and cons anticipated as resulting from planned project/program implementation; various forms of impact assessment studies (social-, environmental-, institutional, economic etc.)
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Assistance |
Support given to an organisation or partner, be it economic, social or political.
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Assumptions |
LFA: Events, conditions or decisions which are necessary for project success, but which are largely or completely beyond the control of project management.
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| Atheism ateisme |
A non-prophet organisation J.
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Awareness-raising |
Stimulation of self-reflected critical awareness in people of their social reality and of their ability to transform that reality by their conscious personal or collective action . Through positive experience, and small successes reinforcing each other, the objective of increased self-confidence can be acquired. A refers to personal development, something which occurs within a person; it can not be imposed from outside. SB See: empowerment , popular mobilisation , public awareness , self-reliance
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Baseline study
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Study undertaken prior to project/program implementation in order to establish reference points for monitoring and evaluation of progress/success. |
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Basic needs |
Material and value based "minimum needs" that are considered absolutely essential for human survival and well-being; the assumed needs that people will seek to cover prior to other (and assumed relative) needs in times of hardship, such as the need for clean water, foot/nutrition, shelter, clothing, basic education and basic health care. In the 1970s. ILO launced a B-strategy that also included the right to political influence and participation and basic human rights. In a human rights perspective a rights-based approach sees people’s B as a matter of right, rather than benevolence.
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Benchmarking |
Within business management rhetoric, B refers both to an improvement tool and a continuous process whereby an enterprise measures and compares all its functions, systems and practices against strong competitors, identifying quality gaps in the organization, and striving to achieve competitive advantage locally and globally. B usually encompasses:
See: New Public management (NPM)
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Beneficiaries |
NPA-context :
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Best Available Technology(BAT) |
In international conventions the BAT concept is adopted to ensure usage of the most environmental-friendly technology available. Today, however, BAT is criticised due to the heavy focus on technology , while modest attention is directed to the source of pollution. BAT is also frequently being misused to mean Best Available Technology within "economic" limits. See:intermediate technology , liability , precautionary principle .
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Biodiversity |
The diversity of plant and animal life in a particular habitat, or in the world as a whole; "a high level of biodiversity is desireable". E.E.
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| Bottom up grasrotinitiert utvikling "nedenfra og opp" |
Refers to grassroots-initiated development activities; a development process initiated and generated from grassroots level, gradually spreading to higher levels of community.
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| Brain drain "hjerneflukt" |
Refers to a situation where the qualified/educated elites of developing countries emigrate and take up jobs overseas, at salary levels far more favourable than what can be afforded in their mother country. In its development endeavours the mother country is therefore not in the position to fully utilise or benefit from the intellectual potential represented by its qualified/educated elites.
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| Bretton Woods Institutions Bretton Woods institusjonene |
Connotes to a town in New Hampshire, U.S. that served as the premise for the post WWII United Nations’ Monetary and Financial Conference in 1944. 44 of the UN member countries agreed on the shape of the post-war world economic order and the establishment of the post-WWII international financial institutions.. These so called Bretton Woods Institutions included the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development - i.e. the "World Bank" (WB), and the International Trade Organization (ITO). The ITO never got off the ground and in its place was established the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which evolved into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995. "Bretton Woods" also is used as a term to signify the financial system of fixed currency exchange rates among countries, rates that were ultimately linked to the value of gold. That standard was abandoned by U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1971 and replaced by the current system of "floating exchange rates," where the value of a currency is relative to other currencies. "At the end of the WWII, the WB and the IMF were seen as progressive institutions. When these institutions were created at Bretton Woods in 1944, their mandate was to help prevent future conflicts by lending for reconstruction and development and by smoothing out temporary balance of payments problems. They had no control over individual governments' economic decisions nor did their mandate include a licence to intervene in national policy." Susan George See: poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP), structural adjustment program (SAP), Wahington Consensus
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Bridge-building |
NPA context: The promotion of cooperation and dialogue "across borders" as a vehicle to enhance understanding and cooperation. Some of the B -related activities that have been identified involve:
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Campaigning |
Refers to a variety of attempts to influence the policy environment affecting the work of e.g. an agency or an organisation, and the efforts to mobilise wider support for such change amongst its constituency. See: advocacy , lobbying , networking , public awareness
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Capacity building |
Refers to strategies focusing on a variety of aspects of human and organisational development, but exceeding the limitations of mere competence-building; C involves e.g. the ultimate potential of an institutional/organisational body of receiving and absorbing/utilising resources. Thus, C may include a wide range of activities; awareness-raising and competence-building, as well as moves of a (re)structuring, organising and/or prioritising nature. C - activities are particularly geared to secure the realisation of sustainability-oriented development strategies and also serves as a major vehicle for realisation of fundamental and interlinked empowerment strategies. Strengthening communication and dialogue between actors within an organisation and between different departments, and between an organisation and its partners and constituency, is a vital aspect of C .
