The SCG Foundation (Siam Cement Group Foundation), the ASEAN Foundation and the Master of Arts in International Development Studies (MAIDS) programme is pleased to grant up to 4 full scholarships for individuals wishing to study at the Master of Arts Program in International Development Studies at the Faculty of Political Science at Chulalongkorn University.
• 3 scholarships are open to government or non-profit sector employees from each
of the following three Southeast Asian countries: (1) Cambodia (2) Indonesia (3)
Vietnam.
• 1 scholarship is open to a Thai government or non-profit sector employee who lives in the far South of Thailand or would like to conduct his or her thesis on peace and development in that area.
The International Development Studies programme is the first of its kind at Chulalongkorn University and unique in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. The programme offers a one-year Master of Arts degree with multidisciplinary training in
international development, integrating academic, technical, managerial, and professional training, with a particular focus on policy.
MAIDS Program Requirements
• Bachelor degree in the Social Sciences or in related field, minimum Grade Point
Average (GPA) of 3.0;
• 2 years work experiences in a development field.
• English Proficiency: TOEFL score minimum 550, IELTS score 6 or CU-TEP score 550 (English tests must be less than two years old at the time of application).
• Strong commitment to return to their community or in any ASEAN country after completing the program
Please note that these scores, although a minimum requirement for admission, do not guarantee successful admission or completion of the programme. The candidate should feel comfortable writing graduate-level academic essays and participating in class discussions in English.

Source and More Information:

South Asia is prone to disasters spawned or magnified by extreme climatic events, including floods, droughts, heavy downpours, and heat-waves. The frequency and severity of such events is expected to increase significantly with climate change, manifested both as direct impacts and indirectly through interacting with other drivers and stressors in coupled human-natural systems. In addition to rapid-onset disasters, slow-onset situations, such as those linked to climate-change induced shifts in drought frequency and rainfall characteristics interacting with widespread degradation of the natural resource base, further compound vulnerability to disasters.

Actions for managing and mitigating disaster risks have potential for significant overlap with planning processes that build adaptive capacity for climate change, as has been noted in several recent reviews. However, efforts to transition from the current conceptual basis for the convergence of disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) towards operationalizing concepts into actions that integrate the two spheres have been meager. Overcoming obstacles to integrating DRR and CCA requires, amongst other factors, better understanding of policy and institutional capacities across multiple levels and sectors, knowledge and communication needs and decision-making priorities of various stakeholder groups, and governance strengths and deficiencies that shape responses and outcomes. It is with the imperative to improve understanding of these critical factors and linkages that START with support from CDKN is offering this CFP.

In addition to this CFP, CDKN issued a global pilot research call on Climate Compatible Development (CCD) and Agriculture in January 2011; this funded 4 projects for a total of 800,000 GBP. A regional research call for South East Asia is ongoing, and funding 5 projects for a total of 400,000 GBP. A regional research call in Africa will co-fund 10-12 projects for a total of 450,000 GBP. CDKN’s main global research call was issued in September 2011, and will fund up to 8-10 projects from a fund of 4 million. Details of the all of these calls are available on the CDKN website (www.cdkn.org).
Research theme and sub-themes
This CFP seeks collaborative research in the area of adaptive capacity, climate change, and disaster risk reduction in South Asia under the theme of integrating disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation for resilient development.
Under this broad research theme, the sub-themes specific to this CFP are:

1. Institutional arrangements and governance structures that influence the degree of flexibility and sustainability of DRR across varying scales.
2. Policy innovations that promote convergence of DRR and CCA into policy and practice at varying scales.
3. The changing nature of development factors, which shape vulnerability to disasters.

Implicit in these sub-themes is the need to understand how recent disasters can serve to inform future decision-making and enhance adaptive capacity. What were important failures and successes, and what needs to change in current policies, institutions, and governance structures to build adaptive capacity for disaster risk management given future climate change? What are key enabling factors for this change to occur? How do responses need to change in anticipation of future climate-related events, and how can appropriate responses be developed given the inherent uncertainties about future change trajectories?
Proposals are expected to demonstrate how the research will address one or more of the research sub-themes within the overall research theme.

Source and More Information:
http://start.org/programs/call-for-proposals-disaster-risk-reduction-in-south-asia

The Grant for Democracy and Human Rights Projects Overseas (GDHRPO) 2012 supports work that contributes to promoting democracy and human rights and to building international solidarity. The grant will be awarded to non-government organizations (not GOs or individuals) based in civil communities which have been working in this field for more than 3 years.

The May 18 Memorial Foundation has awarded grants to a total of 34 organizations from 18 countries from 2005 to 2011. Last year the Foundation provided funds to 10 grantee organizations in 8 Countries: Cambodia, Nepal, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Burma, and Palestine. Activities made possible by the 2011 grants included training workshops, regional seminars, national-level networking events, grassroots mobilization, rallies and much more. Issues covered include: Women's democratic education and training, development training for refugee workers, migrant workers rights protection, improved economic support for refugee workers, peace, justice and the reorganization of the student movement for demilitarization, human rights education for human rights watch, protection for child human trafficking victims in South Asia, support for human rights activists legal training projects.

The grant consists of 2 main categories: 1) Project Support and 2) Organization Support. The May 18 Memorial Foundation will support 1) 4 projects from 4 organizations and 2) 2 organizations.

Grantee organizations will receive the opportunity to participate in a variety of the May 18 Memorial Foundation’s international solidarity programs such as Gwangju Asian Forum, Gwangju Human Rights Folk School and so on.

Source and More Information:

If you are a young person, teacher, school or NGO working with children and/or youth and need a small amount of funds to support a project idea to help end exploitative child labor, we want to hear your ideas. In collaboration with the Emily Sandall Foundation, ECL will be awarding 12 Emily grants in the spring of 2012. Applications are due by midnight March 31, 2012. The theme for this round of grants is to support research and information gathering, documented by photos or video on worst forms of child labor that exists in local communities. There may be a form of child labor that has gone unnoticed or overlooked that needs to be brought to the attention of major donors and UN agencies. This is your chance to shed light on activities where children are being used, forced or trafficked to perform worst forms of child labor in your community. Presenting the story of an affected child or children engaged in this form of child labor is encouraged to be included within the application. Applications that focus on other strategies to end child labor will also be considered. Information on how to apply can be found within the Emily Sandall Memorial Grants section on the website.

Research activities to be funded should include a well-rounded overview of factors that contribute to child labor, including economic, cultural, educational, political, health or other. Given that this is primary research, footnotes may not be required. However, if other research on this topic of child labor has been conducted, this should be footnoted and appropriately cited. The research should include: 1) factors that contribute to the targeted worst form of child labor; 2) estimate of the level and extent of child labor in the targeted geographic area; 3) photos or video that document the research on the situation of children engaged in the targeted worst forms of child labor; 4) proposed strategy to address one or more of the contributing factors to the targeted form of child labor; and 5) identification of key stakeholders who could play a role in eliminating the targeted form of child labor in the geographic area. Each award to perform the research is a maximum of US $500. Research projects that are selected will be given primary consideration for funding in the fall 2012 round of Emily grants to move forward with implementing the child labor prevention / elimination strategy.

Source and More Information: