bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
2 - Informing Approaches in Establishing Stand Alone Community Literacy Programmes in South Africa
Authors: Kanyane Chris
Published: November 2011

Literacy is usually considered the ability to read at a basic level. Now it is beginning to be defined more broadly to include applying reading, writing, and mathematical skills to obtain and use information and solve problems at levels of proficiency necessary to function in society, to achieve one's goals and develop one's knowledge and potential. 'Family Literacy' is an intergeneration approach to literacy activities. Comprehensive family literacy services provide a holistic, fully integrated, family-focused approach, providing parents and children most in need of improving their literacy skills with intensive, frequent and long-term educational and non-educational services. Through the Technikon Northern Gauteng Research Capacity Building project, I initiated the Soshanguve Family Literacy programme in the surrounding community of Soshanguve. The Soshanguve Family Literacy Programme provides the following activities: Adult Education, Childhood Education or Program Your Child for Success, Parent Education, Interactive Parent/Child Activities (PACT TIME).
4 - The Challenge of the Participator to Rural Poverty Alleviation: The Example of Olugbena Group of Villages, Ewekoro Ogun State, Nigeria
Authors: Faniran Adetoye , Adeboyejo Thompson Aina
Published: November 2011

This paper draws from the experiences of a Non-Governmental Organisation, Man and Nature Study/Action Centre (MANASC)—concerning a rural development project being undertaken in Olugbena, a group of six villages in Ewekoro Local Government of Ogun State, Nigeria—to highlight the challenges of participatory rural development in Africa. The project part, funded by the Australian High Commission in Nigeria under its Direct Aid Scheme, comprises a component of a much broader development plan for the area as contained in a pre-feasibility report undertaken in 1995 by MANASC for the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), a Parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Health. It is observed that one of the challenges for rural development facilitators, policy makers and practitioners, revolves around appropriate strategies for managing unpredictability, especially those that reduce the unknown elements to acceptable levels and impose the minimum of appropriate structures.
développement plus large, destiné à cette zone, tel que prévu dans un rapport de pré-faisabilité préparé en 1995 par le MANASC (pour la «National Primary Health Care Development Agency» - Agence Nationale pour le Développement des Soins de Santé de Base - (NPHCDA), une structure semi-publique du Ministère Fédéral de la Santé. Il a été noté que parmi les défis auxquels sont confrontés les facilitateurs, décideurs et praticiens du développement rural, figure la définition de stratégies adaptées à la gestion des imprévus, particulièrement celles qui permettraient de réduire les éléments imprévus à des niveaux acceptables et qui favoriseraient la mise en place de structures appropriées.
7 - Mothers in the Informal Economy and Changes in Child Feeding and Caring Roles in Kampala, Uganda
Authors: Ntozi James
Published: November 2011

The paper examines the child feeding and caring practices of mothers in an informal economy in Kampala City, using qualitative data collected in 1996. It was found that the supplementary feeding of children in this context started as early as three weeks despite the widespread belief among mothers that full breast feeding should go on up to at least three months. This action was justified in tenus of insufficient milk, working away from home, maternal illness, increased appetite of the child, sex of the child, child illness and contraception. This discussion, therefore, explores the ways in which, due to financial constraints, relatives as childcare providers are nonually relied on heavily by working mothers.
7 - L'Union africaine comme réponse africaine au défi de la mondialisation
Authors: Kouam Reine Djuidje
Published: November 2011

Cette étude nous mène dans le chantier très complexe de la construction régionale en Afrique pour s'adapter à la mondialisation. Elle analyse l'Union africaine dans la perspective des plus récentes initiatives et des stratégies africaines en réponse aux enjeux nouvellement acquis par la mondialisation ainsi que les approches de renforcement des mécanismes et de création d'institutions adaptées à celle-ci. Elle a la préoccupation suivante: l'Union africaine (UA) est-elle une réponse adéquate au processus de globalisation dont les paradigmes-clés sont intégration et interdépendance? Autrement dit, est-ce que le simple fait de créer une nouvelle institution est susceptible de doter le continent africain des moyens de juguler les problèmes que pose la mondialisation dans le système international aujourd'hui ? L'objectif de ce travail consiste à rendre compte de la dimension pragmatique de l'UA. Il importe de repréciser la perception africaine des problèmes que pose la mondialisation jumelée aux nouveaux éléments constitutifs des relations internationales. Cette démarche implique de revenir sur l'environnement à la fois global et continental de sa création; les objectifs que se sont fixés ses fondateurs et les processus de sa mise en œuvre.
16 - UNRISD (Institut de Recherce des Nations Unies pour le développement social) Recherches pour le changement social, Suisse, 141 pages
Authors: Tchapda Hélène Ngamba
Published: November 2011

resume
2 - Is There One Science, Western Science?
Authors: Okere Theophilus
Published: November 2011

