scholarly journals Environmentalism in the Periphery: Institutional Embeddedness and Deforestation among Fifteen Palm Oil Producers, 1990 – 2012

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kent Henderson ◽  
Kristen Shorette
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Palm Oil ◽  
World System ◽  
Oil Production ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Primary Forest ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Global Institutions ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Sub Saharan

Environmental sociologists highlight the exploitative nature of the global capitalist economy where resource extraction from nations in the periphery tends to disproportionately benefit those of the core. From the Brazilian Amazon to mineral-rich Sub-Saharan Africa, the practice of “unequal ecological exchange” persists. Simultaneously, a “global environmental regime” has coalesced as a prominent feature of the contemporary world system. In the post-World War II era, legitimate nation-states must take steps to protect the natural environment and prevent its degradation even at their own economic expense. Stronger national ties to global institutions, particularly international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) consistently yield more positive environmental outcomes. However, previous work suggests that normative expectations for improved environmental practice will be weak or nonexistent in the periphery. We use the case of palm oil production and its relationship to deforestation to provide a more nuanced analysis of the relationship between material and institutional forces in the periphery. Using unbalanced panels of fifteen palm oil producing countries from 1990 to 2012, we find that stronger national ties to world society via citizen memberships in INGOs result in greater primary forest area among palm oil producers. However, this effect is strongest where production is lowest and weakens as production increases. Even in the cases of Indonesia and Malaysia, where palm oil production is substantially higher than any other producer, ties to global institutions are significantly related to reduced forest loss. These results indicate the variable importance of national embeddedness into global institutions within the periphery of the world system.

scholarly journals Malavika Karlekar (ed.). Paradigms of Learning: The Total Literacy Campaign in India. New Delhi: Sage Publications. 2004. 356 pages. Paperback. Indian Rupees 375.00.

2003 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-169
Author(s):  
Samina Nazli
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Adult Literacy ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
Least Developed Countries ◽  
Literacy Campaign ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Sub Saharan

Raising the standards of literacy in the developing world has been a major goal of the less developed countries since most of them became independent in the process of decolonisation that followed World War II. The Human Development Report 2004, brought out by the United Nations Development Programme lists some major improvements in increasing literacy levels of a number of countries between the year 1990 and 2002. For example, low human development countries like Togo increased their adult literacy rates from 44.2 percent in 1990 to 59.6 percent in 2002. Congo saw an increase in its literacy rate for the same period from 67.1 percent to 82.8 percent. The rates for Uganda, Kenya, Yemen, and Nigeria are 56.1 percent and 68.9 percent, 70.8 percent and 84.3 percent, 32.7 percent and 49.0 percent, and 48.7 percent and 68.8 percent respectively. If one examines the breakdown by region, the least developed countries as a group saw an increase in their adult literacy rates from 43.0 percent to 52.5 percent, the Arab states from 50.8 percent to 63.3 percent, South Asia from 47.0 percent to 57.6 percent, Sub-Saharan Africa from 50.8 percent to 63.2 percent and East Asia and the Pacific from 79.8 percent to 90.3 percent. If we look at the increase in the levels of literacy from the perspective of medium human development and low human development, the figures are 71.8 percent and 80.4 percent, and 42.5 percent and 54.3 percent, respectively.

scholarly journals NATIONHOOD AND THE QUEST FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: THE GAMBIA’S EXPERIENCE UNDER THE SECOND REPUBLIC, 1994 – 2015

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (17) ◽  
pp. 665-673
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
National Development ◽  
The Gambia ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Second Republic ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Ecological Resources ◽  
Human Material ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Fact Finding

The task of nation-building today in the world is that which carries along all well-meaning modern nation-states, with Gambia as no exemption. This paper examines the nationhood process and effort in the Gambia between 1994 and 2015. It focuses on national development efforts both in the first and second republics. The paper investigates how human, material and ecological resources are harnessed and deployed towards this noble goal, availing enabling policy-thrusts for effective implementation and goal attainments that attract sustainable socio-economic and political development. The paper beams searchlights on the redoubled efforts under the Yahya Jammeh regime and the pragmatic approaches taken to achieve more meaningfully goal-oriented national development strides that pave ways for practical development giants and strides. An inductive and deductive methods of research that are descriptive and fact-finding are employed for empirical and critical explorations. The paper posits that the strategies of the second republic government, which surpass the first republic’s conservatively-constructed approaches under Jawara served as impetus for the accomplishments recorded from 1994 to 2015 in making the Gambia an economic super power through industrialization of the agro-economic structures and processes of the small nation in the sub-Saharan Africa. Keywords: Nation, Nationhood, National Development, The Gambia, Second Republic, Independence.

scholarly journals Governance, Civil Conflict, And Refugee Protection In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Primer

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce A. Forster ◽  
Jessica D. Forster
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
World War ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
The People ◽  
Sub Saharan

