Abstract“Development” is an essentially contested concept within academia and some critics, the so-called post-development school, argue that the concept and practice of development is a world-view monopolizing our imagination. The school of thought promotes alternative ways to think about development but is merely at the theoretical level and lacks taking into account empirical cases. Therefore, this theoretical approach is to test and develop existing literature and the theory is originating from the work of Michel Foucault and theory of post-development’s presented hegemonic development discourse. The aim is to study Peruvian NGO executives’ perceptions on development and alternative development collaborations through in-depth interviews and a critical case study design. The study reveals an alternative thinking about “development” and local perceptions challenge the “truth” of the hegemonic development discourse. A donor-recipient relation is visible where local knowledge is limited and local NGOs are coerced into new behaviors to satisfy donors’ demands. Studying “periphery” grass-root voices from the Third World is important to be able to imagine “development” differently in discourses silenced, limited and at the margins.

The main purpose of the graduation theses is to evaluate actual situation and development perspective in relations between Czech Republic and Moldova and identify possible contribution of Czech Republic for its economic growth.

Development cooperation is provided due to many reasons. Some countries are lead by clearly human reasons (eventhough also in that case it's possible to polemize, whether their true reason isn't just creating good impression of the own state in the international community), some of them take it as a good oportunity to show off and some consider it just a good business. Which group does Sweden belong to? Is the aim of the country, which is active in international development cooperation for decades and who is apreciated by developing countries themselves truly to help? Which are the specifics of swedish development cooperation?

This work cover the topic of bilateral cooperation between two countries with different political-economic and cultural-historical characteristics, that is the Republic of Iraq as developing country and the Czech republic on the other side ,which is classified by the OECD as advanced ,industrialized country. It focuses on the often debated issue, namely how to consolidate and streamline both an economic and political cooperation of the Czech Republic with the newly formed society in the Republic of Iraq. Despite a long tradition of joint relations, nowadays the Czech Republic is not a major player in the development of Iraq, but it has its potential to thrive in partial aspects of the transformation of Iraqi society such as agriculture and the environment, energy, transport, but also active in the field of counseling institutional transformation of the country such as government and regional institutions, human rights, etc. serves as a type of connecting link in this effort. This can be presented as an international development cooperation, which may very well continue to the long tradition of Czech-,resp. Czechoslovakian -- Iraqi relations. The scope of development assistance is both Czech and world-level expectations, particularly in terms of volume, but you can talk about it as a precursor of a deeper economic cooperation The total amount of development funds arising from the Czech Republic in Iraq represents a considerable amount, for example, between 2003 and 2005 it was 78 million USD. In the same period, the trade exchange was only 17 million USD. It should be noted that much of the development funds can be described as a humanitarian (building hospitals). In addition, it must be pointed out that the solving of development and humanitarian projects in Iraq is very problematic. It is necessary to use local co-workers, who often choose between work and cooperation with international organizations for which they can get a wage, thereby they face the pressure from the local environs that suspect them of cooperating with those who destroyed the country and who occupy it. These attitudes of local people slow down many development objectives and overall reduce the sustainability of development activities. That is why international organizations are focusing on the supply of capital equipment, in which they may engage private capital and thus open the way to Iraq to companies, which would be financially beneficial to both parties, i.e. the Iraqi citizens. To penetrate the Iraqi market with a new product or service, however, means not only to face competition from local products, but also the recently mentioned increasing activity of the neighboring Islamic countries, especially Turkey and Iran, but other producers of cheap goods from South and Southeast Asia. In this respect there is rather a chance for the Czech Republic to approach wealthier clientele, which will be (with economic growth and wealth of the Iraqi people) looking for higher quality goods for which it would be willing to pay.

The current study intends to investigate how processes related to acquiring well-being support are experienced by feminist activists in Belarus and what are the key ideas and notions in their statements. As a result of collected interviews and performed discourse analysis on the empirical material, the author has concluded that activists position themselves within the notion of productive “activism” where burn-out is considered to be a negative, yet normalized part of activist engagement. To receive support, activists narrate their stories in a manner that aligns with the project-based logic of applications for support. Proving personal un-wellness and committing to getting better through short-term actions, activists design their requests for support as contributions to their continued engagement in activism, submitting to a position where exit from activism is impossible.

