Drought and Dependence in the Sahel

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Ball
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
Safety Margin ◽  
West African ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Ecological Stability ◽  
French West Africa ◽  
Self Reliance ◽  
Economic Stagnation ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between human activity and environmental degradation has been documented in numerous studies. With regard to West Africa, E. P. Stebbing was already warning of ecological degradation due to overcultivation and overgrazing in the 1930s. Less well documented are the reasons why people who understand many of the requirements of ecologically sound farming and herding nonetheless mismanage natural resources to the point of disaster. An examination of the 1968–1973 drought in the Sahel zone of West Africa (formerly French West Africa) suggests that the lack of economic autonomy for Sahelian countries is a major cause not only of their economic stagnation and underdevelopment but equally of the degradation of their ecosystems. Specific policies, initiated during the colonial period and continued by independent governments, can be identified as reducing the ability of West African farmers and herders to exploit their environment with an adequate safety margin. Largely as a result of the 1968–1973 drought, there has been an upsurge of interest in the Sahel on the part of international and national aid agencies. However, it is very possible that the programs devised by these groups will promote neither economic autonomy nor ecological stability for the countries in that region. A development strategy based largely on self-reliance, on the other hand, could be more successful in protecting both the populations and the ecology of the Sahel.

Divine Revelation in West Africa and Central Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 419-435
Author(s):  
Josiah Ulysses Young
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Traditional Religions ◽  
African Independent Churches ◽  
Independent Churches ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
African Traditional Religions

This chapter examines divine revelation in West Africa and Central Africa, with a historical focus on the relation of biblical beliefs to African traditional religions. It discusses the African independent churches, specifically the Église de Jésus-Christ sur la Terre par le Prophète Simon Kimbangu; Vincent Mulago’s essay in Des prêtres noirs s’interrogent (1956); specific essays from the book Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs (1969); and Engelbert Mveng’s book L’Art d’Afrique noire: liturgie cosmique et langage religieux (1964). The chapter also examines the recent scholarship of the Ghanaian theologian Mercy Oduyoye and the Congolese scholars Oscar Bimwenyi-Kweshi and Kä Mana. Regarding the relationship between divine revelation and African traditional religions, it discusses J. B. Danquah’s book The Akan Doctrine of God (1944), the arguments of the Congolese Egyptologist Mubabinge Bilolo, and the West African scholar Ntumba Museka.

Embodiology

2019 ◽  
pp. 762-784
Author(s):  
S. Ama Wray
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
West African ◽  
Performance Practices ◽  
Training Methodology ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
African Perspective ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Aesthetic Values

Dance-drumming performance practices in West Africa reveal multiple modes of communication that take place between performers and informed audiences, in an ongoing exchange of novelty. In the Ewe case, the critical nature of the relationship between movement, music, and language lies within their explicit drum syntax producing Ewephone comprehension, which is processed through the body’s varying porous kinaesonic surfaces. This principle process is conceptualized as Dynamic Rhythm, the metacomponent of Embodiology, which is both a training methodology and a theoretical framework that makes inherent improvisation discernable to the nonpractitioner. In addition, as a result of this understanding, interlocking aesthetic values within West African performance practices are identifiable within the African Diaspora. This articulation of improvisation from a West African perspective creates a gateway for both the scholarly and artistic fields of dance to develop a way to understand these autopoietic phenomena that were, until now, largely hidden.

France and Fragmentation in West Africa: 1945–1960

1967 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-333
Author(s):  
W. A. E. Skurnik
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Political Life ◽  
World War ◽  
French West Africa ◽  
Public Investments ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
Divide And Rule ◽  
Political Units

The term ‘balkanization’, as applied to colonial policy in Africa, frequently suggests a European ‘divide and rule’ policy, intended to fragment pre-existing African unity. An examination of the policy of France towards the former federation of French West Africa indicates that the term is inaccurate to describe French policy.The federation was created by the French for the French. It served to streamline French administration during the period of expansion, to help develop the component territories' economies, and to guarantee the security of French private investments. France conceived of the territories as the basic political units and hence modern political life was implanted there rather than in the federation. Post World War II French public investments flowed chiefly to the territories, common federal services were decentralized as territories acquired expertise and funds to run their own, and the quasi-federal Senate called the Grand Conseil was allowed to expire. Other aspects of French policy had unintended centrifugal effects, such as the metropolitan party structure and consequent dispersal of African representatives in Paris, and the influence of some French parties in Africa. Since 1956, France logically responded to African leaders' demands for more power and eventual autonomy in the territories, and left it to the Africans to decide whether or not to continue their federal relationship.By 1956, the federation had outlived its usefulness to France. It is improbable that the metropole could have ‘saved’ it, because political territorial roots were too strong, the Africans were not agreed, and relations between France and Africa had already become mainly bilateral with the territories directly. Consequently it appears that the federation, a purely French creation, was simply permitted to fade away once its functions were no longer relevant to French needs. It is true that France preferred eight small, powerless states to a strong federation when national independence approached, but ‘powerless’ and ‘strong’ in this context are but relative terms. The story of the federation of French West Africa suggests that such political structures can survive the colonial period only if they are anchored in fundamental African needs; this was not the case with that federation.