All humans by nature desire to know and humans are distinguished from the rest of creation by the miracle of knowledge. If all cultures have developed their own forms of knowledge, the spectacular success of a certain form of knowledge, science, notably in the west, has frequently led to its being exclusively attributed to the west. Yet science remains only one of many forms of knowledge and the west only one of its producers. The success of the west has tended to marginalize other forms of knowledge and other contributions to knowledge and, thus to impoverish an otherwise potentially rich and complex world knowledge landscape. It has tended to inhibit or even prevent the development of a really universal, human-knowledge project. Its very success, due essentially to its sustained application to technology, has enabled the development of a false superiority over other forms of knowledge and a real power hegemony of the west over other peoples. The future of lasting peaceful co-existence in the world may depend, in part, on the emancipation of other knowledge modes and forms.
4 - Ethnomathematics, Geometry and Educational Experiences in Africa
Authors: Gerdes Paul
Published: November 2011

The paper traces historically reflections about mathematics, education and culture in Africa, that culminated in the emergence of ethnomathematics as a research field. A brief overview of ethnomathematical research in Mozambique and ofhistorical research related to mathematics in Africa is presented, followed by examples of the integration of ethnomathematics into teacher education to stimulate the development of social—and cultural—mathematical awareness. The paper concludes with some trends in using ideas from ethnomathematics in education in Africa.
5 - Identification, Collection and Domestication of Medicinal Plants in Southeastern Nigeria
Authors: Nwufo Martin I. , Ibe Α. Ε.
Published: November 2011

Field studies were conducted to investigate the medicinal plants, through identification, collection and domestication of these plants in southeastern, Nigeria. Questionnaire, personal interview and review of available records shows that out of forty-three plants about fifteen were undergoing domestication in the course of this research. This study revealed that much has not been done to domesticate these medicinal plants in Southeastern Nigeria. It was equally discovered that the medicinal plants have other uses as some could be used as vegetables, fruits, trees, ornamentals etc. From the results of this study, it is believed that nature has everything we need to exist happily on earth. But our inability to positively exploit nature makes the difference. If the result and recommendations of this study are strictly implemented, we hope for a better future.
6 - Healing Insanity: Skills and Expert Knowledge of Igbo Healers
Authors: Iroegbu Patrick
Published: November 2011

This paper gives insight into how Igbo healers of Southern Nigeria conceive of insanity and apply endogenous knowledge and expertise to heal it, contrary to the belief that cosmopolitan orthodox medicine only can provide efficacious cure for insanity. Resort to community support and culture remains people's widely shared way of dealing with insanity and related disturbances. While phar maceutical drugs are being made available to health seekers, local herbal and ritual resources as well as communicational and bodily skills do constitute the asset for holistic healing. Although research shows tensions between the local, Christian and biomedical views, the paper argues that effective healing tends to be successful when the etiology and treatment include due ancestral compliance work in harmony with people's views, emotions and life-worlds. The paper of fers an endogenous theory of symbolic release underlying a genuinely Igbo cosmological and epistemological strategy, side by side with the ritual of tying and untying for releasing the forces hampered by intrusion, and for achieving treatment based on culturally meaningful herbal and animal resources. To res cue the help-seeking individual and kin-group, as a first principle, the forces that tie the afflicted need to be rusticated before effective results can be obtained with treatment.
2 - ‘Spaces of Resistance’– African workers at Shoprite in Maputo and Lusaka
Authors: Miller Darlene
Published: November 2011

South Africa’s reintegration into Southern Africa since 1994 has opened the way for renewed investments by South African firms in African countries. New shopping malls are one visible impact of this post-Apartheid development. This article is about the regional claims and the regional resistance of workers at the foreign branches of Shoprite, a South African retail multinational. Two shopping mall workplaces of Shoprite in Zambia (Manda Hill) and Mozambique (Centro Commercial) are the case studies for this analysis. The paper compares the experiences of retail workers at Shoprite, a South African food supermarket chain and Africa’s largest retailer, in two cities – Maputo, Mozambique and Lusaka, Zambia, exploring the variations and similarities in the responses of workers to their South African work environments. While Zambia’s ‘expectations of modernity’ have led to disillusionment, Mozambican workers accept South African investment as a necessary phase of Mozambique’s recovery. I argue that a new regional moment is shaping the workplace experiences of African workers, opening up a new ‘space of hope’ in the region. South African retail multinational corporations are important agents of a new regional imagination amongst retail workers in post-Apartheid Southern Africa.
3 - Senegalese Entrepreneurs in the USA and Managerial Decision making: A pilot study
Authors: Tidjani Bassirou
Published: November 2011

