Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Africa

1981. Power and Pressure: African Media and the Extractive Sector

Author:
Anya Schiffrin
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
Journalism in Africa has come far in recent decades. The decline of one-party dictatorships, which traditionally kept a grip on the press, has brought about rapid changes. The number of media outlets has expanded and in many countries, such as South Africa and Nigeria, the press is now known for being lively and outspoken. The old days in which the government controlled the one broadcaster, strictly licensed just a few newspapers and kept a tight grip on newsprint allocation are gone in most countries. From having a few dozen media outlets at the end of the colonial period, Africa now has hundreds. Across the continent, small newspapers and radio stations have sprung up, many with just a few thousand listeners and tiny staffs. The rapid expansion of new technology also bodes well for journalistic freedom. Online publications also allow wider participation and the growth of citizen journalism, which can boost governance and promote transparency.
Political Geography:
Africa

1982. The Africa Union: Pitfalls and Prospects for Uniting Africa

Author:
Wafula Okumu
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
As the African Union (AU) moves toward its tenth anniversary in 2012, it is drawing a great deal of attention to its handling of mounting crises on the continent. Across the continent, the AU is faced w ith crises that test its commitment and capability to fulfill the ambitious agenda it adopted at its formation in July 2002. This agenda includes the promotion of peace, stability, human rights, democracy, good governance and sustainable development. Among the motivating factors for the formation of the Union was to provide Africa with a platform and voice to survive and benefit from the wave of globalization. The AU, as stated in its Constitutive Act, was Africa's response to “the multifaceted challenges that confront our continent and peoples in the light of the social, economic and political changes taking place in the world.” It was concocted as a vehicle for accelerating “political and socio-economic integration of the continent” and for establishing “the necessary conditions which enable the continent to play its rightful role in the global economy and in international negotiations.”
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
Africa

1983. The Glass Fortress: Zimbabwe's Cyber-Guerilla Warfare

Author:
Clapperton Mavhunga
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
The Maxim gun and the Martini-Henry rifle ushered anglophone Africa into 20th century colonialism. The Cold War, in turn, presented a moment for black political elites to acquire weapons (the AK-47 in particular) with which to define and present themselves as African nationalists fighting—with all the material ramifications of this word—to end colonial rule. Could information technology— specifically radio, the Internet and cell phones—be the Martini-Henry, Maxim and AK-47 of the 21st century?
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
Africa

1984. U.S. Foreign Assistance to Africa: Securing America's Investment for Lasting Development

Author:
Katherine J. Almquist
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
Since 2001, the United States has dramatically increased its commitment to development in Africa and has transformed the way it is implemented. In the last eight years, U.S. foreign assistance to sub-Saharan Africa managed by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has increased by $5.5 billion, or 340 percent. An additional $3.8 billion has been provided through Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) compacts, ten of which have been signed with sub-Saharan African countries since 2004. The United States is currently on track to meet its 2005 G-8 commitment to double aid to Africa again by 2010. This commitment of financial resources by the United States represents former President George W. Bush's vision of using America's power to help Africans improve their own lives, build their own nations and transform their own future.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and America

1985. An Interview with Patrick Awuah

Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
Patrick Awuah is the founder and president of Ashesi University, a private liberal arts college located in Accra, Ghana. He was born in Ghana but left in the mid-1980s to pursue an education in the United States, earning a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College and a master of business administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. He later earned an honorary doctorate from Swarthmore College. After eight years working as a program manager and engineer for the Microsoft Corporation in Seattle, Awuah returned to his home country to found Ashesi University, currently the sole accredited coeducational liberal arts college in West Africa. Awuah solicited massive financial support from the private sector, particularly American corporate donors, like Microsoft. Beginning with a pilot class of thirty students in 2002, Ashesi University now has 352 students, 87 percent of whom are Ghanaian, and 50 percent of whom receive financial aid. Awuah has earned international acclaim for his commitment to creating a model for quality private education in Africa. He spoke to Emily Gouillart of the Journal of International Affairs about the experience of founding and building Ashesi University, the future of education in Africa and the importance of ethics in curriculum building.
Political Geography:
Africa and United States

1986. CHINA'S ROLE IN AFRICA: A GROWING PHENOMENON

Author:
Elizabeth Sperbee
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
Since the mid-1990s, China has rapidly expanded its engagement with African states. Study of Sino-African relations has subsequently begun to burgeon. In China into Africa: Trade, Aid and Influence, Robert Rotberg's multinational slate of authors introduce key issues in this literature from a variety of perspectives. The result is a volume worth reading cover to cover. A sometimes redundant, sometimes contradictory assemblage, China into Africa nevertheless provides a fascinating introduction not only to a variety of issues at stake in Sino-African relations, but also, necessarily, to the issues at stake in the study of those relations.
Political Geography:
Africa and China

