The dynamics of managing people in the diverse cultural and institutional context of Africa

Purpose The purpose of this article is to introduce the special issue which considers some of the contemporary debates in managing people in Africa. Design/methodology/approach The papers that constitute this special issue were selected from submissions to various events hosted by the Africa Research Group, a community of scholars committed to researching Africa, and from a more general call for submissions. Findings The papers highlight the changing picture of the African organisational landscape and provide both theoretical and empirical insights about the opportunities and challenges of managing people in a culturally complex continent. Originality/value Taken together, the papers make an important contribution by engaging current debates and demonstrating potential new areas for further research

Institutional Environments for Certified Organic Agriculture: Enabling Development, Smallholders Livelihood and Public Goods for Southern Environments?

This paper presents the case for research on institutional environments for organically certified agriculture in developing countries. Observing that some analyses hold Southern organic agriculture as pro-poor and perhaps also more energy efficient than fossil fuel dependent industrialized agriculture, the paper explores differences and similarities in the policy rationale of promoting certified organics in North and South. Based on analysis of institutional environments for COA in Brazil and China, the paper proceed to identify some challenges, opportunities and policy options for strengthening not only certified organic agriculture per se, but an environmentally and socially sustainable food system, providing smallholder livelihoods and rural development

Feminism in Action: Evaluation of AWDF's MDG3 Project

In the year 2011, the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) received a grant of 32 million from Comic Relief for the period of April 2011 to March 2014. This was preceded by a grant of 31 million in November 2012, making it a total of 33 million. The framework for the delivery of this project has largely been determined by AWDF's 2011-15 Strategic Plan (SPIII) and was to be implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa. An end of project evaluation was conducted for AWDF between July and August 2014. The evaluation was specifically focused on the performance of AWDF's Phase II Project which was part of Comic Relief's (CR) Devolved Grant Making Program. The project focused on four areas, namely: Grant Making in each of AWDF's six thematic areas; Capacity and Movement Building; Strengthening AWDF's Communications; and Partnership Development.The purpose of the evaluation was to evaluate the project performance, identify good practices and draw out lessons that can be applied in future interventions. As the Comic Relief grant was meant to support AWDF's Strategic Plan, the evaluation looked at AWDF's main areas of work and assessed the role of the Comic Relief grant within which the AWDF initiatives were conducted. The evaluation also coincided with AWDF's Strategic Plan mid-way point. In 2008, the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) received a grant of u20ac5 million from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 3 on women's empowerment. The grant was provided for a three-year period from 2008 to 2011 and was implemented as AWDF's MDG3 Project. As the project was coming to end, between July and September 2011, AWDF commissioned an independent consultant to conduct a summative evaluation. This evaluation sought to achieve four key objectives: (i) Document activities undertaken; (ii) Assess outcomes arising from the activities undertaken; (iii) Assess which strategies were most effective; and (iv) Based on this, make recommendations for future programming. In addition to this, the evaluation sought to assess the extent to which AWDF, as a feminist organization, had lived up to feminist principles in implementation of the project. In 2008, the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) received a grant of 5 million from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 3 on women's empowerment. The grant was provided for a three-year period from 2008 to 2011 and was implemented as AWDF's MDG3 Project. As the project was coming to end, between July and September 2011, AWDF commissioned an independent consultant to conduct a summative evaluation

Building the Global Sisterhood: Measurement, Evaluation and Learning Report for the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation's Catholic Sisters Initiative Strategy

The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Catholic Sisters Initiative launched a five-year strategy in February 2013 to enhance the vitality of Catholic sisters, who in turn advance human development around the globe. The Sisters Initiative aims to support efforts to attract, form and retain members, develop their leadership skills and help them take advantage of the financial and social resources available to them.The Foundation awarded the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC) a grant in April 2014 to evaluate the Catholic Sisters Initiative strategy over four years. As the Sisters Initiative's Measurement, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) partner, CRCC seeks to answer the question, Does the strategy effectively increase the vitality of women religious across the globe as they advance human development?In order to answer this question, CRCC has developed an understanding of the landscape of Catholic sisters, where the Sisters Initiative's strategy fits into this landscape and how it can evolve. The evaluation also includes examining how the Sisters Initiative implements its strategy and how closely aligned the grants are to the goals of the strategy

An Overview of South Africa's Metropolitan Areas - Dualistic, Dynamic and under Threat…

