The Sahel: Regional Politics and Dynamics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Elischer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
West African ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Regional Politics ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Islamic Terrorism ◽  
Security Challenge ◽  
Sub Saharan

Niger, Mali, Mauritania, and Chad are some of least researched countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Since independence from France in 1960 these four countries have experienced two distinct yet interrelated struggles: the struggle for statehood and the struggle for democracy. Each country has experienced violent conflict between the central authorities in the capitals and security challengers on the peripheries. Prominent examples are the Tuareg uprisings in Niger and Mali, the various rebel insurgencies in Chad, and the conflict between black Africans and Arabs in Mauritania. The emergence of jihadi-Salafi groups in the West African sub-region affects all four countries and poses a particularly strong security challenge to Mali. All these conflicts are unresolved. The liberalization of the political sphere in the late 1980s and early 1990s has led to considerable political diversity across the Sahel. In Niger and Mali meaningful multiparty competition and basic civil liberties have taken root despite many setbacks. Civil society is strong and in the past has successfully mobilized against autocratic tendencies. In Mauritania and Chad, democratic institutions exist on paper as autocratic rulers have managed to stay in office. The national armed forces remain the preeminent political actors. Civil society is not strong enough to achieve political change for the better. Stagnant living conditions, social immobility, the ongoing war against Islamic terrorism, and weak accountability mechanisms remain the most important political challenges for the Sahel.

Funding of a free healthcare campaign in a rural district of Cameroon: Optimizing the role of civil society in sub-Saharan Africa

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-224
Author(s):  
B. Keugoung ◽  
F. Fouelifack Ymele ◽  
J. Dongtsa Mabou ◽  
C. Nangue ◽  
P. Ngouadjio Kougoum ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Rural District ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Free Healthcare ◽  
Sub Saharan

An Historical Assessment and Analysis of Economic Imperialism in West Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale ◽  
Natewinde Sawadogo
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
National Development ◽  
West African ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
The West ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Economic Imperialism

Abstract The West African political economy has been shaped by the policies, decisions and actions of dominant European imperialist countries since about over 500 years. Starting with imperial merchant capitalism along the West African coast in the 16th Century and French gradual acquisition of Senegal as a colony as from 1677, West Africa has remained under the imperialist hold. West Africa remains economically dependent on its former colonial masters despite more than 60 years since the countries started gaining independence. The consequences of economic imperialism on West Africa have included exploitative resource extraction, proxy and resource influenced civil wars, illegal trade in natural resources, mass poverty, and external migration of skilled workers necessary for national development. The world sees and broadcasts poverty, starvation, conflict and Saharan migration in the West African sub-continent, but hardly reports the exploitative imperialistic processes that have produced poverty and misery in West Africa in particular and across sub-Saharan Africa in general.

Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy and JC Virus Genotypes in West African Patients With Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

1999 ◽  
Vol 123 (5) ◽  
pp. 395-403
Author(s):  
Sylvester C. Chima ◽  
Hansjürgen T. Agostini ◽  
Caroline F. Ryschkewitsch ◽  
Sebastian B. Lucas ◽  
Gerald L. Stoner
Keyword(s):  
Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy ◽  
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome ◽  
Jc Virus ◽  
West African ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Virus Genotypes ◽  
Acquired Immunodeficiency ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
African Patients ◽  
Immunodeficiency Syndrome

Abstract Objective—Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy is caused by polyomavirus JC in immunosuppressed patients. JC virus genotypes are identified by sequence analysis of the viral genome. Despite the prevalence of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in sub-Saharan Africa, few cases of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy have been reported from this region. Here we describe 4 African cases and provide an analysis of viral genotypes. Methods.—Immunohistochemical staining by labeled streptavidin-biotin for capsid protein antigen was performed on all cases. Polymerase chain reaction amplification of viral genomic DNA was followed by direct cycle sequencing. Results.—JC virus type 3 was identified in 2 cases, and type 6 was isolated in 1 case. The viral regulatory region from 1 case showed an uncommon rearrangement pattern. Conclusions.—Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy in West African patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is caused by African genotypes of JC virus (types 3 and 6). The prevalence of disease in this autopsy series from sub-Saharan Africa (1.5%) was less than has been reported from Europe and the United States (4% to 10%) and may be partly due to biological differences in JC virus genotypes. Further studies will be needed to confirm this observation.

