Suchergebnisse

"The EBA-Initative of 2001 has made three notable exceptions to its commitment for tariff and quota free access of least development countries (LDCs) to the EU-market: Sugar, bananas, and rice, for which longer transitions periods have been imposed. Despite the decelerated opening of the EU market for EBA sugar, it is precisely sugar that presently constitutes the highest preferential value for LCDs, at least in the short and medium term and given the present high EU sugar price of more than 600 Euros per ton under the current Sugar Markt Order (SMO), which is more than triple the world market price. The EU itself projected that the EBA exports would attain 3.3 million tons per year in 2013 at a value of almost 2 billion Euros." (excerpt)

Du point de vue des grands blocs économiques tels que l'Europe, le Japon et les Etats-
Unis, l'Afrique ne joue plus aucun rôle significatif. Son déclin est visible non seulement à la
faible part qu'elle a dans le commerce extérieur, mais surtout au niveau extrêmement faible de l'investissement extérieur direct. Même en tant que marché, l'Afrique ne présente
pratiquement pas d'intérêt en raison de son faible revenu par habitant. L'Afrique fait partie des Etats du groupe ACP (Afrique-Caraïbes-Pacifique) qui, depuis 1975, sont liés par des liens de coopération à la Communauté européenne dans le cadre de la convention de Lomé. Dans cette contribution, je vais examiner deux aspects de la convention de Lomé : les relations commerciales et le système préférentiel de Lomé (y compris les résultats des accords de l'Uruguay Round) et les systèmes de subventions du Stabex et du Sysmin (pour les produits agricoles et miniers).

IN 1974 SEVERAL PARTISAN PROCEDURAL DECISIONS WERE TAKEN IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. IT VOTED NOT TO ACCEPT SOUTH AFRICA'S CREDENTIALS, A VOTE OVERTURNED BY THE SECURITY COUNCIL, AND ONE WHICH IGNORED THE PRINCIPLE OF UNIVERSALITY. THE LATTER HAD BEEN RELIED ON OVER THE SEATING OF CHINA ANE EAST GERMANY. THIS PARTISANSHIP IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY IS NOT NEW.

At head of title: National Union Club documents. Speeches of Honorable Edgar Cowan, of Pennsylvania, Honorable Jas. R. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, Honorable Hugh McCulloch, Secretary of Treasury, letter of Honorable O.H. Browning, of Illinois, and an address by a member of the Club. Notes: Cover title. On verso of title page: National Union Executive Club, 490 Twelfth Street, Washington, D.C. . Platform of the National Union Club. On last page, publisher's advertisement for the daily and weekly National Republican, with address of the publisher, W.J. Murtagh & Co. Two columns to the page. FAU Libraries' copy imperfect: pages trimmed rough and too closely along bottom edges with some loss of text. Edges trimmed to 21 cm. Contents: Speech of Senator Cowan, of Pennsylvania, in the Senate of the United States, Friday, May 11, 1866 -- Speech of Senator Doolittle, of Wisconsin, delivered at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, May 19, 1866 -- Speech of Hon. Hugh M'Culloch, Secretary of the Treasury, on the night of the 23d of May, on the occasion of the serenade tendered by the National Union Club -- Letter from Hon. O.H. Browning, of Illinois -- Letter to Hon. Alex. W. Randall, President of the National Union Club -- The condition of the South : report of Special Commissioner Benjamin C. Truman. ; Florida Atlantic University Libraries' Marvin and Sybil Weiner Spirit of America Collection, Pamphlets: Speeches B23F1 ; Florida Atlantic Digital Library Collections

1.Development cooperation in the context of contested global governance -- 2.Maximising goal coherence in sustainable and climate-resilient development? Polycentricity and coordination in governance -- 3.Development finance and the 2030 goals -- 4.Transnational science cooperation for sustainable development -- 5.An evolving shared concept of development cooperation: Perspectives on the 2030 Agenda -- 6.The globalisation of foreign aid: Global influences and the diffusion of aid priorities -- 7.The untapped functions of international cooperation in the age of sustainable development -- 8.The difficulties of diffusing the 2030 Agenda: Situated norm engagement and development organisations -- 9.Diffusion, fusion, and confusion: Development cooperation in a multiplex world order -- 10.Conceptualising ideational convergence of China and OECD donors: Coalition magnets in development cooperation -- 11.Measuring development cooperation and the quality of aid -- 12.Interest-based development cooperation: Moving providers from parochial convergence to principled collaboration -- 13.Monitoring and evaluation in South-South cooperation: The case of CPEC in Pakistan -- 14.The implementation of the SDGs: The feasibility of using the GPEDC monitoring framework -- 15.Counting the invisible: The challenges and opportunities of the SDG indicator framework for statistical capacity development -- 16.Building a global development cooperation regime: Necessary but failed efforts -- 17.Failing to share the burden: Traditional donors, Southern