Regulation and Repression of Civil Society through the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Recommendation 8: How a Restrictive Interpretation Limits Civil Society Contributions to Development in Africa

The contributions of civil society through development initiatives have been instrumental in addressing various socio-economic challenges societies face. For instance, there is evidence that community-based intervention packages have had a substantial impact on child and new-born mortality in Mozambique. On the political front, in Senegal, civil society initiatives contributed to the 'downfall of former president Abdoulaye Wade, his son and heir apparent, Karim Wade, and a number of formerly powerful members of his government' who were accused of corruption. Civil society organisations (CSOs) have also filled the gaps left by governments' failures to deliver reliable and efficient public services and address some of the challenges faced in communities. Efforts to shrink civic space by policing the work of civil society organisations has primarily been premised on governments' efforts to evade being held accountable.This has taken different forms, the most common being distorting the narrative on the agenda of civil society organisations. CSOs are negatively labelled as being rooted in interfering with politics and enforcing political ideations of Western institutions which make up much of the sources of funding for civil society activities. CSOs have constantly faced backlash and in the most recent past, there has been instrumentalisation of counter-terrorist and anti-money laundering laws and regulations. The framework of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Recommendations is often the basis of these broad and vague laws that give governments extensive powers to investigate and prosecute suspects and also infringe on the rights of critics. Although terrorist activities around the world including in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Kenya, Mali and Pakistan to mention a few give cause for concern, there are some governments that have put in place measures where there is no threat or real risk of terrorism. As a result, these measures are a tool used to silence and stifle fundamental freedoms including for journalists and other civil society actors

An alternative conceptualization of indigenous rights in Africa under the international human rights law framework

This article is a practice-based elucidation of how indigenous rights can be securely protected and implemented in the broader human rights discourse. The concept of indigeneity is contested in many African countries with the primary question being: Who is indigenous? The ‘politics of recognition’ have stalled the work of the African indigenous rights movement thus far and this paper builds upon the discourse on Indigenous rights, making a proposition towards an effective machinery to facilitate their protection. Therefore, the focus is to construct a different perspective which emphasizes the need to utilize, develop and improve the existent human rights machinery. This is done through the reconceptualization of indigenous rights by utilizing the ethno-cultural protections machinery. In the last part of this article I look at the San peoples in Zimbabwe as a representative case study to bring into perspective the lived realities of indigenous peoples in Africa.Received: 28 June 2018Accepted: 23 October 2018Published online: 11 December 2018</p

Community perceptions towards the establishment of an urban forest plantation: a case of Dzivaresekwa, Zimbabwe

The health of urban forest communities not only depend on the government and nongovernmental organizations, but also strongly rely on local community stewardship. A study was carried out to assess community perceptions on the establishment of an urban forest plantation among urban residents in Dzivaresekwa, an urban area in Harare. Randomized systematic sampling was used to select 150 households and one resident per household was interviewed using a pretested questionnaire with both closed and open-ended questions. The objectives of the study were to determine how age and gender and employment status variables, were related to the urban residents perceptions towards establishment of a forest plantation in an urban area. Most females (58.3%) viewed the plantation as a threat while most men (51.7%) viewed the plantation as a recreational area. The highest proportion (61.9%) of the middle age group (21-40 years) perceived the plantation as a source of employment. There was a statistically significant relationship (p = 0.040) between gender and the general perception of establishing a forest plantation in the urban area. However, there was no statistically significant relationship (p = 0.203) between age groups and the perception of establishing a forest plantation in the urban area. It is concluded that the community had diverse perceptions on urban community forestry. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/ijarit.v4i1.20973 Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. &amp; Tech. 4 (1): 16-23, June, 201

Decentralization in Africa and the resilience of traditional authorities: Evaluating Zimbabwe’s track record