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Capitalism
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Like many ideologically laden words, C denotes a variety of meanings, ideas and interpretations. Based on historical record, however, it may seem adequate to label C more as a mode of production rather than as an ideology per sec. Some classical characteristics of the capitalist mode of production are:
In classical C , economic activity is typically organised by private capital owners, who by means of their capital aquire ownership of the means of production (tools, machines), buy the raw materials and pay for the labour needed. Due to the inherent logic and dynamics of C , the capitalist will normally seek to invest the obtained surplus in new profitable ventures to constantly increase his or her rate of returns. As the ideal capitalist mode of production unfolds within the framework of "free" and unrestricted competition displayed in "free" and unregulated markets, the "unsurpassed effectiveness" of C is often emphasised. It was during the 1700s, following the Industrial Revolution's need for huge amounts of investment capital, that C can be said to have begun and share-trading in corporate bodies became common and widely understood. Contrary to democratic practice, shareholders generally have votes in the exercise of authority over the company in proportion to the size of their share of the capital that they own. Capitalist mode of production has over time served as the vehicle for organising large-scale production that required large -scale investment in periods of trade-, industrial-, finance- and monopoly-capitalism respectively. Thus, since its beginning, C has continued to develop and spread, and has over time become the predominant organising principle of economic activity; C represents in modern time the global economic system that all nations to a varying degree are embedded in and therefore - for better or worse - must interact with. As the early stages of C unfolded in a time when Liberalist thinking gained momentum, Liberalism came to serve more or less as the ideological framework and justification for the capitalist mode of production. The term
C is also often referred to as ideologically contrasting the concept of "socialism", or as a substitute concept for " neo-liberalism " or " globalisation ". The change from feudal and tradition based mode of production to capitalist mode of production is often perceived almost as an "evolutionary" process fuelled by the "inevitable" and dynamic production forces, constantly struggling to secure optimal freedom of operation. Notably, there seems to be a shared understanding, also among contemporary Marxist oriented theorists, that it is not within the powers of individuals or individual groups to prematurely "end" C as such. Thus, rather than challenging the capitalist mode of production per se, mainstream political controversy seems to centre around to what degree C should be controlled, and the degree of state interventions to secure redistribution of wealth. While neo-liberal proponents advocate that market-economy be safeguarded against political interference, others (i.a. social-democrats and socialists) see it as a democratic imperative to seek the primacy of political rule over economy. See : Freedom
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Cash crops |
Refers to agricultural products produced for sale at the local/national market, to provide for financial income.
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Catalyst role |
NPA-context: Refers to an aspect of partnership cooperation in development work, which implies serving as facilitator for forming links with relevant proficiencies, groups or institutions that contribute positively to project or program development.
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| Change agent endringsagent |
An individual who sees change as an opportunity rather than a threat, who will be instrumental in managing change and taking it forward. The individual will give direction and momentum to the implementation of new policies and methods. Lutrell/Piron (ODI), NPA Report 2004, p.7
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Charity |
Voluntary provision of hand-outs; food, money, materials, or other forms of help to people in need Conventional C work often have a rooting in religion ("love thy neighbour") and is perceived more as compassionately "helping others"; helping/relieving them from their immediate problems, pain and suffering, here and now. While C therefore is typicaly associated to acts of good deeds towards the needy, solidarity-based work proceeds further, linking up to empowerment-, networking- and advocacy strategies aiming at socio-political transformation and/or change.
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Civic education
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(Policy and Strategy for NPA's International Humanitarian and development Work 2003-2007)
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Civic society |
Refers to the non-military sector of society, its body politic and democratic structures.
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Civil society |
Those groups, networks, and relationships that are not organized or managed by the state. ( WB ,"Voices of the Poor, can anyone hear us?"/1999) Organisations, interest groups, companies and enterprises that are not comprised by what we understand as the "state" or "public sector". C are i.a. applied when debating issues like democracy and popular participation within the context of institutional development and development-oriented issues as such. (Gazette, 1997)
"NPA and Partnership Cooperation in Civil Society", approved Dec. 2004
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Common Country Assessment (CCA)
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Refers to the exercise of establishing an overview of national development prepared in the light of a common set of indicators and within the framework of the UNDAF process.
