Search

The paper has two complementary objectives. First, it sustains an analysis of the concept of 'coloniality' that accounts for the epistemic imbalance in the modern world, demonstrating precisely how Africa is adversely affected, having been caught up in the throes of coloniality and its epistemic implications. Second – and complementarily – the paper attempts to bring this very concept of 'coloniality' into the discourse on Africa's emigration crisis, arguing that Africa's emigration crisis is traceable, inter alia, to the epistemic imbalance in the very structure of modernity. This imbalance results from the stifling of Africa's epistemic resources under Western epistemic hegemony. Epistemic coloniality, of course interacting with some material factors, creates a sufficient condition for emigration. It is further theorized that the apparent lack of epistemic will on the part of Africans to mobilize some surviving epistemic resources to address some problems on their own is also a function of coloniality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the development of institutional repositories in university libraries in Africa. An online questionnaire and institutional repository site investigation methods were used to collect data from 134 university libraries in English-speaking countries in Africa. The study finds that there is an increasing wave of development of institutional repositories in English-speaking countries in Africa. The majority of the institutional repositories contain high numbers of theses and dissertations, followed by journal articles and conference and workshop papers. The challenges that are identified include inadequate facilities, unstable Internet connectivity, a lack of funds, an irregular power supply, collecting material for institutional repositories, a lack of skilled information and communications technology personnel, copyright issues and an absence of institutional repository policies. The results from the study provide important data and insight into the development of institutional repositories in university libraries in the context of developing countries, and offer suggestions for university librarians and management teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rapid change in fast fashion has significantly accelerated the expansion of the volume of discarded clothing across the globe. Africa is the world's largest destination for second-hand clothes (SHC, sometimes known as 'Mitumba'). However, fewer studies have been conducted on Africa's SHC, making it challenging to evaluate the impact of the market and its value chain. This study examines the economic contribution and assessment of the SHC value chain and the resulting environmental challenges, identifies the trends of scholarly discourse on the topic in Africa, examines their methodologies and develops future research opportunities. The study shows that the SHC trade is an essential supply chain connecting developed and developing countries and a valuable clothing consumption alternative for people experiencing economic decline, poverty and low purchasing power. SHC is crucial in delivering fashion products to customers in underdeveloped African countries. It also creates job opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people in the trade, distribution, repairs, laundry services and upcycling. Results further show that Africans are being enriched with new skills and knowledge of the SHC trade, which is expected to help grow and promote small- to medium-sized enterprises. However, poorly made Mitumba become unmarketable, creating environmental challenges in cities across the continent. The study found fewer empirical studies, due largely to limited data on Africa's SHC trade. This calls for more empirical studies to scale the SHC trade in the region, expand the boundaries of entrepreneurial opportunities for Africa to interact with the global market, and alleviate the widespread problem of extreme poverty while also addressing the environmental challenges posed by SHC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant research on data journalism in Africa has focused on newsroom factors and the predilections of individual journalists as determinants of the uptake of data journalism on the continent. This article diverts from this literature by examining the slow uptake of data journalism in sub- Saharan Africa through the prisms of non-newsroom factors. Drawing on in-depth interviews with prominent investigative journalists sampled from several African countries, we argue that to understand the slow uptake of data journalism on the continent; there is a need to critique the role of data politics, which encompasses state, market and existing media ecosystems across the continent. Therefore, it is necessary to move beyond newsroom-centric factors that have dominated the contemporary understanding of data journalism practices. A broader, non-newsroom conceptualisation beyond individual journalistic predilections and newsroom resources provides productive clarity on data journalism's slow uptake on the continent. These arguments are made through the conceptual prisms of materiality, performativity and reflexivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, ethnicity has been considered to play a fundamental role in voting behaviour in Africa. However, researchers on the issue have found contradictory conclusions. The most recent research concludes that the African voter is more rational than expected. Overall ethnicity seems to be less influential than theory used to suggest. Against this background, this paper analyses vote for governing party in Africa and presents evidence that the method and data set used will have an important influence upon the final result. The research takes form of a quantitative analysis making extensive use of survey data from 2005 to 2019. Results indicate that ethnicity, although not exclusively, is still an explanatory factor. At a glance, African vote is rationally ethnic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In autocratic-leaning countries, the level of genuine public support for ruling parties and reasons driving it are often unclear. While such parties often rely on violence, electoral manipulation, and corruption to help maintain power, maintaining legitimate popularity is the ideal. Parties that emerged from national liberation struggles and other extraordinary events are thought to have developed strong branding and organizational structures. This paper tests the determinants of ruling party identification among Zimbabweans through seven geo-coded rounds of Afrobarometer data. First, genuine ruling party support is estimated to be exaggerated in public opinion surveys, but not insignificant. The ruling party's base of support is centered in rural areas that experienced the greatest concentration of guerrilla activity during the liberation war. Respondents from the liberation generation are also more likely to support the ruling party, and view the party as tied to nationalism. The liberation war generated and solidified ruling party stronghold areas through democratic