The Convention sets out the basic principles on which international refugee protection is built: non-refoulement, which emphasizes that refugees should not be returned to any place where they could face persecution; and impartiality, whereby all refugees are provided protection without discrimination. Recently, these principles have come under increasing threat. In a world which has grown increasingly hostile to asylum and refugees, the very relevance of the Convention has been questioned.Critics of the Convention allege that it is outdated, unworkable, irrelevant and inflexible. They label it a complication in the context of contemporary ’mixed migration’. For their part, many states argue that the Convention does not adequately address either their interests or the actual needs of refugees. Besides such criticisms, the refugee protection regime is being confronted by other developments with the potential to constrain refugee protection.

’Participation’ has become a buzzword in government statements and policy papers and the concept is being given concrete shape. But how can participation be organised? What methods are available and when and how are they applied? What are the implications for the budget and staff?
To offer a few answers to these questions, the King Baudouin Foundation and viWTA decided to edit a publication with the ambition to create a hands-on toolkit for starting up and managing participatory projects. This one is a second edition, completely revised and enlarged edition of the toolkit.
The core of the toolkit incorporates 3 additional in-depth fiches on participatory methods giving a total of 13. This new edition adds Deliberative Polling®, 21st Century Town Meeting® and Technology Festival to the original set, and offers an expanded introductory chapter. You will still find brief overviews of 40 methods and techniques. A chapter with general guidelines for using participatory methods, including a comparative chart of the discussed methods, completes the toolkit.

This handbook is a training manual, packed with suggestions, information, checklists and advice about how to undertake oral testimony projects. The English version of Giving Voice is available as a pdf file, and will be emailed to you for free. The French and Spanish versions of the manual are available in hard copy only (A4 ring-bound, 80 pages). To order the manual, email otp@panos.org.uk.

’Among those who have suffered enslavement, colonisation, steady and relentless economic exploitation, cultural asphyxiation, religious persecution, gender, race and class discrimination and political repression, silences should be seen as facts, because silences are indeed facts which have not been accorded the status of facts.’ So states Jacques Depelchin in this discussion, which encompasses an examination of dominant theories - political, social, economic, cultural and ideological - on Africa. The author analyses the influence of capitalism on the continent in relation to historical events over centuries. He castigates those who envision Africa solely through the eyes of colonialism. He systematically erodes misconceptions about Africa and the nature of the ’black man’, which have assumed historical status.

Sharing Knowledge 2 illustrates that information in all its forms is essential for freedom. Information is an important resource for human development. It is concerned, more specifically, with the five freedoms identified by economist Amartya Sen in Development as Freedom, as key for human and social development: political freedoms; social opportunities such as education; transparency guarantees as a right of every citizen; protective security against risks, such as ill health; and economic facilities leading to greater autonomy. This handbook is for women and men making use of information and knowledge for the realization of their freedoms and those of their communities.
This revised edition now has two additional chapters on HIV/AIDS resource centres and case studies on community information resource centres in Ethiopia, as well as updates in a number of the original chapters.