Toleration and Law: Historical Aspects

Strictly speaking the law cannot admit toleration: It cannot tolerate ideas or behaviour which are contrary to its requirements. This logic explains why for centuries civilizations found no place for toleration. Then in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, philosophers and thinkers such as Spinoza, Locke, Bayle and later Voltaire or Malesherbes advocated tolerance, certain aspects of which were to be introduced into the legislation of many countries: freedom of opinion, the free movement of persons, freedom of assembly and of religion.     

Reducing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa: the need for participatory governance

Traditional approaches to fighting poverty have yielded unsatisfactory results in some African countries, and have been positively damaging in others. Economic growth and social expenditure on the part of both national governments and international donors have been ineffective in some countries, while in others they have exacerbated poverty. The author considers that this is due to the absence of participatory governance. From a theoretical perspective, support for participatory governance stems from Amartya Sen's approach to understanding poverty, which conceptualises poverty as a lack of capabilities, leading to social exclusion. The lack of such governance has led to the failure of traditional approaches in the fight against poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, the author proposes a tool for assessing the quality of governance, and its application in Cameroon.