Number of results to display per page
Search Results
22. Africa Capacity Report 2017: Building Capacity in Science, Technology and Innovation for Africa’s Transformation
- Publication Date:
- 01-2017
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF)
- Abstract:
- African countries have shown their interest and willingness to strive for science, technology, and innovation (STI)-led development in the coming years. African heads of state and decisionmakers, through Agenda 2063 and the Common African Position in Agenda 2030, have highlighted STI as a key enabler promoting the ability of African countries to achieve their economic transformation and development goals. This commitment was clearly expressed by the adoption of a 10-year Science, Technology, and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2024) in June 2014 at the 23rd Ordinary Session of African Union Heads of State and Government Summit. The strategy links science, technology, and innovation to Africa’s sustainable economic transformation.
- Topic:
- Development, Science and Technology, Economic growth, Capacity, and Innovation
- Political Geography:
- Africa
23. November 2017 Issue
- Author:
- Jason Warner, Caleb Weiss, Andrew McGregor, Daisy Muibu, Benjamin P. Nickels, Paul Cruickshank, Mohammed Hafez, Colin P. Clarke, and Phillip Smyth
- Publication Date:
- 11-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- CTC Sentinel
- Institution:
- The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Abstract:
- The Islamic State’s caliphate project has ended in abject failure, with the group now holding a small vanishing portion of the territory it once controlled in Syria and Iraq. In our cover article, Mohammed Hafez argues the Islamic State is just the latest example of a “fratricidal” jihadi group predestining its own defeat by its absolutism, over-ambition, domineering behavior, and brutality. He argues that the Islamic State’s puritanical ideology blinded it to learning lessons from the GIA’s defeat in Algeria in the 1990s and al-Qa`ida in Iraq’s near defeat in the 2000s. In all three cases, these jihadi groups “managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory” because of their innate inability to show restraint and pragmatism. Our interview is with Angela Misra, the co-founder of The Unity Initiative (TUI), a British Muslim community group widely viewed as one of the most effective in countering violent extremism. Misra describes her increasingly high-stakes efforts to transform the mindset of women convicted of terrorist offenses and recent female returnees from the Islamic State. With the Islamic State recently moving toward embracing combat roles for women, she warns there could be a surge in female terrorism in Western countries. Colin Clarke and Phillip Smyth document how the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is working to transform Shi`a foreign fighter networks into transnational proxy forces capable of fighting both asymmetric and conventional wars. Andrew McGregor outlines the security challenges in Libya’s southern Fezzan region, warning it could emerge as a major new base for jihadi operations with serious implications for European security. Jason Warner and Caleb Weiss look at why the Islamic State has, so far, failed to pose a significant challenge to al-Shabaab. In the wake of a double-truck bombing last month in Mogadishu that killed over 350, Daisy Muibu and Benjamin Nickels examine the local expertise factor in al-Shabaab’s increasingly deadly IED campaign.
- Topic:
- Science and Technology, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, Jihad, Al Shabaab, Foreign Fighters, and IED
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Libya, and Somalia
24. The Africa Capacity Report ACR 2015: Capacity Imperatives for Domestic Resource Mobilization in Africa
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF)
- Abstract:
- The Africa Capacity Report (ACR) 2015 sends a very clear message: with official development assistance to Africa diminishing, the continent will have to rely more on mobilizing domestic resources if it is to implement its development agenda. The ACR 2015 shows that this is possible, with a good number of African countries providing practical success stories based on strategies and initiatives that can easily be adapted to other countries. However, the capacity gaps to generate savings and taxes from domestic resources and allocate them to economically and socially productive activities remain glaring.
- Topic:
- Development, Science and Technology, Natural Resources, Capacity, Innovation, and Human Resources
- Political Geography:
- Africa
25. Supporting The Internet as a Platform for International Trade
- Author:
- Joshua Meltzer
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- This paper is about the potential of the Internet as a platform for international trade. A traditional understanding of the impact of the Internet on commerce is derived from the dot.com experience of the 1990s, where Internet companies such as Pets.com and Amazon sold goods online. Since then, the impact of the Internet on commerce has grown and changed. Certainly, the ability to sell goods online remains important. However, the key development is that the Internet is no longer only a digital storefront. Instead, the Internet as described in this working paper is a platform for businesses to sell to customers domestically and overseas, and is a business input that increases productivity and the ability of businesses to compete. Understanding the Internet as a platform for trade highlights its broad economic potential. It emphasizes how the commercial opportunities are no longer limited to Internet companies, but are now available for businesses in all sectors of the economy, from manufacturing to services. Moreover, the global nature of the Internet means that these opportunities are no longer limited to domestic markets, but are embraced wherever Internet access is available.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, Science and Technology, and Communications
