Coédition NENA/CODESRIA

Since the 1990s, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced unprecedented attempts at reforming teacher and student classroom practices, with a learner-centred pedagogy regarded as an effective antidote to the prevalence of teacher-centred didactic classroom practices. Attempts at reform have been going on all over the continent. In fact, learner-centred pedagogy has been described as one of the most pervasive educational ideas in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. Research has revealed that the major attempts have largely failed mainly because teachers have not been able to adopt instructional innovations to technical problems. This failure is also related to lack of resources, and poor teacher training programmes which lead to poor teacher quality, among others. This book attempts to explain why pedagogical change has not occurred in spite of the much energy and resources that have been committed to such reforms.The book also takes us inside what the author calls 'the socio-cultural world of African classrooms' to help us understand the reasons teachers dominate classroom life and rely disproportionately on didactic methods of teaching. Its conceptual analyses capture the best of both the sociology and the anthropology of education in contexts of poverty, as well as the politics of education.The book concludes that a socio-cultural approach should be the basis for developing culturally responsive indigenous pedagogies, though these may or may not turn out to be in any way akin to constructivist learner-centred pedagogies.

African Academics in Germany : Revitalising African Universities is a thought-provoking work. It challenges African scholars to re-examine their contribution to their motherland. It invites German universities and scholarship providers to assess the relevance of the education offered towards the transformation of African higher learning institutions. The book provides a method of engaging African academics and the diaspora in the revitalisation of higher education. The book introduces a university revitalisation theory which explains the role of internationalisation in socio-economic, cultural, technological and political development.

This book is an outgrowth of the inaugural session of the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) College of Mentors Institute convened at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya from 10 to 20 April, 2017. The authors of the book comprise the resource persons and 49 very competitively selected doctoral candidates from across Africa that participated in the Institute. The impetus for the book was the desire to develop a tool that is suitable for conducting research and mentoring students in Africa that other doctoral candidates, other writers, and mentors can use in their pursuits. The College of Mentors is a part of the activities of CODESRIA's African Diaspora Support to African Universities program. The College is composed of senior academics from the Diaspora and within Africa in higher education, the humanities and social sciences. This component entails linking selected PhD candidates and their supervisors to mentors for purposes of benefiting the candidates in their PhD progress. The mentors are expected to offer advice regarding relevant literature, read and comment on draft chapters of theses in preparation, liaise with the official advisors of the doctoral candidates based at African universities and share their views about the work of the students; and where possible, invite and host the students and the official advisors as visiting scholars. The mentors may also be requested to run various activities under this program such as institutes, research methodology workshops and research networks. A joint workshop of the selected students, their supervisors and mentors are held at the beginning to agree on working modalities. The College seeks to both complement and strengthen the support in capacity building in African universities in which CODESRIA is engaged through the Small Grants Programme for Thesis Writing, the institutes, and the methodology workshops. CODESRIA's African Diaspora Support to African Universities seeks to mobilize African academics in the Diaspora to contribute to the strengthening of African universities, the nurturing of new generations of scholars in Africa in a culture of excellence, and the revitalization of the social sciences, higher education studies, and the humanities. The specific objectives of the initiative include the strengthening of PhD programs and the curricula in the social sciences and the humanities (SSH); contribute to the filling of gaps and dealing with shortages in teaching; mentoring of young social science scholars in Africa, more generally; as well as in strengthening relations between African academics in the Diaspora and the institutions where they are based and African universities. The initiative derives from CODESRIA's mandate as the leading Pan-African social science council of the continent and its responsibility to help address the problem of the shortage of qualified academic staff in many African universities both for teaching and for PhD supervision. This problem has worsened with the creation of hundreds of new public and private universities. The consequences of these shortages include the lack of capacity in most of the social science and humanities departments and schools in African universities to organize quality postgraduate programs and conduct research. In some instances, capacity for postgraduate supervision does not exist, and doctoral and masters students take longer to complete their programs due to a lack or shortage of qualified supervisors and mentors. On the other hand, the existence of a large African academic Diaspora has been documented in numerous studies. Many of these scholars are willing to lend a hand in the revitalization of universities in their home countries or elsewhere in Africa. Other highly qualified academics are circulating outside the universities, within Africa itself, and it would be important to have an initiative that taps into the knowledge and skills they have. Therefore, one effective way to address the shortage of qualified senior academic staff and PhD supervision capacity in African universities is to mobilize the academic Diaspora to support universities in Africa.