The paper looks at the conditions that influence how Senegalese entrepreneurs create and manage their businesses in the US while acquiring income in order to maintain and improve their social status in Senegal. The study uses the grounded theory to look at three cases in the city of Cincinnati. The study found that the creation of small businesses by Senegalese is the result of a process centred on the search for resources and the definition and protection of their business undertakings. This process is characterised by variations which depend on several conditions: owners’ social profile, their management of the Senegalese community as a key stakeholder, their individual perception of the relation be- tween religion and business, their personal understanding of the US reality, and their rejection or acceptance of the African system. This study concludes that Senegalese business owners approach doing business differently, even though they share the same basic culture and the same objective as their fellow mi- grants, which is to return home with an improved social status. However, given the methodology used (grounded theory), the sample and the pilot nature of the study, these conclusions cannot be generalised. The findings suggest that the study of immigrant businesses requires methodologies that are qualitative, in- terpretative and based on what business owners do and how they think.
8 - Multiple Determinants of Milk Production in Africa: The Example of the Diversity of Dairy Farming Systems in the Mbarara Area (Uganda)
Authors: Alary Véronique , Faye Bernard
Published: November 2011

In developing countries, animal products supply presents a major challenge in meeting the demand for the two next decades. Many researchers point out the necessity for a ‘reasoned intensification’, especially in agricultural areas, by integrating agriculture and livestock activities. But intensification only occurs on specific farms. How can one explain the different dairy developments or technical options between farms? An analysis of the diversity of dairy farming systems in Mbarara district (Uganda) has been conducted from a monthly cross- sectional survey of a sample of 22 farmers, identified from a large household survey (183 dairy producers). The multi-table factorial analysis allows a thorough review of the interactions and points out some causal relationships between the development of the dairy systems and the social and technical management of the whole farm. This analysis underlines the key factors of intensification such as genetic improvement or market opportunities; but also the degree of intensification which is well correlated to the stage of family development. If the livestock may reinforce different functions (security, consumption, cash flow) according to the farm type, the results show that all these functions exist for all the farm types, either in the pastoral or agricultural areas. So these results question the stereotypes built on the different livestock systems in Africa.
9 - The State of the Process of Decentralisation in Cameroon
Authors: Cheka Cosmas
Published: November 2011

The pace of the process of decentralisation in a given context unavoidably depends on the degree of favourableness of the legal environment and the dynamism of stakeholders (especially of local authorities, the state, develop- ment cooperation partners and civil society). This paper seeks to inform on the state of the process in Cameroon by exposing its current legal environment, its constraints and the level of organisation of its key actors in relation to the legal environment. Drawing from this assessment, the paper assesses the shortcom- ings of the decentralisation process in Cameroon while arguing that the objec- tive for embarking on decentralisation in each context varies with its promoter. In the case of Cameroon, decentralisation constitutes the legal, institutional and financial means through which regional and local authorities operate to foster local development with the active involvement of the population. Through the devolution of powers to local entities, local development could be enhanced and a contribution made to the fight against poverty. The assessment of the legal framework and of its stakeholders shows that the decentralisation laws passed in 2004 in Cameroon have local development and governance as their main thrust. The new laws certainly create an environment that represents an irreversible step forward for the process of decentralisation but are in need of completion by the passing of legal instruments of application for them to effec- tively accelerate the pace of the decentralisation process and good governance. There is also need for better organisation and coordination of interventions of the stakeholders. The process is currently hampered by especially financial constraints on local authorities and limited capacities of the actors and benefici- aries of devolved powers. The paper concludes with a plea in favour of inter alia the strengthening of the capacities of all stakeholders through an approach that is sustainable if the objective of decentralisation is to be met.
10 - Integrating Remote Sensing, GIS, Census, and Socioeconomic Data in Studying the Population–Land Use/Cover Nexus in Ghana: A Literature Update
Authors: Codjoe Samuel Nii Ardey
Published: November 2011

Land is a very important asset and a means to sustain livelihood. In the face of a rapidly growing global population, increase in technological capacity, and affluence, the earth’s land cover has been transformed, especially in developing countries. At the same time, social organisation, attitudes, and values have also undergone profound changes. In contemporary times, issues of sustainable development, pollution prevention, global environmental change and related issues of human-environment interaction have been a major concern globally. This concern has largely been sparked by the phenomenon of global warming and its consequences, which are threatening the very existence of humans on the surface of the earth. Remotely sensed data (mainly from aerial photographs and satellite images) in combination with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have been observed to have potential scientific value for the study of population-environment interaction. This paper provides an account of how Remote Sensing, GIS, census (mainly population and agricultural) and socioeconomic (household, district and regional) survey data have been integrated in studying the population land-use/cover nexus in Ghana. It also identifies the major methodological challenges, and solutions.
3 - Gender Division of Labour and Women’s Decision-Making Power in Rural Households in Cameroon
Authors: Sikod Fondo
Published: November 2011

