Recent developments have witnessed the emergence of civil society as a major development actor whose potentials and capacity, especially in Africa, are often taken for granted and treated as limitless.
A critical assessment of some of their structures (NGOs, religious organisations, trade unions, home-based associations, women’s mobilisation structures, local community organisations, and the youth) and the legal and political context of the operation of civil society in Cameroon shows a popular effervescence that is visible in social development initiatives; Although this would complement the state and free enterprise, it is however often frustrated by the state’s suspicion in a context of rising social awareness and protest that is assimilated with political opposition or attempts at manipulation along partisans lines.
This book is a call to reform the framework and civil society to assess its components and roles in shaping the future of Africa.
Emanuel Yenshu Vubo
ISBN : 286978-220-4
CODESRIA 2008
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The balance of power between an individual and the state they live in is the key to any country's political process. Concepts of citizenship, reciprocity of rights and citizen's duties intertwine in the struggle for assertion. With its largely collective citizenship, the civil society in Africa is alive and vibrant. But in the face of continuing global recession, the present phase of the African crisis is expected to sharpen contradictions within the continent's states. New paradigms have to be sought to explain the formations and realities. The ten chapters in this book, all written by African scholars, question the western, ethnocentric model of development and look at the wide diversity of African experience. From the Ormo cosmic framework and street-begging in Nigeria, through the role of labour and the part played by wage demands in the African crisis, this volume is a major contribution to the debate on Africa's future.
Eghosa Osaghae
ISBN: 2-86978-021-4
CODESRIA 1994