This study underscores the importance of including women in leadership positions in academia. Research on leadership development and managerial success in universities has continuously pointed to the absence of support frameworks to encourage women's development. Despite numerous interventions to address this challenge, diffculties continue to persist. This work is therefore a timely contribution to the debates around gender and leadership in African universities with a particular focus on Makerere University, where ten female professors are profled. It demonstrates that despite interventions, the gender gap at universities continues to expand, thus requiring critical interventions which address techniques and strategies of inclusion/exclusion.

Philosophy and African Development : Theory and Practice appraises development in a holistic manner. It goes beyond the usual measurement in terms of economic achievement and widens the scope to include the impact that history of ideas, political theory, sociology, social and political philosophy, and political economy have had on development in Africa, It is a departure from the traditional treatment of development by economists who point towards the so-called time-tested assertions and recommendations for « sustainable development », but which are yet bring about significant change in the economies of the so-called « developing » societies. It is on account of the failures of the economic development theory, with its tepid prescriptions for « sustainable development » and « poverty reduction » that theories of development have now been expanded from mere economic analysis to include considerations of history, sociology, political economy and anthropology, as could be discovered in this book. Most of the contributions in this book have been prepared by philosophers across Africa and the United States who implicitly practise their discipline as one whose most effective modern function would be to appraise the human experience in all its dimensions from the standpoints of modern social and natural sciences, all disciplinary offspring of philosophy itself. With chapters ranging from issues of modernity and religious interpretations, the human right to development, the idea of « African time », the primacy of mental decolonisation, and the type of education we are offering in Africa today and as a tool for development, to development planning, science, technology and globalisation, as well as issues of post-coloniality among others, the tenor of the contributions is not only proportional, but also engaged in the meta-analysis of the theories on which the concept of development is founded and practised. This book is strongly recommended as a useful text in the hands of scholars, researchers and students of development studies. It approaches the important issue of African development from the broad perspective of the social sciences in general, and buttresses this with the keen analytical approach of its contributors.

Politics, Religion and Power in the Great Lakes Region covers the political, religious and power relations in the contemporary Great Lakes States: Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Kenya and the Sudan. The work is important because of the nexus between these countries' shared present and past - their political, socio-economic, cultural and historical aspirations. In terms of regional cooperation, they are the countries, save for the DRC and the Sudan, which form the current East African Community (EAC). The book reflects on the complex dynamics and strategies of the ensuing power struggle, bringing forth a unique set of fascinating revelations of patterns of primitive capital accumulation, resistance, human rights violations and the political compromises between traditional enemies when confronted by a common (foreign) enemy. A critical analysis of the political distortion the region suffered brings to light the relevance of these divisive tools on the current trends in the African countries, drawing inferences from the African Great Lakes Region (GLR). The study highlights how the conflicts were finally resolved to avert a serious war, thus bringing about new reforms. This history is instructive to the contemporary reader because of the frequent skirmishes caused by ethnic and religious differences, political and territorial conflicts as well as resource and leadership disputes in the GLR.

This study was initiated by the National Working Group initiated for Quality, led by the University of Professional Studies and supported by the CODESRIA Higher Education Leadership Programme (HELP), with funds from Carnegie Foundation. The Study Team was made up of Prof Joshua Alabi Project Manager, Prof Goski Alabi (Technical Team Leader), Mr. Richard Adjei (Representative National Accreditation Board), Mr. Paul Dzandu (Representative National Council for Tertiary Education), Mr. Kojo ( Kwame Nkrumah University for Science and Technology), Dr. Godwin Utuka (University of Professional Studies Quality Assurance Coordinator), and Mr. Abdulai Munkaila The views expressed here are those of the authors and not necessarily those of CODESRIA.

The liberal higher education landscape that has emerged in Africa is a product of a confuence of factors that defne the neoliberal agenda in the continent. The prior notions of state responsibility for funding higher education have largely disappeared. The hegemonic leverage that the World Bank came to wield in the scheme of higher education in Africa facilitated the minimalist approach to state funding in the continent. The state was thence expected to downscale funding to public institutions; as the imperative was for the latter to corporatise their operations. As the liberal landscape became inundated with commercial actors from within and without the country, the governance cultures in higher education shifted away from the collegial to managerialism. With the erosion of the old governance cultures, fears arose about the level of quality African universities would continue to exude as the drive for fund mobilisation through commercial teaching activities became pervasive. The fear has been about the potential loss of research output as an essential part of higher education, as commercialisation of teaching services becomes a signifcant source of mobilising funds. The debate is about whether African universities would become 'teaching only' institutions. The capacity and the ability of leadership in African universities to steer their institutions successfully and be visible in the global knowledge production industry is an issue of concern in this book. The context in which African universities now fnd themselves and the ability of their leadership to transcend the challenges so as to restore stakeholders' confdence in service quality remain a nagging issue. The book places Ghana within the African framework by examining the ramifcations of the turn towards a managerial culture on the leadership capacities in six Ghanaian (public and private) universities. Measures taken by the various institutions to meet in-country and international competitions are also reckoned with.