providers, and the twilight of the GPEDC and the post-war aid system -- 18.Should China join the GPEDC? Prospects for China and the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation -- 19.South Africa in global development fora: Cooperation and contestation -- 20.Middle powers in international development cooperation:Assessing the roles of South Korea and Turkey -- 21.The SDGs and the empowerment of Bangladeshi women -- 22.Russia's approach to official development assistance and its contribution to the SDGs -- 23.US multilateral aid in transition: Implications for development cooperation -- 24."The Asian century": The transformational potential of Asian-led development cooperation -- 25.South-South development cooperation as a modality: Brazil's cooperation with Mozambique -- 26.South Africa as a development partner: An empirical analysis of the African Renaissance and International Cooperation Fund -- 27.Triangular cooperation: Enabling policy spaces -- 28.Achieving the SDGs in Africa through South-South cooperation on climate change with China -- 29.India as a partner in triangular development cooperation -- 30.Partnerships with the private sector:Success factors and levels of engagement in development cooperation -- 31.The role and contributions of development NGOs to development cooperation: What do we know? -- 32.Southern think tank partnerships in the era of the 2030 Agenda -- 33.Conclusion:Leveraging development cooperation experiences for the 2030 Agenda: Key messages and the way forward.

Born from the ashes of French colonial rule, Guinea has known a tumultuous history both in the formation of the current government at the level of its constitutional history. In the aftermath of independence (at the cost of a long political struggle) in 1958, the country experiences different constitutional cycles: the presidential regime, the presidential systemand the democratic regime. From 1958 to 2009, these first regimes were essentially characterized by constitutional crises with serious implications for all sectors of the national life. But these different crises took place differently and have not all been resolved in the same way.Most of these constitutional crises resulted from the violation of constitutional texts often confusing and incomplete but also suspension of the Constitution. In this respect, and by comparison with other African countries where they have proven themselves, modes of political and judicial resolutions have always been used to resolve the crises in Guinea. These modes have been and are still seen as the most appropriate in the Guinean context. But beyond these modes of resolution, also widespread in Africa as a whole, it seems necessary now to experiment with other approaches that are essential for sustainable peace and national cohesion. These new tracks, we can retain transitional justice and consociational democracy which deal on the first hand, with repairing the painful past; on the other hand, with the distribution of power and wealth between the different regions or communities. These alternatives modes could bring adequate solutions to the real roots of the constitutional issues and in this regard, deserve to be approached through the prism of Guinean context. ; Née des cendres du régime colonial français, la Guinée a connu une histoire tumultueuse tant au niveau de la formation de l'État actuel qu'au niveau de son histoire constitutionnelle. Au lendemain de son indépendance (obtenue au prix d'une longue lutte politique) en 1958, le pays va connaître différents cycles constitutionnels : le régime présidentialiste, le régime présidentiel et enfin le régime démocratique. De 1958 à 2009, ces deux premiers régimes furent essentiellement caractérisés par des crises constitutionnelles avec des graves répercussions dans tous les secteurs de la vie nationale. Mais ces différentes crises ont connu des manifestations différentes et n'ont pas toutes été résolues de la même façon.La plupart d'entre elles ont résulté de la violation de textes constitutionnels souvent confus et incomplets, mais aussi de la suspension pure et simple de la Constitution. À cet égard, et par voie de comparaison avec d'autres pays africains où ils ont fait leur preuve, les modes de résolutions politiques et juridictionnels ont toujours été utilisés pour résoudre les crises en Guinée. Ces modes ont été et sont encore vus comme les plus appropriés dans le contexte guinéen. Mais au-delà de ces modes de résolution, d'ailleurs très répandus dans l'Afrique tout entière, il paraît nécessaire aujourd'hui d'expérimenter d'autres approches qui seraient indispensables à la paix durable et à la cohésion nationale. De ces nouvelles pistes, nous pouvons retenir la justice transitionnelle et la démocratie consociative qui portent respectivement d'une part, sur la réparation des crimes du passé ; d'autre part, sur la répartition du pouvoir et des richesses entre les différentes régions ou communautés. Ces modes alternatifs pourraient apporter des solutions adéquates aux vraies racines des problèmes constitutionnels et à cet égard, méritent d'être appréhendés à travers le prisme du contexte guinéen.