In most rural areas of Cameroon, women are incorporating a market-oriented dimension to their farming activities. This is an improvement from years before when food crop farming was almost exclusively for household consumption. This additional focus on food crop farming is mainly as a result of the need to supplement household incomes following the drop in salaries which came as a result of the economic crisis Cameroon and many African countries have been facing since the 1980s. Nominal incomes for salary earners in Cameroon, mostly men, were slashed by over 60 per cent in the early 1990s (Tchoungui et al., 1995). The agricultural sector was not spared either. Most of Cameroon’s foreign earn- ings come from agricultural commodities – cocoa, coffee, cotton, whose produc- tion is largely in small-holdings owned mostly by men. In the 1980s, world prices for these commodities collapsed, and of course, the incomes of the small-hold- ers dropped drastically. The burden of making up for this shortfall within house- holds was placed on the backs of women. Considering that decision-making seems to be based on, among other factors, economic power, income earnings is likely to confer a certain degree of decision-making power on women (Ngome 2003). This paper looks at how change in the gender division of labour impacts women’s decision-making power, and whether the traditional division of labour, which gives women very little access to labour-augmenting re ources, leads to an inefficient allocation of resources that retard development.
5 - Role Duality among School-age Children Participating in Farming in Some Villages in Kwara State, Nigeria
Authors: Adisa Rashid S. , Adekunle Oluwasegun A.
Published: November 2011

The paper examines rural children’s role duality as school pupils and farm par- ticipants. Multi-stage cluster random sampling was used to elicit data from 229 respondents aged between five and sixteen years. It was found that 44 per cent of the respondents were simultaneously schooling and farming, while the re- maining were only either in school or farming. Using eight common farm activi- ties, a coefficient of farm participation (cfp) was computed, while another eight agricultural innovations were used to compute agricultural innovation aware- ness index (awi) for each respondent. It was found that no significant difference existed in farm participation levels of respondents attending school and those that were not, while a significant difference in innovation awareness (awi) ex- isted in favour of respondents in school. Parental influence, peer group and school farms were also found to be significantly related to respondents’ partici- pation in agriculture. It is thus imperative to keep rural children in school even as they are engaged in farming activities.
1 - Land in the Political Economy of African Development: Alternative Strategies for Reform
Authors: Moyo Sam
Published: November 2011

Since 2000, there has been an escalation of land-related conflicts in Zimbabwe, Côte d’Ivoire, the Delta region of Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. These con- flicts are examples of numerous national struggles for access to land in Africa and reflect the failure of the African state to address the land and development nexus on the continent. The land question in Africa is a by-product of globalised control of land, natural resources and minerals in general, reflecting incomplete decolonisation processes in ex-settler colonies along with the penchant for for- eign ‘investment’ in a neo-liberal policy framework that marginalises the rural and urban poor. Global finance capital is increasingly entangled in conflicts over land, as the exploitation of oil, minerals and natural resources expands into new African enclaves that highlight the external dimension of distorted devel- opment. These processes define the significance of land in the political economy of African development. This paper examines the complex social and political contradictions that shape land struggles, including their colonial and post-inde- pendence trajectory. The failures of neo-liberal land reforms, based on market forces and their confrontation by popular demands for redistributive reforms are discussed.
2 - Development, Social Citizenship and Human Rights: Re-thinking the Political Core of an Emancipatory Project in Africa
Authors: Neocosmos Michael
Published: November 2011

The paper begins from the axiomatic point that, despite the form it eventually took, namely that of a neo-colonial process, development was understood and fought for in Africa as [part of] an emancipatory political project central to the liberatory vision of the pan-African nationalism which emerged victorious at independence. Indeed independence was always seen, by radical nationalism in particular, as only the first step towards freedom and liberation from oppres- sion, the second being economic development. Indeed ‘economism’ and ‘statism’ were mirror images of each other: it was believed that only the economy could liberate humanity and that only the state could drive the economy to progress. Today, the first proposition has been retained but the second has been dropped from hegemonic discourse. Yet the two are inseparable twins; it is in fact the case that just as the latter is false so is the former, for human emancipation is and can only be a political project. While development today is said to be guided by the (not so invisible) “hand of the market”, the state has simultaneously ‘sub- contracted’ many of its development management functions to external bodies such as NGOs. These are frequently simply new parastatals, vehicles for social entrepreneurship for a ‘new’ middle-class of development professionals. We have now a new form of state rule which forms the context for re-thinking de- velopment and politics. Central to this new form of rule is the hegemony of human rights discourse. This paper begins by reviewing the political assump- tions of the nature of citizenship underlying T.H. Marshall’s argument for ‘so- cial rights’; it provides a critique of human rights discourse and civil society from an emancipatory perspective, situating these within the new forms of im- perialism and comments on the character of political parties and social move- ments in understanding political emancipation today. It argues that in Africa, if one is to think an emancipatory project, citizenship must be conceived as active citizenship, and political subjectivity must be thought, not as management or opinions but, following the work of Badiou and Lazarus, as the freedom to think new ‘possibles’.
3 - Whither African Development? A Preparatory for an African Alternative Reformulation of the Concept of Development
Authors: Wai Zubairu
Published: November 2011