Many African countries got independence from their colonisers over five decades ago, but the people and the continent remain largely, mere spectators in the arena of their own dance. The post-independence states are supposed to be sovereign, but the levers of economic and political powers still reside in the donor states. Not in many fora is the complex reality that defines Africa more trenchantly articulated than in imaginative literature produced about and on the continent. This is the crux of the essays collected in African Literature and the Future. The book reflects on Africa's past and present, addressing anxieties about the future through the epistemological lens of literature. The contributors peep ahead from a backward glance. They dissect the trend and tenor of politics and their impact on the socio-cultural and economic development of the continent as portrayed in imaginative writings over the years. One salient feature of African literature is the close affinity between art and politics in its polemics. This is well established in all the six essays in the book as the authors stress the interconnections between literature and society in their textual analyses. On the whole, there is an overwhelming feeling of angst and pessimism, but the authors perceive a flicker of hope in spite of daunting odds, under different conditions. Thus, they depict the plausible fate of Africa in the Twenty-first century, as informed by its ancient and recent past, gleaned from primary texts.

This lively book interrogates the African postcolonial condition with a focus on the thematics of liberation predicament and the long standing crisis of dependence (epistemological, cultural, economic, and political) created by colonialism and coloniality. A sophisticated deployment of historical, philosophical, and political knowledge in combination with the equi-primordial concepts of coloniality of power, coloniality of being, and coloniality of knowledge yields a comprehensive and truly refreshing understanding of African realities of subalternity. How global imperial designs and coloniality of power shaped the architecture of African social formations and disciplined the social forces towards a convoluted 'postcolonial neocolonized' paralysis dominated by myths of decolonization and illusions of freedom emerges poignantly in this important book. What distinguishes this book is its decolonial entry that enables a critical examination of the grammar of decolonization that is often wrongly conflated with that of emancipation; bold engagement with the intractable question of what and who is an African; systematic explication of the role of coloniality in sustaining Euro-American hegemony; and unmasking of how the « postcolonial » is interlocked with the « neocolonial » paradoxically. It is within this context that the postcolonial African state emerges as a leviathan, and the « postcolonial » reality becomes a terrain of contradictions mediated by the logic of violence. No doubt, Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni's handling of complex concepts and difficult questions of the day is remarkable, particularly the decoding and mixing of complex theoretical interventions from Africa and Latin America to enlighten the present, without losing historical perspicacity. To buttress the theoretical arguments, detailed empirical case studies of South Africa, Zimbabwe, DRC and Namibia completes this timely contribution to African Studies.

This book brings together contributions on the challenges of the environment, agriculture and cross-border migrations in Africa; key areas that have become critical for the continent's development. The central theme running through these contributions is that Africa's development challenges can be attributed to its human and natural ecology. Contrasted with the Cold War epoch, current developments have ushered us into a world of long and uncertain transitions characterized by a search for new pathways including investment in large-scale agriculture by big finance, attempts to revitalize existing agriculture and reworking of social policy. A major twist relates to environmental questions, especially climate change and its global effects, leading to all forms of cross-border migrations and the emergence of new areas of strategic interest such as sub-regional developments as in the Gulf of Guinea. This book provides some intellectual clues on how to interpret these emerging predicaments and chart a way forward into a new era for Africa.

The events of May 2008 in which 62 people were killed simply for being « foreign » and thousands were turned overnight into refugees shook the South African nation. This book is the first to attempt a comprehensive and rigorous explanation for those horrific events. It argues that xenophobia should be understood as a political discourse and practice. As such its historical development as well as the conditions of its existence must be elucidated in terms of the practices and prescriptions which structure the field of politics. In South Africa, the history of xenophobia is intimately connected to the manner in which citizenship has been conceived and fought over during the past fifty years at least. Migrant labour was de-nationalised by the apartheid state, while African nationalism saw the same migrant labour as the foundation of that oppressive system. Only those who could show a family connection with the colonial and apartheid formation of South Africa could claim citizenship at liberation. Others were excluded and seen as unjustified claimants to national resources. Xenophobia's conditions of existence, the book argues, are to be found in the politics of post-apartheid nationalism where state prescriptions founded on indigeneity have been allowed to dominate uncontested in conditions of an overwhelmingly passive conception of citizenship. The de-politicisation of an urban population, which had been able to assert its agency during the 1980s through a discourse of human rights in particular, contributed to this passivity. Such state liberal politics have remained largely unchallenged. As in other cases of post-colonial transition in Africa, the hegemony of xenophobic discourse, the book contends, is to be sought in the specific character of the state consensus.