This research analyzes the relationship between foreign policy and immigration policy in South Africa in the post-apartheid period. An approach is made to issues such as human mobility, foreign policy, immigration policy, apartheid; as well as in the South African context and their migratory foreign policy is discussed, concluding with analysis of its coherence. A comparative analysis of the realities of migration in Latin America and South Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth century, studied how migration realities and interests under the table to achieve the institutionalization of an immigration law that allows the maintenance of stato quo, do not differ considerably despite the physical distance of the countries, which leads us to decipher the system of social injustice it is no coincidence, but rather the result of a pattern reproduced socially. On the other hand we find that foreign policy remains the explanation in the external environment of the internal politics of countries, this has been used to justify internal inequities; this really is an open secret in our region, and that would be different in other parts of the planet. In any case a realistic approach to immigration and foreign policy in South Africa is done, as well as various works of matter are also discussed in order to reach clear definitions and conceptual foreign policy and immigration policy and especially demonstrate the inconsistency between South Africa's foreign and immigration policy; without neglecting an important approach to foreign and immigration policy after apartheid with the arrival of Nelson Mandela to power, just as the significant changes in the system are analyzed, and one of them was undoubtedly the triumph of the African National Congress (ANC), but just as clearly it concludes that despite the victory of the ANC has not been sufficient to achieve the momentous changes this country needs. ; La presente investigación analiza la relación entre la política exterior y la política migratoria de Sudáfrica en la etapa post-apartheid. Se realiza un abordaje a temas como movilidad humana, política exterior, política migratoria, apartheid; así como también en el ámbito sudafricano se analiza su política migratoria y exterior, concluyendo con análisis de su coherencia. Con un análisis comparativo de las realidades migratorias en América Latina y Sudáfrica en el siglo XIX y XX, estudiamos como las realidades migratorias y los intereses bajo de la mesa para lograr la institucionalización de una normativa migratoria que permita el mantenimiento del statu quo, no difieren considerablemente a pesar de la distancia física de los países, lo que nos lleva a descifrar que el sistema de injusticia social no es coincidencia, sino más bien producto de un patrón que se reproduce socialmente. Por otro lado encontramos que siendo la política exterior la expresión en el ámbito externo de la política interna de los países, esta ha sido utilizada para justificar las inequidades internas; esta realidad es un secreto a voces en nuestra región, y por qué sería diferente en las otras latitudes del planeta. En todo caso se realiza un abordaje realista de la política migratoria y exterior en Sudáfrica, así como también se examinan diversas obras de la materia con el fin de llegar a definiciones claras y conceptuales de política migratoria y política exterior y sobre todo demostrar la incoherencia entre la política exterior y migratoria sudafricana; sin dejar de lado un abordaje importante a la política exterior y migratoria después del apartheid con la llegada de Nelson Mandela al poder, de la misma manera se analizan los importantes cambios de ese sistema, y uno de ellos indudablemente fue el triunfo del Congreso Nacional Africano (ANC), pero de la misma manera se concluye claramente que a pesar del triunfo del ANC no ha sido suficiente para alcanzar los cambios trascendentales que este país necesita.