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Community based organisation (cbo) |
Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and Social Organisatins (SOs) : Affiliate or social grassroots organisations - based within, and developing from, actors within community - that respond to the interest of its members, or that associate residents around common problems or specific interests.; The main characteristics separating CBO/SOs from Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), is the CBO/SO's constituency- and community anchorage, as well as their absence or low level of bureaucracy, administrative structures and "professional" personnel/management. See: Civil Society
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Community Based Rehabilitation |
“Community-based rehabilitation involves measures taken at the community level to use and build on the resources of the community, including the impaired, disabled, and handicapped persons themselves, their families, and their community as a whole.” WHO, 1981
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| Comparative advantage komparativt (relativt) fortrinn |
The C concept was established by the 19th Century economist D. Ricardo as he opposed protectionist British Corn Laws and argued for free trade. As a rude simplification, C implies that (contrary to calculations based on absolute advantage) a country should export those commodities that can be produced most efficiently relative to the efficiency with which the average goods or services in the country are produced. Likewise, a country should import those goods and services that it produces less efficiently than goods and services in general. One main assumption of the C paradigm is that all parties can benefit from trade, even in situations where one is a better producer of everything (all commodities and services) than the other. Within the context of international development cooperation, C has to some extent been adopted in development jargon as a reference to the various actors and their respective proficiencies within the "market" of development oriented avtivities. The idea is that each actor specialize in what they do best relatively speaking - leaving the rest to be taken care of by actors who again are specialized within their fields - to ensure the most "efficient" use of total resources available. See: added value, liberalism, market-liberalism, opportunity costs, organisational profile
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Competence-building |
Activity aiming at furnishing individuals or groups of people with certain identified educational or training skills required to mangage relevant institutions, or carry out specific tasks or duties within a project or program; C -activities focus directly on developing human potentional . See: capacity building , institution-building , empowerment , sustainability
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Conditionality |
The use of foreign aid as a lever to promote objectives set by the donor which the recipient government would not otherwise
have agreed to, and as a mechanism to try and ensure that money is spent in the way the giver intended. (The Reality of Aid Interim Report 2000)
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| Confidence tillit |
Something you have until you know better J.
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Conflict prevention
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A term frequently used by international organisations, research institutes, and governments, to describe work done to prevent
conflicts from erupting violently. See: bridge-building , empowerment
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Conscientisation |
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Contract |
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| Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) FNs konvensjon om å avskaffe alle former for diskriminering av kvinner |
On 18 December 1979, the CEDAW was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. It entered into force as an international treaty on 3 September 1981 after the twentieth country had ratified it. By the tenth anniversary of the Convention in 1989, almost one hundred nations have agreed to be bound by its provisions. The Convention was the culmination of more than thirty years of work by the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a body established in 1946 to monitor the situation of women and to promote women's rights. The Commission's work has been instrumental in bringing to light all the areas in which women are denied equality with men. These efforts for the advancement of women have resulted in several declarations and conventions, of which the CEDAW is the central and most comprehensive document. See: equal rights, human rights
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Cost-Benefit Analysis(CBA) |
A type of economic evaluation in which both the costs and consequences of different interventions are expressed in monetary units. CBA can be applied to items or services for which the market does not provide a satisfactory measure of value. The basis of the
monetary quantification is usually willingness to accept or pay compensation for gains or losses.
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Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) |
A form of economic evaluation in which the costs are expressed in monetary terms, but where some or all of the benefits are expressed in physical units (e.g. life-years gained, cases detected) due to the difficulties of quantifying outputs in amounts of money.
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Country program |
NPA-context: NPA's total involvement in a given country.
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Credit scheme |
See: micro credit, peer-group, Revolving Loan Funds (RLF) , Small-Scale and Micro Enterprises (SSME)
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Cross-cutting issues |
NPA context :Refers to issues related to vision, ideology, development policy and/or methodology, which are seen to carry more or less relevance for all of the various projects or sub-programs within a country program. Gender, HIV/AIDS and environment has been identified as C for the total NPA program portfolio. This demands a conscious recognition by all NPA personnel of the relevance of these issues to a sustainable development in general, and the observance of their implications to NPA program cooperation in particular. Being identified as C, the mainstreaming of gender, HIV/AIDS and environment into all levels and operations of the NPA organisation will - as a matter of operationalisation - be pursued. "All activities of NPA shall adhere to the C on gender, HIV/AIDS and environment. All partners and project will be assessed and appraised for their status on the awareness and activities concerning the C. Activities related to the issues are planned together with partners after the appraisal. The activities are initiated by the current status of the partners on these issues, as defined by standard analysis, and not as an active strategy from NPA". (Policy and Strategy for NPA's Intenational Humanitarion and Development Work, 2003-2007)
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Decentralisation |
The process and effort of moving power away from a concentrated core, and diffusing it throughout all levels of an organisation or country; to overcome "top-down", bureaucratic structures, where the capacity to control, plan strategy, and take decisions mainly is a directional flow from the centre outwards. D includes greater participation by actors at all levels, increasing the participation, strategy formation, and decision-making powers of the hitherto "periphery", promoting greater dialogue between all actors, and opening more space for previously "peripheral" voices in the decision-making process.