Intended as a preparatory for an African alternative reformulation of the con- cept of development, this paper problematises Africa’s development experi- ence in order to understand the impasse that has characterised it. Three major concerns are addressed: first, development is historically examined as a politi- cally violent and oppressive, culturally deterministic and economically exploita- tive paradigm operating on a flawed logic. Second, it discusses the reconceptualisation of development as a global project in the current era of neo- liberal globalisation, and considers why problems of African development can- not be solved within the context of this equally flawed and problematic refor- mulation. Finally, the paper proposes ways in which development, rather than abandoned, might be reclaimed so as to allow for reformulations of indigenous African alternatives; that is, reformulated and anchored in indigenous concep- tions of social provisioning and the individual’s position within a community.
4 - Beyond the Impasse of African Industrial Development: The Case of Botswana, Tanzania and Zambia
Authors: Kapunda Stephen Miti
Published: November 2011

The thrust of this article is to examine critically the importance, performance and under-weighting of the industrial sector in Africa focusing on three coun- tries, Botswana, Tanzania and Zambia, in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The article shows that both theoretical and empiri- cal evidence indicates somewhat unsatisfactory industrial performance. The ar- ticle attempts to explain the way forward (beyond the impasse), by providing alternative approaches, opportunities and recommendations.
6 - Climate Information for Development: An Integrated Dissemination Model
Authors: Tarhule Aondover Augustine
Published: November 2011

This paper describes a new conceptual model of climate research and seasonal forecast dissemination for West Africa. The model was developed through a survey of 600 climate information end-users and 27 organisations in four West African countries – Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria. Despite significant advances in climate research and climate forecasting, the majority of African countries continue to suffer the full impacts of climate variability with serious adverse implications for economic growth and development. These countries are yet to experience the benefits of climate research for mitigating impacts. The major challenge is lack of access to, and ability to respond to, climate re- search information by both vulnerable groups and institutions and agencies charged with managing the impacts of climate variability. Additionally funding agencies outside the continent drive much of the research on African climate dynamics. Indeed few African countries have the resources, technical expertise and, in some cases, political commitment to give the necessary priority to cli- mate and environmental research. Therefore, it is important to develop innova- tive strategies that allow them to take advantage of the results of climate re- search. The proposed model consists of a regional archive and database for all research related to West African climate variability. The goal is to improve ac- cess to emerging research findings and technologies and to avoid duplication of efforts. A second major component includes an institute dedicated to the testing, validation and adaptation of research for practical applications under local con- ditions. The model illustrates clearly the pathways of climate research informa- tion flow and linkages between the research community, policy makers, the media and end-users. Although based on research in West Africa, the model can easily be adapted for other parts of Africa.
4 - Thoughts on Intellectual and Institutional Links Between African and Black Studies
Authors: Murunga Godwin R.
Published: November 2011

Black identity and nationalism in the civil rights era were forged through trans- Atlantic and Pan-African solidarity. Both African and African-American intel- lectuals and institutions played key roles in Pan-African nationalism and the sustenance of civil rights struggles across the Atlantic. However, in the 1970s onwards, these Pan-African links were subverted by vertical dialogues between western, especially white, ‘experts’ of Africa and Africans; a dialogue that was skewed in favour of Africanist paradigms and knowledge because of the obvi- ous unequal distribution of intellectual resources in favour of white researchers in the global North. This shift was also matched by the preponderance of nega- tive themes about Africa, an increasing amount of ignorance in the west of the realities in Africa and the treatment of Africa as a mere object of curiosity and theory testing. This paper locates the growing ‘ignorance’ of African realities among African-Americans in the rise and dominance of Africanist Africa, its disengagement from Black Studies, the marginalisation of African-American and African scholarship (conducted by black scholars) in Euro-American scholar- ship and the de-emphasis of radical and Black intellectual traditions in the main- stream study of Africans. The paper proposes the enhancement of direct hori- zontal dialogue between Africans and African-Americans instead of the vertical dialogue between Africans and Africanists which has failed to provide an objec- tive presentation of Africa’s achievements and failures, gains and losses.