advantages such as nationalistic branding and robust party organization structures as well as autocratic tools such as the capture of traditional leaders, politicization of the military, and the use of violence against dissidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Differing definitions of ‘urban’ settlements can make comparative analysis of trends in urbanisation difficult. Definitions used by many African countries include small settlements which may not exhibit the degree of labour specialisation away from agriculture that economic theories about urbanisation presume. This may mean there is a mismatch if urban data are presumed by decision-makers to be proxies for structural economic transformation. After examining these definitional issues this paper provides five illustrative African case studies based on detailed analysis of census and agricultural employment data. It finds that for Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Mali in situ urbanisation of settlements at the bottom of the urban hierarchy has played a significant part in recent urbanisation processes. In Rwanda complex boundary changes have also contributed to a very significant redefinition of previously rural people as ‘urban’ yet overall the urbanisation level did not increase between 2002 and 2012. Significant employment in agriculture is found within small, and some larger, urban centres in all these countries. It is shown that these issues tend to be disregarded in analyses of urban trends for these countries which often present a more positive narrative of urban economic change than the census data support. These examples are contrasted with Botswana, where in situ urbanisation has also occurred but in this case driven by real occupational change. The paper concludes that the impact of definitions on apparent trends in urbanisation in Africa needs to be understood given the significance attached to these trends by policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conventional view of Africa ' s political parties holds that they are organizationally weak, with little presence at the grass roots. Yet, few studies are based on systematically collected data about more than a handful of parties or countries at any given point. In this paper, we attempt to remedy this situation, by focusing on one crucial aspect of party organization – the local presence that enables political parties to engage with and mobilize voters during and between elections – and developing the first systematic, survey-based measure of the extent of this presence across 35 countries. We draw on a wide variety of data to demonstrate the validity and reliability of this new index, and in the process showcase its ability to be calculated at a number of different levels. Finally, we illustrate its utility by applying it to a key substantive question in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the nonlinear relationship between tourism and economic growth using a balanced sample of 58 countries in three continental samples (Africa, Asia, and Latin America) for the 2003–2017 period. First, we document an asymmetric threshold effect of tourism on economic growth. By utilizing an endogenous threshold regression model, we show that a single tourism threshold cutoff exists and that tourism receipts influence growth only till the threshold cutoff point in all three continental samples; however, this influence is nonexistent past the threshold point. Second, a quantile effect decomposition shows separate marginal effects for the tourism and economic growth relationship across the growth distribution. By using an unconditional quantile regression approach, we show that compared to their regional cohorts, slow- and medium-growth African countries, slow-growth Asian countries, and medium-growth Latin American countries exhibit substantially higher economic growth benefits from tourism. We explain these empirical observations and discuss their policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a geographic understanding of urban energy transitions in sub-Saharan African towns and cities. In doing so this paper seeks to critically reflect on the value and limits of urban transitions analysis as a framework for understanding energy networks beyond the largely integrated systems across the Global North. We explore how these potentials and deficits can be addressed by examining promising developments across a series of debates in urban studies that can help sensitise this approach to energyscapes in the African context. By reviewing urban transitions analysis through these debates the paper offers four important contributions to expand existing ways of understanding energy transition. These include the particular urbanisation dynamics of African towns ands cities, the need to locate the urban across energy regimes, the agencies of various intermediaries and urban actors and the contested politics inherent in the governing of energy networks. In the conclusion we reflect on the specific directions that have emerged from the paper in relation to our contributions, offering a geographically informed framework that allows us to better examine the challenges and specificities of transition across these rapidly growing urban regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing concern within the global mental health arena that interventions currently being executed to scale up mental health services in Africa will be ineffective unless simultaneous steps are taken to address people’s help-seeking behaviour. Drawing upon two conceptual tools arising from science and technology studies (STS), those of a “classification system” and “the black box,” this paper looks critically at discursive constructions of help-seeking in Africa within mental health research over the last decade. Research in this area can be divided into two dominant traditions: the knowledge-belief-practice survey and indigenous-knowledge-system approaches. Although the content and value-codes between these approaches differ, structurally they are very similar. Both are mediated by the same kind of system of classification, which demarcates the world into homogenous entities and binary oppositions. This system of ordering is one of the most stubborn and powerful forms of classification buried in the “black box” of the modernist/colonial knowledge archive and is fraught with many questionable Eurocentric epistemological assumptions. I consider whether there might be other ways of understanding help-seeking for mental illness in Africa and discuss two studies that illustrate such alternative approaches. In conclusion, I discuss some of the challenges this alternative kind of research faces in gaining more influence within contemporary global mental health discourse and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guidelines on psychosocial interventions in postconflict areas commonly mention that interventions should be based on local needs and be built on culture-specific expertise. This paper is based on a dissociative cult, the Kiyang-yang (KYY), in Guinea Bissau. In a previous article, we used a refined definition of the