Human Development Challenges in Africa: A Rights-Based Approach

This paper examines this plethora of questions and attempts to move the theory of human development in Africa beyond the traditional confines of its macroeconomic and political propositions. The paper assesses the concept of human development within the broader discourse on the role of human rights in global development, highlighting the overall African context of the subject. Against the backdrop of remarkably increasing scholarly efforts aimed at establishing human development as a human rights question, this paper evaluates the capacity of existing and emerging human rights frameworks relevant to Africa, and identifies viable trajectories for result-oriented human development actions

Environmental Governance Challenges in Kiribati : An Agenda for Legal and Policy Responses

Since the global notion of environmental governance is principally about how to achieve the goals of environmental conservation and sustainable development, analysing approaches to environmental governance invariably requires critical study of the policies and structures in place that determine how power is exercised and how environmental decisions are made not only in the abstract context of internationalism but with particular regard to national situations. This essay examines the legal and policy frameworks regulating environmental protection and the conservation of biodiversity within the broader goal of effective environmental governance in Kiribati . Acknowledging that Kiribati encounters formidable challenges in institutional, normative and policy terms, this essay particularly deals with the issue of pollution and its long- and short-term implications for this nation of many atolls. While highlighting the existence of significant treaties, municipal laws and diverse policy mechanisms, this essay identifies gaps and weaknesses, making suggestions for their reform and enhancement. Recognising that the path to the future lies in the synergy of initiatives and inputs from the government, the people and all other stakeholders in the environmental well-being of Kiribati, this essay proffers some viable trajectories for strategic responses

ACCESS TO SAFE WATER AND THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT QUANDARY IN AFRICA: IMPLICATIONS OF A RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH

Despite formal and concerted commitments by African governments to achieve universal access to clean water through various initiatives since 2000, access to clean drinking water remains a continuous challenge for human development in Sub-Saharan Africa. While some states have achieved some progress, achieving largescale availability of safe water remains a humanitarian crisis in much of Africa. The underpinning premise of this article is that a comprehensive and integrated approach can ensure the sustainability of expanding access to drinking water and sanitation while facilitating economic growth and human development. This article thus investigates the institutional, political, economic, and communal constraints in achieving expanded access to clean water among vast African populations. What are the roles and responsibilities that the civil society and local government agencies have to assume (a) to ensure that local water users and their organizations can assume their responsibilities for sustainable water resource management; and (b) to make sure that water is indeed considered a human right, and not in the least for those who have little or no access to power and influence: women and other underprivileged groups in local societies? Beyond the question of funding, what will be the role and place of a rights-based approach to the underlying structural challenges of participatory planning; ownership of the distribution processes as well as local accountability, all of which determine the sustainability of development programming pertaining to water? This article proffers a series of trajectories within a right-based approaches framework and accentuates how pragmatic responses to the foregoing questions could contribute to the policy responses necessary to ensure the realization of a well-managed regime of water access, distribution, and management in Africa

MAINSTREAMING ISLAMIC JURISTIC THOUGHT IN THE TEACHING OF HUMAN RIGHTS LAW: A CASE FOR INTEGRATIVE CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY IN AFRICAN LAW SCHOOLS

Against the backdrop of the marked marginalization of Islamic juristic thought in human rights discourses and the consequential obscurity of possible synergy, this article proceeds from the premise that purposeful human rights education within a law degree programme leading to vocational careers must be all encompassing, able to respond to the demands of critical reasoning, and suitable for the analysis and understanding of global, regional and national challenges by local legal actors. In the African context, experience evokes an appeal for innovative approaches that not only prioritize integrative curricula but which also facilitate qualitative teaching methods that could guarantee the transfer of helpful skills and broad-based knowledge to boost the confidence of the learner in visualizing active future roles in human rights promotion and protection in whichever milieu he/she establishes a career. Highlighting the peculiar importance of Islamic Law in twenty-first century Africa, this article canvasses an approach that helps the law student to understand the practical realities that make Islamic Law a sine qua non for sound grasp of human rights law in his or her society while fully recognizing latent cultural, religious and other philosophical dilemmas and limitations to human rights as legal norms

