Chinese and Japanese development co-operation: South–South,North–South,or what?

This article compares the evolution and characteristics of Chinese and Japanese aid, assessing the impact of their aid policies in sub-Saharan Africa from the 1950s to the present. It argues that China and Japan's aid programmes share more similarities than dissimilarities. Both pursue aid strategies that spread allocations across a region rather than concentrating upon specific countries. The article seeks to clarify the following questions. In what way are Chinese and Japanese aid strategies different from each other and Western donors? Should their aid be seen as a form of South–South co-operation that provides an alternative to the West's hegemony in Africa? Or is aid from these donors simply another strategy to control African resources and state elites in the guise of a partnership of equals?     

Urban governance and service delivery in Nigeria

This article examines the inadequate delivery of social services by city governments in Nigeria. It identifies three problems: lack of transparency and accountability in governance; under-qualified staff and administration; and the tenuous relationship (an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dichotomy) between the urban residents and local governments. It can no longer be argued that lack of funds is the key constraint.     

Private extension-service provision for smallholder horticultural producers in Kenya: an approach

An approach to establishing improved private extension-service provision for smallholder horticultural producers in Kenya was developed between 2003 and 2005 by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology and Natural Resources Institute in the UK, in collaboration with EurepGAP FoodPLUS GmbH and the House of Quality–South Africa, international NGOs, export companies, and out-grower farmer groups. The approach focused on good agricultural practices, food safety, EU regulations on maximum pesticide-residue limits, and the EurepGAP Standard. The approach is not a blueprint, but the lessons learned are applicable to similar smallholder production systems in other African countries.     

Mitigating the impact of HIV and AIDS on rural livelihoods in Southern Africa

A variety of interventions to mitigate the increasing impact of the HIV and AIDS epidemic on smallholder agricultural production and food security are currently implemented in sub-Saharan Africa. However, documentation and dissemination of such interventions is limited and patchy. Building on emerging experiences from the field, this article seeks to move beyond charting the impacts of HIV and AIDS on rural livelihoods to review existing mitigation policies and programmes, identify the challenges to mitigation, and provide suggestions for future mitigation strategies and policy priorities. The experiences cited in the article are mainly drawn from the hardest-hit regions in Southern and Eastern Africa, but they provide useful lessons for AIDS-affected rural communities in other contexts. The main conclusion is that, as current initiatives are to a large extent ad hoc and localised, there is a need for documentation, dissemination, and scaling up of existing interventions, as well as greater coherence and co-ordination in policies and programmes to extend their reach and make the most of limited resources.     

Collective Action for Smallholder Market Access: Evidence and Implications for Africa

It is widely acknowledged that the involvement of small farmers into markets can contribute to higher productivity and income growth, which in turn can enhance food security, poverty reduction efforts, and overall economic growth. In Africa, as in other parts of the developing world, agricultural production systems and their participants face significant challenges as a result of changing economic, environmental, and sociopolitical context. New dynamics in the global agricultural economy, such as the growth of supermarkets, are providing smallholders with both the new opportunities and new constraints to participate in and benefit from market exchanges. Collective action in the form of producer groups can enable African smallholders to take advantage of the new value chains and deal with existing market imperfections. However, certain conditions must be in place to create and sustain incentives for farmers to organize around marketing. Experiences from collective action in natural resource management (NRM) have shown that the types of markets and products, characteristics of user groups, institutional arrangements, and external environment need to be considered in order to determine the effectiveness and sustainability of collective marketing for smallholders. This paper applies the lessons from collective action in NRM to marketing, using existing case studies of producer groups in Africa, and offers policy recommendations on the factors that contribute to the success of collective marketing efforts.     

Local government discretion and accountability in Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso opted for a progressive approach to decentralization reforms, aiming at building local government capacity first before transferring responsibilities. We employ a diagnostic framework to analyze local government discretion and accountability in Burkina Faso. We find that local governments have a very low degree of discretionary power accompanied with weak accountability towards citizens at all levels. In the political and administrative spheres, the center plays a dominant role in local government affairs leaving little space for discretion. In the fiscal sphere, taxing powers are restricted, while transfers are insufficient and unpredictable, making local financial management extremely difficult. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Does Physical Geography Affect a State's Conflict Risk?

This article considers why and how physical geography may influence conflict patterns within African states. It juxtaposes arguments relating to four features of the physical environment— distance, resources, terrain, and size—to those purporting rebels base insurgency tactics on the strategic value of locations. Using GIS and spatial econometrics, a geographically disaggregated dataset of population, distance to capitals, borders, resources, terrain, and road densities is tested against conflict data from ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Events Dataset). ACLED disaggregates data on internal conflict into georeferenced individual events. The analysis covers six of the most conflict prone states in Central Africa. The analysis confirms that an area's physical attributes do not have a uniform effect on the likelihood of experiencing a conflict event. Areas of high strategic value, including densely populated areas and military zones, have a higher risk of conflict than rural, peripheral areas.     

新南非的包容性发展之路——非国大100周年纪念

南非曾经是种族矛盾和冲突最为严重的国家,300多年欧洲殖民者的征服和统治,造成了南非种族间政治、经济、社会的割裂与对抗。1994年南非废除种族隔离,建立了种族平等的民主制度。新南非政治社会变革和转型的进程,避免了很多人担忧的种族仇杀和动乱,关键在于坚持了包容性理念和政策,构建了以宪法为核心的一整套法律体系,以保障国家统一和公民基本权利为基本宗旨,在多元一体国家的建设中,取得了举世公认的社会进步。研究南非在新制度下的包容性发展之路,具有重要的现实意义和理论意义。     

Implicating ‘fisheries justice’ movements in food and climate politics

Abstract

While much debate on climate change has emerged around food, forest and land politics, the fisheries sector has only recently become more visibly implicated in these discussions. Similarly, in comparison to food and agrarian movements, fishers’ resistance to intensified mitigation efforts and resource exclusion is still significantly understudied academically, and receives little attention in political spheres. This highlights a critical gap in both food and climate politics literature, which this paper aims to present a framework for addressing. To do so, it contextualises the emergence of overlapping processes of exclusion in global fisheries, and explores the implications global food system transformations have had in the fisheries sector, and the reactions this has spurred from South African fishers. It then traces the convergence of fishers’ movements with other resource justice movements, and how this has contributed to the rise of ‘fisheries justice’. Finally, it presents four interlinked propositions – highlighting food sovereignty, resource access and conflict, climate change and mitigation, convergences between movements, and alternatives proposed by fishers – as a framework for how incorporating fisheries and fishers’ movements can broaden our understanding of transnational social movements, and expand the depth and scope of food and climate politics.     

Planning institutions as gatekeepers in housing production in Lagos,Nigeria

In every phase of housing production, there are certain “gatekeepers” that constrain access to housing resources. This article argues that the activities of physical planning institutions constrain access to residential building permits in Lagos, Nigeria. From May 2013 to May 2014, 7,281 residential structures were served with contravention notices while only 1,380 applications for residential building plans were approved in 2013. This figure is negligible in relation to the population of Lagos and its housing needs. There is therefore a need to review the criteria for granting residential building permits to encourage participation from the informal private sector.