$2
Abdelali Doumou
ISBN 2-86978-001-x
CODESRIA 1990
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.
Today, much research is being devoted to the key actors and factors of the southern African liberation project: the dynamism of post-liberation statecraft; the pursuit of truth and reconciliation; affirmative action and black economic empowerment; post-liberation identities and xenophobia; the problems and prospects of democratic renewal; post- liberation economics from the point of view of national liberation projects; regionalism, regional initiatives such as NEPAD; the region’s relationship with the rest of the continent; and diaspora linkages.
Cet ouvrage propose une ethnographie de l’institution carcérale dans trois pays africains et rend compte de ses évolutions/appropriations dans le temps. En décrivant les acteurs avec leurs interactions/transactions, les productions de légitimités et constructions identitaires qui y ont cours, la perméabilité des frontières entre le dedans et dehors, il lève le voile sur la structuration des espaces carcéraux et de l’économie des valeurs qui y circulent et la confrontation des logiques formelles et informelles qui gouvernent leur quotidien. L’approche comparée de cette question sur plusieurs terrains avec diverses approches disciplinaires permet de sortir de l’image d’une prison « africaine » réifiée comme un espace clos, et de l’envisager comme un système de transactions sociales (valeurs, biens, services), de circulations de pouvoirs, de production de statuts, de rapports de domination, dans différents contextes socio-politiques africains. La question de la prison ouvre aussi à la réflexion sur les rapports entre le local et le global. Si les formes diversifiées d’expériences de la prison traduisent des héritages singuliers, elles s’articulent aussi à des cultures politiques contemporaines, avec des modèles de « bonnes pratiques » et des principes gestionnaires « voyageurs » qui participent ainsi à façonner le paysage des systèmes pénitentiaires et à construire les États africains.
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.
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.
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