Suchergebnisse

The Niger Delta of Nigeria is the largest mangrove forest in Africa and the chief source of wealth to the Nigerian state. This naturally endowed region once became a hot bed of kidnapping, violence, insurgency, crude oil bunkering, gang war and hostage taking. This paper investigates the challenges of democracy and development in Nigeria.s Niger Delta region. It relied heavily on secondary data. Using the Marxist political economy approach, the paper reveals that the tensions that rob the region of its peace and stability were the people.s quest to get a reasonable share of the states resources. Since democracy and development cannot thrive under a restive atmosphere, it recommends that current measures at restoring peace and infusing a massive infrastructure in the area should be maintained. Lastly, the provision of life sustaining skills for the youths of the region should be continued. This will enable them survive without recourse to violence and criminality.

In Kenya, as elsewhere in Africa, it is common for caregivers to live alongside patients who are admitted to hospital. Ethnographic material from the wards of a district hospital in western Kenya shows that in this context proper care for patients required the mobilization of the extended family and the care and attention of hospital staff. Caring practices created biomedical and domestic ward spaces, with patients the objects of two divergent models of care, which the author calls "familial" and "biomedical," aligned to these spaces. Caregivers and hospital staff emphasized the boundary between these models of care to comment on and (re)produce concepts of responsibility and obligation to others and to legitimate restrictions that they placed on the care they gave. The author argues that it is helpful to think about this hospital as an institutional space produced through a composite of mobile spatial practices, including both biomedical and domestic practice.

The purpose of the article is to analyse the economic growth of Sub-Saharan African countriesin the last decades, with special focus on the period 2000-2009. Economic development in Africa has been mostly positive in recent years with growth pace binge moderate and steady. However, significant differences exist between specific countries, stemming from abundance of mineral resources, location, size of the population or policy of central government. Countries which managed to introduce deep structural reforms, improve the investment climate, diversify output and exports as well as actively searched for new trading partners outperformed. Countries economy which is purely based on exports of crude oil reported also good economic performance,. However influx of investments there as well as general economic development is constrained by risk of the fiscal destabilization, which sudden plunge in commodity prices could originate. In our research we focused on the following growth indicators: GDP, savings rate, FDI, foreign trade and external aid.

During the 1980s and the 1990s, private investment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has on average shown a decreasing or stagnant trend. This contrasts with the situation of the Asian economies, where private investment has always been more dynamic. In this paper, it is empirically shown for a panel of 39 developing economies--among which four MENA countries-- that in addition to the traditional determinants of investment--such as the growth anticipations and the real interest rate--government policies explain MENA's low investment rate. Insufficient structural reforms--which have most of the time led to poor financial development and deficient trade openness¬¬--have been a crucial factor for the deficit in private capital formation. The economic uncertainties of the region have represented another factor of the firm's decisions not to invest. These uncertainties have consisted of the external debt burden and various measures of volatility.

During the 1980s and the 1990s, private investment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has on average shown a decreasing or stagnant trend. This contrasts with the situation of the Asian economies, where private investment has always been more dynamic. In this paper, it is empirically shown for a panel of 39 developing economies--among which four MENA countries-- that in addition to the traditional determinants of investment--such as the growth anticipations and the real interest rate--government policies explain MENA's low investment rate. Insufficient structural reforms--which have most of the time led to poor financial development and deficient trade openness¬¬--have been a crucial factor for the deficit in private capital formation. The economic uncertainties of the region have represented another factor of the firm's decisions not to invest. These uncertainties have consisted of the external debt burden and various measures of volatility.

ObjectiveThis study investigates the security implications of growing orphan populations, particularly in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Little has been written about the security implications of this especially vulnerable group of children. Are growing orphan populations associated with increases in political instability as has been suggested?MethodUsing data from several sources, we employ regression analysis to test whether Sub‐Saharan African countries with larger proportions of orphans and those with increasing orphan populations experience higher rates of political instability.ResultsWe find that the increase in the orphan population is related to an increasing incidence of civil conflict, but do not find a similar relationship for the proportion of orphans. In addition, we find that the causes of orphanhood matter.ConclusionsWe conclude that increases in orphan populations (rather than simple proportions) are destabilizing. We suggest possible avenues for mediating the security risks posed by growing orphan populations.

