Underage drinking is common among Swedish adolescents and is related to problems for individuals, families, and society. From a public health perspective, it is of great importance that knowledge be gained about alcohol prevention. The overall aim of this thesis is, within the context of a national support program for NGOs, to study parents, a parental support program, and adolescents with regard to preventing underage drinking.  The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW) has a government commission to distribute funds to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for alcohol and drug prevention efforts. Study I of the thesis describes and analyses this program with a special emphasis on research and development for an evidence-based practice. It is a research strategy case study with 135 projects and 14 embedded in-depth studies. The results reveal that this program to support NGOs has been successful in engaging a wide range of NGOs in prevention efforts. A trustful partnership between practitioners, national agencies, and researchers has also been developed, which has improved the quality and results of the different projects. Studies II, III, IV, and V all used data from a longitudinal questionnaire study with parents and adolescents within one of the 14 in-depth studies: the study of IOGT-NTO’s parental program Strong and Clear. Additional data, such as telephone interviews and other parental questionnaires, are also used.  Study II aims to analyse the significance of socio-demographic factors for parental attitudes and behaviour regarding adolescent alcohol consumption to see if any group of parents is especially important for intervention efforts. The results showed that fathers were more likely than mothers to have non-restrictive attitudes towards underage drinking and to have children who had drunk or tasted alcohol at home. Study III examines reasons for non-participation in the program. Parents with a low educational level were found more likely to be non-participants than highly educated parents. When parents stated their reasons for non-participation it emerged that they did not perceive a need for the intervention and that there were practical obstacles to their participation. Study IV is an effect study of Strong and Clear and showed that the program contributed to maintaining parents’ restrictive attitude toward underage drinking, postponing alcohol debut, and preventing drunkenness among the adolescents. Study V, only presented in the thesis, examined parents’ perceptions about Strong and Clear. Parents primarily thought it had led to their speaking more often about alcohol with their children, and had been a help in this conversation. Many also stated that the program had influenced their ability to set limits for their children. The school and IOGT-NTO were considered as suitable providers of Strong and Clear. This thesis showed that a national support program for NGOs including research and development contributes to a more evidence-based public health practice.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of NGOs in land reform and post-settlement support in the Albany district of the Eastern Cape using a qualitative case study of Masifunde. To discover this role, civil society, land beneficiaries, Department of Agriculture and Department of Rural Development and Land Reform were proved to have interwoven relationships. The interactions and relationships between these entities underpinned their perceptions of each other. This study is set against the backdrop of a weakening land reform program due to frequent policy changes. Evidence presented showed how out of sync land reform is with its original mandate whilst civil society organisations have remained firmly rooted by theirs. The inability to have twin perspectives on this matter diverges the direction civil society and institutions involved in land reform take on. This separation in direction demonstrates the need for engagement between government and civil society in an attempt to assist in areas government is unable to reach or address. This thesis contends that there is definitely a role that NGOs do play and need to take on when it is evident that relevant actors are unable to deliver. Themes emerging from interviews necessitate civil society and government departments to combine their resources so as to maximise the impact for desired outcomes. These are views of both civil society and government, demonstrating that NGOs indeed do play a role in land reform and post-settlement support and need to continuously do so in an attempt to cushion the blows of uneven implementation of land reform policies.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has serious effects on society. It has been described as the biggest threat to the development of South Africa, with severe economic, social and human impact. In the Lady Frere District in the Eastern Cape Province, like in many other areas that are greatly affected by the epidemic in this country, young people are considered by the local Department of Health to be a particularly vulnerable group due to various predisposing biological, social, cultural, and economical factors. Despite the efforts that have been made to educate and encourage prevention, especially by the local Masibambane Non-governmental Organisation (MNGO) to inform these communities about the dangers of the epidemic, people's behaviour have been slow to change and the disease continues to spread. This research is conducted against the escalating HIV / AIDS pandemic in the Lady Frere District. The fundamental aim of this project is to examine the intermediary function of the MNGO in HIV/AIDS responses. The study seeks to evaluate the way in which this local NGO operates on the ground in contributing to a community's response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In other words, the thesis tries to indicate how this local NGO, in dealing with the HIV/AIDS issue, interfaces with the community and related stakeholders. It examines how young people in the Lady Frere District perceive HIV/AIDS. A literature review demonstrates that the specific aims and objectives of this project represent a fairly new area of research in South Africa. I propose in the thesis that a simple act of joining and being regularly involved in a community organisation such as the MNGO will have significant impact on individuals' health and well-being. The thesis is crying for a need to restore the notion of "ubuntu" (meaning humanity) which is fundamentally based on social capital to assist these communities to rebuild trust which is essential in people living with HIV/AIDS. Based on my assessment it seems that intermediary NGOs, like the traditional NGOs and the private sector, will have little impact in terms of changing the conditions of the poor and the marginalised people. This is because in practice, like the conventional NGOs, intermediary NGOs serve the interests of donors and national governments or those who give them financial support to continue existing.

