Community agency, needs mapping and solidarity economics in resource depleted communities

Against the backdrop of shrinking budgets for most social welfare departments in most of sub Saharan Africa, there is a shortfall of essential services. Within the ambit of village associations, community-driven needs mapping is heralded as an alternative pathway. Anchored on the conceptual framing of social theory, social capital and social economy; this qualitative case study, argues that solidarity initiatives and capability focused outcomes deliver social development, and other welfare projects for most disadvantaged communities of North West, Cameroon. Findings point to peripheral state involvement in calibrating a development agenda, constraining members to utilize village associations, the repository of indigenous assets, and other relational networks, njangis, quarter development unions, cooperatives and diaspora networks. These overlapping solidarity networks enable members to mobilize hard earned financial resources; largely ploughed back into community development ventures. A key outcome of these forms of solidarity remains direct capitalisation - personal income catering not only for members’ livelihoods, most of all, building a reservoir and asset base, impacting on livelihoods and community development. Policy formulation and design is yet to calibrate these mechanisms of ground-up, village centric development. Galvanising these solidarity assets, deployed for progressive social and economic change require meaningful co-production of stakeholder engagement strategies, and revamped state-community relations. Embedding these policies in rural development planning would enable a sustainable solidarity economics, nurtured through community assets-base, building on collective agency, autonomy and resilience

The agroecological transition of agricultural systems in the Global South

Food security, jobs, ecological transition of agricultural production models and consumption patterns... Agroecology could be one of the solutions to meet the future challenges of humanity. Part of the United Nation's 17 Sustainable Development Goals, it requires a lasting commitment from all of us. To meet the food and economic needs of growing rural and urban communities, fulfil increasingly demanding consumer requirements, conserve natural resources and adapt to climate change, we have to find new ways of agricultural production. Over the last decade, CIRAD and AFD have conducted experiments in agroecological transitions with farmers, researchers, development agents and policymakers in many countries of the Global South. In this book, they reflect on the future of agroecology as a way for agriculture in the developing world to adapt to global changes and they examine the conditions necessary for a successful agroecological transition

Shoring up local development initiatives: elderly elite and conscientised empowerment in Cameroon

The elderly elite constitute a category of social actors implicated in local development through consciousness-raising. The analytic ideas of empowerment and agency, asset-based approaches, social capital, and relational networking inform this paper. Utilising a case study approach, and empirical accounts from the Ndong Awing Cultural and Development Association (NACDA), in the North-West Region of Cameroon, this article explores conscientised empowerment, a strategy deployed to awaken the local community for social change. The interplay of sociocultural dynamics, gender considerations, community mobilisation and sustainability are intricately balanced, resulting in the community being revived through a renewed development mindset. While expectations of elite involvement remain grandiose; the elite involved in this village-centric development project navigate community aspirations while safeguarding their self-interests. Though elite involvement proves contentious, the community is galvanised by a development manifesto calibrated through relational networking. Local development policy and planning require the harnessing of incremental community resources, building on the agency of key stakeholders, in synergy with the state and other external partners, to realise an effective repositioning of social development

Optimizing community-driven development through sage tradition in Cameroon

Powering community development requires a re-invention of traditional authority. This paper interrogates this proposition: how does sage tradition engender social resilience and what is the impact of traditional authority on the modern governance architecture? Sage tradition construed culturally as elder-led authority is anchored on wisdom and respect for elders—a pivotal asset in community development transactions. Informed by indigenous knowledge, social capital and asset-based concepts, an empirical account of strategic leadership by the elderly is proffered, uncovering indigenous governance in the North West Region, Cameroon. A pyramidal power structure validates village elders as key players in advancing social justice. They offer counsel and arbitrate in community affairs and mobilise community members for infrastructure provision—community halls, equipping schools, digging roads, building bridges and supply of fresh water. Though elder esteemed traditions prove perfunctory, findings show communities are benefiting from the accumulated, incremental cultural assets factored into local development. The paper concludes that thriving cultural assets should be amalgamated through a policy drive that taps into the utility of traditional authority, in synergy with modern state institutions to bolster social development, address poverty and social inequality

FROM PREACHING THE CHRISTIAN GOSPEL TO AFRICANS, TO PREACHING AFRICAN SOCIAL WISDOM TO EUROPE: REVEALING SURPRESSED TRUTHS IN THE COLONIAL ARCHIVE IN CAMEROON