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| Demand-driven assistance mottaker-initiert/definert bistand |
Recipient-requested development assistance.
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| De Soto |
See: Hernando de Soto
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Demining |
Humanitarian activities which lead to the removal of mine and UXO (UneXploded Ordnance) hazards, including technical survey, mapping, clearance, marking, post-clearance documentation, community mine action liaison and the handover of cleared land. D may be carried out by different types of organisations, such as NGOs, commercial companies, national mine action teams or military units. D may be emergency-based or developmental.
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Democracy |
Greek: demos= people, kratein =power NPA context : "True D means more than elections. It requires the consolidation of democratic institutions and the strengthening of democratic practices,
with democratic values and norms implemented in all parts of society (...). D is a system and a process that guarantees civil and political human rights, which ensure people the opportunity to have a say in decision making processes affecting their lives, and to hold the decision
makers responsible. (Policy and Strategy for NPA's International Humanitarian and development Work 2003-2007)
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Democratisation |
Planned efforts and activities geared to supporting and reinforcing the building of democracy and active social participation. See: awareness-raising , empowerment , grassroots organisation , institution-building , organisation-building , popular participation , popular mobilisation , social organisation .
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| Developed Countries utviklede land |
A term that usualley refers to societies in which there is enough capital to industrialise
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| Developing countries utviklingsland |
A term that usually refers to societies in which capital needed to industrialise is in short supply
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Development |
The progressive (in time) process of human, cultural, political, economic and social change which shapes people's lives; D touches on all the personal, ideological, material and cultural factors which form our identity as social beings. "Human development is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which
people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. People
are the real wealth of nations. Development is thus about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value.
And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means — if a very important one — of enlarging people
’s choices. Human Development Report, 2004
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| Development discourse diskurs relatert til "utvikling" |
A D describes a way of thinking and outlook, a system of values and priorities that marginalises other possible ways of thinking. A D is a configuration of ideas which provides the threads from which ideologies are woven. Numerous Ds can be identified, for example the ‘scientific discourse’, which sees development as a rational, technical and scientific process, grounded in Western expertise. In the social sciences, a D is considered to be an institutionalized way of thinking, a social boundary defining what are being said about a specific topic. Ds are seen to affect our views on all things; in other words, it is not possible to escape D. For example, two distinctly different Ds can be used about various guerrilla movements describing them either as "freedom fighters" or "terrorists". In other words, the chosen D delivers the vocabulary, expressions and perhaps also the style needed to communicate. D is closely linked to different theories of power and state, at least as long as defining discourses is seen to mean defining reality itself. The social conception of D is often linked with the work of the French social philosopher M. Foucault (1926-1984). See: discourse analysis, paradigm
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Development objective |
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Development process |
A continuation of social organisation and distribution patterns that take place within various social contexts where a minimum of stability and infrastructure has been established.
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Development work |
Time- and scope-limited and transient "intervention" in a development process. NPA-context: Emergency relief- and long term development assistance should be seen as two forms of "interventions" unfolding to support different stages of a development process, but seen within the same development perspective . Consequently, emergency relief intervention should, to the extent possible, be organised in a way which encourages/ facilitates/generates consecutive and locally based development strategies.
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Direct beneficiaries |
See: beneficiaries
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Disaster |
A serious disruption of society which causes widespread human suffering and psychological loss and damage, and which stretches the community's normal coping mechanisms to breaking points. See: emergency relief , pre-disaster planning
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Disaster mitigation |
The action taken to reduce both human suffering and property loss, resulting from a disaster.
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Disaster preparedness |
The actions taken to limit the impact of a disaster by structuring response and establishing a mechanism for effecting a quick and orderly action. This could include prepositioning of supplies and equipment, developing of pre-emergency action plans, manuals and procedures, and developing warning and evacuation procedures and strengthening and/or protection of critical facilities
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Disaster prevention |
The action taken to eliminate or avoid disaster and their effects.
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Discourse |
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| Discourse analysis diskurs-analyse |
There are two meanings for this term depending on how ‘discourse’ is defined:
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