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511. Gender and Mediation in Guinea-Bissau

Author:
Adriana Erthal Abdenur
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Igarapé Institute
Abstract:
On July 10, 2017, the President of Guinea Bissau, José Mário Vaz, met politician Domingos Simões Pereira, who had served as Prime Minister from 2014 to August 2015. Although Pereira remained head of the country’s major political party, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cabo Verde (PAIGC), he had been dismissed (along with the entire cabinet) by the president in August 2015 during a power struggle between the two men. In a public statement, Vaz had justified the dismissal by referring to a “breach of trust. ” For two years following this event, Vaz and Pereira had refused to speak to each other over differences regarding the implementation of the Conakry Accord, which sought to address some of the root causes of the country’s recurring political instability. Given the personal acrimony involved, as well as political differences, the meeting between Vaz and Pereira came as something of a surprise to observers. Yet behind the scenes, a small group of women facilitators had worked intensely for months to bring the two men in the same room. The meeting resulted from their persistent yet discreet efforts to help lessen tensions around the impasse by promoting dialogue among the key actors. This policy brief addresses the origins and development of the Group of Women Facilitators (Grupo de Mulheres Facilitatoras – GMF), focusing on the period from May to November 2017. Although the brief does not offer a systematic evaluation of the initiative, the general impact of the GMF during these six months on the Conakry Agreement debates and, more broadly, on Guinea-Bissau’s political scene are assessed in light of the objectives the group set out for itself in May. The analysis draws on a combination of desk review of policy documents from the Guinea-Bissau government, major international organizations such as the UN and ECOWAS, and civil society entities in GuineaBissau, as well as semi-structured interviews with group members and other stakeholders carried out in Bissau in November 2017.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Gender Issues, Peacekeeping, Women, and Negotiation
Political Geography:
Africa and Guinea-Bissau

512. Journal of Public and International Affairs 2018

Author:
Andi Zhou, Sam Kanson-Benanav, Collin Smith, Yi Xu, Amn Nasir, Sameer Anwar, Saim Rashid, Muqueet Shahzad, Lauren Eades, William O'Connell, Caper Gooden, Paige KW Gasser, Laurie Georges, Seleeke Flingai, and Erika Parks
Publication Date:
05-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Woodrow Wilson School Journal of Public and International Affairs
Institution:
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Abstract:
These are critical times for those who work to further the public interest. Across the globe, divisions and distrust erode the clarity required to tackle the great challenges of our day. Those who advocate for truth find themselves under attack from those who fear what they might lose if the status quo is changed. There is exceptional need today for powerful voices speaking on behalf of sound policy. The 10 articles in this 29th edition of the Journal of Public and International Affairs all reflect a dogged determination among young policy professionals around the world to press ahead in spite of the headwinds. These pages contain fresh ideas on electrifying rural Myanmar, reforming the U.S. banking system, strengthening the Jordanian labor market, and preventing recidivism among convicted sex offenders in Texas, to name just a few. The JPIA was born from the conviction that graduate students have a unique and invaluable voice in key policy debates. The authors of these articles, together with the 45 editors from 13 graduate programs around the world who selected and reviewed them, will shape the future of economic, international, domestic, and development policy in the decades to come. We strive continually, especially at this moment, to amplify their voices.
Topic:
Development, International Cooperation, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, International Affairs, Bilateral Relations, Labor Issues, Business, Mental Health, Accountability, Public Sector, Hezbollah, Services, Electricity, Pollution, and Waste
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Africa, South Asia, Middle East, Canada, Brazil, South America, Central America, Lebanon, Mozambique, North America, Mexico, Jordan, Southeast Asia, Myanmar, and United States of America

513. Implementing the Ahafo Benefit Agreements: Seeking Meaningful Community Participation at Newmont’s Ahafo Gold Mine in Ghana

Author:
Benjamin Boakye, Maggie Cascadden, Jordon Kuschminder, Eric Werker, and Sam Szoke-Burke
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
In 2008, ten communities in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana entered into agreements with Newmont Ghana to govern company-community relations, ensure local job creation, and share the benefits of the company’s mining operations. Ten years later, this report, co-authored by Canadian International Resources and Development Institute (CIRDI), African Center for Energy Policy (ACEP), CCSI, and ISP, looks at the communities’ experience of those agreements and suggests how the agreements might be improved. Though the agreements were celebrated for their attempts to include all stakeholders in decision-making, challenges remain around representation, consultation, and participation. New entities established to facilitate multi-stakeholder decision-making have led to the replication of existing power imbalances. And despite many improvements, the agreements have not fully stabilized company-community relations; tensions and grievances remain concerning employment, compensation, and resettlement, among other issues. The report makes research-informed recommendations for the communities, Newmont Ghana, and other stakeholders in the lead-up to the renegotiation of the agreements. While the negotiation of benefit agreements (sometimes called “Community Development Agreements”) have been the subject of wide-ranging research, academic literature on agreement implementation is still relatively sparse, and tends to focus on cases in Australia and Canada, with little information available from cases in low- or middle-income countries. This report therefore seeks to contribute to filling this gap, alongside other studies mentioned in the report.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Mining, Community, and Job Creation
Political Geography:
Africa, Canada, Australia, and Ghana