The Rational Drug Use Training Project is a district-oriented programme designed to improve rational drug use among primary health care prescribers in the South African public sector. This thesis describes the development of the project and details the initial implementation study in 3 facilities in Region B of KwaZulu-Natal. This was a small before-after study, with no control. There were three components: 1. A series of easily collectable drug use indicators, adapted from those developed by WHO/INRUD. These allow primary health care staff to monitor their prescribing patterns in a district or facility. Ninety sets of prescribing indicators were collected as a baseline at 3 facilities in KwaZulu-Natal in December 1996, by the district trainers and the Rational Drug Use Training Project staff. The process was repeated in March 1997, after the training intervention, by the district trainers alone. 2. The intervention was a 2-day training workshop in rational drug use. This is problem-based and trained on-site in primary health facilities. Training was done by 8 district trainers from Region B who were taught to present the workshop by the Rational Drug Use Training Project staff. The workshop covers principles of prescribing, use of standard treatment guidelines, principles of clinic stock management and principles of good dispensing. Staff are encouraged to develop their self-learning skills through questioning, and seeking answers to clinical and drug related queries. 3. A set of resources, including texts, treatment guidelines and information centres, to provide quality, safe and unbiased drug information, are made accessible to staff at primary care level. These are available by post, telephone or e-mail. The Primary Care Medicines Resource Centre at the University of Durban-Westville was developed as a result of this study. Significant improvements in prescribing habits were noticed after the study. There was an increase in the percentage of drugs prescribed by their generic names (p=0.000); an increase in the number of medications adequately labelled (p=0.0132); a decrease in the cost of prescriptions (p=0.0134); and a decrease in the number of prescriptions that did not follow standard treatment guidelines at all for that diagnosis (p=0.0109). The Mann-Whitney U- test was used for statistical analysis. There were no significant changes in the average number of drugs per prescription; the percentage of drugs from the Essential Drugs List; and the number of prescriptions that completely followed standard treatment guidelines. Qualitative feedback was favourable too. This was a difficult study to undertake. The staff and funding organisation, Health Systems Trust, fell outside of the provincial health structure and met resistance at that level. Regional politics shaped the programme's design. District trainers needed for the cascade approach were not available. District staff remained entrenched in a traditional health hierarchy and found it difficult to function as a team. The will of district prescribing staff to learn was low. Rational drug use training is only one of a number of essential elements of in-service training urgently needed by these staff. Despite these problems, quantitative and qualitative success was shown. The Training Manual, developed in support of the training, has been in demand. The Primary Care Medicines Resource Centre is growing. Primary care prescribers have been motivated to monitor their own practices and manage their own clinic stock. The project is a successful example of multi-disciplinary and institutional collaboration. The Rational Drug Use Training Project has expanded to eight other health districts in 1997. A list of criteria, such as the need for a district trainer, have been set. These must be met by the district before training will commence. The project is a resource for Initiative for Sub-District Support, a joint district development programme of Health System Trust and the Department of Health. Most expansion in 1998 will be through this initiative. The difficulties encountered and achievements made during this small study will be used to support, and hopefully strengthen, the development of the primary health care oriented district health system, so urgently needed by the South African population.

In many sub-saharan African countries, financial repression is explained by a one principal argument since the works of Mc Kinnon and Show in 1973: That is to say, the state intervention is so huge that it's not permitting the financial sector to work following markets forces. This situation entails the development of an informal financial sector, where interest rates are higher than in the formal financial sector where they are fixed in authoritarian manner by the state. In the 1980, political adjustment programs decided the improvement of African countries financial sectors, by promoting financial liberalization. In the case of Cameroon, the informal financial system is still very huge and strong more than twenty years after financial liberalization politics. Why? Because, history, culture, diversity of rationality and actors are not pertinent parameters for economy when they are very important for a real development process. With an historical and systemic method, this research show that Mc Kinnon and Show are considering financial repression in a narrow vision which neglect history, institutions dynamic and the level of development where is a state like Cameroon. The comprehension of the real development process, need to take in account many kinds of financial repression in relation with social real development practices along the history. This research put forward many limits of a single economic approach of financial development to finance real development in a low income country like Cameroon. The author show that Cameroon is not obliged, considering his history and institutional path and singularity, to follow a mimetic financial development