concept of idiom of distress to analyze the dissociative behavior displayed in KYY as a symbolic language addressing politically dangerous truths. This paper uses the concept of “collective trauma processing” to analyze how the idiom offered the local population a pathway to mitigate the consequences of protracted and widespread political violence. The paper first argues that the field of psychotraumatology lacks a comprehensive ecological theory on trauma. Moreover, within clinical psychology and psychiatry, little attention is paid to local cultural healing mechanisms addressing traumatic stress. This paper is an effort to study such mechanisms in their own right. To compare trauma processing mechanisms across the globe, we propose to analyze trauma processing mechanisms with the help of a comprehensive model discerning five ontological dimensions that are considered to be involved in suffering and are addressed in healing approaches. Our paper describes similarities and differences between psychological healing traditions and collective trauma processing within the West African context of Guinea Bissau. We will illustrate how the KYY movement uses the idiom of dissociation as both a collective expression of distress and as a vehicle to process social suffering and traumatic stress as a circular phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this issue of Media Culture and Society is to discuss the possible role of social media in the struggle for democracy, against authoritarianism, and over hidden power structures. The articles included in this volume are meant to offer empirical interventions to beliefs, some of them unproven, on whether the emergence of new media technologies has driven Africa towards democratic change. Papers in this Special Issue cover a wide variety of African countries delving deep into comparative studies of participatory citizens' media on the continent. This introduction is an attempt to offer an explanation on African democratisation and authoritarianism before conceptualising the role of social media in political processes with the backing of current case study dispatches in Africa, demonstrating the dilemmas of digital disparities in promoting or denting democratisation in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The links between access to safe water and poverty alleviation are multifaceted, but can be realized only if water supplies are sustained. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) have been developed by many low-income countries in conjunction with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and describe each country's macroeconomic, structural and social policies and programmes to promote growth and reduce poverty. An analysis of PRSPs in sub-Saharan Africa revealed insufficient attention to water and rural development and identified three common themes in the pursuit of reduced poverty: trade liberalization, decentralization and privatization; each of which poses opportunities, but also considerable threats, to the development of sustainable rural water services. An additional theme is that of community management of water services, which is prescribed by many PRSPs and related national sectoral strategies, yet has failed to deliver satisfactory levels of sustainability. PRSPs are designed to promote growth and reduce poverty, yet many of their essential ingredients threaten to reduce the sustainability of rural water services and thus hinder rather than promote development and poverty alleviation in rural Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates risk-oriented frameworks for explaining environmental, social, and economic changes faced by fishing and herding communities in the Turkana Basin during and after the African Humid Period (AHP, 15–5 ka). The orbitally-forced AHP created moist conditions, high lake levels, and unusual hydrological connections across much of northern and eastern Africa. As arid conditions set in and rainfall decreased between 5.3 and 3.9 ka in eastern Africa, Lake Turkana (NW Kenya) shrank dramatically. Shoreline retreat coincided with an expansion of open plains, creating new ecological conditions and potential opportunities for early herders in the basin. In this changing landscape, economies shifted from food procurement (fishing/hunting aquatic resources) to food production (herding), likely through both in-migration by pastoralists and adoption of herding by local fishers. Early pastoralists also built at least seven megalithic pillar sites that served as communal cemeteries during this time. Recent research has shown that local environmental dynamics – both during and after the AHP – were complex, demanding a more careful interrogation of the notion that post-AHP life entailed new and/or heightened risks. Risk-buffering strategies might include mobility, diversification, physical storage, and exchange. Archaeologists working around Lake Turkana have proposed that economic shifts from fishing to pastoralism entailed increased mobility as a risk-buffering strategy to deal with aridity and resource unpredictability, and that pillar sites – as fixed landmarks in an unstable landscape – provided settings for congregation and exchange amongst increasingly mobile herding communities. However, recent research has shown that local environmental dynamics in the Lake Turkana basin – both during and after the AHP – were more complex than previously thought, necessitating re-evaluation of the notion that post-AHP life entailed new and/or heightened risks. Here, we explore risk buffering strategies (e.g. mobility, diversification, physical storage and/or exchange) as only one category of potential explanation for the new social practices observed in the region at this time. Gauging their applicability requires us to (a) assess the spatial mobility of communities and individuals interred at pillar sites; (b) evaluate whether and how mobility strategies may have changed as pastoralism supplanted fishing; and (c) examine alternative explanations for social and economic changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the emerging new master-planned city-building trend on the African continent. Situating our research within urban policy mobilities literature, we investigate the 'Africa rising' narrative and representation of Africa as a 'last development frontier' and 'last piece of cake', an imaginary that provides fertile ground for the construction of new cities. Building upon research on the practices of 'seduction' that facilitate urban policy circulation, we argue for the relevance of critically examining elite stakeholder rhetoric to understand the relative ease with which the new city development model is being promoted in Africa. We investigate the enablers, advocates and boosters of new cities, represented mainly by states, corporations, non-profits and consultants to render visible the complex networks of relations and private interests that support and enable the creation and circulation of the new cities model in Africa. We also analyse the pervasive 'right to development' argument among African elites, which precludes criticism