The article explores the threats posed to metropolitan viability and resilience in South Africa which is faced by continued spatial and economic concentration and duality - a trend also evident in a number of Central European countries. Examples are provided of trends and challenges impacting the resilience of South Africa's metropolitan regions, as identified in recent empirical studies conducted by the authors.1 The paper argues that the agglomeration challenges facing South Africa's metropolitan regions and complications brought about by intra-metropolitan inequality are key aspects underlying the resilience of these regions. The article also suggests that there might be value in greater collaboration in research and knowledge-production and sharing in metropolitan planning, development and governance, between South African metropolitan regions and those in Central European countries

Climate Change, Migration, and Conflict in Northwest Africa

Examines how climate change affects the number of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa traveling through Nigeria, Niger, Algeria, and Morocco; increased security risks in the region; how these factors exacerbate one another; and intercontinental implications

Mapping of southern security and justice civil society organisations and networks

The purpose of this mapping study is to provide the UK Department for International Development (DFID) with a quantitative and qualitative snapshot of security and justice civil society organisations (CSOs) and networks working in and across the countries investigated. CSO engagement on issues of security and justice is inherently difficult in many countries due to the nature of their governing regimes (such as where the state has authoritarian tendencies or where military regimes preside). In some cases the political space for CSOs to engage in issues of security and justice is being increasingly suppressed. Consequently, the success of donor support for security and justice CSOs often depends to a great extent on the political will of respective governments to enable CSOs to work freely. Furthermore, donors who wish to support security and justice CSOs need to take account of the extent to which donor interactions with government security and justice structures may influence the extent and quality of donor interaction with CSOs. In many countries, an understanding of security and justice as conceptualised and defined by donors is lacking amongst civil society – and an understanding of these issues as conceptualised by civil society is often lacking among donors and governments. This scenario even holds true in those countries where civil society as a whole is otherwise vibrant. Consequently, there is a need to increase the basic level of understanding on security and justice matters (both within CSOs and governments), to broaden the strategic community (those working in think tanks or engaged in policy analysis), and to support the development of research capacity and expertise in security and justice areas. Joined up approaches to security and justice work are rare in almost all contexts and common/collaborative/networking fora do not exist. Recommendations were made in almost all sub-regions stating that donor approaches should encourage collaboration at the outset between security and justice CSOs and devise schemes that reward or encourage joined up working

Prospects and Challenges of Medicinal Plants Conservation and\ud Traditional Medicine in Tanzania

A qualitative study was carried to assess prospects and challenges of medicinal plants conservation and\ud traditional medicine in Tanzania. The study shows that TRM and medicinal have great prospects in healthcare\ud delivery worldwide. These prospects have more impact in developing countries where 70%-80% of population used\ud TRM for Primary Healthcare (PHC). It is reported that 25% of prescribed drugs in conventional healthcare were\ud derived from their ethnomedicinal use in TRM. Medicinal plants still provided hope for discovery of new drugs for\ud the resistant diseases and those that were not treated by conventional prescribed drugs. Traditional medicine and\ud medicinal plants were faced with challenges notably; threats due to increasing depletion of the natural resource\ud as an impact of population increase, urbanization, modernization of agriculture and climatic change. There was\ud erosion of indigenous medical knowledge as most of the traditional health practitioners were aging and dying, while\ud the expected youths to inherit the practice shy away from practice. The youths in rural settings who were willing\ud to practice some of them die because of AIDS. The other major challenges on traditional medicine and MPs were\ud constraints and include lack of data on seriously threatened and endangered medicinal plant species. Others include\ud inadequate and conflicting guidelines on management and utilization of natural resources, especially medicinal\ud plants. Efforts for scaling up the practice of TRM and medicinal plant conservation have been suggested. These\ud were creating awareness of the importance traditional medicine and medicinal plants in healthcare; training THPs\ud on good practices for provision of healthcare; conserving medicinal plants through in-situ and ex-situ programs and\ud sustainable harvesting of medicinal plants resources and training conventional health workers on the contribution\ud of TRM and medicinal plants in PHC. Traditional health practitioners, TRM and medicinal plants should be essential\ud components in PHC in order to meet the health millennium goals by 2025

Institutional Environments for Certified Organic Agriculture: Enabling Development, Smallholders Livelihood and Public Goods for Southern Environments?

This paper presents the case for research on institutional environments for organically certified agriculture in developing countries. Observing that some analyses hold Southern organic agriculture as pro-poor and perhaps also more energy efficient than fossil fuel dependent industrialized agriculture, the paper explores differences and similarities in the policy rationale of promoting certified organics in North and South. Based on analysis of institutional environments for COA in Brazil and China, the paper proceed to identify some challenges, opportunities and policy options for strengthening not only certified organic agriculture per se, but an environmentally and socially sustainable food system, providing smallholder livelihoods and rural development.Consumer/Household Economics, Farm Management,