process and politics. Other orders and forms of institutional arrangements and development are possible in a combination between historical financial institutions and moderns financial institutions. A better way to develop the Cameroonian financial sector in order to improve real development could be a dynamic adaptation of the supply of financial skills and institutions to de demand of financing coming from all the populations' classes. ; En Afrique subsaharienne en général, et au Cameroun en particulier, le dualisme financier est très souvent attribué, comme le font MC Kinnon et Shaw depuis 1973, à un Etat hyper interventionniste sur une sphère financière ne fonctionnant plus suivant les lois du marché. Cette argumentation revient pourtant à commettre des erreurs de séniorité et de calibrage que cette thèse met clairement en évidence en soulignant le déni d'histoire des approches dominantes. Elle revient aussi à vouloir classer des systèmes financiers en bons et/ou mauvais pour le développement, alors qu'aucun critère ne peut valider cette classification entre des systèmes financiers complets et cohérents en eux-mêmes pour des acteurs dans des espaces-temps précis. En effet, analysée en longue période, la répression financière historique n'est que la composante financière de la stratégie répressive globale du système colonial sur des modes de vie qui lui étaient antérieurs. Système colonial qui s'inscrit et s'entend lui-même dans un objectif de modernisation sociétale tous azimuts par la violence symbolique, physique, idéologique et structurelle. En conséquence, la libéralisation financière, vulgarisée, tant par MC Kinnon et Shaw, que par les institutions financières internationales, n'est que l'instrument de la dimension financière de la modernisation sociale et sociétale dans sa version capitaliste. D'où plusieurs confusions au sein de l'approche dominante du développement : la modernisation sociétale est confondue au processus de développement ; l'approfondissement financier est assimilé au développement financier ; la répression financière est comprise uniquement dans sa dimension moderne (postcoloniale), et les pratiques réelles de développement sont négligées et ignorées autant que leurs ordres financiers. L'objectif du courant dominant est de les adapter et de les formater suivant ses concepts et ses postulats autoréférentiels. Cette thèse sort de l'épistémologie normative qui caractérise les approches traditionnelles du dualisme financier pour s'inscrire dans une épistémologie critique. Elle privilégie le temps long de l'histoire et des processus structurels, au temps court des événements. Elle récuse l'individualisme méthodologique pour l'holisme méthodologique. Elle se préserve ainsi du scientisme qui caractérise les approches « économicistes » du lien entre dualisme financier et développement. L'auteur centre son étude sur le Cameroun en adoptant une approche historico-systémique. Celle-ci aboutit à des résultats novateurs sur la compréhension du dualisme financier camerounais, du développement financier, de son lien avec la reproduction durable de l'autonomie sociale (développement) et les conceptions monétaires à l'origine de l'esprit des tontines actuelles. La thèse montre ainsi, tant les limites et l'inaptitude des théories financières néoclassiques dans l'analyse du développement réel, que leur caractère purement idéologique issu de leurs prescriptions normatives et répressives face à des pratiques financières réelles pouvant ouvrir d'autres orientations institutionnelles au système financier camerounais. Enfin, cette thèse souligne, non seulement la continuité historique des pratiques financières dites informelles, mais aussi la portée, en études du développement, de ce que l'auteur appelle le moment néobraudélien et la classification périodique des institutions financières à laquelle il donne lieu. En effet, au lieu de partir des systèmes financiers des pays dits développés pour concevoir la trajectoire mimétique que doivent suivre ceux des pays dits sous-développés comme le Cameroun, la thèse montre qu'il semble judicieux de concevoir des offres d'institutions et d'instruments financiers en référence et compatibles aux niveaux historiques et institutionnels où se trouvent les acteurs et leurs demandes de développement. ; (SPED 3) -- UCL, 2010

In many sub-saharan African countries, financial repression is explained by a one principal argument since the works of Mc Kinnon and Show in 1973: That is to say, the state intervention is so huge that it's not permitting the financial sector to work following markets forces. This situation entails the development of an informal financial sector, where interest rates are higher than in the formal financial sector where they are fixed in authoritarian manner by the state. In the 1980, political adjustment programs decided the improvement of African countries financial sectors, by promoting financial liberalization. In the case of Cameroon, the informal financial system is still very huge and strong more than twenty years after financial liberalization politics. Why? Because, history, culture, diversity of rationality and actors are not pertinent parameters for economy when they are very important for a real development process. With an historical and systemic method, this research show that Mc Kinnon and Show are considering financial repression in a narrow vision which neglect history, institutions dynamic and the level of development where is a state like Cameroon. The comprehension of the real development process, need to take in account many kinds of financial repression in relation with social real development practices along the history. This research put forward many limits of a single economic approach of financial development to finance real development in a low income country like Cameroon. The author show that Cameroon is not obliged, considering his history and institutional path and singularity, to follow a mimetic financial