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Xenophobia is a political discourse. As such, its historical development as well as the conditions of its existence must be elucidated in terms of the practices and prescriptions that structure the field of politics. In South Africa, its history is connected to the manner citizenship has been conceived and fought over during the past fifty years at least. Migrant labour was de-nationalised by the apartheid state, while African nationalism saw it as the very foundation of that oppressive system. However, only those who could show a family connection with the colonial/apartheid formation of South Africa could claim citizenship at liberation. Others were excluded and seen as unjustified claimants to national resources. Xenophobia's current conditions of existence are to be found in the politics of a post-apartheid nationalism were state prescriptions founded on indigeneity have been allowed to dominate uncontested in condition of passive citizenship. The de-politicisation of a population, which had been able to assert its agency during the 1980s, through a discourse of 'human rights' in particular, has contributed to this passivity. State liberal politics have remained largely unchallenged. As in other cases of post-colonial transition in Africa, the hegemony of xenophobic discourse, the book shows, is to be sought in the character of the state consensus. Only a rethinking of citizenship as an active political identity can re-institute political agency and hence begin to provide alternative prescriptions to the political consensus of state-induced exclusion.

Although gender and non-gender scholars have studied men, such an academic exercise requires a critical and focused study of masculine subjects in particular social contexts, which is what this book attempts to do. This empirically rich collection of essays, the seventh of the CODESRIA Gender Series, deals with critical examinations of various shades and ramifications of Africa's masculinities and what these portend for the peoples of Africa and for gender relations in the continent. So much has changed in terms of notions and expressions of masculinities in Africa since ancient times, but many aspects of contemporary masculinities were fashioned during and since the colonial period. The papers in this volume were initially discussed at the 2005 month-long CODESRIA Gender Institute in Dakar. The contributors are gender scholars drawn from various disciplines in the wide fields of the humanities and the social sciences with research interests in the critical study of men and masculinities in Africa. The CODESRIA Gender Series aims at keeping alive and nourishing the African social science knowledge base with insightful research and debates that challenge conventional wisdom, structures and ideologies that are narrowly informed by caricatures of gender realities. The series strives to showcase the best in African gender research and provide a platform for emerging new talents to flower.

The case for privatization, whether defined in a broad or narrow sense, has been forcefully made by its advocates against the backdrop of the much advertised poor performances of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and theoretical arguments relating to the efficiency of private firms over public enterprises. Consequently, privatization and commercialization have been key components of the structural adjustment programmes foisted by the Bretton Woods institutions on Third World countries. Yet, the empirical findings on privatization, especially outside Africa where they exist, do not portray the strategy to be a panacea that works in all circumstances in all branches of economic activity. In spite of this, since the late 1980s, privatization has been stepped up in almost all African countries. And after about two decades of vigorous implementation of privatization programmes in Africa, there is a compelling need for a comprehensive and systematic analysis of various privatization issues, particularly the economic and social impact. This book thus establishes a clear case for a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the impact of privatization in Africa. Specifically, the book provides a state-of-the art review of privatization issues and research questions as a prelude to an in-depth study of the economic and social impact of privatization. In the light of the rich insights brought to bear on the issues, this book should stimulate the interest of researchers, donors and policy makers to undertake or support the follow-up in-depth research envisaged.

It is hoped that readers of this synthesis report will find it useful as a quick and easily digestible summary of some of the key developments in West Africa that had a direct bearing on governance in the sub-region during 2006.

This volume highlights the proceedings of the two policy dialogue conferences held by the Working Group on Finance and Education (WGFE) in 2004. Part I of the document discusses the endemic crisis that higher educationhas been beset with since the outset of the post colonial period in Africa. It highlights the critical state of higher education systems in Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal by scrutinizing the causes, manifestations and consequences of the crisis to posit useful recommendations and possible solutions. Part II is a comprehensive review of the challenges facing the financing and planning of all levels and types ofeducation - from kindergarten to graduate school - in selected African countries. The papers reveal the sources and mechanisms of funding education in Africa, drawing attention to the experiences of communities confronted with new funding sources. A new trend, which consists of designing decade long educational development plans, has emerged and is rapidly expanding in numerous African countries. This experience is examined and shared by the authors. This book has contributions in both French and English.

When the Dar es Salaam Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility of Academics came up in the early 1990s, African higher-education systems were in a serious, multi-dimensional and long-standing crisis. Hand-in-hand with the imbalances and troubles that rocked and ruined African economies, the crisis in the academia was characterised by the collapse of infrastructures, inadequate teaching personnel and poor staff development and motivation. It was against this background that the questions of academic freedom and the responsibilities and autonomy of institutions of higher-learning were raised in the Dar es Salaam Declaration. In February 2005, the University of Dar es Salaam Staff Association (UDASA), in cooperation with CODESRIA, organised a workshop to bring together the staff associations of some public and private universities in Tanzania, in order to renew their commitment to the basic principles of the Dar es Salaam Declaration and its sister document - the Kampala Declaration on Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility. The workshop was also aimed at re-invigorating the social commitment of African intellectuals. The papers included in this volume reflect the depth and potentials of the debates that took place during the workshop. The volume is published in honour of Chachage Seithy L. Chachage, who was an active part of the workshop but unfortunately passed away in 2006. Chachage Seithy L. Chachage was a Professor of Sociology and Chairman of the University of Dar es Salaam Staff Association. He had published extensively on Sociology, and written many novels in Swahili language. Until his death on 9th July 2006, Professor Chachage was member of the Executive Committee of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), which he had served in several other capacities, including as Chair of its Scientific Committee.

