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UNRISD Discussion Paper No. 94, September 1998
by Shahra
Razavi
The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development
(UNRISD) is an autonomous agency engaging in multi-disciplinary research on the
social dimensions of contemporary problems affecting development. Its work is
guided by the conviction that, for effective development policies to be
formulated, an understanding of the social and political context is crucial. The
Institute attempts to provide governments, development agencies, grassroots
organizations and scholars with a better understanding of how development
policies and processes of economic, social and environmental change affect
different social groups. Working through an extensive network of national
research centres, UNRISD aims to promote original research and strengthen
research capacity in developing countries.
Current research programmes include: Business Responsibility for
Sustainable Development; Emerging Mass Tourism in the South; Gender, Poverty and
Well-Being; Globalization and Citizenship; Grassroots Initiatives and Knowledge
Networks for Land Reform in Developing Countries; New Information and
Communication Technologies; Public Sector Reform and Crisis-Ridden States;
Technical Co-operation and Women's Lives: Integrating Gender into Development
Policy; and Volunteer Action and Local Democracy: A Partnership for a Better
Urban Future. Recent research programmes have included: Crisis, Adjustment and
Social Change; Culture and Development; Environment, Sustainable Development and
Social Change; Ethnic Conflict and Development; Participation and Changes in
Property Relations in Communist and Post-Communist Societies; Political Violence
and Social Movements; Social Policy, Institutional Reform and Globalization;
Socio-Economic and Political Consequences of the International Trade in Illicit
Drugs; and the War-torn Societies Project. UNRISD research projects focused on
the 1995 World Summit for Social Development included: Economic Restructuring
and Social Policy; Ethnic Diversity and Public Policies; Rethinking Social
Development in the 1990s; and Social Integration at the Grassroots: The Urban
Dimension.
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for Social Development, Palais des Nations, 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland; Tel (41
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