Zimbabwe has undergone various phases of institutional reform during colonial and post-colonial times either co-opting, distorting or denying the presence of traditional authorities, but somehow none of these institutional engineering episodes managed to uproot them. What in fact happened is successive waves of political institutions designed and put in place during these reforms withered away. Zimbabwe’s traditional authorities are still there and they continue to play a big role in the daily lives of rural populations.This paper looks at one of the most important endogenous factors influencing the workings of decentralization in Zimbabwe. Successive waves of formal institutional change that took place during Zimbabwe’s colonial and post-colonial history have been unable able to uproot the influence of traditional leaders. Due to their home-grown legitimacy, various traditional authorities continue to play an ever-present role in the lives of people in rural areas. But, as it is the case throughout most of Africa, the powers of traditional leaders have mostly been uncodified under modern law and these power relations tend to be rather informal and culturally inaccessible to most outsiders. Consequently, the scholarly literature has not been able to systematically acknowledge their pervasive influence. The article concludes with a reflection on how the influence of traditional authorities can be translated into the democratic and progressive empowerment of rural populations in the developing world

Covid-19 and the Return of the State in Africa

Abstract: As African countries battled the Covid-19 crisis in 2020, one of the questions that were raised was whether the state was taking a central stage in the affairs of society, especially solutions to major problems. The question was triggered by the fact that there has been a decline in the capacity, role and prestige of the state in Africa for decades. Yet it seems that the responses to Covid-19, following the WHO guidelines, have placed the state at the centre, without dislocating other stakeholders like the private sector and the civil society. This paper uses the evidence from a select number of African countries of different sizes in various regions of the continent to provide an empirical perspective on the role of the state in Covid-19 responses in 2020 to answer the question of whether Covid-19 has occasioned a return of the state, thus reversing the neoliberal designs in favour of a lean and mean state in Africa

COMMUNITY PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN URBAN FOREST PLANTATION: A CASE OF DZIVARESEKWA, ZIMBABWE

The health of urban forest communities not only depend on the government and nongovernmental organizations, but also strongly rely on local community stewardship. A study was carried out to assess community perceptions on the establishment of an urban forest plantation among urban residents in Dzivaresekwa, an urban area in Harare. Randomized systematic sampling was used to select 150 households and one resident per household was interviewed using a pretested questionnaire with both closed and open-ended questions. The objectives of the study were to determine how age and gender and employment status variables, were related to the urban residents’ perceptions towards establishment of a forest plantation in an urban area. Most females (58.3%) viewed the plantation as a threat while most men (51.7%) viewed the plantation as a recreational area. The highest proportion (61.9%) of the middle age group (21-40 years) perceived the plantation as a source of employment. There was a statistically significant relationship (p = 0.040) between gender and the general perception of establishing a forest plantation in the urban area. However, there was no statistically significant relationship (p = 0.203) between age groups and the perception of establishing a forest plantation in the urban area. It is concluded that the community had diverse perceptions on urban community forestry

Crop-livestock integration to enhance ecosystem services in sustainable food systems

Agricultural systems in developing countries are challenged to produce more food from the same area of land and from scarce water resources. Integrated croplivestock systems hold intensification options that can improve the production of nutritious food and environmental sustainability, while reducing people’vulnerability to climate-related hazards (Tarawali et al. 2011; Lemaire et al., 2013; Garrett et al., 2017). Through an integrated relationship between crop and livestock components, farmers can increase agricultural productivity per unit of land and water, beyond the productivity of the individual components (Bonaudo et al., 2014; Peyraud et al., 2014). More diversified crop-livestock systems provide more opportunities for integration compared with systems that are composed of single farm components (Kremen et al., 2012; Valbuena et al., 2015). The multiple benefits deliver important ecosystem functions and services which help to use increasingly scarce resources more efficiently and conserve the natural environment (Hendrickson et al., 2008; ThorntonandHerrero,2015).Inamarket-orientedproductioncontext,returnsonintegration and diversification increase as farmers produce more biomass of better nutritional quality. They can do this using available technologies, while becoming less dependent on external inputs; this, in turn, makes them less sensitive to price fluctuations (Ryschawy et al., 2012; Homann-Kee Tui et al., 2015)