development process and politics. Other orders and forms of institutional arrangements and development are possible in a combination between historical financial institutions and moderns financial institutions. A better way to develop the Cameroonian financial sector in order to improve real development could be a dynamic adaptation of the supply of financial skills and institutions to de demand of financing coming from all the populations' classes. ; En Afrique subsaharienne en général, et au Cameroun en particulier, le dualisme financier est très souvent attribué, comme le font MC Kinnon et Shaw depuis 1973, à un Etat hyper interventionniste sur une sphère financière ne fonctionnant plus suivant les lois du marché. Cette argumentation revient pourtant à commettre des erreurs de séniorité et de calibrage que cette thèse met clairement en évidence en soulignant le déni d'histoire des approches dominantes. Elle revient aussi à vouloir classer des systèmes financiers en bons et/ou mauvais pour le développement, alors qu'aucun critère ne peut valider cette classification entre des systèmes financiers complets et cohérents en eux-mêmes pour des acteurs dans des espaces-temps précis. En effet, analysée en longue période, la répression financière historique n'est que la composante financière de la stratégie répressive globale du système colonial sur des modes de vie qui lui étaient antérieurs. Système colonial qui s'inscrit et s'entend lui-même dans un objectif de modernisation sociétale tous azimuts par la violence symbolique, physique, idéologique et structurelle. En conséquence, la libéralisation financière, vulgarisée, tant par MC Kinnon et Shaw, que par les institutions financières internationales, n'est que l'instrument de la dimension financière de la modernisation sociale et sociétale dans sa version capitaliste. D'où plusieurs confusions au sein de l'approche dominante du développement : la modernisation sociétale est confondue au processus de développement ; l'approfondissement financier est assimilé au développement financier ; la répression financière est comprise uniquement dans sa dimension moderne (postcoloniale), et les pratiques réelles de développement sont négligées et ignorées autant que leurs ordres financiers. L'objectif du courant dominant est de les adapter et de les formater suivant ses concepts et ses postulats autoréférentiels. Cette thèse sort de l'épistémologie normative qui caractérise les approches traditionnelles du dualisme financier pour s'inscrire dans une épistémologie critique. Elle privilégie le temps long de l'histoire et des processus structurels, au temps court des événements. Elle récuse l'individualisme méthodologique pour l'holisme méthodologique. Elle se préserve ainsi du scientisme qui caractérise les approches « économicistes » du lien entre dualisme financier et développement. L'auteur centre son étude sur le Cameroun en adoptant une approche historico-systémique. Celle-ci aboutit à des résultats novateurs sur la compréhension du dualisme financier camerounais, du développement financier, de son lien avec la reproduction durable de l'autonomie sociale (développement) et les conceptions monétaires à l'origine de l'esprit des tontines actuelles. La thèse montre ainsi, tant les limites et l'inaptitude des théories financières néoclassiques dans l'analyse du développement réel, que leur caractère purement idéologique issu de leurs prescriptions normatives et répressives face à des pratiques financières réelles pouvant ouvrir d'autres orientations institutionnelles au système financier camerounais. Enfin, cette thèse souligne, non seulement la continuité historique des pratiques financières dites informelles, mais aussi la portée, en études du développement, de ce que l'auteur appelle le moment néobraudélien et la classification périodique des institutions financières à laquelle il donne lieu. En effet, au lieu de partir des systèmes financiers des pays dits développés pour concevoir la trajectoire mimétique que doivent suivre ceux des pays dits sous-développés comme le Cameroun, la thèse montre qu'il semble judicieux de concevoir des offres d'institutions et d'instruments financiers en référence et compatibles aux niveaux historiques et institutionnels où se trouvent les acteurs et leurs demandes de développement. ; (SPED 3) -- UCL, 2010

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) learned with immense shock and sadness of the passing on of Professor Samir Amin on Sunday, 12th August 2018. Subsequently, Prof. Samir Amin's body was interned at Père Lachaise in Paris on 1st September 2018 at a site provided by the French Communist Party. The Council was represented at the burial by Prof. Fatow Sow and Dr. Cherif Sy; two members of the CODESRIA community who have worked with Samir Amin for a while.
For CODESRIA, this marks nothing less than the end of an era in the history of African social research given the many pioneering roles the late Professor Amin played as a scholar, teacher, mentor, friend, and revolutionary. Samir was many things to us as a Council; for the younger members of the community, it meant much more to be in his company at the numerous CODESRIA meeting he attended. A model for three generations of African and, indeed, radical scholars globally, Samir was that giant Baobab tree whose grandeur of intellect and spirit made him a worthy role model. While serving as Director of the United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), he hosted the initial scaffolding of the CODESRIA at IDEP, brought together and nurtured new talent that laid the foundations which launched Council on a path of growth and resilience to what it is to-date. As the final note on his reflections contained in this Bulletin illustrates, while serving as CODESRIA's founding Executive Secretary, Samir worked very closely with Abdalla Bujra and later Thandika Mkandawire, to shape the initial years of CODESRIA's intellectual identity and trajectory.