En posant la question de l’influence des ONG sur la décision du gouvernement français d’adopter le traité d’interdiction des armes à sous-munitions à Oslo en décembre 2008, cette thèse offre l’occasion de revisiter tout un ensemble de travaux de Relations Internationales sur les conditions de succès des mobilisations transnationales dans la production et l’adoption des normes internationales. Alors que les théoriciens de relations internationales travaillent presque exclusivement sur ce qui se joue à l’échelle internationale, entre les ONG et les Etats, ce travail propose au contraire de resserrer la focale uniquement sur la prise de décision politique française. Il propose ainsi de chercher les raisons du « succès » des mobilisations transnationales non pas dans leurs caractéristiques propres, mais plutôt dans les logiques politiques et institutionnelles qui façonnent les décisions politiques nationales. Cette thèse décrit un processus de décision politique en partie imposée aux pouvoirs publics par une mobilisation transnationale. Elle montre ainsi comment l’espace des choix se restreint au point d’obliger les pouvoirs publics à adopter un traité de désarmement auquel ils auraient largement préféré se soustraire. Mais elle révèle également comment l’Etat n’en reste pas moins doté d’une capacité de gouverner qui lui permet de récupérer subtilement la main. C’est cette tension que signifie l’expression gouverner sans choisir. / In posing the question of the influence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the French government’s decision to adopt the treaty banning cluster munitions, in Oslo in December 2008, this thesis offers the occasion to revisit a number of studies in International Relations on the factors behind transnational mobilizations’ success in creating and adopting international norms. While theorists of international relations work almost exclusively with such conditions at the international level, between ONGs and states, this study proposes, on the contrary, to shift the focus to the French political decision-making process. It seeks the reasons for “successful” transnational mobilization not in their proper characteristics, but rather in the political and institutional logic shaping national political decisions. This thesis describes a process of decision-making imposed, in part, on the public authorities by a transnational mobilization and it shows how the realm of choices narrowed to the point where the public authorities were forced to adopt a disarmament treaty that they would have overwhelmingly preferred to avoid. However, this thesis also reveals how the state nonetheless retained its capacity to govern and to subtly recover its power. It is this tension that provides the expression to govern without choosing.

The goal of this paper is to identify four types of voluntary failure by L. M. Salamone in Czech public-serving non-governmental organizations (NGO's) and to determine extend of their display by studying of the development of one particular organization and presence and dynamics of these failures. The paper is a case study of the NGO spolek Naděje which mostly works in the field of social services across the area of the Czech Republic. This organization is examined by predefined indicators which were chosen for all four types of voluntary failure. These are philanthropic insufficiency, philanthropic particularism, philanthropic paternalism and philanthropic amateurism. The paper consists of five parts. The theoretical part introduces the key concepts and theories for this paper, fundamental definitions of the civil sector, theory of the state and market failure, a role of the civil sector and brief characteristics of public-serving NGO's. Last but not least there are described four types of voluntary failure of Salamone. The next part presents the methodology of the study for which it was chosen strategy of the research, i.e. case study of one public-serving NGO, and research indicators. Finally, the empirical part includes the research which analyses the dynamics of the development of researched...

