Chinese aid and African agency since 2000: examining the cases of Zimbabwe, Angola and Ghana

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A challenge to conventional wisdom: locating agency in Angola’s and Ghana’s economic engagements with China

This article makes the point that African states with significant strategic resources and democratic governance systems bargain better in economic and development assistance engagements with China and other partners. In democratic African states, non-state actors play critical complementary roles to the state, leading to multi-faceted forms of African agency. For non-democratic states, a significant limiting factor in their agency is the lack of working relationships between the state and non-state actors. Concomitantly, such states find themselves with weak bargaining and negotiating capacities. If African agency is to be assertive, then state and non-state actors should work together when engaging external partners

The question of African agency in international relations

The subject of agency in Africa’s international relations (IR) is often shrouded in generalised accounts of Africa as a supplicant actor. Utilising examples from a variety of African states, this article makes the argument that African actors are able to exert assertive agency in their various encounters with external partners although the level of agency they are able to exert is determined by a variety of factors including; the type of governmental regime in place, possession and control of strategic commodities by the regime in place and the willingness of the governmental regime to work with civil society in its engagements with external partners. In the final analysis, African agency should not be solely seen as emanating from and being exerted by governmental elites, but should also be examined as coming from independent civil society movements as well as exceptional and ordinary African individuals. Thus, African agency is multifaceted and multi-actor in nature

Sustainable conflict resolution through community based Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Planning in fragile and conflict situations: the case of Somalia

The study examines the nature of disputes, which are prevalent in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programming and suggests possible conflict management and resolution mechanisms. An online web-based survey, hosted on the popular Survey Monkey platform, was conducted through the Somalia WASH Cluster to 40 ‘active’ member organisations. A response rate of 73% was achieved. Thematic analysis was conducted using NVivo 12. The type of conflicts identified are as follows: visible versus non-visible benefits, emergency versus development focus, the young and the old, insiders versus outsiders, local versus donor priorities and men versus women. The article goes on to suggest possible conflict resolution mechanisms, which include: planning together with communities, continuum programming, setting up early warning systems, harmonisation of institutions managing WASH resources and the development of localised Memorandums of Understanding. It is recommended that the complexities of conflict and fragility require different approaches. The approaches would apply to both relief and developmental WASH programming

Four Years into Zimbabwe’s Government of National Unity: Assessing the Challenges and Successes From the Civil Society’s Perspective

Following a protracted political and economic crisis that led to a massive migration of Zimbabweans for external greener pastures, in 2008, the three main political parties; ZANU PF, MDC-T and MDC entered into a marriage that was meant to ease the hostilities before rescuing the deteriorating situation. The relationship was expected to last for not more than 24 months during which period, a new constitution would have been written before another election was held. This culminated into the Global Political Agreement (GPA) of 2008 which bore the present Government of National Unity in 2009. The paper, therefore, seeks to assess the route, progress and hurdles which the marriage has passed through particularly from a position of the Civil Society Organisations which represent the interests of the masses.Keywords: Government of National Unity, Civil Society Organisations, Masses, Challenges and SuccessesLWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research, 9(3), 202-215, 201

Chinese engagement of Zimbabwe and the limits of elite agency:

This article contends that Zimbabwe’s agency in its engagement with China has been limited and at best circumscribed. This owes to factors such as indifference by state authorities to cooperation with civil society actors in negotiating with Chinese actors, the desperation of the The Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front regime in the face of isolation by erstwhile partners as well as the opacity and secrecy that characterizes significant areas of the Zimbabwe–China relationship. The pressing need for critical institutions such as parliament to play independent oversight roles as well as the creation of space for civil society watchdog functions are highlighted as key enablers if Zimbabwean agency is to generate positive gains from the country’s engagement with China