$13
B.U.N. Igwe & A. Fadahunsi
CODESRIA, 1994, 204 p.,
ISBN : 1-870784-07-3 (cased)
Les défis du développement local au Sénégal
Le présent ouvrage se veut une analyse sans complaisance de la politique de décentralisation en milieu rural au Sénégal, mettant en exergue son incapacité à promouvoir le développement local qui est pourtant sa principale raison d’être dans un contexte de pauvreté. Pour identifier les raisons des lacunes, l’auteur va au-delà des textes et explore la compatibilité du comportement sociologique des acteurs et du contexte culturel avec la poursuite des objectifs de développement local. Mais il existe bien des solutions à la léthargie des acteurs concernés et à la faible envergure des initiatives entreprises. Elles devraient être recherchées dans la mobilisation méthodique et citoyenne autour d’actions plus ambitieuses, plus adaptées aux terroirs respectifs, quoique ouvertes sur la modernité et parfaitement ancrées dans la culture du résultat.
Les rapports sociaux de genre connaissent depuis quelques années des mutations significatives en Afrique et dans le monde. En effet, la vague de démocratisation qui souffle sur le continent depuis le début des années quatre-vingts et les transitions politiques qui en découlent engendrent une participation croissante des femmes dans la sphère publique. Sur le plan économique, les femmes déploient de nombreuses stratégies afin de s’assurer une certaine autonomie financière et, partant une capacité à s’affirmer au sein du ménage qui relèverait du domaine privé. Mais en même temps, les rapports sociaux de genre dans les sphères publique et privée restent encore marquées par la discrimination, l’inégalité, et la violence dont la majorité des victimes seraient des femmes.
Saida Yahya-Othman is a retired Associate Professor of the University of Dar es Salaam, where she worked for over 40 years. She trained at the Universities of Dar es Salaam, York and Edinburgh, in English linguistics, and has taught and published largely in that area, particularly discourse analysis and pragmatics. In 1972 she married Haroub Othman, who died in 2009. She lives in Dar es Salaam, where she does pre-publication work.
ISBN 9789987082834
2013
Indigenous Knowledge System and Intellectual Property Rights in the Twenty-first Century:Perspectives from Southern Africa (Printed)
This volume discusses a number of issues on the contested nature of intellectual property rights (IPR) and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) in the context of Southern Africa. The issues addressed include the protection of folklore, IKS in a digital era, the valuation and safeguard of heritage sites, the need for appropriate IKS legislation, community based control of natural resources and the role played by traditional music in the maintenance of community. It is this extensive exploration of IKS from the vantage points of communication and culture, and explored in terms of policy, cultural survival, international as well as intra-national politics, economics, philosophy and ethics that makes this empirical grounded collection of papers unique, a distinctive contribution to the literature and ’cause’ of IKS. The specific IKS-related issues raised and dealt with in this volume are generic in the sense that the very same issues are being contested in different parts of the world. In this respect, this book highlights the particular as a means of comprehending the universal.
The ‘counter-revolution’ in Development Economics in the 1980s fundamentally altered the way the state ‘thinks’, which is evident in the state’s retrenchment and reconstitution of the state’s relationship to its citizens. The combination of deflationary macroeconomic policies and a residual approach to social policy, broadly, and social provisioning, more specifically, fundamentally altered the post-colonial trajectory of public policy in Africa. Despite the neoliberal ascendance that nurtured the more residual direction of social policy, the contention for an alternative vision of social policy remained and advanced with vigour. Specific contributions range from the deployment of social policy in framing the nation-building project, endogenous mutual support institutions, land and agrarian reform as a social policy instrument, the gender dynamics of social policy, and the mechanism enabling the spread of cash transfer schemes on the continent.
Reforming the African Public Sector, Retrospect and Prospects (Printed)
Reforming the African Public Sector: Retrospect and Prospects is an in-depth and wide-ranging review of the available literature on African public sector reforms. It illustrates several differing country experiences to buttress the main observations and conclusions. It adopts a structural/institutional approach which underpins most of the reform efforts on the continent. To contextualize reform of the public sector and understand its processes, dynamics and intricacies, the book examines the state and state capacity building in Africa, especially when there can be no state without an efficient public sector. In addition, the book addresses a number of theories such as the new institutional economics, public choice and new public management, which have in one way or another influenced most of the initiatives implemented under public sector reform in Africa. There is also a survey of the three phases of public sector reform which have emerged and the balance sheet of reform strategies, namely, decentralization, privatization, deregulation, agencification, co-production and public-private partnerships. It concludes by identifying possible alternative approaches such as developing a vigorous public sector ethos and sustained capacity building to promote and enhance the renewal and reconstruction of the African public sector within the context of the New Partnerships for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), good governance and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
As the twenty first century unfolds, African universities are undergoing change and confronting challenges which are unprecedented. The effects of globalisation, and political and economic pressures of liberalisation and privatisation, both internal and external, are reconfiguring all aspects of university life: teaching, research, and their public service functions; such that the need to redefine the roles of the African universities, and to defend their importance have become paramount. At the same time, the universities must themselves balance demands of autonomy and accountability, expansion and excellence, diversification and differentiation, and internationalisation and indigenisation. In a climate in which scholarship and production are increasingly dependent on ICTs, and are becoming globalised, the universities must address the challenges of knowledge production and dissemination. The need to indigenise global scholarship, to their own requirements, meanwhile is ever- pressing.