Godwin Rapando Murunga, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya.
6 - Senghor et la pensée de l’universel : l’éclairage leibnizien
Authors: Diagne Ramatoulaye
Published: November 2011

Pour saisir la profondeur et l’originalité de la pensée de Léopold Sédar Senghor, il est nécessaire de se concentrer sur ses sources. Parmi ces sources, Senghor lui-même fait souvent référence à des auteurs tels que le révérend Teilhard de Chardin ou Bergson. Le philosophe allemand Leibniz n’est jamais mentionné. Néanmoins, la conception leibnizienne de l’universalité est très proche de celle de Senghor, comme nous allons l’illustrer dans les lignes suivantes.
8 - Intellectuels africains, patriotisme et panafricanisme : à propos de la fuite des cerveaux
Authors: Mbonda Ernest-Marie
Published: November 2011

Sous les apparences d’une simple description sociologique, la notion de fuite des cerveaux cache un jugement de valeur sur les devoirs des intellectuels à l’égard de leurs patries. On ne parlerait pas de « fuite » si l’on ne considérait pas tout intellectuel comme étant d’abord rattaché à un pays particulier, à un conti- nent particulier, et ayant à son égard une certaine « obligation patriotique » de contribuer, de toute la force de ses capacités intellectuelles, à son développement, à sa prospérité et à son rayonnement. Les intellectuels qui ont choisi l’expatriation pourraient être accusés d’avoir voulu accorder la préférence à leurs intérêts particuliers, et de s’être désolidarisés de manière coupable du destin de leurs pays, de leur continent, de leur peuple, d’avoir manqué au devoir d’apporter une contribution, si modeste soit-elle, à la construction de sociétés africaines justes, démocratiques et prospères, et à la mise en œuvre des projets nationalistes et panafricanistes qui ont fleuri autour des indépendances. Mais peut-on considérer d’emblée le patriotisme (ainsi d’ailleurs que le nationalisme) comme une vertu et la fuite des cerveaux doit-elle être indexée en terme de vice ? N’est-il pas des situations où c’est la fuite des cerveaux elle-même qui devrait être considérée comme une vertu, au moins en ce qu’elle pourrait permettre de mettre au service de l’humanité entière et de sa propre société (à travers des États qui les reconnaissent et les valorisent) des talents qui autrement se seraient sclérosés ? Ces questions qui, en réalité contiennent implicitement notre hypothèse, constituent les lignes directrices de la réflexion que nous avons développée dans cet article.
2 - Politics Does Matter: The Nigerian State and Oil (Resource) Curse
Authors: Olarinmoye Omobolaji Ololade
Published: November 2011

Conventional explanations of the resource curse, or the paradox of abundance, correlate resource abundance and bad economic policies, underdevelopment, poverty and conflict. Such a conclusion has become debatable and has encour- aged analysts to develop conditional explanations that emphasize the role of the political rather than economic factors in the mechanisms underpinning the re- source curse. Using the Inter-governmental Fiscal Relations system in Nigeria as an example, this paper argues that, while the policy choices of politicians determines how resource rents are utilized, the extent to which political institutions promote the use of rational and meritocratic criteria in allocating public sector resources and ensure accountability is what matters. This is of crucial impor- tance in determining whether resource abundance will lead to resource curse.
3 - Can Africa Make Use of the New Aid Architecture?
Authors: Wohlgemuth Lennart
Published: November 2011

In 2005, an agreement was reached in Paris between a large number of donor countries and institutions and recipient countries on how to make aid more efficient. This new agreement, called the Paris Declaration, if it is handled rightly, can open up increased ownership of their development agenda for the recipient countries. The agreement is in itself nothing new – it contains ingredients that had been discussed since the 1970s and agreed upon a number of times. The newness is that a number of recipient countries were active in developing the underlying concepts and that there is the opportunity, for those who can take it, of seizing the initiative in the development dialogue. This article argues that the agreement will not lead to automatic improvement but will require the active participation of the host countries.
6 - The Constraints of Rural Women in Informal Economic Activities in Imo State, Nigeria
Authors: Onyenechere Emmanuella Chinenye
Published: November 2011

The paper analyzes the constraints on rural women in the informal sector of Imo State, Nigeria. Lack of access roads, irregular means of transportation, inad- equate credit facilities, inaccessibility to socio-economic facilities and land ten- ure are identified as among the factors that have adverse effects on the partici- pation/activities of rural women engaged in informal economic activities in the rural areas of Imo State. The paper further reveals that a majority of rural women in Imo State, engaged in informal economic activities, do not have significant access to institutional finance, neither do they for socio-economic services that could enhance women’s informal economic activities. The paper eventually makes policy recommendations to help alleviate women’s difficulties in the informal sector.
8 - Des discours aux pratiques du développement en Afrique : une réflexion sur la problématique du développement local dans le milieu rural Toura (Côte d’Ivoire1)
Authors: Soumahoro Moustapha
Published: November 2011

