Perspectieven op Afrikastudies en op ontwikkeling in Sub-Sahara Afrika

Rede uitgesproken in verkorte vorm door Prof. Dr. Leo J. de Haan ter gelegenheid van het afscheid van het ambt van hoogleraar Ontwikkeling in Sub-Sahara Afrika aan de Universiteit Leiden en directeur van het Afrika-Studiecentrum Leiden op maandag 12 april 201

Ontwikkeling en milieu: een localiserend spanningsveld

In 1994 werd Leo de Haan uitgenodigd om op de 9de Nederlandse Geografendagen opTerschelling zijn visie te geven op de'Ongemakkelijke relatie tussen milieu en ontwikkeling'.Vier jaar later was er blijkbaar nog weinig opgehelderd over deze vermeende controverse, want hij werd gevraagd ter gelegenheid van de l Ode Nederlandse Geografendagen in Utrecht zijn licht te laten schijnen over de 'Spanningsrelatie tussen milieu en ontwikkeling'. De ontwikkelingen zijn in vier jaar kennelijk onvoldoende geweest om het onderwerp van zijn voordrachten te laten wijzigen.Toch is er veel veranderd. Een reeks van gedetailleerde deelonderzoeken heeft er voor gezorgd dat er nu, meer dan vier jaar geleden, een optimistische visie op die relatie heerst. Daarnaast wordt ontwikkeling steeds vaker tegen de achtergrond van het globaliseringsproces geanalyseerd, waarbij samenvallende, soms conflicterende, tendensen van globalisering en localisering worden onderscheiden

Studies in African livelihoods : current issues and future prospects

In the 1990s a livelihood approach to poverty in Africa emerged, with an emphasis on agency as opposed to structure. Situated in an actor-oriented perspective, the livelihood approach focuses on (poor) individuals and households, aiming at a dynamic and holistic understanding of their actions. This chapter outlines the disciplinary roots of the livelihood approach and its modern articulations. It then argues that a new generation of livelihood studies is needed which politicizes issues of livelihood by putting more emphasis on the analysis of power relations, both on the micro and the meso/macro levels. In addition, the increasing multilocality of African livelihoods, associated with income diversification, multitasking and growing mobility, should be taken into account. The new multilocal networks of African livelihoods could constitute an important undercurrent for the strengthening of African development

Duurzaamheid en wederkerigheid

Van alle internationale universitaire ontwikkelingssamenwerkingsprojecten waarbij ik betrokken ben, is die met de Université Nationale du Bénin de meest uitdagende, maar daarom ook niet de gemakkelijkste. In mijn eerdere samenwerking met onderzoekinstituten in Niger, Burkina Faso en Mali over hoe veehouders hun natuurlijke hulpbronnen beheerden, was het bijvoorbeeld de bedoeling van onze opdrachtgever, de Europese Unie, dat we met praktische aanbevelingen voor milieubeleid in die landen op de proppen zouden komen. In mijn samenwerking met de Université de Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, in het kader van het MHO-programma van de NUFFIC, geef ik advies over de opzet van een milieuopleiding. En in een ander Europees onderzoek volg ik de revitalisering van oases in Marokko en Tunesië onder invloed van investeringen uit migratie. Al dat werk richt zich, zoals de gewoonte is geworden, op het wel en wee van het Partnerland, en daarbij blijft Nederland vrijwel buiten schot

Globalization, localization and sustainable livelihood

Despite economic progress made in quite a number of countries in the former ‘Third World’, between 20% to 50% of the world population is still excluded from this progress. By taking sustainable livelihood as a point of departure and by paying attention to actor-structure inter-actions, this paper conceptualizes these processes of social inclusion and exclusion. Livelihood is represented as a whole of dynamic interactions between actors and five vital capitals i.e. human, natural, physical, financial and social capital. These vital capitals are embedded in a social, economic, political and ecological structure. Interaction between actors and structure occurs via access and agency and results in processing of capitals to build livelihood. Livelihood is sustainable if it is capable of adequately satisfying self-defined needs and securing people against shocks and stresses put on capitals by structural factors. Livelihood strategies develop in arenas of conflicting or co-operating actors. Because livelihood strategies are multiple, individuals may belong to different interest groups and therefore social inclusion and exclusion is never rigid. Globalization is interpreted as localization, meaning a close association between homogenization and diversity or between the global and the local. Diversity it is not limited to socio-cultural domains but observed in economic and political domains too. Globalization-localization has important consequences for livelihood. The importance of the international and the local level will increase to the detriment of the national level. On the one hand,livelihood will become increasingly world wide and therefore multi-local. The different levels of scale in vital capitals and in structure come closer to each other and perhaps will even fuse. The arena will become increasingly global and livelihood strategies will become more homogenous. On the other hand,certain local characteristics of the arena remain or will even become more marked, and consequently livelihood strategies will need to become more specific too. Nevertheless,it is doubtful whether social exclusion will become a thing of the past. Therefore, global governance should have an important role in promoting sustainability of livelihoods. Global governance is explained as a global co-ordination by supra-regional and international governmental institutions of national governments balanced by an emerging international ‘civil society’. Both have a task in the regulation of global markets and development co-operation will have to develop towards a global social security system.As a result, it is concluded that research on sustainable livelihood will increasingly have to become multi-dimensional,multi-local and reciprocal

Livelihoods in Development

The world is changing rapidly and so is the field of development studies. When I started my university studies and became interested in what was then called ‘issues of development and underdevelopment’, the map of the world I had grown up with was simple and orderly. It was conveniently arranged into a First World, a Second World and a Third World. I lived in the First World, the free and capitalist world. That First World was engaged in a Cold War with the Second World, the socialist world. The Third World was poor and troubled by famine. The Third World was considered underdeveloped because of the way it was integrated into the world capitalist system. It was subordinated and exploited by the First World, which reaped the benefits of that relationship. This was the main reason it became rich and developed. The Second World had no part in this and went its own way. I was concerned about the poverty and hunger in the Third World and wanted to do something about it. And so it became the main subject of my studies