Social Policy and Rights in Africa

Summaries The agenda for social development in Africa, and therefore the framework in which social policy is defined, has undergone major shifts over the last forty years. This has partly been the result of the ability of post?colonial governments to depoliticise poverty and demobilise the movements that brought them to power. But the major reason has been the current phase of the globalisation of capital, which has demanded a major restructuring of the world economy to suit its needs. The primary instruments used in effecting those changes were structural adjustment programmes and associated policies. These have resulted in the few accumulating (on a global as well as national level) immense wealth while the majority were condemned to greater poverty, and a reversal of the social gains of independence. In effect, there has been an increasing disenfranchisement of the majority in determining the goals of social development. With the rise of globalisation, the agenda for social development is being set, largely unilaterally, by undemocratic institutions of globalisation in the interests of multinational corporations

Pan-African podcasting

The popular newsletter, Pambazuka News is using new media to reach an even larger audience. Presenting information that can be watched or listened to will have a greater impact for its audience of social justice activists throughout Afric

Pambzuka news: building a progressive pan-Africa movement

Pambzuka News is described variously as an e-newsletter or platform of website about social justice in Africa. There are some that see it as an example innovative use of information communications technology. Yet it is both all of these and none of them. Pambzuka News is an attempt to nurture and encourage the building of a progressive pan Africa movement within Africa and amongst what is popularly described as the African diaspora

Podcasting panafricain

Pambazuka News, une newsletter extrêmement populaire, se sert d'un nouveau média pour atteindre un public encore plus large. La mise à disposition d'informations pouvant être vues ou écoutées à tout moment est une innovation non négligeable pour les militants en faveur de la justice sociale partout en Afrique

Open Access and the Struggle for Justice: The Maynooth University Ken Saro-Wiwa Collection

This book chapter explores how open access publishing can help promote justice and equality worldwide and particularly in the Global South

Open Access and the Struggle for Justice: The Maynooth University Ken Saro-Wiwa Collection

This book chapter explores how open access publishing can help promote justice and equality worldwide and particularly in the Global South

Power and rights in the community: paralegals as leaders in women's legal empowerment in Tanzania

What can an analysis of power in local communities contribute to debates on women’s legal empowerment and the role of paralegals in Africa? Drawing upon theories of power and rights, and research on legal empowerment in African plural legal systems, this article explores the challenges for paralegals in facilitating women’s access to justice in Tanzania, which gave statutory recognition to paralegals in the Legal Aid Act 2017. Land conflicts represent the single-biggest source of local legal disputes in Tanzania and are often embedded in gendered land tenure relations. This article argues that paralegals can be effective actors in women’s legal empowerment where they are able to work as leaders, negotiating power relations and resisting the forms of violence that women encounter as obstacles to justice. Paralegals’ authority will be realised when their role is situated within community leadership structures, confirming their authority while preserving their independence

The Relevance of Rodney\u27s HEUA to the Struggle for Emancipation in the 21st Century

For many of us, Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (HEUA) was a foundation book. It provided to a whole new generation an understanding that Africa has not been, as prevailing academia and media at the time would have it, always destitute, impoverished, full of tribal conflicts, and all the usual negative images that sadly still prevail today, but rather a continent whose historical trajectory and development of its societies were not dissimilar to those that prevailed in Europe and beyond. That trajectory was rudely and cruelly interrupted through its contact with Europe, a connection that had a devastating impact on the peoples of the continent

Discoverability and Digital Colonialism

<p>Presentation to set the scene of digital colonialism in the context of discoverability of African research.</p

Escribir para el cambio. Guía interactiva

La investigación para el desarrollo no es en sí misma un fin sino, más bien, una forma de reunir información y conocimientos para la acción. Los conocimientos generados mediante la investigación para el desarrollo tal vez no concreten su potencial de informar, orientar o estimular a la acción porque no son comunicados de manera tal que sean significativos para el público al que están dirigidos. La comunidad científica necesita información y conocimientos comunicados en una determinada forma. Los encargados de formular las políticas, los agricultores y el público en general necesitan que esa misma información y conocimientos sean comunicados en otras formas. Los científicos deben confiar en la evidencia presentada y ser estimulados a plantear nuevos interrogantes para la investigación. Los encargados de formular las políticas tienen que ser convencidos de la trascendencia social de los resultados y guiados hacia las áreas donde se requieran cambios. Los agricultores deben ser incitados a actuar conforme a las ideas presentadas y estar suficientemente informados para hacerlo de manera independiente. El Centro Internacional de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo (CIID, Canadá) ayuda a los países en desarrollo a emplear la ciencia y los conocimientos para encontrar soluciones prácticas a largo plazo a los problemas ambientales, sociales y económicos que los aquejan. Respaldamos la publicación de Escribir para el cambio con el fin de que nuestros colaboradores puedan contar con un instrumento que les permita aumentar su capacidad de comunicar los resultados de la investigación en formas que promuevan la acción sobre la base de la evidencia y la trascendencia social. La guía se concentra en la habilidad para escribir eficientemente, que es importante tanto para comunicar resultados científicos como para la labor de promoción