Le développement local est la capacité généralisée d’une société à se prendre en charge, ou encore le processus par lequel une population se donne les moyens de mobiliser ses forces productives dans la transformation de son milieu en vue d’améliorer les conditions de vie et le bien-être de ses membres. De ce fait, le discours sur le développement local tente d’épouser une certaine forme d’homogénéité sur les approches épistémologiques, théoriques, méthodologiques et pratiques mais aussi sur les causes, les objectifs et les finalités. Dans la réalité, la pratique du développement local s’avère plus complexe et cet article se propose, suite à des entretiens avec les paysans Toura et les responsables des organisations communautaires et associatives, de faire écho aux expériences de développement local qui ont cours dans le pays Toura. Dans une telle perspective, l’accent est mis sur la réflexion portant sur le développement local, sur une connaissance de la région Toura, sur le contexte socio-économique afin de fixer les conditions d’un véritable développement et de présenter quelques actions de développement susceptibles d’être mises en application et qui s’articulent autour d’un ajustement des normes, des pratiques et des structures traditionnelles au profit de la « modernité ».
1 - Linguistic Diversity, Pluralism and National Development in Africa
Authors: Chumbow Beban Sammy
Published: November 2011

In the quest for national development in Africa, how are the facts of linguistic diversity to be reconciled with pluralism, the African Union’s ideological option for nation building? From the perspective of language planning theory, we motivate, justify, rationalise and propose a tier stratification model of language planning predicated on an adaptation of Jurgen Habermas’s 1965 notion of the public sphere. Concretely, the bifurcation of the public sphere into the public and private domains and a principled stratification of languages of the nation-state into these domains, leads to a rational planning process. The process is characterised by the maintenance and consolidation of the linguistic and cultural identities of ethno linguistic communities at the micro- planning level while constructing a pluralistic national identity at the macro-planning level. The efficacy of the interaction between the two domains is mediated by two principles.  The Principle of Functional Complementarities (PFC) requires that all languages be assigned (by the state) some valorising functions, i.e. functions that procure economic, social, and political advantages, thereby contributing to elevating the status of the ethno-linguistic communities. The Principle of Attitude Engineering (PAE) is expected to effect a positive change of attitude, culminating in a change of mindset congruent with the paradigm shift of national development anchored on pluralism. This model of Language Planning ensures the empowerment of linguistic minorities, provides for a reduction of ethno linguistic dominance and ipso facto, ensures the democratisation of access to knowledge, especially development-relevant knowledge for the national development enterprise.
3 - Contesting the African Public Sphere: A Philosophical Re-imaging of Power and Resistance in Ngugi’s Wizard of the Crow
Authors: Okolo M. S. C.
Published: November 2011

Habermas’s ideal notion of the ‘public sphere’ as the necessary condition for a genuine democracy is applied here in the assessment of the ideas contained in Ngugi’s Wizard of the Crow (2007) in an attempt to map out and understand the African public sphere. Wizard of the Crow employs the values of the public sphere to pass satirical comments on society’s values and practices: old assumptions are re-interrogated, established world-views reviewed and class and gender silenced issues revealed and re-evaluated. This paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach by employing philosophy and literature, here taken as Wizard of the Crow, as investigative tools. My choice of Wizard of the Crow to interrogate the African public sphere is particularly guided by the fact that to really encounter the public sphere is to first of all engage it at an imaginary realm. Besides, encountering the issues highlighted in Wizard of the Crow away from the structural discourse of the public sphere helps to humanize and plant them in the consciousness of people who may not have access to exotic academic presentation on the subject. Prefering a philosophical re-imaging of the concerns contained in Wizard of the Crow is to situate them within broader analytical frameworks. By adopting the basic methods of philosophical inquiry – exposition, critical analysis and reconstruction – the issues are lifted from the domain of fiction to the space of systematized knowledge directed at presenting a comprehensive notion of the African public sphere in as far as this can be achieved.
4 - The Sphere In-between: Najib Mahfuz on Power, Status and Authority in Africa’s Public Sphere
Authors: Ayinde Oladosu Afis
Published: November 2011

