scholarly journals African Environmental Ethics: Keys to Sustainable Development Through Agroecological Villages

Author(s):  
Charles Verharen ◽  
Flordeliz Bugarin ◽  
John Tharakan ◽  
Enrico Wensing ◽  
Bekele Gutema ◽  
...  

AbstractThis essay proposes African-based ethical solutions to profound human problems and a working African model to address those problems. The model promotes sustainability through advanced agroecological and information communication technologies. The essay’s first section reviews the ethical ground of that model in the work of the Senegalese scholar, Cheikh Anta Diop. The essay’s second section examines an applied African model for translating African ethical speculation into practice. Deeply immersed in European and African ethics, Godfrey Nzamujo developed the Songhaï Centers to solve the problem of rural poverty in seventeen African countries. Harnessing advanced technologies within a holistic agroecological ecosystem, Nzamujo’s villages furnish education spanning the fields of ethics, information communication technology, microbiology, international development, and mechanical, electrical, civil and biological engineering in a community-based and centered development enterprise. The essay proposes a global consortium of ecovillages based on Nzamujo’s model. The final section explores funding methods for the consortium. The conclusion contemplates a return to Africa to supplement environmental ethics that enhance life’s future on earth.

Info ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 125-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Milek ◽  
Christoph Stork ◽  
Alison Gillwald

PurposeInformation communication technologies (ICTs) are widely seen as having the potential to contribute positively to economic growth and development and to improve the livelihoods and quality of life of individuals and households and yet access to ICTs and usage of them remains highly inequitable. This paper aims to identify areas of inequality in access to ICTs between men and women in Africa.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on the Research ICT Africa (RIA) household and individual ICT survey conducted in 17 African countries between 2007/2008 the paper provides an empirical basis for assessing gender dimensions of ICT access and usage. Additionally, focus group studies were conducted in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda to gain a greater qualitative understanding of access to and usage of ICTs from a gender perspective.FindingsAlthough the results confirmed in many countries the widely held belief that men have greater access to ICTs than women in some instances more women than men owned mobile phones such as in South Africa and Mozambique. In Cameroon women were found to have greater knowledge of the internet than their male counterparts. Most significantly perhaps is the finding that when women have similar income, education and employment status they have comparable access to ICTs as their male counterparts. However, as women generally do not have the same access to those core factors that enhance ICT access and usage, their access to ICT is generally lower.Originality/valueThe quantitative as well as focus group results of this study confirm gender differences in access to ICTs, raising important questions about the points of policy intervention to redress such imbalances.


2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Ndonga

Abstract Trade in Africa has the potential to be revolutionized by Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), which have led to the development of e-commerce. These technologies have the capacity to boost intra-country and inter-country trade and subsequently promote economic development in African countries. However, many African States are yet to reap the full benefits of e-commerce, as it has not penetrated the continent to the extent experienced by Western countries. The lack of adequate ICT infrastructure, lack of basic ICT knowledge and threat of cybercrimes has created a significant barrier to the adoption and growth of e-commerce in many African countries. This article analyses the persisting digital divide barriers that have inhibited the penetration of e-commerce in Africa and suggests regulatory solutions to resolving them.


2020 ◽  
pp. 81-92
Author(s):  
Andrey Ivanovich Shutenko ◽  
◽  
Elena Nikolaevn Shutenko ◽  
Julia Petrovna Derevyanko ◽  
◽  
...  

The article is devoted to the problem of educational communications development as a sphere of implementation of modern information-communication technologies in the higher education system. The purpose of the article is to present the structure and functions of educational communications aimed at the development of personal potential and self-realization of students. Methodology. The study is based on the methodology of personal and communicative-informational approaches in education, psychological-pedagogical provisions on the structure of communication, the leading role of learning activity, didactic principles of building an educational-informational environment. In theoretical terms, the study is based on the idea of the indirect implementation of ICT in education through the development of educational communications. The developing structure of educational communications, including didactic, informational-gnostic, interactive, psychological, attractive-motivational, value-semantic components, is presented. The possibilities of developing personal potential in educational communications are considered. The author’s developmental model of ICT functions is presented, which includes clusters of actual and latent functions aimed at the formation of information-educational space for the development of students’ personal potential. In conclusion, a inference was made about the prospects of the indirect introduction of modern ICT as tools for the development and functioning of various educational communications. At the same time, it is essential that these communications perform psychological and pedagogical tasks and functions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 178-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zuzana Sándorová

Abstract Along with mastery of the grammar and vocabulary of a given language, contemporary students are also expected to acquire intercultural communicative competence (ICC), i.e., the ability to use the language efficiently with regard to the sociocultural background of the communicative situation. This requirement should also be reflected in FL course-books, which are considered to be fundamental didactic tools in FL education, even in an era of information communication technologies. Therefore, the aim of the present paper is to report the results of the research focused on the investigation of intercultural component in the New Opportunities Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate course-book packages. To validate the findings of the content analysis, as the main research method, the method of triangulation was used, i.e., the results of the course-book package analyses were compared with those of observation and interview analyses. The findings of the research revealed that in the investigated course-book packages only some aspects of the intercultural component could be considered relevant because they were suitably treated.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Geiselhart

In an environment of globalisation and rapidly expanding deployment of interactive digital communication, this paper takes a complex systems approach to the mapping of large scale global indicators onto electronic flows of information and intent. It argues that democracy is being transformed by online technologies, and that governments which embrace and encourage citizen inputs and monitoring of public information can establish vital groundwork for more effective forms of global governance. Growing awareness of issues that transcend jurisdictions makes such transformations both necessary and increasingly acceptable. The prism for this bird’s eye view is the Australian Government’s evolution in its uses of information communication technologies (ICTs) for citizen engagement.


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