Working tools in the project world order

In recent decades, civil society organizations (CSOs) have become increasingly important agents of change in society. This fact is of global significance, and today civil society organisations can be found in a broad variety of forms, in every conceivable local and global arena.

The organizations are known by different terms, including non-governmental, and popular depending on the relevant societal setting. They come in all colours of the rainbow, and vary in mode of operation as well. However, one significant shared feature is that they are present on the ground throughout. They can emerge anywhere and involve concerned human beings, ready to build and sustain their societies. CSOs are already represented in the UN, and the EU is discussing intensely how to relate to them. The World Bank and other transnational institutions make use of them and are criticised by them.

Civil society is a self-organising, non-governable system. It involves agents that make use of methods appropriate to them and these methods vary over time. Art and culture is combined with political activities, conferences on the web, and academic education and courses in non-violence. People read, write, act and analyse without an institutionalised educational curriculum. Concern, curiosity and interest are the predominant features.

In recent decades project management has exploded as an important mode of organising work. Critics say that projects decrease the independence for each small-scale organisation involved, offering merely an elusive freedom of action - effectively limited by the time frame and the report and evaluation procedures, and often dependence on external financiers. Others say that projects are the contemporary current in which small fish have to learn to swim - to keep from floating downstream.

• Globalverkstan arrange educational programmes and courses addressing these issues. Its hallmark is theory and practice in combination under experienced tutorship.
• Globalverkstan is an arena where the experienced staff, the academic and the involved activist will meet and where new results will evolve.
• Globalverkstan aims to provide functioning tools in an emerging project-based world order.