This paper is hinged on the following propositions: in no other region in Africa are the arguments about the role of the artist in the ‘public’ sphere more intense as in North Africa. The problematic of what constitutes the ‘public’ sphere in North Africa is circumscribed by the struggle for and the contest over ‘power’, ‘status’ and ‘authority’; the attempt by North African writers, particularly Najib Mahfuz (d. 2006), to mirror the socio-political and cultural fissures and contradictions in the public sphere usually leads to conflict not only over what constitutes the ‘public sphere’ and who governs it, but equally on how the ‘private’ and the sphere ‘in-between’ could be reclaimed for the ‘public good’. In grappling with the foregoing, the paper rereads Najib Mahfuz’s Awld Hratin 1959). In reading for ‘meaning’ and the ‘meaning of meaning’ in Awld Hratin, the paper pays attention to the socio-political and cultural codes provided by Najib Mahfuz, even as it searches for possible theoretical insights that the works of Arab-African and Euro-American writers including Ibn Qayyim, Abdul Qhir al-Jurjn, Edward Said, Michel Foucault and Benhabib could yield in an excursus which probes into how the trialectic of power, status and authority continues to shape the ‘public’, the ‘private’ and the sphere ‘in-between’ of Egyptian society.
4 - L’institutionnalisation des délibérations dans l’espace public au sein des chefferies Bamileke de l’Ouest-Cameroun
Authors: Tchoupie André
Published: November 2011

Cette  étude  s’appuie  sur  les  différentes  variances  du  néo- institutionnalisme pour analyser le processus par lequel la délibération dans l’espace public s’érige en une véritable institution dans les chefferies bamiléké de l’Ouest-Cameroun. Elle révèle que loin d’apparaître comme une génération spontanée, la délibération dans l’espace public ici se présente plutôt comme une réalité que les acteurs socio-politiques construisent et reconstruisent en permanence à travers certaines de leurs actions et interactions. Suite à cette construction, la pratique délibérative dans la sphère publique s’est inscrite dans une trajectoire ayant débouché dans une large mesure sur son érection en l’un des traits essentiels de la culture bamiléké. Car non seulement elle s’est progressivement imposée comme un véritable socle sur lequel reposent toutes les décisions politiques, mais également elle connaît au fil du temps de perpétuelles métamorphoses marquées par une harmonieuse combinaison des acquis de la tradition et des exigences de la modernité, ceci lui permettant de faire face aux diverses forces environnementales qui tendent à amollir sa vigueur.
11 - How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor
Authors: Keita Lansana
Published: November 2011

Abstract
6 - ‘Up as a Rabbit, Down as a Lion’: Socio-economic Determinants of New Idioms of Power – Visual Case Stories from Urban Adamaoua, Cameroon
Authors: Holtedahl Lisbet
Published: November 2011

In the 1990s, I felt empathy with the Sultan of Adamaoua. I do feel empa- thy with one of the richest and most influential industrialists in Cameroon today - emotions which are difficult to convey in today’s Norway. Ideas about Africa, about poverty, corruption, etc. make such feelings politi- cally incorrect. My anthropological research is supposed to lead to posi- tive consequences for the people with whom I work. They be ‘small’ or ‘big’ people. This is called applied research. My research experience has made me conclude the following: Research should contribute to giving people new voices in new arenas; make them visible in new social spheres. I wish for instance, that my research may promote authorities’ listening more to and seeing people who are poor or who are uneducated, and, that their decisions may reach them, empower them. Often, also, one thinks that empowerment only concerns people without power. Since I have for long worked with people with big power, my research should enable their voices to become strengthened and make them visible on the new social arenas that are under pressure from their own behaviour and entrepre- neurship, but that they themselves do not see. What criteria do we use when we decide whether our research should empower people in power? It is important that we include the ‘small’ as well as the ‘big’ in our applied research. Otherwise, democracy can not be promoted.
6 - Shooting the Messenger: Mediating the Public and the Role of the Media in South Africa’s Xenophobic Violence
Authors: Hadland Adrian
Published: November 2011

In the wake of the outbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa in May 2008, in which sixty people died and tens of thousands were displaced, a fierce debate erupted on the role of the media. The focus of the criticism was South Africa’s newly-established tabloid press which is accused of fomenting violence and exacerbating tension by publishing inflammatory headlines and posters. But to what extent can the tabloid press really be blamed for aggravating the conflict? The scholarly literature on media effects suggests that direct causality is hard to prove. The accusation says much, however, about media-state- society relations in post-apartheid South Africa; it also raises questions about the state of the public sphere and the role of the media within it. Field work conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council in four South African informal settlement areas affected by the recent violence indicates that the tabloids certainly cannot be blamed directly for fanning the violence. But it does seem to confirm what thousands of protests in the past year have strongly hinted at: there has been a communications breakdown in South Africa at a local level between communities and the state, as well as within communities, which lies at the root of much of the anger and violence. By failing to respond to this breakdown and act on its liberal imperative of providing a “voice for the voiceless”, the media may be more complicit than it, or the literature, is willing to acknowledge.