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1081. Education in Emergencies: The Case of the Dadaab Refugee Camps

Author:
Hayley Mackinnon
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Between 1991 and 2009, more than 2.5 million Somali citizens fled their homeland to Ethiopia, Djibouti and, most notably, Kenya, following the collapse of the Somalian government of Siad Barre. This led to violent clashes between various factional clan groups, and fighting to control land and resources ensued. This resulted in the displacement, starvation and slaughter of thousands of civilians, leading to a crisis that prompted international intervention during the 1990s.
Topic:
Development and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Africa, United Nations, and Ethiopia

1082. Responding to Insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea

Author:
Patrice Sartre
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
The Gulf of Guinea has become notorious for its violent conflicts and political instability. This insecurity has its origins in bad governance, corruption, and failures of social and economic development. Violent power struggles and competition for the control of economic assets periodically cause crises to flare up, and these tend to be persistent and widespread. The international community has worked to move countries in the region onto a stable trajectory. West Africa has also made efforts to develop a coordinated approach to the region's challenges through a common security architecture. Such subregional initiatives may ultimately prove most conducive to long-term stability.
Topic:
Security, Corruption, and Governance
Political Geography:
Africa

1083. Eritrea: Ending the Exodus?

Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The large emigration of youths is the clearest sign of extreme domestic discontent with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki's government. Social malaise is pervasive. An ever-growing number of young people have fled over the last decade, frustrated by open-ended national service – initiated in 1995 and expanded during the war with Ethiopia (1998-2000). Yet, this flight has resulted in neither reforms nor a viable movement to create an alternative to the current government. Once outside, the ties that bind émigrés to their birthplace are strong and lead them to give financial support to the very system they escaped, through the 2 per cent tax many pay the state as well as remittances sent home to family members.
Topic:
Economics, Labor Issues, Immigration, Youth Culture, and Governance
Political Geography:
Africa and Europe

1084. STRUCTURAL POWER TOWARD WEAK STATES: FRANCE, NOT CHINA, MATTERS IN FRANCOPHONE AFRICA

Author:
Olivier Mbabia
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:
Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:
The magnitude of assignment of the People's Republic of China in Africa has recently ignited a tide of 'speedy' literature ranking the latter as the main actor to the detriment of traditional ones. A close look at this issue, however, shows that this deduction seems all the less simplistic. By deliberately limiting the present analysis to the so-called Francophone Africa, where Chinese engagement is as considerable as elsewhere on the continent, it appears that this conclusion is shaky when submitted to a rigorous analysis. Can a causal relation be established between the progression of this presence and Beijing's actual influence? Can power or influence be subsumed to an ever-growing presence and an economic vitality? Are these parameters enough to unseat old colonial powers, especially France in its original and natural area of influence?
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Canada

1085. AFRICA AND THE EMERGING POWERS: THE SOUTH AND THE UNHOLY COOPERATION

Author:
Paulo Fagundes Visentini
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:
Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:
One of the most remarkable phenomena of Contemporary International Relations is the fact that Africa became object of a new global race, like in the end of the 19th Century. In the beginning of the 21st Century, however, the most dynamic protagonists of such movement are the emerging powers, and not the European metropolises. Such process occurs in a frame of economic and social development in Africa, besides a diplomatic protagonism, which represented an unexpected feature for many. Africa, in marks of globalization and the end of the Cold War, experienced a second "lost decade", with bloody internationalized civil wars, epidemics (HIV/AIDS, cholera and the Ebola virus, among others) and economic marginalization.
Topic:
International Relations and Cold War
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, Europe, Canada, and India

1086. THE ROLE OF COMMERCIALLY PROVIDED SECURITY IN AFRICA'S PATRIMONIAL SECURITY COMPLEX

Author:
Andreas Krieg and Christopher Kinsey
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:
Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:
Applying Western liberal models of civil-security sector relations to the highly complex and factionalized security sector on the African continent is difficult. Unlike the security sector in Western liberal states whose control is widely monopolized by the institutions of the state and society, the security sector in Africa has never been structured around the concept of security as a public good provided by the state on behalf of or for the protection of a societal public sphere as a whole. On a continent where ethnic, tribal or religious groups have been assigned to artificial territorial entities by colonial powers, the Western notion of an integral nation state built around a public consciousness of togetherness has been widely alien to most of the African states and societies. Consequently, post-colonial states and its civilian leaderships have rarely created a security sector, which is inclusive, representative of domestic social, ethnic, religious or tribal fault lines and undisputed in regulating violence. Instead, African security sectors, whether public or private, have been built around patrimonial networks that by controlling the provision of security ensured that security is provided as an exclusive private good benefitting those elites embedded in such networks.
Political Geography:
Africa

1087. TOWARDS REDEFINING THE NEWS AGENDA IN THE NIGERIAN MEDIA FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Author:
Osakue Stevenson Omoera
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:
Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:
The media (radio, television, film, print, social networks, etc) are change agents in contemporary world. They can be/should be deployed to ensure the culture of peace as well as galvanise other agents of development in 21st century societies, especially in Africa, where peace and sustainable development appear to be eluding many countries, including Nigeria, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Somalia , to mention a few. Appraising the state of affairs in Nigeria, Igbuzor (2006) warns that several intelligence reports on Nigeria indicate that if the country is unable to create about 24 million jobs for its gr owing population, to provide effective platforms and infrastructures for fighting corruption, and to ensure equitable distribution of its abundant wealth, it could become a failed state.
Political Geography:
Africa, Canada, and Zimbabwe

1088. Morocco's Emergence as a Gateway to Business in Africa

Author:
J. Peter Pham and Ricardo Rene Laremont
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Africa is home to seven of the world's ten fastest-growing economies. By 2050, the continent's population is expected to overtake India's and China's, doubling to two billion people. Moreover, those two billion Africans will be younger than their counterparts in every other region of the world and will account for one in four workers globally by mid-century. Africa's rich endowment of natural resources, including about 30 percent of the world's known reserves of minerals and 60 percent of the planet's uncultivated arable land, is already well-known to investors.
Topic:
Security, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Morocco

1089. A New Deal for Somalia?: The Somali Compact and its Implications for Peacebuilding

Author:
Sarah Hearn and Thomas Zimmerman
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
In this brief, we analyze the process that led to the "Somali New Deal Compact," the framework's potential effectiveness as a peacebuilding tool, and potential ways to strengthen it.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Governance, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa and Somalia

1090. Not Just in Transit: Drugs, the State and Society in West Africa

Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
This report examines the increase in drug trafficking and consumption in West Africa and their impact on the state and on society. It concludes with recommendations on how the region can respond humanely, effectively and preemptively to these problems.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, War on Drugs, and Law Enforcement
Political Geography:
Africa