of new city ventures and circulates problematic assumptions about modernity and development. We conclude by discussing how stakeholder rhetoric limits the range of urban visions that are put into circulation and mobilized for Africa's urban future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can African youth be a sustainable resource for peace? Under which requirements can such a project be achieved? This questioning introduces the concern of this article which examines the current burgeoning of African youth from conceptual and qualitative perspectives. Thanks to the awakening of critical voices of African civil society, African youth are more than ever active in the political arena. They contributed, for example, to the fall of the Compaoré regime in October 2014. They closely follow the evolution of democracy in Senegal and create anxiety for the Congolese (DRC) over the mandate regime. Their commitment can be viewed as a search for peace as social cohesion. The paper explores two case studies: the Balai citoyen and Filimbi. It affirms that these youth platforms deal with issues that are intertwined between local challenges, global interactions and transnational conflicts. They can be viewed as peace builders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately 1.8 million people were displaced in northern Uganda as a result of the LRA conflict. This paper explores risk and protective factors as well as examples of resilience among women in northern Uganda resettling after armed conflict and internal displacement. The risk and resilience ecological framework is used to identify and understand these factors along the multiple levels of the ecological social system. Risk factors included poor health, loss of instrumental and emotional support networks, and land vulnerability. Protective factors included engagement in livelihood and sociocultural activities with others. Resilience was located in the women's coping and maintenance of family and social relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of proxy, historical and instrumental data sets are now available from continental Africa through which past variations in temperature can be assessed. This paper, co-authored by members of the PAGES Africa2k Working Group, synthesises published material to produce a record of temperature variability for Africa as a whole spanning the last 2000 years. The paper focuses on temperature variability during the ‘Medieval Climate Anomaly’ (MCA), ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA) and late 19th–early 21st centuries. Warmer conditions during the MCA are evident in records from Lake Tanganyika in central Africa, the Ethiopian Highlands in northeastern Africa, and Cango Cave, the Kuiseb River and Wonderkrater in southern Africa. Other records covering the MCA give ambiguous signals. Warming appears to have been greater during the early MCA (c. ad 1000) in parts of southern Africa and during the later MCA (from ad 1100) in Namibia, Ethiopia and at Lake Tanganyika. LIA cooling is evident in Ethiopian and southern African pollen records and in organic biomarker data from Lake Malawi in southeastern tropical Africa, while at Lake Tanganyika the temperature depression appears to have been less consistent. A warming trend in mean annual temperatures is clearly evident from historical and instrumental data covering the late 19th to early 21st centuries. General warming has occurred over Africa since the 1880s punctuated only by a period of cooling in the mid 20th century. The rate of temperature increase appears to have accelerated towards the end of the 20th century. The few long high-resolution proxy records that extend into the late 20th century indicate that average annual temperatures were 1–2°C higher in the last few decades than during the MCA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings together the study of transnational flows in global health and the gendering of technological artefacts. It does so through a case study of vaginal microbicides for HIV prevention, which have commonly been advocated for as a tool for women’s empowerment in parts of the world where HIV is most prevalent, namely sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on fieldwork in the UK and Zambia, I argue that there is nothing inherently gendered about this ‘woman-controlled’ technology. Combining the notions of scripting and ‘making things public’, I demonstrate the political nature of transnational technology design and testing in the field of sexual health. Rather than framing this in terms of ethical debates, as is frequently the case in studies about the ‘global South’, I ground the analysis in the scripting and de-scripting of technologies and users. By focusing on how things are made public in HIV prevention, I draw attention to the normative, transformative and political potentials of new technologies, such as microbicides, and discuss the implications for their therapeutic success. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The protection and the sustainable management of soil resources in Africa are of paramount importance, particularly in the context of the uncertain impact of climate change and the increasing pressures of human activities. From the perspective of a policy-maker interested in topics such as food security and land degradation in Africa, this situation requires up-to-date and relevant soil information at regional and continental scales. To provide timely and reliable information on soils at synoptic scales, moderate and coarse spatial resolution satellite data offer many possibilities. The paper reviews how a range of multispectral, thermal infrared, passive microwave and active microwave spaceborne sensors can be used in the delineation of soil units, as well as in the assessment of some of their key properties and threats to soil functions from pressures such as water and wind erosion, landslides and salinization. The paper shows that remotely sensed data can be used for mapping soils in Africa but often need to be combined with ancillary data and field observations in order to be effective. Remote sensing is shown to be a key component of the emerging discipline of digital soil mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a methodology and preliminary results of a study to research perceptions of stakeholders and the public towards public libraries in six African countries. The study is closely linked with the EIFL Public Library Innovation Program, which awards grants to public libraries globally to address a range of socio-economic issues facing their communities, including projects in Kenya, Ghana and Zambia. The goal of the study is to understand the perceptions of national and local stakeholders (municipalities, ministries, public agencies, media, etc.) and the public (including non-users) in public libraries in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe about the potential of public libraries and to understand how these stakeholders could best be positively influenced to create, fund, support or to use public libraries. As far as it is known, surveys of this kind have not been