This dissertation covers the impact of changes in the transition of the financing system of social services from the Ministry of Social Affairs to local regions. This phase of the transition is assested from the point of view of the current state of cooperation between non governmental organizations (NGO)s and governmnetal institutions. The sample region selected for this work is Stredocesky region and the evaluation of this change was done in the context of providing social services aimed on integration of Roma into the society. The theoretical part of this dissertation is concerned with the relationship of the state with the NGOs. Further financing of social services, the history up until the current situation of the state of the process of integration of Romes into Czech Republic is outlined in this work. This work evaluates a case study of Romodrom o. p. s., an organization providing social services for individuals, who are on the edge of exclusion from the society or are impacted by an unfortunate life situation. The primary data was collected using semi-structured interviews with employees of this organization. The secondary data was gathered using the content analysis of relevant sources. The research results are divided into chapters based on themes. Those themes were identified found on...

The purpose of this study is to explore and describe the challenges experienced by non-governmental organisations with regards to the roll-out of ART, with an aim to facilitate strategy development to overcome the challenges and enhance the success of ART rollout by the NGOs. A qualitative, exploratory and descriptive study was conducted. Data collection was done using in-depth semi-structured interviews. Three groups of respondents participated in the study; programme coordinators who directed and supervised ART programmes; doctors who were responsible for prescribing, monitoring and dealing with ART complications; and registered nurses who were responsible for monitoring, referring and providing nursing care to patients on ART. The findings revealed five broad areas of challenges namely; challenges related to sustainability, challenges related to adherence, challenges related to health systems, challenges related to stigma and challenges related to behavior. Of interest were the surge of whoonga and the infiltration of ART roll-out by crime and violence. / Health Studies / M.A. (Public Health)

SYNOPSIS The diploma thesis is focused on the topic of private environmental cross-sectoral cooperation from the macro-societal perspective. The theoretical chapter summarizes the driving factors which contribute to evolution of business-environmental NGO relationships, it identifies the main specific features of Czech society context and introduces the three-partnership- generations theory. In the empirical part the main findings from the empirical survey among Czech environmental NGOs are summarized and discussed. It explores the current state and main characteristics, contributions, problems and barriers of private cross-sectoral partnership. Furthermore the relations between the environmental organizations' characteristics and specific aspects of cooperation are examined. In the end the results of the survey are set into the context of three-partnership-generations theory and the basic explanation of private environmental cross-sectoral partnership's current state is discussed in the context of specific features of Czech society.

Master's thesis entitled "Mission in the Life of Organization" explores the phenomenon of mission. The work is closely focused on the area related to non-profit organizations that provide social services for the target group of seniors. In the theoretical part is mission defined by recognized standards of quality of social services and from the perspective of literature. Furthermore I view it in the context of the needs and size of the target group and social demand backing group organization. Subsequent chapters are devoted to the topic of mission in context of strategic planning, fundraising, public relations and ultimately organization culture. In the empirical part I present the implementation of qualitative research. The research was conducted using a case study approach in two registered organizations providing social services to seniors. The aim was to answer the research question: How do perceive the mission of organization its employees? Research was conducted through semi- structured interviews methods. The result is the following statement, which is valid for both cases: All employees are able to interpret the mission of their organization through their own values and experiences. Whether the employee's mission is shared or not shared, or employees consider it to be part of a formal, is...

The thesis titled " The activities of selected non-profit organizations dealing with domestic violence ", as the name suggests, deals with the mapping of all areas of activity, which the selected organizations creates, that have set themselves the objective of struggle against domestic violence. Selected organizations are engaged in both secondary and tertiary prevention of domestic violence, which mainly involves working with clients - victims of domestic violence and primary prevention. Primary prevention involves working with the public and participation in the legislative process. These three activities are operated independently. This corresponds to the first part of my work, the theoretical part. It describes in the general organization of the civil sector and their sorting by type of activity , the involvement of these organizations in influencing public policy and making laws and public relations of these organizations. In the second part of the theoretical part is a theoretical framework regarding domestic violence as a social problem, including current legislation related to domestic violence. The empirical part deals with the concrete description of the activities of selected non-profit organizations and also try to answer the question about influencing gendered view of domestic violence of this...