Enseignement supérieur en Afrique Francophone: crises, réformes et transformations – Étude comparative entre le Congo, le Cameroun, la Côte d’Ivoire et le Burkina Faso (Printed)
L’enseignement supérieur en Afrique en générale – et en Afrique francophone en particulier a connu une forte expansion en termes d’effectifs des étudiants et du nombre de structures depuis son avènement. Trois grands moments marquent son évolution, tant du point de vue de ses objectifs que de son orientation stratégique. Il s’agit de l’ère des universités coloniales, celles instituées par le colon; de celle des universités de l’indépendance, celles qui devaient affirmer la souveraineté nationale au lendemain des indépendances à travers la nationalisation, voire l’autonomisation du champ académique, et enfin celle des universités du développement dont le contenu, défini par les dirigeants nationaux, est censé correspondre aux exigences du développement.
La rupture des grands équilibres macroéconomiques des années 80 a engendré la crise et la fin du développement du secteur éducatif. Cette crise multiforme qui concerne à la fois la pertinence, la qualité, la gestion et le financement de l’enseignement supérieur a engendré ces deux dernières décennies la dégradation des infrastructures et du milieu d’apprentissage, mais aussi l’exode continu des cerveaux, le déclin de la recherche et l’amplification des conflits entre étudiants, syndicats des personnels et l’administration de l’enseignement supérieur. Cette étude contribue à la réflexion que nécessitent les nouvelles formes d’exigences qui remettent en cause les performances des universités africaines dès lors que celles-ci influencent autant le marché du travail que l’évolution des connaissances.
Let the people speak : Tanzania Down the Road to Neo-liberalism
The African national project has been defeated, and the imperial/globalisation project is on the offensive. And yet, as Issa Shivji, one of Africa’s most distinguished public intellectuals, argues in this collection of essays, there is bound to be a backlash – witness Latin America. African scholars are already debating the resurgence of nationalism and Pan-Africanism, and searching for alternative paths of development and democracy.
The ninety essays contained in this book are selected by the author from his writings published in newspaper columns during the period 1990-2005, a critical time in Tanzania that witnessed the rise and fall of nationalism, and transition to and consolidation of neo-liberalism. The essays give an overview of the intellectual history and traditions in Tanzania, one of the few countries in Africa which can still boast of political stability and reasonable openness. The writings reflect the hopes and fears of the progressive intellectual community, and project a strong sense of the enduring ideas and values in the period. The author’s aims are to recover the history of the recent past in Tanzania, build a narrative of where the country is coming from, and provide a historical understanding of the events and climate of the present.
The essays give an overview of the intellectual history and traditions in Tanzania, one of the few countries in Africa which can still boast of political stability and reasonable openness. The writings reflect the hopes and fears of the progressive intellectual community, and project a strong sense of the enduring ideas and values in the period. The author’s aims are to recover the history of the recent past in Tanzania, build a narrative of where the country is coming from, and provide a historical understanding of the events and climate of the present.
Ghana: One Decade of the Liberal State (Printed)
« This is a ground-breaking, nuanced and comprehensive book that grapples with how developing countries in general and Ghana in particular have endured and responded to a decade of neo-liberal ascendancy. Based on astute research, experiences and analysis, the book offers penetrating commentaries on recent socio-economic and political developments in Ghana. A « must-read » collection of excellent and stimulating ideas. » Mohamed Salih, Professor of Politics of Development, University of Leiden and the Institute of Social Studies, The Netherlands « This, the first book-length assessment of the latest experiment in liberal democracy in Ghana, is a timely study. It shows in an admirable way both the progress and the still existing shortcomings in the institutionalization of liberal democracy and will undoubtedly attract a wide readership in academic and policy-making circles. » Ghana has witnessed a « revolution through the ballot box » since its return to constitutional rule in 1993. Yet this period of sustained democratic government in an era of globalization and liberal triumphalism has brought with it new demands. How has Ghana faced up to the problems of institution-building, state-market relations and democratic leadership? Can it deal with the challenges posed by security, human rights and foreign policy in the twenty-first century? This unique collection interrogates all these issues and assesses the future of the democratic experiment in one of sub-Saharan Africa’s rare « islands of peace ». In doing so, it provides an invaluable guide to Ghana’s political past, present and future.
Economic Liberation and development in Africa (Printed)
In this endnote address delivered at the 11th General Assembly of CODESRIA, held in Maputo in 2005, Jomo Kwame Sundaram notes that over three decades of economic stagnation, contraction and increased poverty have taken a huge toll on Africa’s economic, social and political fabric; and pro-active efforts are urgently required in order to build new capacities and capabilities for development. He argues that much of the ostensible conventional wisdom regarding African development and poverty is often both erroneous and harmful.
Even the IMF has acknowledged that international financial liberalization has exacerbated volatility. Worse still, there is strong evidence that some of the economic policy advice given to, and conditionalities imposed on governments in Africa have reflected vested interests and prejudice. In view of these, and the fact that economic growth and development do not necessarily reduce poverty and inequalities, Sundaram calls for greater ‘policy space’ for African governments to choose or design their own development strategies, as well as develop and implement more appropriate development policies.
Africa and the Challenges of Citizenry and Inclusion: The Legacy of Mario de Andrade (Printed)
At the 11th General Assembly of CODESRIA, held in Maputo in December 2005, Carlos Lopes presented the Cheikh Anta Diop Lecture on “Africa and the Challenges of Citizenry and Inclusion”, through the legacy of Mario de Andrade of Angola.
He discusses the life and times of Mário Andrade; African nationalism and its revolutionary proposals; and the triumphs and vicissitudes of Negritude and Pan-Africanism. He analyses the consequences for a country’s citizenry, inclusion and respect for identities, and concludes with implications for African intellectuals. Like Mário Andrade, who abhorred the rites associated with power and despaired at exclusionary notions of citizenship, Lopes is critical of narrow nationalism that jeopardises pan-Africanism, and calls on African intellectuals to denounce these practices in the interest of universal identity rights, based on the principle that development brings with it greater opportunities and freedom of choice.
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