The role of higher education in establishing structures and procedures in society and industry is clearly articulated in scholarly discussions. The narrative has recently taken a new momentum in Kenya with acknowledgement of the creative industry involves many youth, as an area that impacts on the economy. In unravelling the link between higher education and industry, the authors focus on leadership and governance in higher education and its expected and perceived contribution to the shaping of the creative industry. Through analysis of cases, the authors interrogate the processes and structures that govern the teaching and practice of the creative subjects, noting how these affect the creative industry in Kenya. This book approaches the creative disciplines from the perspectives of the students, lecturers and university administrators. The three voices provide a balanced view of what higher creative arts education in Kenya is. The multiple authorship of the book further provides a balanced account of the development of these disciplines in higher education, and their growth in industry. The key concepts here are the development of the creative industry and how higher education should contribute to the same.

Currently, globalization has made it necessary that universities operate optimally in order to compete effectively globally. In this regard, crises in Nigerian universities constitute a barrier to this goal and to sustainable development. The book-leadership and crises in Nigerian universities : Can women make a difference ? is a phenomenal book which was inspired by incessant crises in Nigerian universities. The book discussed the crises in these universities in all its ramifcations. Importantly, in all these discussions, the book traced this problem to men's autocratic leadership style and established that bringing women into university leadership can actually make a difference in minimizing or eradicating these crises. I describe this book as a book of the moment because as we speak, a lot of crises are going on in universities in Nigeria. As such, providing an alternative leadership model in universities becomes very imperative and this is what this book has achieved. I therefore have no doubt that policy makers, university administrators and other university stakeholders will fnd the book interesting, informative and a great resource in our national and continental march towards building effective and effcient university organization in a globalized world.

Reforming the Malawian Public Sector argues that the new public management model that Malawi, like most African countries, adopted under the influence of donor organisations has not led to the development that it was intended to deliver. The book examines decentralisation, performance contracting, and public-private partnerships as key aspects of the reforms and comes to the conclusion that at best, it can be argued that the failures have been due to poor implementation and this could be attributed to the fact that the process was led by donors who lacked the necessary institutional infrastructure. The book uses the 2005/6 fertiliser subsidy programme, which the government embarked on despite donor resistance that it went against market models, but which turned out to be overwhelmingly successful to demonstrate the state's developmental ability and potential. This volume is essential reading for academies, students, and practitioners seeking a deeper understanding of public administration, management, policy, development and governance in Africa and the rest of the developing world. It is quite fitting that this book, Reforming the Malawian Public Sector, is dedicated to the memory Guy Mhone, a Malawian, who was among Africa's leading scholars in public administration and governance. Mis works focused mainly on public sector reforms and development.

This book is the outcome of a South-South conference jointly organized by the Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in Dakar, Senegal, May 2012. The conference was organised in response to the financial crisis of 2008 which started in the United States and Europe, with reverberating effects on a global scale. Economic problems emanating from such crises usually leave major social and structural impacts on important sectors of the society internationally. They affect living standards and constrain the well-being of people, especially in poor countries. Persistent problems include high unemployment, increased debt and low growth in developed countries, as well as greater difficulties in accessing finance for investment in the developing world. There is a need for countries in the South to examine the available options for appropriate national and regional responses to the different problems emanating from the economic crisis. This book attempts to provide ideas on some strategic responses to the disastrous impact of the crisis, while keeping in mind the global common interest of the South. It is hoped that the book will contribute significantly towards the agenda to rethink development and the quest for alternative paradigms for a just, stable and equitable global political, economic and social system. A system in which Africa, Asia, and Latin America are emancipated from the shackles of hegemonic and anachronistic neoliberal dictates that have nothing more to offer than crises, vulnerabilities and dependency.