1987. Editor's Note

Author:
Ahmed I. Samatar
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
As Bildhaan ends its ninth year of existence, Somali society in the Horn of Africa enters yet another phase of its endless descent into violent contest over an already pestilent present. Nearly half of the Somali population in the country are now designated as malnourished and, thus, increasingly dependent upon international food assistance. This fact and others make Somalia the worst country in the whole world in terms of the Quality of Life Index.
Political Geography:
Africa and Somalia

1988. Battling on Two Fronts: Introducing Maryan Omar Ali

Author:
Ahmed I. Samatar
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
It is a bit muggy but still a gorgeous and clear morning in Toronto, Canada, in early August 2008. A brief and comfortable train ride from the center of the city, one of North America's most cosmopolitan urban concentrations, delivers me to the stop where Ms. Maryan Omar Ali, Aryette, was waiting for me to visit with her. After a few minutes of looking for each other among a throng of people in the arrival area—I have not seen Maryan for more than 17 years—we greeted warmly and then left the station together for the very short bus ride to the large building where her residence is located. Maryan, despite the passage of so many years and some testing health-related experiences, looked buoyant, tranquil, and eager to show me around and then engage in a thorough conversation about her background, passion for Somali literary aesthetics and production, and developments in her life in recent years. We arrived at her compact and neat apartment. Her mother, Sahra Omer Goud, whose strong and kind voice I have heard over the telephone on numerous times, was at the door with a genuine welcoming smile. Once I entered, I could smell the appetizing aroma of the legendary Zeila cooking—perhaps the most sophisticated culinary tradition in all of the Somali-inhabited territories in the Horn of Africa. As is customary, we took off our shoes and walked into the living room. Before we sat, I requested to go to the bathroom to put on a comfortable macawis that I had brought with me for the occasion. We washed our hands and began to devour a tasty lunch of spiced and grilled wild-caught salmon, delicious rice cooked with cloves, cumin, and cardamom and flavored with a dash of raisins, followed by lots of fresh salad and fruits. Soon, Maryan and I were sitting opposite each other with the tiny but powerful recording machine between us. We were surrounded by numerous artistic artifacts, almost all Somali, and stacks of carefully labeled disks—a testimony to her well-established reputation, among those in-the-know, as a premier cartographer and archivist of types of Somali literary production. We agreed to divide the interview into three main parts: her background; her collection and knowledge of popular songs; and her courageous fight against an onslaught of breast cancer—an illness heretofore not publicly discussed by Somalis with the misfortune of contracting it.
Political Geography:
Africa, Canada, Somalia, and Toronto

1989. Somalia and the Pirates

Author:
Rob de Wijk and David M Anderson
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Even though kidnappings, killings, attacks on UN and NGO compounds, suicide bombings, and the assassinations of local judges and other public figures, and the many other features of lawlessness in the Horn of Africa have become so commonplace that they are rarely now reported by European news media, from September 2008 Somalia once again dominated the news agenda. In that month pirates operating from small ports and harbours along Somalia's eastern coast mounted a series of successful attacks against international shipping, first capturing a Ukrainian vessel with its cargo of heavy armaments bound for southern Sudan (via the Kenyan port of Mombasa), and then intercepting a number of container ships before mounting an attack on a passenger vessel that was repelled by the crew. Finally, in November, the pirates landed the prize of a fully-laden Saudi-owned oil tanker. By the end of the year the pirate gangs operating out of Eyl, Haradheere and other harbours along the desolate eastern coast of Puntland, were reckoned to be holding no fewer than 40 vessels for ransom, with more than 200 crew members in captivity.
Topic:
Crime, International Law, and Maritime Commerce
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Somalia

1990. The African Growth and Opportunity Act and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
James S. Guseh and Emmanuel O. Oritsejafor
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
Abstract:
Since most sub-Saharan African countries gained independence from colonial rule in the 1960s and 1970s, achieving economic growth and development has been a central objective of governments in the region, as well as international donor organizations. The Organization of African Unity—now the African Union—was established (among other initiatives) to promote development at the economic, social, and cultural levels, and to foster the integration of African economies. In order to address specific regional concerns, organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States, East African Community, and Southern African Development Community, were also established. At the same time, several international organizations, including the United Nations, African Development Bank, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, expressed their commitment to improving economic conditions in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) through billions of dollars worth of funding and various forms of policy consultation. In addition to the support from these international organizations, governments of many developed countries have also provided vast amounts of development assistance.
Topic:
United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa and East Africa