done in African countries so the paper acquaints the audience with the field, which has not been explored, and provides background for increased library advocacy in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As the urban share of Africa's population increases, the importance of understanding how food supply is shaped by market institutions has grown. However, this topic has received little attention from policy makers and researchers despite the implications of market institutions and regulatory systems for livelihoods and poverty. This paper reviews the existing literature on market intermediaries, access to selling spaces, finance for traders and sources of information on prices and supplies. The gaps in research are identified and a set of key research issues in this crucial, yet under-researched, area are articulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concern about the future of agriculture, particularly in Africa, has mounted again in recent years. This paper reviews applications of innovative methods for planning for the future -- including scenario planning, future search, search conference, appreciative inquiry, and open space technology -- and notes some limitations. Pro-poor planning for the future requires contextualising recent concerns within broader research about time, society and power, which emphasises that visions of the future are socially constructed, and hence inseparable from contemporary politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of IFLA Journal is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Advancements in technology have heralded more than a few cutting-edge benefits. Medicine is a vital sector of every nation and it has benefitted from these advancements in delivering health care services at a distance. The increasing use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) by a vast population worldwide has been pivotal for telemedicine in recent years. Many developed and developing countries of the world have embraced telemedicine as a proactive means of delivering health care services to their citizens, although at different rates of development. The challenges associated with health care service and delivery is numerous and telemedicine has become one solution to counter some of these challenges. This paper seeks to examine the state of telemedicine in Nigeria. It identifies the gaps that ought to be filled in the Nigerian legal system and proposes relevant policies and legislation that must be formulated by government alongside appropriate authorities in order to ensure an optimum telemedicine system that meets the standards of conventional medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides an overview of the origin of cyber café culture and the growth of this industry in Africa. Current status of the cyber café sector is assessed by analysing the Internet infrastructure and penetration, patterns of use of cyber cafés, impact of cyber cafés and the Internet in Africa. The challenges facing the African continent in putting in place infrastructure for Internet growth are assessed. Finally, the paper examines the prospects for the growth of the Internet infrastructure and what governments in Africa should do to take advantage of the current prevailing international development agencies' support as well as the support of the international community. The paper ends with an exposition of the way forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore a possible ‘conversation’ between a leading African political sociologist, Peter P. Ekeh, in his theory of ‘two publics’, and the late French philosopher, historian and social theorist, Michel Foucault, in his theory of governmentality. I examine the ‘lingering effects of colonialism’ and point to how Ekeh’s insight and its usefulness for examining the politico-cultural consequences of colonialism in terms of the conduct of conduct in the public realm can be further enriched by relating it to the deeply penetrating insight on the nature of power and domination articulated through the concept of governmentality and sovereign power. The paper concludes that Ekeh’s thesis is particularly suitable for interrogating governmentality and its useful insights for understanding public life in Africa because, like Foucault’s theory of governmentality, it is grounded on a historical account of contemporary processes of socio-political and economic configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa is the second populous continent, and its population has the fastest growing rate. Some African countries are still plagued by poverty, poor sanitary conditions and limited resources, such as clean drinking water, food supply, electricity, and effective waste management systems. Underfunded healthcare systems, poor training and lack of awareness of policies and legislations on handling medical waste have led to increased improper handling of waste within hospitals, healthcare facilities and transportation and storage of medical waste. Some countries, including Ethiopia, Botswana, Nigeria and Algeria, do not have national guidelines in place to adhere to the correct disposal of such wastage. Incineration is often the favoured disposal method due to the rapid diminishment of up to 90% of waste, as well as production of heat for boilers or for energy production. This type of method – if not applying the right technologies – potentially creates hazardous risks of its own, such as harmful emissions and residuals. In this study, the sustainability aspects of medical waste management in Africa were reviewed to present resilient solutions for health and environment protection for the next generation in Africa. The findings of this research introduce policies, possible advices and solutions associated with sustainability and medical waste management that can support decision-makers in developing strategies for the sustainability by using the eco-friendly technologies for efficient medical waste treatment and disposal methods and also can serve as a link between the healthcare system, decision-makers, and stakeholders in developing health policies and programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have been promoted worldwide as developmental platforms that can help eliminate some of the major global challenges such as poverty and economic development. The effectiveness of using MFIs to fulfil such expectations depends on their performance, which can be affected by a range of institutional factors such as corruption, rule of law and financial sector development. However, there is a lack of clarity on whether these factors are performance inhibitors or promoters. Using gender as a mediating factor, this study develops and tests these relationships on MFI performance, with the aim of contributing to research on institutions and corruption in the Global South. Drawing on the MFI performance model, the study uses data on MFIs operating in 33 African countries. The results reveal that the control of corruption reduces MFIs' operating expenditure, while it increases MFIs' operating income. Drawing from the essentialist perspective of the theory