514. Twenty Years of Morocco’s Development

Author:
Edward M. Gabriel
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Ambassador's Review
Institution:
Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:
Twenty years ago, I arrived in Morocco as the new U.S. Ambassador. It was the beginning of a close-up view of the changes going on in Morocco for the next two decades. During my first meeting with King Hassan II, shortly after my arrival, he wasted no time in addressing Morocco’s agenda with the United States, challenging me on our nation’s positions, especially in regard to his Kingdom’s existential issue regarding sovereignty over the Sahara. This unexpected candid and warm exchange set the tone for regular meetings throughout my tenure during which concerns and grievances were voiced in private, rather than aired publicly. King Mohammed VI would continue this practice with me after his father’s death. My first few months in the country also coincided with the beginning of the first government of Alternance, led by opposition leader Abderrahmane El Youssoufi—a watershed moment for Morocco that many political analysts mark as the beginning of significant democratic reform and economic liberalization in Morocco after years of a strong-armed approach to governing and limited civil rights. Abderrahmane El Youssoufi, whose political activities had previously resulted in two years in jail and then 15 years of exile, became Prime Minister after his party, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP), won the most seats in the November 1997 elections. Since then, the international community has confirmed Moroccan elections as occurring in a fair and transparent manner. In 1998, the unemployment rate in the country was 17 percent and growing, with youths making up a disproportionate percentage of the population. Women lacked equal rights with men. The percentage of the population living at or below the poverty line for lower middle-income countries was around 28 percent, and more than half of the entire adult population was illiterate, with rates among rural women much higher. Electricity in the country reached only around 60 percent of the population, and almost a quarter did not have access to potable water. Infant mortality rates were 23 percent higher than the regional average, and maternal mortality ratios were nearly double the regional average. Overall, the micro-economic picture was in dire shape. The economy was too dependent on agriculture, accounting for 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and heavily reliant on rainfall. Infrastructure was lacking throughout the country, and environmental degradation was widely apparent throughout the cities and the countryside, presenting a challenge to the growth of tourism. Of particular note, the northern part of Morocco was completely neglected after a series of militant actions created an irreparable rift between King Hassan and his citizens there. In contrast to the micro-economic indicators, by 1998 King Hassan had established a strong macro-economic climate: a low ratio of debt to GDP, a low budget deficit and an open, competitive economic system. He adopted International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank reforms that, had Morocco been a member of the European Union, would have qualified it for inclusion in the Monetary Union. Upon his death in 1999, King Hassan left the country unified, with a very strong nationalistic belief in country and King, a reasonably performing economy and, most important, with a solid commitment in its support for U.S. objectives regarding counterterrorism and economic openness, and in promoting peace in the Middle East. Twenty years later, where is Morocco today? Where is it headed tomorrow?
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Diplomacy, Education, Democracy, Decentralization, and IMF
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, North Africa, and Morocco

515. Restoring Debt Sustainability in African Heavily Indebted Poor Countries

Author:
Cyrus Rustomjee
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Debt sustainability among the 30 African low-income countries that previously received debt relief has deteriorated sharply. More than one-third are either back in, or at high risk of, debt distress. Outcomes of the 2017 review of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Debt Sustainability Framework for Low-Income Countries and improvements in country-specific debt sustainability assessments can help strengthen the diagnosis of debt vulnerability and improve the quality of policy recommendations respectively.
Topic:
Debt, Poverty, Sustainability, and IMF
Political Geography:
Africa