Emancipatory Acts is a performance piece that explores the experiences of racialized mothering, social memory and collective agency from my situatedness as a Black woman and mother in the United States. Emancipatory Acts suggests that the historic trauma inflicted upon Africa signifies the rapability and violability of her daughters whose reproductive labors were impressed into the service of Empire. Emancipatory Acts challenges the selectivity of social memory, the mythologizing of iconic figures and the literature of deviance that incarcerates Black female reproduction. It argues that, ultimately, Black women self-emancipate through remembering, reconstituting and redefining their existences through motherline stories that trace back to elder-women, through the ancestral world to the metaphysical Mother. Through movement, poetry, narrative, rhythm, and visual texts, this piece explores the material, socio-political, cultural and spiritual domains of Black woman-motherhood in the United States and seeks to resurrect traditions of hope, survival and self-actualized living.

On 25-28 November 2008 the second European Communication Conference took place in Barcelona, bringing together media and communication researchers from across the continent. Hosted by the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the event is co-organised by the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). Among the thematic sections of the Association, Radio Research, and Communication and Democracy's panels discussed a wide range of recent research in the area of community media. The findings emerging from the presentations did highlight the contributions of community radio stations operating in Europe and Africa to the plurality of voices available at the local level and their empowering potential for social groups often underserved by mainstream media. Moreover, the discussed case studies in the areas of alternative and radical media did help to map out emerging practices of both progressive and conservative social movements, including television and internet-based platforms across Europe. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

According to Henri Michel it is possible to use the concept of "neutrality" of the Vichy regime in "New Europe". However, the war dynamics and the challenges of Free France broke the importance and the quality of its diplomatic relations and forced Vichy to ask Switzerland to represent its interests in the states which had broken off diplomatic ties. The Anglo-American landing in North Africa speeded the whole process up and Switzerland accepted Vichy's mandates, all the more since they strengthened an important state with regard to good neighbourly relations, economic interests and the indispensable transit to the Atlantic. Swiss protection turned out to be efficient in administrative tasks as well as helping French residents abroad, but totally inefficient when confronted with key issues of the occupying power. The efficiency of the protection was also limited by the ambition of Free France to impose its legitimacy over that of Vichy. Adapted from the source document.

It is undeniable that the juridical and institutional framework adopted by African democracies is characterized by many resemblances and similarities with regimes elaborated outside of the continent. In this age of globalization, far from being an African specificity imitation, or what is called imitation, is or has become one aspect of a broader and more complex phenomenon, i.e. political and institutional standardization, with which it has been confused. At a time when the problem is not so much to define what form of democracy would suit Africa but rather to know how the democratic process chosen by African states can be strengthened, the priority should be to take into account the various strategies of invention of democracy and to identify, on a case to case basis, the forms and conditions of the development of democracy in the various contexts and environments in which it is expected to develop. Adapted from the source document.

The paper examines the imperative for improved classification and analysis of food crises in different fragile contexts. Recognizing the persistence and protracted nature of food crises, the paper questions how prevention and response mechanisms could be improved to help decisionmakers better address the underlying causes of vulnerability and hunger. The paper draws on case study information to examine real life opportunities and constraints in applying a recently developed food security classification system, named the analytical frameworks at country level, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). Developed originally in Somalia, this classification framework is now being applied in a range of country contexts within and outside of Africa by national governments, UN agencies, donors and NGO organizations. The paper draws on early applications of the IPC to consider opportunities and constraints in the application of common classification systems, taking into account issues of institutional adaptation, methodologies, data and analysis.

HIV counseling and testing is broadly considered a critical component of HIV transmission‐prevention and treatment efforts. Given the severity of the AIDS pandemic in sub‐Saharan Africa, the potential societal benefit of testing is invoked to call for its massive expansion and to justify a shift from voluntary to routine testing. Surprisingly little evidence has demonstrated, however, that such a shift will result in the intended benefits to communities, particularly that of reducing the horizontal transmission of HIV. This analysis addresses and critiques the assumptions underlying a serostatus‐based approach to behavior change and discusses the ethical consequences of transferring control of the decision to be tested from the individual to the provider. It concludes with a discussion of the implications for HIV counseling and testing policies and proposes alternatives to routine testing that have the potential to be effective while preserving the right to know one's HIV status.