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1. Thabo Mbeki as African Pantheon: Claiming the 21st Century for Global Africa

Author:
Chris Landsberg
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
This paper is inspired by the joint vision of the Vice Chancellor of the Universities of the West Indies, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, and former Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg, Prof Ihron Rensburg, who challenged some of us in, 2016 and 2017, to brave, re-appraise and contest some of the Pan-African epistemologies, and go beyond old fashioned ideas of Africa and the Diaspora, review the concepts of epistemological ruptures in Pan-African and global contexts, and begin to re-interrogate and re-engage the ideas of Pan-Africanism in order to re-imagine Global Africa. There is need for self-examination as Africans and people of African descent. We come at the idea of a Global Africa re-engaged and re-imagined through the works and views of Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s second democratically elected president, and arguably the most influential global Pan-African leader of his time, the man who Adekeye Adebajo depicted as Africa’s “Philosopher King” (Sunday Independent 2016). Called a ruthless Machiavellian by some, an AIDS-denialist by others, and thin-skinned by more others (Adebajo 2016), he was, no doubt, and continues to be, a global Pan-Africanist who pursued, and continues to pursue, a global African Renaissance vision.
Topic:
Development, International Cooperation, Natural Resources, and Economic Development
Political Geography:
Africa

2. Sustainability Issues in the Cameroon Banana Supply Chain

Author:
Kingsly Awang Ollong
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
Banana cultivation has long been a key aspect of agricultural development in Cameroon, actually taking advantage of this incentive impetus created for agricultural development. In the late 1970s, the Office Camerounaise de Banane (OCB), a state parastatal was put in place to regulate the banana industry in Cameroon. It received the mandate to organize the marketing chain of Cameroonian bananas (UNECA 1981). To better realize this mission assigned to her by the State, OCB was endowed with financial autonomy guaranteed through the allocation of public subsidies, ensuring the channeling of production, supervision of producers and access to credit and agricultural inputs to operators in the banana sector in Cameroon. The attractive and enticing prospects of a booming banana market and opportunities for land acquisition in a banana field that was seen as terra nullius aroused the interest of many international operators for the Cameroon banana sector. Until 1988 the banana sector in Cameroon was organized around coexistence between food crops and industrial cultivation. Since 1988, the organization of the productive system changed with the dissolution of the OCB in 1993—effectively signaling the end of small banana farms (Anania 2014, 173). Consequently, the field was left free to banana agribusiness consisting of giant multinational corporations. Under the impetus of these large industrial groups, Cameroon’s banana industry experienced tremendous growth. Thus, the industry pointed to the first largest export crops in Cameroon, imposing itself as a crucial economic activity (Atanga 2006)
Topic:
Agriculture, Natural Resources, Economic Development, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
Africa and Cameroon