of social construction of gender, it is argued that female borrowers from MFIs are shown to have a mediating impact on the relationship between the variables tested (such as control of corruption) and MFI performance. The study also has public policy relevance for nations seeking to use MFIs as means of fostering entrepreneurship and economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the interesting three-way relationship between Israel, France, and the former French colonies in Africa located south of the Sahara during the years 1958–62. The main argument of the paper is that in French Africa Israel and France maintained a sort of symbiosis: by seeking its own self-interest, each side fulfilled a vital function for the other. France showed great patience with Israel’s attempts to penetrate its former colonies, more so than vis-a-vis any other countries. From Israel’s standpoint this was a great opportunity, since it granted Israel a kind of exclusivity over supplementing French aid in its former colonies: France removed possible competition and made the assistance that Israel could offer even more attractive to the Africans. For its part, Israel saw itself as being required, almost without exception, to obtain France’s consent of undertakings that it initiated in the African states. Therefore, if it was decreed that the new states in Africa were to receive assistance from other countries, then Israel was a convenient default, since it, more than any other country, showed sensitivity to the French interests there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many parts of Africa, the spread of grid electrical networks into rural areas has remained a pernicious challenge. There has been a persistent bias towards expanding electricity access to urban centres, perhaps understandably as they are the main drivers of national economic growth. In contrast, the expansion of grid electricity networks into rural areas is largely seen as being financially unviable and thus is unlikely to be achieved in the foreseeable future. Using the example of energy kiosks in Sierra Leone, this paper examines the potential commercial and policy implications of a social enterprise approach to address this impasse. Specifically, the success of the community charging station model of one non-governmental organization, Energy For Opportunity, is evaluated in the context of ongoing commercial viability, the overcoming of financial and technological barriers, and the lack of for-profit entities in the market. This case study demonstrates how an innovative blending of non-profit and for-profit models of development interventions can provide effective institutional arrangements to realize solar electrification in rural Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the economic and political functions of port towns in Sub-Saharan Africa during the early modern age. It focuses on the relative impact of slavery on social and economic structures and the way in which it promoted the consolidation of extraction-based economic activities. In addition, this paper presents a basic typology of port towns, introducing a number of specific features for each one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A considerable literature examines the effect of voter information on candidate strategies and voter–politician interactions in the developing world. The voter information literature argues that information can improve accountability because more informed voters are harder to woo with traditional campaign tools, such as ethnic appeals and vote-buying. However, this literature has largely ignored the reaction of political candidates and thus may reach conclusions that are overly optimistic regarding the impact of information on electoral accountability. We argue that voter information can increase electoral violence in developing countries where politicians face fewer institutional constraints on their campaign tactics. When violence is used as a campaign strategy, more informed electorates are more at risk because they are harder to sway through alternative campaign techniques. Using data from 35 African countries, we show that respondents receiving their news predominantly from newspapers are a good proxy for informed voters because they differ in terms of their political attitudes from respondents consuming no news or receiving it via other channels. Combining the geo-coded survey data with pre-electoral violence event data, we find a robust positive association between newspaper readership and fear of and exposure to campaign violence. This finding contributes to the micro-foundations of election violence and adds a cautionary note for voter information programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the indigenisation of social work gathering momentum, the lens of universalism and relativism can highlight some critical social justice concerns. Sociocultural beliefs around human rights and gender equality, reproductive health and traditional fostering, among others, pose unprecedented dilemmas for social workers in Africa and indigenous societies globally. Furthermore, the blind pursuit of indigenisation can reinforce discriminatory and oppressive beliefs and practices. To rectify this, developing ethical decision-making screens and additional research promoting indigenous cultural competency within the social justice goal of social work is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This data feature introduces a new dataset to study peace processes to end organized armed violence in Africa: the African Peace Processes (APP) dataset. The APP dataset includes observations on both mediated and unmediated rounds of negotiations in state-based and non-state conflicts in Africa between 1989 and 2019 and builds on conflict data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). The APP dataset covers peacemaking efforts in both active and inactive conflicts. Moreover, the start and end month and year of each observation are specified, giving researchers some flexibility with regard to the temporal unit of analysis they use. In addition to discussing the rationale behind the creation of the APP dataset, we explain the data collection process and show some patterns based on the data. We also illustrate how the data could be used by looking at the association between the no. of peacekeepers deployed and the onset of mediated negotiations in intrastate and non-state conflicts. We find that high no. of peacekeepers are associated with a higher likelihood of negotiations in non-state conflicts, but not in intrastate conflicts. A plausible explanation for this finding is that security concerns play a more important role in the decision to initiate negotiations in non-state conflicts than in intrastate conflicts. Our short analysis thus illustrates the value of having data on both intrastate and non-state conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violent conflict is the key driver in global food crises. In response, researchers, humanitarians and policy stakeholders have sought to better predict, analyse and respond to food crises in conflict-affected