Diploma thesis describes the transformation of Czech foreign development cooperation, appreciation of different views on ways to provide foreign aid in recent years and the change in status of the Ministry of Industry and trade in the Czech Development Agency, and as major players in the overall system. Based on the experience of the different actors of the cycle of foreign development cooperation shall aim to draw conclusions pointing to weaknesses in the existing system and recommend possible directions for the continuation of international cooperation in the coming years.

Czech foreign development cooperation represents important part of the Czech foreign policy. It also demonstrates adoption of its own part of responsibility for resolution of current global problems. Together with becoming part of organisations such as European Union or Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development importance of Czech foreign development cooperation is growing. Next to the main goal which is reduction of poverty in third-world countries, development cooperation has also another goals: it is also contributing to construction of good relations with developing countries and it helps ensure economic, security and environmental interests of the Czech republic. Current system of the Czech foreign development cooperation has grown up from the foundations, which have been lawn before 1989. From that time Czech Republic has made a great effort to improve its system of development cooperation and become an effective and responsible donor. As a key step in the direction of desired changes can be considered process of transformation of the Czech foreign development cooperation, initiated in 2007. Transformation was officially crowned when the Fundamentals documents were adopted. These documents present the Conception of the Czech foreign development cooperation and the Law (Act) of the...

Legal aspects of cooperation between the EU and ACP countries The origins of the EU cooperation with the group of Sub-saharan African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP Group) date back to the very beginnings of the European integration with Part IV of the Treaty of Rome establishing association of the former colonies of the several founding member states to the European Economic Community. After the colonies gained their independence, their association to the EEC was given a basis of the international law by means of the conventions from Yaoundé (1963, 1969) and Lomé (1975, 1980, 1985, 1990 - revised in 1995). The cooperation between the EC/EU and ACP countries has progressively evolved into a comprehensive partnership encompassing the political, development and economic cooperation. The relations between the EU and 78 ACP countries are actually ruled by the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (2000, revised in 2005 and 2010) which is to be in force until 2020. The EU-ACP partnership constitutes a specific system of international law and probably can be described as the most comprehensive relationship between developed and developing countries. In many ways, the cooperation with the ACP countries represents a special case in the field of the EU external relations and, due to a specific historical...

This thesis deals with the assessment of the effectiveness of selected bilateral projects of Czech official development assistance. Main purpose is to assess how well were the projects prepared and what were their results and eventual impacts. On the basis of aid effectiveness literature and manuals and handbooks for project management some main recommended principles and components of the ideal project design were specified. These principles and components were confronted with the reality of selected Czech development projects, the way these projects were design and with results they brought. These information were gathered by undertaking an own survey among projects leaders and through analysis of existing evaluation reports. In general, the design of considered projects has not been found sufficiently coherent with the recommended principles. Projects' results have not been as good as was expected. Although many of the considered principles had already been well known a long time before the evaluated projects were implemented, it has to be noted that there were no common standards formally declared in the Czechia in the time when these projects were formulated and implemented. Key words: development cooperation, aid effectiveness, project cycle management, Czechia

Gender equality is an important attribute in Sweden, much connected to the country’s selfimage. This thesis analyzes Swedish state policy strategies for Sweden’s works with gender equality abroad, in development cooperation. From a feminist postcolonial perspective, the thesis conducts a critical discourse analysis of the policy framework regulating Swedish development cooperation in relation to gender equality. The result show that women and men are constructed as discursively different in the policy framework. Further, the issue of gender inequality, as portrayed within the policy framework, constructs women as particular vulnerable and subordinated to men. A discursive construction which paradoxically reinforces the traditional, stereotypical gender norms which the policy framework aims to abolish. In line with this paradox the result also show that men are not recognized as responsible for gender inequalities nor are they lifted as agents of change in gender equality work. A result that suggests that women are both the ones in need of and the ones responsible for creating a gender equal future in developing nations according to the discourse of Swedish development cooperation policy.