March 2000 - Alliance magazine

March 2000

Ten years of funding in Central and Eastern Europe

Volume 5 , Number 1

PDF - £10.00 Hard copy (£15.00)

Special feature

Muslim NGOs

1 March 2000
Affan Cheema

As one might expect, given the absolute centrality of charity to the Muslim way of life, the last two decades have seen a rapid expansion in the number of Muslim NGOs — a modern-day articulation of the age-old phenomenon of giving in Islam. These NGOs have been formed in all parts of the world, both Muslim and non-Muslim, and they owe their existence partly to the general rise of the international NGO worldwide. But, more …

Caroline Hartnell

Editorial

Editorial – March 2000

This issue of Alliance contains a number of articles assessing ten years of support to civil society in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. We have attempted to present the picture from all sides. Two of the articles are the product of partnerships between East and West. There is inevitably some overlap between the articles, but this is in itself interesting: the concurrence between Nilda Bullain and Helena Ackerman about what was most valuable in Western aid is striking. In some respects the Eastern writers are less hard on the Western donors than the Western ones, with …

Editorial – Ten years of funding in Central and Eastern Europe

Last November I addressed the World Conference on Religion and Peace in Amman, Jordan. The subject was the importance of secular civil society working together with religious civil society. In Africa faith-based organizations probably provide the best social and physical infrastructure in the poorest communities – a situation mirrored in many parts of the world today as churches, temples, mosques and other places of worship become focal points for the communities they serve. Sadly, many religious and secular civil society leaders have difficulty in acknowledging how much they have in common, and this stands in the way of their working …