contexts. However, efforts to model conflict's impacts on hunger typically focus on 'conflict' as an aggregate category, rarely distinguishing between violence that directly involves food and food systems from wider insecurity. This study proposes a narrower measure of 'food-related violence (FRV),' in which food and food systems feature in acts of political violence. The study asks: to what extent is FRV a driver of food crises? To answer, it develops a measure of disaggregated food-related violence from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Dataset, then tests the comparative strength of the relationship between FRV and subsequent food crises in 16 Sub-Saharan African contexts, drawing on food security data from the Integrated Food Phase Classification system and Cadre Harmonisé. The analysis finds that FRV is more strongly correlated to subsequent food crisis than either general – or other subcategories of – violent events across the sample, pointing to the distinct profile of this modality of violence. The findings suggest that researchers, policymakers and practitioners seeking to understand and address the conflict–hunger nexus would benefit from integrating a measure of this specific modality of violence, as existing approaches with a broad focus on conflict-driven food crises may obscure the extent to which FRV, specifically, contributes to hunger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role played by Atlantic islands in the formation of European overseas empires, and the development of coastal and intercontinental commercial routes and business networks, is relatively well studied for the Iberian Atlantic. Few scholars have, however, examined the functions of isles in the building of Dutch maritime connections. This paper partially fills this void in the literature by looking at the African islands of Arguin, Gorée, Cape Verde and São Tomé, and highlighting their significance within the seventeenth-century Dutch Atlantic. Using information from the notarial archives of Amsterdam, the collection of the Dutch West India Company (WIC) and journals of voyages, we examine the role played by these islands in the formation and operationalization of Dutch commercial circuits in the Atlantic, and emphasize their geo-strategic importance for the achievement of the colonial aspirations and military ambitions of the Dutch Republic and the WIC. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Though language and oral tradition have long been appreciated among the indigenous people of Africa as the vehicle of knowledge and central to societal development, social scientists and even sociologists have not utilized these sufficiently in undertaking their researches. Knowledge and theories are mainstreamed and applied relative to Africa without significant appreciation of elements of knowledge that could positively impact theories and methodologies most relevant to and from those societies. This is in spite of recognitions of contextual content of ‘everyday sociology’ as necessary for ‘verstehen(ing)’. This challenge also interface with policy papers on the continent. Many policies on the continent fail because their knowledge base is not localized through appropriately indigenous knowledge, thereby leading to failure. This article attempts to show how the incorporation of indigenous knowledge structures into sociology and development policies can assist in development of Africana sociology that will be useful for both theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rift Valley fever is a disease of animals and humans found throughout much of Africa, and recently in the Arabian Peninsula. It is spread via mosquito vectors and direct contact with infected tissue and fluids. Climate variability and change alter ecological processes involved in the outbreak and spread of diseases such as Rift Valley fever. This progress report reviews the key research literature on climate-driven environmental change and Rift Valley fever. The roles of regional and seasonal climates for the disease are emphasized, as well as remote sensing and other approaches to monitoring and analysis. The paper concludes with five suggested future directions for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds upon studies of the constitutive role of technology in the establishment of colonial order by demonstrating some of the ways in which a relationship between spiritual authority and technologies of the secular state came to be articulated together in the late colonial period, and hence embedded within contemporary postcolonial techno-politics. Focusing on adult public health campaigns in French West Africa, I suggest that that the end of colonialism sparked a host of debates about what counted as knowledge of political reality, the means to obtain that knowledge and the persons in which such knowledge was vested. Within this turbulent context, ideas about the ‘magico-spiritual’ were woven together with ‘secular’ instruments of the state, in the process forging new conceptions of political reality. By describing the dynamics of this process, my analysis of African socio-technical systems modulates some key science studies frameworks to make them more applicable to contemporary non-Western settings. While science studies can more than adequately account for how technology may be used to build ‘the nation’, to be applicable to postcolonial contexts such studies should also be able to address the role of socio-technical contestation for producing techno-political states of enduring instability and disequilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper builds on the growing literature in ‘postcolonial technoscience’ by examining how science and ethics travel in transnational HIV research. I use examples of two controversial US-funded studies of mother-to-child transmission in Africa as case studies through which to explore quandaries of difference and inequality in global health research. My aim is not to adjudicate the debates over these studies, but rather to raise some questions about transnational research, science, and ethics that often get lost in public controversies over the moral status of such trials. Using interviews conducted with American and Ugandan HIV researchers as well as relevant material published in the popular and medical press, I argue that debates over research practice and the conditions under which practices are deemed ethically legitimate or questionable reflect the challenges faced by African researchers seeking to participate in global health science. In doing so, I show how questions of scientific legitimacy and authority are played out in debates over who decides what constitutes ‘the normal’ in human biological research and who can legitimately ‘speak for Africa’ regarding the ethics of research design and practice. I conclude that researchers from ‘resource-poor settings’ must often walk a tightrope between claims of difference from the global North and assertions of sameness, in which a claim too forceful in either direction can undermine the ethical — and thus scientific — legitimacy of their