516. The Mobilization of Conservative Civil Society

Author:
Richard Youngs, Gareth Fowler, Arthur Larok, Pawel Marczewski, Vijayan Mj, Ghia Nodia, Natalia Shapoavlova, Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, Marisa Von Bülow, and Özge Zihnioğlu
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
As the domain of civil society burgeoned in the 1990s and early 2000s—a crucial component of the global spread of democracy in the developing and postcommunist worlds—many transnational and domestic actors involved in building and supporting this expanding civil society assumed that the sector was naturally animated by organizations mobilizing for progressive causes. Some organizations focused on the needs of underrepresented groups, such as women’s empowerment, inclusion of minorities, and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights; others addressed broader societal issues such as economic justice, social welfare, and antipoverty concerns. In many countries, the term “civil society” came to be associated with a relatively bounded set of organizations associated with a common agenda, one separate from or even actively opposed by conservative political forces. However, in the past ten years, this assumption and outlook are proving increasingly incorrect. In many countries in the developing and postcommunist worlds, as well as in long-established Western democracies, conservative forms of civic activism have been multiplying and gaining traction. In some cases, new conservative civic movements and groups are closely associated with illiberal political actors and appear to be an integral part of the well-chronicled global pushback against Western liberal democratic norms. In other cases, the political alliances and implications of conservative civil society are less clear. In almost all cases—other than perhaps that of the United States, where the rise of conservative activism has been the subject of considerable study—this rising world of conservative civil society has been little studied and often overlooked. This report seeks to correct this oversight and to probe more deeply into the rise of conservative civil society around the world. It does so under the rubric of Carnegie’s Civic Research Network project, an initiative that aims to explore new types of civic activism and examine the extent to which these activists and associations are redrawing the contours of global civil society. The emerging role and prominence of conservative activism is one such change to civil society that merits comparative examination. Taken as a whole, the report asks what conservative civic activism portends for global civil society. Its aim is not primarily to pass judgment on whether conservative civil society is a good or bad thing—although the contributing authors obviously have criticisms to make. Rather, it seeks mainly to understand more fully what this trend entails. Much has been written and said about anticapitalist, human rights, and global justice civil society campaigns and protests. Similar analytical depth is required in the study of conservative civil society. The report redresses the lack of analytical attention paid to the current rise of conservative civil society by offering examples of such movements and the issues that drive them. The authors examine the common traits that conservative groups share and the issues that divide them. They look at the kind of members that these groups attract and the tactics and tools they employ. And they ask how effective the emerging conservative civil society has been in reshaping the political agenda.
Topic:
Civil Society, Politics, Political Activism, and Conservatism
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, Europe, South Asia, Turkey, Ukraine, Caucasus, Middle East, India, Poland, Brazil, South America, Georgia, North America, Thailand, Southeast Asia, and United States of America

517. Toward an Effective Indigenous Knowledge Protection Regime: Case Study of South Africa

Author:
Margo A. Bagley
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
South Africa has a rich tradition of Indigenous knowledge covering uses of the country’s abundant natural resources. South Africa’s development of a multi-faceted framework for cultural and genetic resource protection in relation to Indigenous knowledge is a promising source of fruitful insights on the challenges and benefits of implementing such protections. As the first in a series of case studies featuring various models of traditional knowledge implementation in domestic legislation, this paper provides an overview of how South Africa is approaching the protection of traditional or Indigenous knowledge. A central aim of this series is to provide objective evidence and insight into national experiences that could serve to inform and support effective policy development in the field, without endorsing any particular national approach.
Topic:
Nationalism, Natural Disasters, and Indigenous
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

518. France’s Terrorism Fight

Author:
Łukasz Jurczyszyn
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The fight against terrorism is one of President Emmanuel Macron’s political priorities. Activities in this field are carried out in two main directions, one, in the country, through new institutions and regulations and, two, abroad, through military operations and by increasing development assistance in Africa and the Middle East. More and more evidence indicates that they have been having the expected operational and political effects. The number of detected and subverted terrorist plots is increasing and Macron’s initiatives in this area can count on considerable public support.
Topic:
National Security, Terrorism, Islamic State, and Domestic Policy
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, France, and Africa

519. Rise and Fall of Jacob Zuma

Author:
Vladimir Shubin
Publication Date:
06-2018
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:
In May 2014 I suddenly received a telephone call from the South African Embassy in Moscow, then an official invitation signed by Jacob Zuma followed: he wanted me to be present at his second inauguration. Unfortunately I failed to do it, I was still recovering from a surgical operation, but the very fact was significant, not because I had been involved, but because it symbolized friendly relations that existed between the South African president and those in Russia who took part in supporting the long struggle against the apartheid regime.
Topic:
Apartheid, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, and Race
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, Europe, and South Africa

520. African Union, State-Building and the Challenges of State Fragility in Africa

Author:
Agaptus Nwozor
Publication Date:
06-2018
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:
This article evaluates the transformational role of the African Union (AU) in enhancing state-building and reversing the fragility of African states. Essentially, the AU was repackaged in July 2001 as a strategic platform to meet new aspirations for African unity and development. This article notes that after over half a century of collective African attempt at strengthening its state system, the picture is still one of fragile statehood, thus emphasizing the imperative of evolving new strategies to reverse the forces of state fragility in the continent. The article contends that in the face of concerns for African development within the context of sustainable development goals (SDGs), a healthy and functional state system is an irreducible minimum requirement. In order to repair the seemingly battered image of statehood in Africa, the AU must contend with, and overcome, the interplay of internal and external forces that conduce to and trigger fragility.
Topic:
Fragile States, State Building, African Union, and Statehood
Political Geography:
Africa