This book examines the concept of the democratization of governance in universities in Kenya with particular emphasis on students involvement in governance processes and decision making. Data were collected from members of the student community utilizing a structured self-administered questionnaire and from purposively selected key informants and focus group discussants drawn from Kenyatta University (representing the public sector) and the United States International University (representing the private sector). The guiding argument for the study was that shared governance, one of the principles of good governance, is critical in enabling the universities to deliver their visions and the missions effectively. The results revealed that while in principle, Kenyan universities have embraced democratic governance in which all stakeholders, including students, have a role to play, in practice they continue to violate the core principles of good governance, particularly shared governance. Specifically, students, who are major stakeholders in university education, are largely excluded from significant structures of governance thereby limiting their influence and participation. Although their representation is mainly provided via student self-governance organs (unions, associations and/ or councils), their effectiveness is undermined considerably by the lack of trust and confidence of the student body and the unending manipulation by top university administrators and external political actors. Student active involvement in decision making is mainly confined to lower levels such as the school/ faculty and departmental/ programme. The authors call for a paradigm shift in the involvement of students in the governance of universities in ways that discourage the current culture of tokenism and political correctness that characterizes public and private universities in Kenya.

This book revisits the perennial challenge that scholars, economists, and politicians have been grappling with since the 1960s. Development, in this book, has been defined in a context that projects it as a multidimensional and complex process which seeks to enhance the human, social, economic and cultural welfare of the people. This book calls for a rethinking of trade and industry for Africa's development. It uses data drawn from national development plans and strategies, and trade and industry issues have been prioritized at the continental level, in key policy documents. On the whole Africa's industry and trade performance have been poor in spite of national, regional, and continental plans. The contributors to this volume propose some alternative strategies and policies which are necessary for trade and industry to grow and to contribute to the wellbeing of Africa's people. It calls for a developmental trade and industry policy which, fundamentally, must be people-centred. African states should invest time, energy and resources to develop policies which will take into consideration African realities.The different contributors are aware that Africa has experienced strong economic growth in the recent past but this growth has largely been due to a strong demand for Africa's primary commodity exports. It has also been a result of increases in productivity and domestic investment and remittances from Africans living in the Diaspora. It is important to note that despite this unprecedented growth performance, the impact of trade and industry on development has been limited. The book arguesthat a structural transformation of Africa's economies is inevitable if Africa is to achieve the shift from the dominant paradigm of production and export of primary goods. The various contributors to this book agree that there is need to rethink policy and strategy in order to achieve industrial development in Africa. There is no unique solution or answer that can fit all situations as African countries are not the same. While Africa can draw lessons from other regions which have successfully industrialized, this book argues that policies and strategies will have to be adapted to country-specific situations and circumstances.

This book presents a comparative history of slavery and the transition from slavery to free labour in Zanzibar and Mauritius, within the context of a wider comparative study of the subject in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds. Both countries are islands, with roughly the same size of area and populations, a common colonial history, and both are multicultural societies. However, despite inhabiting and using the same oceanic space, there are differences in experiences and structures which deserve to be explored. In the nineteenth century, two types of slave systems developed on the islands - while Zanzibar represented a variant of an Indian Ocean slave system, Mauritius represented a variant of the Atlantic system - yet both flourished when the world was already under the hegemony of the global capitalist mode of production. This comparison, therefore, has to be seen in the context of their specific historical conjunctures and the types of slave systems in the overall theoretical conception of modes of production within which they manifested themselves, a concept that has become unfashionable but which is still essential. The starting point of many such efforts to compare slave systems has naturally been the much-studied slavery in the Atlantic region which has been used to provide a paradigm with which to study any type of slavery anywhere in the world. However, while Mauritian slavery was 100 per cent colonial slavery, slavery in Zanzibar has been described as "'Islamic slavery'. Both established plantation economies, although with different products, Zanzibar with cloves and Mauritius with sugar, and in both cases, the slaves faced a potential conflictual situation between former masters and slaves in the post-emancipation period. Another interesting focus in this book is the largely unresearched subject of female slaves. In Zanzibar, the privileged role of the suria whose status was defined by Sharia law was explored; and in Mauritius, the manumission of female slaves was explored as they formed the majority among manumitted slaves. The book will certainly prove helpful to those involved in comparing the Atlantic slave system with that of the Indian Ocean for the better understanding of both.