After CODESRIA relocated from the premises of IDEP to a new home in the Fann Residence part of Dakar, Samir Amin remained engaged with Council and its community of scholars, participating actively and effectively in all its activities. This 15th General Assembly of CODESRIA is perhaps the first Assembly without Samir Amin presence. In all previous General Assemblies, Samir has been a notable presence even giving the Cheikh Anta Diop Lecture at the 10 Assembly in Kampala, Uganda. It is at the General Assembly that many young academics interacted with Samir, often for the first time and indeed experiencing the awe of his presence. Though Samir is absent at the current Assembly, there is no doubt that his intellectual and revolutionary spirit is definitely present just as the thoughts and ideas that he shared so generously and to the very end will continue to inspire reflection and debate.
Samir Amin's intellectual journey was a long and illustrious one. It was a journey marked by commitments that distinguished him as a scholar of unparalleled convictions. He died still an unapologetic socialist academic or, as the title of his memoir reads, 'an independent Marxist' whose work was driven by an unshakeable conviction to confront and oppose totalizing economic orthodoxies. He treated this confrontation and opposition as a prelude to social transformation. He was steadfast in his belief that the world must shift away from capitalism and strive to build new 'post-capitalist' societies. He described capitalism as a small bracket in the long history of human civilization. His works identify and record the multiple crises of capitalism, a system he described as senile and obsolete. In its place, Samir Amin formulated a political alternative that he envisioned would proceed by i) socializing the ownership of monopolies, ii). definancializing the management of the economy and iii) deglobalising international relations [cited in Campbell, 2015: 286]. For him, these three directions provided the basis of an active politics of dismantling capitalism; a politics he committed his skill and energy mobilizing for. Even as he grew older, he mustered fresh bursts of energy to continue the struggle and to the very last days when he was in Dakar, he was apart of the team of scholar/ activists gathered together by International ENDA Third World Network to draft the Alternative Report on Africa (Dakar, 2018). CODESRIA was apart of this process and the Report will by shared at this General Assembly.
Many of Samir Amin's writings make the point repeatedly on the urgent necessity to dismantle the 'obsolete system' known as capitalism. However, none was as emphatic in rethinking the underlying cultural underpinning of the 'obsolete system' like Eurocentricism. In that engaging publication, he provided a rggesounding critique of world history as is centered around Eurocentric modernity and invites us to understand modernity as an incomplete process that, to survive its current crises, will need 'economic, social and political reconstruction of all societies in the world.' Embedded in this argument is a long held position about the importance of the Bandung moment (1955) as a moment of an alternative globalization based on Afro-Asian solidarity. It is from this perspective that one understands why Samir Amin emphasized the importance of China [see tribute by Sit Tsui and Yan Xiaohui in this bulletin]. Afro-Asian solidarity was the basis upon which Samir Amin located his alternative politics which also defined his towering global outlook and presence.
There is no doubt that Samir Amin's intellectual presence was defined by depth of knowledge, complexity of thought and fidelity to Marxist organising principles. There is no way of summarizing the corpus of work he produced, the revolutionary engagements he undertook and the transformative potential that led him to remain steadfast even when many others were only too happy to find a good reason to backtrack and conform. His work is enormous in volume but also in the depth of its knowledge and relevance to society. He provoked and joined debates across the globe but more importantly with comrades in Latin America and Asia, those of the dependency and underdevelopment school but also later from a South-South perspective. In CODESRIA's flagship journal Africa Development alone, Samir Amin published twenty articles. A biodata document he shared with the Council has 24 books in English and 41 in French. He is published in English, French, Arabic, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish to name but these few languages. In all these publications and in the various languages, Samir Amin articulated his belief in alternatives, and as indicated above, this belief remained strong even to the last month of his life on earth.