West Africa

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-40
Author(s):  
Eleanor M. Fox ◽  
Mor Bakhoum
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Institutional Environment ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
West African ◽  
French West Africa ◽  
Western Africa ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Open Markets ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
Striking Fact

This chapter details how eight nations of Western Africa—Senegal, Mali, the Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Guinea Bissau—transformed from government-controlled economies to market economies. The French West African states have adopted laws to open markets and protect competition, often at the behest of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, the project has been set back by political and economic instability, the lack of human and financial capital, and regional preemption of domestic competition law. It is a striking fact that there is virtually no competition law enforcement in French West Africa and no merger control law. The obstacles may ultimately be overcome with focus, leadership, will, and a reset of the institutional environment to allow national law to work hand in hand with regional law.

Francophone Africa at fifty

2013 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Francophone Africa ◽  
French West Africa ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Sub Saharan

2010 marked the 50th anniversary of the ‘Year of Africa’. All France’s colonies in sub-Saharan Africa gained their independence in that year. This book brings together leading scholars from across the globe to review ‘Francophone Africa at Fifty’. It examines continuities from the colonial to the post-colonial period and analyses the diverse and multi-faceted legacy of French colonial rule in sub-Saharan Africa. It also reviews the decolonization of French West Africa in comparative perspective and observes how independence is remembered and commemorated fifty years on.

From Paternalism to the Chambas Formula for Mediation: Conceptualizing Cooperation between the UN and Regional Organizations in Mediating Conflicts

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Thomas Kwasi Tieku ◽  
Megan Payler
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Soft Skills ◽  
West African ◽  
Regional Organizations ◽  
Elite Networks ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Consistent Application

Abstract This article explores the working relationship between the United Nations (UN), African Union (AU), and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in mediating conflicts in West Africa and the Sahel regions. We argue that through the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), the UN, ECOWAS and the AU are working on mediation efforts to transcend traditional conceptualizations of the relationship between the world body and regional organizations. We show that the partnership is grounded on the logic of subsidiarity, informality, elite networks, technical competence, soft skills, and robust social trust. For heuristic purposes, we call the six principles the Chambas Formula, with reference to the centrality of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for West Africa and the Sahel, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, and the emergence and consistent application of the principles in the mediation setting in West Africa and the Sahel regions.

‘Saving French West Africa’: the French army, African soldiers and military propaganda during the 1950s1

2013 ◽  
pp. 61-74
Author(s):  
Ruth Ginio
Keyword(s):  
West African ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
French West Africa ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
French Military ◽  
Strategic Reorganization ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World

Continuities of military structures and of protagonists within these structures are a particularly important aspect of the process of transforming colonial domination into the uneven partnerships of the post-colonial period. Ruth Ginio discusses in this context the role of the so-called tirailleurs sénégalais (becoming soldats africains), West African (veteran) soldiers mobilized by the French for service during the Second World War and the wars in Indochina and Algeria. Ginio shows that the necessities of the anticolonial revolts and widespread discontent among African soldiers in the aftermath of the campaigns in Europe in 1944/45, led to a strategic reorganization of the treatment of these individuals. Notably, the author analyses the contribution of French propaganda in the context of psychological action. The French military employed audiovisual means, namely cinema, to influence the African soldiers. Another aspect of this complex relationship was the priority given to attempts at separating the African units from the local populations during the campaigns – a strategy that did not work out in all cases. By the end of the colonial period, the experience of these various methods had, as Ginio argues, qualitatively changed the attitudes of African veterans. The latter would retain a bond to the military officers of the former colonial power beyond the threshold of independence.

Still Underused: Written German Sources for West Africa Before 1884

1986 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 225-244
Author(s):  
Adam Jones
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
German Literature ◽  
West African ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
The World ◽  
Mixed Feelings ◽  
To Receive

It is gratifying to receive compliments when one publishes books, yet I have mixed feelings about some of the kind words awarded to my two volumes of translations from seventeenth-century German sources on west Africa. What some people seem to be saying is: “Thank God I won't have to waste time learning that language!” Not only does this attitude rest on the untenable assumption that a translation is an adequate substitute for the original; it also underestimates the importance of those German works which remain untranslated.For those interested in the colonial period, of course, the German literature and archival material is very rich--not only for Togo and Cameroun, but also for other countries, notably Liberia. As soon as the Germans became politically involved in west African affairs in 1884, there appeared a whole flood of publications dealing with this part of the world; and there is also a great deal of unpublished material for the whole period 1884-1939 which urgently calls for more attention from scholars interested in the African past. This is generally recognized (the usual excuse offered for not using the German material is the difficulty of access to the Potsdam archive); yet it is seldom appreciated how much German material there is for the period before 1884.

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