Menace of E-Wastes in Developing Countries: An Agenda for Legal and Policy Responses

Undoubtedly, one of the most manifest indices of new age globalisation has been the transboundary movement of toxic and hazardous waste products, principally from developed countries to the developing countries otherwise known as the ‘Third World’. While waste generation is essentially a domestic problem, the issue has assumed global importance as industrialised countries continually seek convenient disposal sites outside their own shores. Despite increasing global, regional, and national legal and policy interventions to curb the menace of toxic and hazardous waste dumping, however, the problem has largely not abated. Against the backdrop of the enormous negative consequences of the transboundary movement of toxic and hazardous waste products in developing countries, and the impunity engendered by this ubiquitous practice, is it not high time that new strategies were evolved for tackling this menace? With the global proliferation of information technology continuing to escalate at an exponential rate, driven largely by the lure of exploiting the globalised info-tech market, this essay accentuates the latent dangers looming in developing countries particularly with regard to electronic wastes. Reflecting on the litany of treaties already adopted in responding to the problem of toxic and hazardous wastes, this essay attempts to highlight alternative policy and strategic initiatives against current trends

THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES’ RIGHTS, ITS REGIONAL SYSTEM, AND THE ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE FIRST THREE DECADES: CALIBRATING THE “PAPER TIGER”

Neither has any other human-rights treaty received as much vitriolic bashing as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter), 1981, nor has there been a dearth of negativity about the treaty as a human-rights instrument. Such is the spate of pessimism about the African Charter and its system that it has repeatedly been referred to as “a paper tiger”, among other undignified labels. Beyond the endless lampooning of the treaty and its system as mere platitudes, have there been no opportunities for the civil society to strengthen the promise of this treaty and its system. To what extent has the civil society exploited such opportunities? Can there be a reconceptualization of the roles and attitudes of civil society that will galvanize the African regional human-rights system towards a veritable mechanism for more effective human rights protection? This article examines the contributions of civil society to the evolutionary processes, successes, and perceived weaknesses of the African regional human-rights system since 1981. Extrapolating from some landmark institutional, normative and jurisprudential developments within the African regional arrangement, this article identifies civil society as an inevitable, integral bearer of credit for the successes, and blame for the shortcomings of the aforementioned system. The overarching objective here is to canvass for a repositioning of civil society towards more effective praxis, and, to identify the trajectories for such engagement

The Hyogo Framework for Action and its implications for disaster management and reduction in Africa

At the World Conference on Disaster Reduction, Hyogo, Japan, in January 2005, the international community adopted a 10-year plan to make the world safer from disasters. The resultant Hyogo Framework for Action is the global blueprint for disaster risk reduction with the goal of substantially reducing disaster losses in human lives and socio-economic assets. What is the signi!cance of the HFA for the adoption of disaster prevention, management and risk reduction frameworks in African States? Since 2005, what has been the attitude of African States to the promise of the HFA? In terms of policy and planning, how should African States engage the HFA towards securing human lives and properties against natural and human-induced disasters? With the myriad challenges of mass poverty and underdevelopment across Africa, what implications does the HFA hold for disaster risk reduction and management in African States? This article attempts to address this plethora of questions, drawing on lessons learned in Africa and beyond. The article examines the background of the HFA and its progress in shaping the global policy agenda towards disaster management and reduction. While the article acknowledges some of the inherent weaknesses in the promise of the HFA, it nonetheless accentuates its inimitable implications for broad legal and policy strategies towards ameliorating the usual horrific aftermath of disasters in Africa

An integrative rights-based approach to human development in Africa

An integrative rights-based approach to human development in Africa by Dejo Olowu 2009 ISBN: 978-0-9814124-6-7 Pages: x 322 Print version: Available Electronic version: Free PDF availabl