research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines a sequence of investigations in parasitology, botany, pharmacology, psychometrics and ethnopsychology focused on Kenyan village children's knowledge of medicinal herbs. We follow this work of making and ordering of knowledge, showing that the different disciplinary perspectives on bodies, medicines, knowledges, children and cultures produced by this research all sought the foundation of knowledge in reference to objective reality, and that they aimed to make the world known in the specific form of distinct and comparable entities with individual properties and capacities. Based on subsequent ethnographic observations of healing in the same village, we outline a different, contrasting modality of knowing, which places ontology above epistemology. Medicinal knowledge and its transformational capacity are here not located within entities but between them; not in objective reality but in effects; 'to know' means 'to come together' with the implication of having an effect on one another. We use this ethnographic sketch of a different form of knowing as a foil against which to contrast the imaginary that had shaped our previous research. Beyond the stark contrast between herbal village healing and pharmacological laboratory analysis, we expand our argument by moving from natural science to social science, from studies of plants and substances to those of humans, minds and cultures; from laboratories to ethno-psychological tests, cultural models, and eventually econometrics. We suggest that by reiterating a particular scientific imaginary, remaking humans (and non-human beings) as known things, a specific notion of man and a related political economy of knowledge is naturalized. Looking back at our involvement with this sequence of research, we realize that, contrary to our intentions, our inclusion as 'social scientists' into a multidisciplinary scientific project may have exacerbated rather than mitigated its potentially problematic effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper takes a close look at the sociocultural significance of oratory and formal speaking among the Akan of Ghana, and discusses the various stylistic and rhetorical strategies adopted to mitigate face threat in formal interaction. The Akan style of formal speech is replete with honorifics, proverbs, metaphor and ornate expression, and is contrived to control the power of the spoken word as well as reinforce the existing social and political order. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the rainfall conditions which have prevailed over Africa during the last two decades. Throughout this period rainfall has been abnormally low over most of the continent. These conditions are compared and contrasted with those which previously prevailed during historical and geologic times. A trend towards increasing aridity since about 1970 has been neither continuous nor apparent in all regions but is evident as an increase in the area affected by subnormal rainfall and in the size of the deficit in the semi-arid regions. These conditions contrast markedly with the 1950s and are unlike any which occurred earlier in the century, and may signal a major change in prevailing global- scale climate. The continental patterns of reduced rainfall are analogous to historical fluctuations, most notably those of the early nineteenth century, and are of relevance to understanding the causal mechanisms of climate change in the late Pleistocene. The patterns are supportive of an underlying climatic cause for recent desertification in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Predictive language technologies – such as Google Search's Autocomplete – constitute forms of algorithmic power that reflect and compound global power imbalances between Western technology companies and multilingual Internet users in the global South. Increasing attention is being paid to predictive language technologies and their impacts on individual users and public discourse. However, there is a lack of scholarship on how such technologies interact with African languages. Addressing this gap, the article presents data from experimentation with autocomplete predictions/suggestions for gendered or politicised keywords in Amharic, Kiswahili and Somali. It demonstrates that autocomplete functions for these languages and how users may be exposed to harmful content due to an apparent lack of filtering of problematic 'predictions'. Drawing on debates on algorithmic power and digital colonialism, the article demonstrates that global power imbalances manifest here not through a lack of online African indigenous language content, but rather in regard to the moderation of content across diverse cultural and linguistic contexts. This raises dilemmas for actors invested in the multilingual Internet between risks of digital surveillance and effective platform oversight, which could prevent algorithmic harms to users engaging with platforms in a myriad of languages and diverse socio-cultural and political environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Millennium (03058298) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The increased access to smartphones in Africa and elsewhere in the global south has opened new markets and new areas for surveillance/platform capitalism/data colonialism to operate. This article attends to the socio-technical practices of Transsion, the Chinese maker of Africa's top selling smartphones, and through these showcases how essential hardware are to the global data economy. Working from a mix of data, including translocal fieldwork in Shenzhen, Accra, Addis Ababa, and a close reading of Transsion products and artifacts alongside business practices, the article shows how the company's prioritizing of Black African consumer needs sustains its competitive position and how its constellation of hardware and apps are integral to its success in routine experimentation of artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and other emerging areas of computation. Ultimately, the argument is that consumer hardware such as low-cost smartphones are critical to the datafication of the everyday in the global south via the bundling of surveillant and extractive software and should be considered sites of power within discourses on the platform era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the logics, persistence and evolution of perspectives on the Chinese labour regime in Africa. Studies find that Chinese firms' labour practices engender abuse via casualisation of labour, low remuneration, and a general lack of adherence to occupational safety. Contrarian studies however demonstrate variations among Chinese firms' labour practices as mediated by the labour dynamics of host countries, labour specificities and industrial capitalism dynamics. The article concludes by questioning the 'talent gap' dynamic in Africa in relation to Chinese firms' managerial hiring practices and calls for an engaged scholarship on how Chinese investment in Africa's human resource base is altering the 'talent gap' phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]