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, and Europe
26. How should Uganda grow?
- Author:
- Ricardo Hausmann, Brad Cunningham, John Matovu, Rosie Osire, and Kelly Wyett
- Publication Date:
- 01-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
- Abstract:
- ncome per capita in Uganda has doubled in the last 20 years. This remarkable performance has been buoyed by significant aid flows and large external imbalances. Economic growth has been concentrated in non-tradable activities leading to growing external imbalances and a growing gap between rural and urban incomes. Future growth will depend on achieving sufficient export dynamism. In addition, growth faces a number of other challenges: low urbanization rate, rapid rural population growth and high dependency ratios. However, both the dependency ratio and fertility rates have begun to decline recently. Rural areas are also severely overcrowded with low-productivity subsistence agriculture as a pervasive form of production. Commercial agriculture has great possibilities to increase output, but as the sector improves its access to capital, inputs and technology it will shed jobs rather than create them. These challenges combined tell us that future growth in Uganda will require a rapid rate of export growth and economic diversification. The country faces the prospect of an oil boom of uncertain size and timing. It could represent an important stepping stone to achieve external sustainability, expanded income and infrastructure and a greater internal market. However, as with all oil booms, the challenges include avoiding the Dutch disease, managing the inevitable volatility in oil incomes and avoiding inefficient specialization in oil. Policies that set targets for the non-oil deficit could help manage some of these effects, but a conscious strategy to diversify would still be needed. The best strategy is therefore to use the additional oil revenue and accompanying investments to promote a diversification strategy that is sustainable. To determine how to encourage such a transformation, we draw on a new line of research that demonstrates how development seldom implies producing more of the same. Instead, as countries grow, they tend to move into new industries, while they also increase productivity in existing sectors. In this report, we analyze what those new industries might be for Uganda. To do so, we first look to those products which balance the desire to increase the diversification and complexity of production, while not over-stretching existing capabilities. These include mostly agricultural inputs, such as agrochemicals and food processing. In addition, Uganda should concurrently develop more complex industries, such as construction materials, that are reasonably within reach of current capabilities and will be in great demand in the context of an oil boom. Here, the fact that Uganda is landlocked and faces high import costs will provide natural protection to the expanding demand in Uganda and neighboring countries. We conclude with a discussion of the government policies that will support Uganda in developing new tradable industries.
- Topic:
- Development, Humanitarian Aid, Science and Technology, and Economic growth
- Political Geography:
- Uganda and Africa
27. Is There a Role for Mobiles to Support Sustainable Agriculture in Africa?
- Author:
- Batchelor Simon, Scott Nigel, Valverde Alvaro, Manfre Cristina, and Edwards David
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- This paper from the Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on ICTs for Sustainability (ICT4S 2014) reviews findings from detailed consultation with 50 global experts in Agriculture and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). The study explores how ICTs (particularly mobile phones) could be used to accelerate the uptake of sustainable agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper develops a detailed conceptual model, built around the smallholder farmer, for understanding the flow of information through the agriculture sector.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Human Rights, Human Welfare, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Africa
28. Making Large-Scale Wind and Solar Power a Reality
- Author:
- Kevin Ummel
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- South Africa and many other countries hope to aggressively expand wind and solar power (WSP) in the coming decades. This presents significant challenges for power system planning. Success hinges largely on the question of how and where to deploy WSP technologies. Well-designed deployment strategies can take advantage of natural variability in resources across space and time to help minimize costs, maximize benefits, and ensure reliability.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Economics, Energy Policy, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Africa
29. UN Statebuilding at a Turning Point: What's new about the intervention brigade and peacekeeping drones?
- Author:
- Touko Piiparinen
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Finnish Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- Last March the UN Security Council authorised the so-called Intervention Brigade to undertake 'targeted offensive operations' against illegal armed groups operating in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The Brigade, which undertook its first operations in August, differs from traditional UN peacekeeping in terms of its robust mandate and mobility. The UN has simultaneously adopted a new technology, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), in the DRC, which represents the first-ever use of UAVs as a part of UN peacekeeping. UAVs will be deployed in the DRC at the end of November, and start operating in early December The Intervention Brigade and UAVs have been hailed as a turning point in UN peacekeeping. However, they should not be perceived as completely new or standalone instruments of UN conflict management. They could instead be best understood as a continuum and extension of the long held state building doctrine applied by the UN. These new instruments enable the UN to perform one of its key functions of state building and protection of civilians, namely controlling and policing the whole territory of a state where an intervention has been undertaken more effectively than before. The lessons learned from the UN peace operation in the DRC indicate that the UN state building doctrine remains self-contradictory on account of the tendency of UN state building missions to spill over into wars and the mismatch between the ambitious goals set for state building and the chronic lack of resources. The Intervention Brigade and UAVs can potentially help the UN to resolve that mismatch by enhancing the UN's state building and protection capacities. However, they cannot resolve the other major disadvantage of state building, namely collateral damage inflicted in state building wars, and may even aggravate that problem.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Development, Humanitarian Aid, Science and Technology, Fragile/Failed State, and Peacekeeping
- Political Geography:
- Africa
30. Biosafety of GM Crops in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania
- Author:
- Judith A. Chambers
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- Against a background of rapid global adoption rates and two decades of safe use, the overly cautious approach to genetic modification (GM) technology in agriculture by African governments seems misplaced. To date, only three African countries are engaged in commercial production of GM crops, although others are experimenting with the technology. Among those African countries experimenting with the technology, several are proceeding along a path toward commercialization and reside geographically close in East Africa, where the potential for regional trade impacts and issues exist. An examination of their historical circumstance and experience with GM technology, and the resultant effects on regulatory policy, can offer some useful insights about the various factors that impact GM technology adoption in Africa, especially from the perspective of the biosafety policies enacted.
- Topic:
- Security, Agriculture, International Trade and Finance, Science and Technology, Food, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Uganda, Kenya, Africa, and Tanzania