When it comes to stories (even fabrications) that reveal Africa as a dark continent, a continent of emptiness and of primitivism, one is likely to find milliards of documents proliferated by Europeans to continuously justify their overrule over the continent and its people. But when it comes to literature especially written by Europeans who have experienced Africa objectively that confesses the potential of its people and their knowledge base and how this knowledge base can inform European social existence, such hardly exists. In this paper my aim is to reveal some studies carried out by European missionaries in Cameroon which went out of the way to recommend that amidst the social crisis that plagued Europe, and the human values of traditional society in Africa, there was need for a paradigm shift from preaching the Christian gospel to Africans to preaching African social wisdom to the Europeans. I content that this position was contrary to Coloniality of power, being and knowledge which have guided Euro-African relations from the time of their early contact. That is why it has been consciously suppressed by the colonial archive.   Article visualizations

Reframing social justice through indigenous know-how: Implications for social development, policy and practice

Crafting a viable social justice–based policy is touted as critical for revamping social development in emerging economies. There is little understanding of social justice and forging sustainable relationships for social development through utilization of indigenous know-how. With evidence from local communities in Cameroon, this article explores conceptions of social justice through indigenous know-how and considers their implications for social development, policy and practice. Drawing on empirical data and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with key informants, this case study lays the foundations of what drives social justice and social development, often ‘behind the scenes’. This study ‘unpeels’ the invisible enablers and barriers to social development; a proposed social justice wheel and instruments deployed demonstrates how indigenous knowledge systems and institutions address multifaceted problems. Uppermost on the social justice agenda are issues related to counsel, affective community ties and social cohesion, oral traditions and mores, arbitration of community affairs, and projects of pressing need such as clean water, land disputes, mobilizing local resources in tackling key concerns related to poverty, agricultural practices, food security and climate change. Although due process and traditional diligence are harder to maintain due to underhand arrangements and often corrupt leadership, communities are reframing social justice to build capability on an incremental scale. The study illuminates the centrality and policy conundrum of fostering people-centred development. Harnessing indigenous agency, in synergy with modern governance institutions such as social services, to bolster social development is a prerequisite for enhancing a heightened sense of human rights and lessening inequality

The Ethnic Question in Law and Development

World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, by Professor Amy Chua, is an analytically complex narrative of contemporary ethnic violence in the current era of globalization. Although such violence has historical roots, according to Chua it has also been fueled by free-market forces and democratization. The book is a forceful and provocative indictment of the current U.S. policy of promoting and exporting markets and democracy to developing and formerly communist, market-transitional countries. In her book, Professor Chua applies her thesis - that ethnicity, global capitalism, and democracy are a volatile mix - to countries such as Rwanda and Sierra Leone, Indonesia and Malaysia, Russia and Zimbabwe, Venezuela and the former Yugoslavia. As different as those countries are, they share a defining characteristic: the presence of what she calls market dominant minorities among the majority population - that is, minorities, such as the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia, Indians and Lebanese in Africa, Jews in post-Soviet Russia, the ethnic Kikuyu in Kenya, whose spectacular wealth and control of the economy arouse deep resentment in the impoverished majority. This majority views itself as the true, indigenous native whose mission is to retaliate against the economically dominant ethnic outsider and return the country to its rightful owners. This ill-will is deep and historically rooted but for the most part controlled by autocratic regimes. Two phenomena, market liberalization and democracy, have exacerbated and inflamed the situation. The introduction of laissez-faire capitalism into such environments has benefited those already economically dominant; that is, the already-hated market-dominant ethnic minority. Simultaneously, the spread of democracy, in the form of universal suffrage and electoral politics, has allowed ethnonationalist demagogues to catapult themselves into office by exploiting majority rage against market-dominant minorities (p. 6). In other words, markets allow an already-rich ethnic minority to get even richer, and democracy allows the already-impoverished ethnic majority to get even

Urban food strategies in Central and Eastern Europe: what's specific and what's at stake?

Integrating a larger set of instruments into Rural Development Programmes implied an increasing focus on monitoring and evaluation. Against the highly diversified experience with regard to implementation of policy instruments the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework has been set up by the EU Commission as a strategic and streamlined method of evaluating programmes’ impacts. Its indicator-based approach mainly reflects the concept of a linear, measure-based intervention logic that falls short of the true nature of RDP operation and impact capacity on rural changes. Besides the different phases of the policy process, i.e. policy design, delivery and evaluation, the regional context with its specific set of challenges and opportunities seems critical to the understanding and improvement of programme performance. In particular the role of local actors can hardly be grasped by quantitative indicators alone, but has to be addressed by assessing processes of social innovation. This shift in the evaluation focus underpins the need to take account of regional implementation specificities and processes of social innovation as decisive elements for programme performance.