Exploring the ICT Capabilities of Civil Society in Sub Saharan Africa

2011 ◽  
pp. 207-228
Author(s):  
Joshua C. Nyirenda
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Press Freedom ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
Operational Capabilities ◽  
Proxy Measure ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Masses

Civil society is argued to have been the most significant force of many forces that eradicated entrenched authoritarianism in Africa, in the early 1990s, ushering most of these countries to multi-party democracies. And yet after such accomplishment, many of these new democracies have receded to undemocratic practices. With weak economies, civil society faces many challenges in resource mobilization and in mobilizing the masses for national causes. Information communication technologies, or ICTs, are increasingly being seen as an aid to the mobilization and organization challenges of civil society. However, advanced ICT capabilities are mostly in developed countries where civil society is already strong. Using e-governance as a proxy measure for ICT capabilities for civil society, this chapter conducts an exploratory study using secondary baseline data collected by international institutions on Sub Saharan Countries. The relationship between ICT capabilities and the several civil society development indicators (press freedom, civil liberties, and various other variables) is investigated. Later, the Nation of Zambia (a country with moderate ICT capabilities in the region) is used for a qualitative case study to explore how ICT capabilities and various contextual issues influence ICT applications by civil society organizations to enhance operational capabilities such as collaboration and mobilization efforts.

Beyond Jihad: The Pacifist Tradition in West African Islam

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-369
Author(s):  
John Azumah
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
West African ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Political Office ◽  
Sub Saharan

Lamin Sanneh’s book Beyond Jihad deals with the peaceful transmission of Islam in West Africa by a pacifist clerical group. The author challenges the claim that the old African kingdom of Ghana was conquered by the militant Berber Almoravids in the eleventh century. Islam was not introduced into sub-Saharan Africa through militant jihad, as generally believed. The principal agents for the dissemination of Islam in West Africa were local clerics, who used the peaceful means of accommodation and adaptation. The clerical tradition was pacifist, emphasizing learning and teaching, not war and political office.

Tanzania: Civil–Military Relations and Nationalism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel G. Zirker
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Military Training ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
East African ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Why have there been no successful military interventions or civil wars in Tanzania’s nearly 60 years of independence? This one historical accomplishment, by itself striking in an African context, distinguishes Tanzania from most of the other post-1960 independent African countries and focuses attention on the possibilities and nature of successful civil–military relations in sub-Saharan Africa. Contrary to most civil–military relations theory, rather than isolating the military in order to achieve civilian oversight, Tanzania integrated the military, the dominant political party, and civil society in what one observer called a combination of “political militancy” and “antimilitarism,” somewhat akin, perhaps, to the Chinese model. China did provide intensive military training for the Tanzanians beginning in the 1960s, although this could in no way have been expected to ensure successful integration of the military with civil society, nor could it ensure peaceful civil–military relations. Eight potentially causal and overlapping conditions have been outlined to explain this unique absence of civil–military strife in an African country. Relevant but admittedly partial explanations are: the largely salutary and national developmental role of the founding president, Julius Nyerere; the caution and long-term fear of military intervention engendered by the 1964 East African mutinies; Tanzania’s radical foreign policy as a Frontline State; its ongoing territorial disputes with Uganda and Malawi; concerted efforts at coup-proofing through the co-opting of senior military commanders; and the country’s striking ethnic heterogeneity, in which none of the 125 plus ethnolinguistic tribes had the capacity to assume a hegemonic dominance. Each factor has a role in explaining Tanzania’s unique civil–military history, and together they may comprise a plausible explanation of the over 50 years of peaceful civil–military relations. They do not, however, provide a hopeful prognosis for future civil–military relations in a system that is increasingly challenging the dominant-party state, nor do they account for Tanzania’s subsequent democratic deficit.

Social conflict, civil society, and maternal mortality in African countries

Leadership ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 543-555
Author(s):  
Iyabo Obasanjo
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Maternal Mortality ◽  
Social Conflict ◽  
Control Variable ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Social Conflicts ◽  
North African ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
North African Countries

This study looks at the association between social conflicts, civil society freedom, and democracy, and how social conflicts impact maternal mortality in African countries as a first step toward understanding how to use civil society to pressure Sub-Saharan African governments into improving maternal mortality ratios and other human development indicators. Pro-Government riots were negatively associated with civil society freedom. Organized Demonstrations and Organized Riots were positively associated with civil society freedom when North African countries were included in the data, but when they were excluded, only Organized Riots were associated with civil society freedoms. The period under study included the Arab Spring, which was characterized by high numbers of Organized Demonstrations in North African countries. I theorized that Organized Demonstrations occur less often in Sub-Saharan African countries due to lower levels of internet connectivity (used to organize) or because government forces use severe suppression, which escalates demonstrations into riots more in Sub-Saharan Africa. The fewer Pro-Government riots there are, the freer the civil society, and the more Organized Demonstrations and Organized Riots, the freer the civil society. This indicates that Pro-Government riots tend to be organized as part of the government repression of civil society. The analyses used democratization levels of countries as a control variable and found that as autocracy level increases, the level of civil society freedom decreases. Organized Demonstrations were the only form of social conflict associated with maternal mortality. It was a negative association, with rising maternal mortality associated with fewer Organized Demonstrations. The finding therefore suggests that democratic governance, with associated civil society freedom, that allows Organized Demonstrations provides the best scenario for health outcomes in African countries.

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