Education is an important tool for the development of human potential. Organizations and individuals interested in development consider knowledge, skills and attitudes, obtained through formal, non-formal and incidental learning, as invaluable assets. Therefore, it is necessary to reflect on fundamental elements that shape the process through which education is attained: How do people learn, and what are the conditions that facilitate effective learning? Answers to these questions demonstrate that no education can be politically neutral, because there is no value-free education. The traditional or indigenous education systems in Nigeria, which covered (and still cover) physical training, development of character, respect for elders and peers, development of intellectual skills, specific vocational trainings, developing a sense of belonging and participation in community affairs, and understanding, appreciating and promoting the cultural heritage of the community were, and are, not value-free. In other words, the goals and purpose of education, the content, the entire process and the procedures chosen for evaluation in education are all value-laden. This book attempts to show that the teaching-learning process in higher education, and religion, taught and learned through non-formal and informal education (or the hidden curriculum), and other socialization processes within and outside the formal school system, all interface to determine the persons that women become. This education enhances or limits women's capabilities, whether in the civic-political sphere or in their attempts to resist violence. Hence, education and religion have ways of empowering or disempowering women.

Within the context of the absence of effective state sovereignty and the presence of numerous armed struggles for power, Nande traders have managed to build and protect self-sustaining, prosperous, transnational economic enterprises in eastern Congo. This book discusses the commercial enterprises of the Nande trust networks and the subsequent transnational community they have produced, thereby challenging the assumption that a « weak state » or a « ailed state » or even a « collapsed state » can be presumed to signal a « failed » society. It demonstrates the fact that several sovereignties and property right systems can coexist side by side, reinforcing each other - an idea which seems inconceivable for those with a normative view of governmental institutions and state sovereignty. Rethinking the question of African state formation, the study contributes to the formulation of a more rigorously transnational and local paradigms in the study of post-colonial African state formations. It constitutes an original contribution to critical theory of societal responses to processes of state implosion, and the anthropology of new social formations that emerge when states disintegrate, especially in war-torn Africa. The book also discusses issues related to the dynamics of conflict, new state formation, transnational trade network, ethnicity, and global political and economic governance. In the midst of abundant anti-ethnic literature on African studies, this study posits that there may be a renewed usefulness and necessity in theorizing the salience and continuing production of « ethnic » differences in a manner that challenges the notion of ethnicity as merely a devious and divisive invention of colonialism that must simply be overcome.

This book provides an analysis of the ecological conditions and ecosystem goods and services of the Zambezi River Basin (ZRB), the fourth largest river in Africa. Various environmental and anthropogenic factors ; inclusive of climate, environmental flows, hydrology, morphology, pollution and land use changes among others and their interactions are considered as drivers of the river ecosystems. The impacts of these drivers on aquatic biota, river ecological integrity, and the livelihoods of surrounding communities are analysed within the socio-economic-policy context. The book goes beyond the usual inventories and basic research by using the comparative research method (CRM) in a trans-disciplinary manner. This CRM analytical approach in this book seeks to interrogate the differences or similarities in socio-economic systems, livelihoods, ecological systems, ecosystem goods and services, their usage and management under the seemingly different cultural, socio-economic conditions expected across boarders that are within the ZRB. The multidisciplinary approach also connects the typical ecological research with social dimensions in a holistic manner. The book therefore, provides empirical and research based evidence to support strategic planning and policy development in the wake of ecological changes that nations and indeed regions such as the ZRB are grappling with while seeking to sustainably manage precious river systems.

The history of Arabic writing spans a period of eight hundred years in sub-Saharan Africa. Hundreds of thousands of manuscripts in Arabic or Ajami (African languages written with the Arabic script) are preserved in public libraries and private collections in sub-Saharan Africa. This « Islamic Library » includes historical, devotional, pedagogical, polemical and political writings, most of which have not yet been adequately studied. This book, Non-Europhone Intellectuels, studies the research carried out on the Islamic library and shows that Muslim intellectuals, in West Africa in particular, have produced huge literature in Arabic and Ajami. It is impossible to reconstitute library completely. As the texts have existed for centuries and are mostly in the form of unpublished manuscripts, only some of them have been transmitted to us while others have perished because of poor conservation. Efforts toward collecting them continues and the documents collected thus far attest to an intense intellectual life and important debates on society that have been completely ignored by the overwhelming majority of Europhone intellectuals. During European colonial rule and after the independence of African nations, Islamic education experienced some neglect, but the Islamic scholarly tradition did not decline. On the contrary, it has prospered with the proliferation of modern Islamic schools and the rise of dozens of Islamic institutions of higher learning. In recent years, the field of Islamic studies in West Africa has continued to attract the attention of erudite scholars, notably in anthropology and history, who are investing in learning the languages and working on this Islamic archive. As more analytical works are done on this archive, there will be continued modification in terms of the debate on knowledge production in West Africa.