The monitoring and documenting of human rights abuses is a relatively recent area of work; the nature and implications of human rights law are in flux; and there is greater consideration for human-rights dimensions in armed conflicts. The human rights agencies are consequently repositioning themselves, redefining their roles and adapting their practices. This study provides an overview of the sorts of abuses - political killings, torture, excessive use of force, death in custody, sexual violence - occurring in armed conflicts and makes suggstions about how to investigate and verify information for each violation. It includes extracts from international and regional human rights law and international humanitarian law, intended as a working basis for organisations investigating, documenting and acting upon abuses.

A re-conceptualisation of the health question and approaches based on the questioning of dominant paradigms are therefore needed to confront the on-going health crisis and put Africa on track for development.

This empirically grounded study provides a critical reflection on the land question in Africa, research on which tends to be tangential, conceptually loose and generally inadequate. It argues that the most pressing research concern must be to understand the precise nature of the African land question, its land reforms and their effects on development. To unravel the roots of land conflicts in Africa requires thorough understanding of the complex social and political contradictions which have ensued from colonial and post-colonial land policies, as well as from Africa's 'development' and capital accumulation trajectories, especially with regard to the land rights of the continent's poor. The study thus questions the capacity of emerging neo-liberal economic and political regimes in Africa to deliver land reforms which address growing inequality and poverty. It equally questions the understanding of the nature of popular demands for land reforms by African states, and their ability to address these demands under the current global political and economic structures dictated by neo-liberalism and its narrow regime of ownership. The study invites scholars and policy makers to creatively draw on the specific historical trajectories and contemporary expression of the land and agrarian questions in Africa, to enrich both theory and practice on land in Africa.

Academic studies on the financing of education are relatively rare, particularly in the context of developing countries. The available literature is mainly grey, narrow in focus, hard to come by, and motivated by operational rather than analytical concerns. It tends to concentrate on the allocation of resources and the cost-effectiveness of education, rather than on wider questions of financing throughout the education system: from formulating education policies, through curriculum planning and budgeting, to the implementation of expenditure. This publication is an attempt to address these deficits in the literature. It looks at the bigger picture of financing the totality of the formal educational system in the wider context of public finance, and as integral to the effectiveness of education policies. The analysis is orientated towards action and further research. The study is organised into five chapters. The first provides an analytical overview of the financing of education in sub-Saharan Africa; the second identifies the roots of the problems: the traditional prescriptions for education policy; and the third chapter suggests ways of resolving these. The final chapters concentrate on the global management of education policy, questioning the orthodox structural remedies to the problems of financing and managing education, in particular, privatisation and decentralisation. This is a co-publication with the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). In French.

This edited collection considers the social and economic crises, methods of regulating the economies and mechanisms for reconstruction in Central Africa, which comprisies the DRC, Congo Brazzaville, Chad, Gabon, Cameroon and the Central African Republic. The work scrutinises the prolonged crises which have shaken the sub-region to the core to determine their origins and dimensions. The studies take stock of the past and the present and open up future perspectives, commenting on matters such as external debt and structural adjustment, the diamond trade, economic growth and the effects of globalisation. It identifies the diverse economic reform and reconstruction projects currently taking place in the CEMAC region. Overall, the study contests that Central African states are capable of rising to the major challenge of achieving economic competivity at national, sub-regional and international levels, and integration within the region.

Gender, Economies and Entitlements in Africa draws extensively on feminist methodologies to discuss gender, economies and entitlements in Africa. It considers a series of themes that highlight how structural insensitivities, injustices and inequalities render the marginalisation of women in spite of their often-disproportionate contributions to the domestic and national economies in Africa.

In Francophone West Africa, the times between 1988 and 1996 can be compared - in terms of their significance for politics and democracy, and the magnitude of social forces mobilised - with the years of anti-colonial struggle between 1945 and 1960. Three decades of state-party monopolies of national, economic and social development gave way to popular movements and widespread re-participation in the running of public affairs. Coalitions of social movements were formed, federalised; and then dispersed. Their dispersal however did not render the democratic stakes any less urgent. This book identifies that the present difficulty is to move beyond notions of democracy conceived to suit any circumstances of discourse, to a more concrete definition, and a mobilising democratic process. It further argues that what is at stake for democracy stretches well beyond the parameters styled by governments; and encompasses for example conditions of reproduction of West African societies. The author presents a two-pronged analysis: first of the democratic discourse eg definitions, concepts, frameworks of analysis, academic and popular discourse; and second of democratic spaces, vehicles and institutions. The book urges throughout that the narrative of West African political history of the last decade be instated within the context of the long period of emancipation struggles. (In French)

This volume considers the introduction, adoption and and utilisation of ICTs at community level in Africa; and explores the question of community participation in ICTs in various geographical, technological, socio-economic, cultural and institutional contexts. It assesses in some detail how communities in sub-Saharan Africa have responded to changes following the introduction of these technologies, discussing the opportunities and challenges they present for political and community development.