Born to an Egyptian father and French mother on 3rd September 1931 in Cairo, Egypt, Samir Amin's convictions owe much to the context of his childhood all the way from Port Said in northern Egypt to Cairo where he schooled. He spent his early life in Egypt where he attended his formative schooling before proceeding to France to pursue higher education at Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris ("Sciences Po"). Here, he earned a diploma in 1952 and later a PhD in 1957 at the Sorbonne. Samir later earned another diploma in mathematical statistics from L'institut national de la statistique et des etudes economiques. He had always been interested in radical thought and action from early on, noting in an interview that he already considered himself a communist in Secondary School. Even though he and his cohort did not know what communism really meant in their early childhood, they assumed it meant "equality between human beings and between nations, and it meant that this has been done by the Russian revolution." It is not surprising that with this pedigree, Samir Amin focused in his graduate research on "The origins of underdevelopment – capitalist accumulation on a world scale" and emphasized in his work that underdevelopment in the periphery was, in large measure, due to the working of the capitalist system. He consequently underscored the need to search for socialist alternatives to liberal globalisation.
Samir Amin returned to Cairo in 1957, worked briefly in Gamal Abdel Nasser's Institute for Economic Management (1957–1960) before heading to work as an adviser in the Ministry of Planning in Mali (1960- 1963). Subsequently, Samir Amin's intellectual life became largely internationalist in orientation, and anchored principally on the question of accumulation as key to understanding underdevelopment. He maintained the sojourn between France where he took up a Professorship in 1966 and Dakar, Senegal his adopted home where he worked for ten years, from 1970 to 1980 at IDEP. Later in 1980, he founded the Third World Forum, originally hosted at the CODESRIA Secretariat, and lent his considerable weight to the institutionalisation of ENDA and the World Forum for Alternatives. His support for revolutionary politics is marked not just in the books and papers he published but also in the lecture circuit where he spoke to audiences about the undeniable relevance of radical politics.
Samir Amin's thinking was in large measure defined by the solidarity built around the Bandung Confer- ence of 1955. This remained a critical touchstone in his work in which non-western civilisations and his- tories played an important role. Bandung, for him, inaugurated a different pattern of globalisation, the one he called 'negotiated globalisation.' Though not asufficientbasisforcomplete"de-linking"from'ob- solescent capitalism', Samir Amin saw in Afro-Asian solidarity possibilities and pathways to that delinking; the process, as he explained, by which you submit "ex- ternal relations to the needs of internal progressive so- cial changes and targets." The notion of 'delinking' oc- cupied a major place in Samir Amin's thinking and is positioned in contrast to 'adjustment' that was the pre- ferred approach of the Bretton Woods Institutions. As Mamdani shows elsewhere in this Bulletin, there are major problematic elements of this notion that Samir Amin continued to grapple with. But ultimately, Samir Amin noted that delinking is in fact a process that, de- pending on the societies implementing it, can be used to install graduated level of autonomous development instead of countries in the periphery remaining locked into and merely adjusting to the trends set by a funda- mentally unequal capitalist system.
In Samir Amin, we found the true meaning of praxis; a thinker who insisted that his work has immediate relevance to society. His departure deprives us of the practical energy he brought to our meetings and debates; and denies radical thinkers a model around whom they found the compass that enabled them to navigate the treacherous, indeed murderous, waters of capitalism. We however are lucky to have lived in his company, to have learned from his fountain of knowledge and to have shared in the passion of his convictions. The Council plans to invigorate the value of his legacy by celebrating him during this 15th General Assembly but also beyond the confines of the Assembly.
Thus, this edition of the Bulletin contains two intertwined sets of essays; all organised around Samir Amin. In the one instance, we have a selection of messages in his memory. One the other, we have a selection of essays he authored. Separately, we will re-publish all the essays he published in Africa Development in a special issue of the journal to provide them in one collection for posterity. But whichever way, and as his own reflection in the essay published in this volume and his memoirs show, CODESRIA is an inheritance that Samir Amin bequeathed the African social science community. As such, it is fitting that the Bulletin designed for the 15th CODESRIA General Assembly is also a Bulletin that publishes essays in his honour.
The choice of theme for the General Assembly predates the passing on of Samir Amin. But the theme itself is one that was dear to Samir Amin. It is our pleasure therefore to present the essays contained here as essays that shed light on a life lived fully but also that open up a space to explore the unfulfilled promises of globalisation. We hope that at the end of it, this will be a fitting study in honour of our departed icon but also a commentary on the key issues the 15th General Assembly explored.