One of the weaknesses of research in Africa is the little consideration that is given to questions of epistemology and methodology. What we see is the trivialization of research protocols which, consequently, are reduced to fantasy prescriptions that detach social studies from universal debates over the validity of science rather than an interrogation of research procedures induced by the complexity of social dynamics. As a result, social sciences have become an imitative discourse and a recital of exotic anecdotes without perspectives. Knowledge production therefore loses any heuristic bearing. It is on the basis of this reality that attempts to correct this tendency have been made in this book by discussing the methodological foundation of social science knowledge. This volume is a collection of papers presented during methodological workshops organized by CODESRIA. Its objective is to revitalize theory and methodology in field work in Africa while contributing to the creation of a critical space hinged upon the mastery of epistemological bases which are indispensable to any scientific imagination. Far from being a collection of technical certainties and certified methods, this book interrogates the uncertain itinerary of the process of social logics discovery. In that sense, it is a decisive step towards a critical systemization of ongoing theories and practices within the African scientific community. The reader can, therefore, identify the philosophical, historical, sociological and anthropological foundations of object construction, field data exploitation and research results delivery. This book explains the importance of the philosophical and social modalities of scientific practice, the influence of local historical contexts, the different usages of new investigative tools, including the audiovisual tools. Finally, the book, backed by classical theories, serves as an invitation toward considering scientific commitment to African field research from a reflective perspective.

Higher Education Institutions in Tanzania are increasingly facing a decline in government subvention and reduced funding from other sources, including Faith-Based Organizations. This has led to a noticeable shift in emphasis within universities from academic excellence to income generation, with adverse effects on teaching, research and community outreach performance. This study critically engages with these issues by firstly highlighting the key challenges confronting Higher Education Institutions in Tanzania; secondly discuss university leadership models that could potentially guide universities to deal with the predicament of decreasing financing; and thirdly document relevant best practices. It is based on a longitudinal study of nine private and public universities in Tanzania.

This book is an institutional history of leadership in higher education institutions in Ghana, recounted through a rich narrative of the life and career trajectory of one of Ghana's pioneering university administrators. It offers insights into some of the complex set of challenges confronting the higher education system and institutions in Ghana at the turn of the century. The narrative starts off by tracing the development of higher education in Ghana through a history of Achimota College from the late 1920's right up to the current period ; before moving on to a discuss leadership quandaries at Universities in the midst of turbulence, demonstrating the ways in which governance and leadership failure invites government intervention and intrusion into university administration. It provides engages with the challenges involved in establishing the higher education institutions in Ghana such as University for Development Studies Tamale and the National Council for Tertiary Education. Overall, the book emphasises the importance of targeted government investment in leadership and management training. The autobiographical approach used in the book allows the author to ask pertinent theoretical and policy questions on how to rethink the higher education system in Ghana.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA, held its 13th General Assembly, 5-9 December 2011, in Rabat, Morocco. The theme of the scientific conference was : « Africa and the Challenges of the Twenty-first Century ». Some of the reasons that influenced the choice of this theme were to do with how Africa should position itself in the new global political and economic order in the context of an increasingly complex neoliberal globalization. Changes in intercultural relations at the global level, climate change, poverty, rapid urbanization, the ICTs revolution, the emergence of knowledge societies, the evolution of gender and intergenerational relations, the role of religion in modern societies, the emergence of a multi-polar world and the phenomenon of emerging powers of the South are some of the realities of our world that are widely and extensively discussed by both academics and policy-makers. This book contains the statutory lectures of the 13th General Assembly. Each one of them speaks to major challenges that Africa and the Global South are facing in this second decade of the Twenty-first Century : neoliberal globalization; capital flight; the land question; gender relations, with a particular focus on matriarchy; and universalism.

No one can fail to be aware of the incredible impact that the IMF and the World Bank have had on Africa. Their structural adjustment programmes were deliberately designed to shock African economies into free market reform and ensuing stability. But when « getting the prices right » first swamped the World Bank's African economic plans in the early 1980s, few bothered to analyse the politics of a reform package whose immediate impact was violent and unsettling. While Africa has come a long way since then, the goal of market reform must be as important as the task of understanding the politics of unleashing the forces of the market. Not least, is the question of democratisation, which the Bank itself now attempts to force through with loan conditions. This book is the culmination of intense debate by African authors across the continent. Three sections make up a comprehensive analysis of adjustment regimes, their perspectives and the political context in which they have survived, or not. Country case studies in both Anglophone and Francophone Africa round up the analysis.

