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331. Emergent Insecurity in Eastern Sudan

Author:
Kelly Campbell
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
The Beja people, who inhabit Eastern Sudan, have consistently been politically, socially, and economically marginalized by successive governments in Khartoum. As a consequence, the Beja have recently joined forces with other disenfranchised groups from eastern and western Sudan, and violence in the region has escalated despite the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of Sudan (GOS) in Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).
Topic:
Security, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

332. Strategies for Peace in the Niger Delta

Author:
Dorina Bekoe
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
The Niger Delta, an area of dense mangrove rainforest in the southern tip of Nigeria, comprises nine of Nigeria's thirty-six states: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, and Rivers. The region's oil accounts for approximately 90 percent of the value of Nigeria's exports, but the Niger Delta remains one of Nigeria's least developed regions.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

333. Bans, Tests and Alchemy: Food Safety Standards and Ugandan Fish Export

Author:
Stefano Ponte
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Fish exports are the second largest foreign exchange earner in Uganda. When Uganda's fish export industry started to operate in the late 1980s and early 1990s, one may have thought that fish was being turned into gold. From an export value of just over one million US$ in 1990, the mighty Nile Perch had earned the country over 45 million US$ just six years later. But alchemy proved to be more than the quest of the philosophers' stone to change base metals into gold. From 1997 to 2000, the industry experienced a series of import bans, imposed by the EU on grounds of food safety. Despite claims to the contrary, the EU did not provide scientific proof that fish was actually 'unsafe'. Rather, the poor performance of Uganda's regulatory and monitoring system was used as a justification. The 'system', as the characters of an allegory, has no individual personality and is the embodiment of the moral qualities that 'the consumer' expects from 'responsible operators' in the fish sector. Only by fixing this system of regulations and inspections, and by performing the ritual of laboratory testing did the Ugandan industry regain its status as a 'safe' source of fish. Fish exports now earn almost 90 million US$ to the country. This apparent success story was achieved by a common front comprising government authorities and the processing industry, a high level of private-public collaboration not often seen in East Africa. Yet, important chunks of the regulatory and monitoring system exist only on paper. Furthermore, the system is supposed to achieve a series of contradictory objectives: to facilitate efficient logistics and ensure food safety; to match market demand and take care of sustainability; to implement a top-down food safety monitoring system and a bottom-up fisheries co-management system. This means that at least some food safety-related operations have to be carried out as 'rituals of verification'. Given the importance of microbiological tests and laboratories in the food safety compliance system, alchemic rituals are perhaps a more appropriate metaphor. While the white coats and advanced machinery of present-day alchemists reassure insecure European regulators and consumers, it leaves the Ugandan fish industry in a vulnerable position. In Uganda, fish can now be turned into gold again – but for how long?
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, United States, and East Africa

334. Trade in the Small-and Micro-Enterprise Sector in Kenya and other Countries in Eastern and Southern Africa

Author:
Poul Ove Pedersen
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Since the famous ILO report on the informal sector in Kenya was published in 1972 the smallscale enterprises have been recognised to play an important role in the Kenyan economy as in other African countries. However, although often more than half of all the small enterprises are traders. Most small enterprise policies have focussed almost entirely on the small scale producers. The small-scale traders have generally been seen as unproductive activities with no positive role to play in development, a sign of poverty, although they are responsible for a large share of the national distribution system. The paper attempts to look at this paradox and investigate the role of the small scale traders in the small enterprise sector and in the development process.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Third World
Political Geography:
Kenya and Africa

335. The Development of the Informal Small-Enterprise Sector in Eastern and Southern Africa: From Import Substitution to Structural Adjustment

Author:
Poul Ove Pedersen
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
In spite of its growing importance in the African economies, the informal, small-enterprise sector still plays a dubious and little understood role in development. Due to lack of data it is often treated as if it was unrelated to the rest of the economy. However, a number og large surveys carried out in a number of African countries indicate that structure and development of the small-enterprise sector vary greatly both from country to country and over time, depending in a complex way on the national differences in socio-economic structures and policies.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Africa

336. Development of African Freight Transport - the Case of Kenya

Author:
Patrick O. Alila, Meleckidzedeck Khayesi, Walter Odhiambo, and Poul Ove Pederson
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The Kenyan transport system is still to a large extent structured by physical infrastructure, legislation and institutions developed during the colonial period, and by import-substitution policies which during the first decades after independence to a large extent allowed the transport system to deteriorate. However, since the late 1980s the structural adjustment policies have led to a renewed interest both from the government and the donors in developing the transport infrastructure. At the same time trade liberalisation, deregulation of domestic trade and privatisation of the parastatals have since the mid-1990s led to a reshaping of both trade and transport which is still ongoing. The so-called logistical revolution, which since the early 1970s has revolutionised transport in the industrialised and industrialising world, has with a delay of two decades also reached Africa. This is resulting in much closer integration of transport into production and trade which tend to shift the focus away from the physical transport infrastructure to the institutional structures and organisations which support and exploit the infrastructures. This paper tries to describe the resulting transformation of the Kenyan transport system.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Kenya and Africa

337. Migrant Remittances, Development and Gender

Author:
Ninna Nyberg Sorensen
Publication Date:
07-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Abstract Migration transforms not only the destiny of individual migrants but also the conditions of family members left behind, of local communities and of the wider society. Despite the fact that migratory processes are multidimensional and may generate a wide array of positive as well as negative consequences for development, remittances have lately become the single most emphasized evidence and measuring stick for the ties connecting migrants with their societies of origin.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Gender Issues, and Migration
Political Geography:
Africa

338. South Africa's War against Malaria: Lessons for the Developing World

Author:
Roger Bate and Richard Tren
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Malaria imposes enormous human suffering and economic costs on many poor countries. For South Africa, which has a relatively minor malaria problem for a developing country, from 2000 to 2002 the economic cost ranged between US$15 million and US$41 million, excluding estimates of the human suffering and estimates of lost investment in malarial areas..
Topic:
Economics, Environment, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Africa and United States

339. Africa's Debt Iraq's Debt - Washington's Double Standard

Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Africa Policy Information Center
Abstract:
This week when the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) hold their annual spring meetings in Washington, DC, Africa's debt crisis will hardly appear on their agenda.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, Human Rights, Human Welfare, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, Iraq, Washington, Middle East, and Arabia

340. Africa Policy Outlook 2004

Author:
Salih Booker and Ann-Louise Colgan
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Africa Policy Information Center
Abstract:
The U.S.' Africa policy will continue to be characterized by a duplicity that has emerged as the principal hallmark of the Bush Administration approach to the continent. On the one hand, Africa's priorities are being marginalized and undermined by a U.S. foreign policy preoccupied with other parts of the world. On the other hand, the Bush White House is callously manipulating Africa, claiming to champion the continent's needs with its compassionate conservative agenda.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, Human Rights, Human Welfare, Poverty, and War
Political Geography:
Africa and United States