Dani Wadada Nabudere, the illustrious Ugandan scholar, produced a diverse body of work on various aspects of African culture, politics, and philosophy. Toward the end of his life, he formulated a theoretical construct that he termed « Afrikology ». Unlike most other Afrocentrists, who have stopped with the task of proving the primacy of the Egyptian past and its numerous cultural and scientific achievements, Nabudere strenuously attempts to connect that illustrious heritage with the African present. This, remarkably, is what makes his project worthy of careful attention. His corpus is multidisciplinary, although a major preoccupation with Africa is discernible in virtually all his works. His writings deal with critiques of imperialism, African political systems, processes of globalization and Africa's location within them, and finally the ideological and existential imperatives of Afrocentric discourse.

ECOWAS and the Dynamics of Conflict and Peace-building testifies to the fact that we cannot talk of West African affairs, more so of conflict and peace-building, without talking about ECOWAS. For over two decades now, West Africa has remained one of Africa's most conflict-ridden regions. It has been a theatre of some of the most atrocious brutalities in the modern world. It has, nonetheless, witnessed one of the most ambitious internal efforts towards finding regional solutions to conflicts through ECOWAS. The lead role of ECOMOG - the ECOWAS peacekeeping force - in search of peaceful solutions to civil wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau and Cote d'Ivoire has yielded a mix of successes and failures. In this book, the authors take a candid look at the role that ECOWAS has played and show how the sub-regional organisation has stabilised and created new conditions conducive to nation building in a number of cases. Conversely, the book shows that ECOWAS has aggravated, if not created, new tensions in yet other cases. The comparative advantage that ECOWAS has derived from these experiences is reflected in the various mechanisms, protocols and conventions that are now in place to ensure a more comprehensive conflict prevention framework.

The 21 century qualifies as one in which humanity raised environmental decay, especially climate change, as a key global concern requiring urgent political attention. The book Framework and Tools for Environmental Management in Africa is written from this perspective. It provides researchers from different disciplines including environmental sciences, engineering, commerce, planning, education, agriculture and law, as well as NGOs, government officials, policy makers and researchers, with a platform to engage with concerns relating to sustainable environmental management in this epoch. Topics covered include global landmarks for environmental governance, environmental management on African agenda, sustainability reporting, environmental impact assessment and public participation as well as environmental education. These remain viable in the African set-up where major development projects in mining and agriculture require greater scrutiny. With a collection of both revision and critical reflection questions, carefully constructed by authors with significant experiences from institutions of higher learning across Africa, readers will find this publication a valuable addition to their shelves.

À partir de quels moments, pour quelles raisons et de quelles manières, la religion et la culture, lorsqu'elles se lient au politique, peuvent-elles être à la fois sources et lieux d'expression des fondamentalismes ? Ce sont les questions centrales qui traversent ce livre. Ce qui est considéré ici, c'est « la religion » lorsqu'elle est idéologie qui fonde la culture et devient outil d'accès au pouvoir moral, au pouvoir social et surtout au pouvoir politique. Les messages culturels et religieux et leurs interprétations sous-tendent souvent les décisions, les lois et les programmes pris par le politique. Ils ont des effets directs sur la société, en général, et sur les femmes et les rapports de genre, en particulier. Les contributions à cet ouvrage analysent les diverses formes du fondamentalisme dans quelques pays africains, leurs contextes d'émergence et la manière dont elles (re)façonnent les identités et les rapports hommes/femmes. Ces fondamentalismes constituent des sources de préoccupations persistantes dans les débats de société, aussi bien des organisations féministes et féminines que des mondes académiques et politiques. Les manipulations des cultures et des religions se font de plus en plus politiques et finissent par occasionner des discriminations sociales, voire des violences physiques, morales et symboliques assurément insoutenables. When, why and how can religion and culture be both sources and places of expression for fundamentalisms especially when they are connected to politics ? Those are central questions raised throughout this book. What is at stake here is religion when it underpins culture and becomes a political tool to access moral and social power and particularly political power. Cultural and religious messages and their interpretations often underlie decisions, laws and programs made by politics. They have direct effect on society, in general, and on women and gender relations in particular. The various forms of fundamentalism in some African countries, the contexts of their emergence and the ways they (re)shape identities and relationships between men and women are also analysed in this book. These fundamentalisms are sources of persistent concerns in social debates, in feminist and feminine organizations as well as in academia and politics. The manipulations of cultures and religions are progressively political and consequently cause social discriminations, or even physical, moral and symbolic violence undoubtedly unsustainable.