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">This paper provides an introduction to the concepts of governance and state weakness, fragility or failure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Selected indices of performance are presented with an emphasis on Sub-Saharan Africa. As noted by the 2005 UK Commission for Africa &ldquo;The most extreme breakdown of governance is war.&rdquo; The paper discusses the concepts and definitions of civil conflict and civil war, and the prevalence of civil war in Sub &ndash;Saharan Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Among the costs of civil war are the people who are displaced due to their fear for life amidst the conflict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>If displaced persons exit the country they become refugees. The paper provides an introduction to the evolution of international humanitarian law since World War II to protect non-combatants, including refugees.</span></span></p>

scholarly journals Divergent Paths of Development: The Modern World-System and Democratization in South Africa and Zambia

2001 ◽  
pp. 175-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Andreasson
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
World System ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Postcolonial Africa

The 1990s constitute a watershed decade for change in postcolonial Africa as one-party states have crumbled and old authoritarian leaders have stepped down or been removed. The ?rst few years of the 1990s saw about half of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa either install, or prepare for, multiparty rule (Widner 1994:1; van de Walle 1999a:21). Of course, not all change has been positive and it is not clear whether the current democratic wave can be sustained as the latter part of the decade has brought both severe setbacks and continued success (Bratton and van de Walle 1997:3; Diamond 1999:269–270; Baker 2000: 9). Considering the precarious nature of African democratization, it is necessary to further investigate its future prospects.

Need for Sustainable Development

2018 ◽  
pp. 30-46
Author(s):  
Samwel J. Kabote ◽  
Halima Omari Mangi
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Livelihood Security ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Sub Saharan

Since 2015, the efforts to promote sustainable development turned into a new face after the 17 Sustainable Development Goals were embraced by the 193 nation states, in the world, to be implemented up to 2030. Despite this impressing milestone, the concept of SD is not explored sufficiently. This chapter reviews and discusses need for SD in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where poverty is rampant and livelihood security is deprived. The chapter argues that SSA needs SD. This can be achieved through a balance between the environment, society, economy and institutions, concurrently with interventions to eliminate abject poverty and improve livelihood security. Additionally, SSA should address the challenges that impede the efforts to promote SD seriously with considerations that the communities are heterogeneous and inequalities in different forms are lingering. The future research should investigate, among others, appropriate strategies and interventions to balance the environment, society and the economy for SD.

Fire in African Landscapes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Pooley
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Fire Ecology ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
East African ◽  
Fire Use ◽  
Management Plans ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Indigenous Burning

Fires have burned in African landscapes for more than a hundred million years, long before vertebrate herbivores trod the earth and modified vegetation and fire regimes. Hominin use of lightning fires is apparent c.1.5 million years ago, becoming deliberate and habitual from c. 400 thousand years ago (kya). The emergence of modern humans c. 195 kya was marked by widespread and deliberate use of fire, for hunting and gathering through to agricultural and pastoral use, with farming and copper and iron smelting spreading across sub-Saharan Africa with the Bantu migrations from 4–2.5 kya. Europeans provided detailed reports of Africans’ fire use from 1652 in South Africa and the 1700s in West Africa. They regarded indigenous fire use as destructive, an agent of desiccation and destruction of forests, with ecological theories cementing this in the European imagination from the 1800s. The late 1800s and early 1900s were characterized by colonial authorities’ attempts to suppress fires, informed by mistaken scientific ideas and management principles imported from temperate Europe and colonial forestry management elsewhere. This was often ignored by African and settler farmers. In the 1900s, the concerns of colonial foresters and fears about desiccation and soil erosion fueled by the American Dust Bowl experience informed anti-fire views until mid-century. However, enough time had elapsed for colonial and settler scientists and managers to have observed fires and indigenous burning practices and their effects, and to begin to question received wisdom on their destructiveness. Following World War II, during a phase of colonial cooperation and expert-led attempts to develop African landscapes, a more nuanced understanding of fire in African landscapes emerged, alongside greater pragmatism about what was achievable in managing wildfires and fire use. Although colonial restrictions on burning fueled some independence struggles, postcolonial environmental managers appear on the whole to have adopted their former oppressors’ attitudes to fire and burning. Important breakthroughs in fire ecology were made in the 1970s and 1980s, influenced by a movement away from equilibrium-based ecosystems concepts where fires were damaging disturbances to ecosystems, to an understanding of fires as important drivers of biodiversity integral to the functioning of many African landscapes. Notably from the 1990s, anthropologists influenced by related developments in rangeland ecology combined ecological studies with studies of indigenous land use practices to assess their impacts over time, challenging existing narratives of degradation in West African forests and East African savannas. Attempts were made to integrate communities (and, to a lesser extent, indigenous knowledge) into fire management plans and approaches. In the 2000s, anthropologists, archeologists, geographers, historians, and political ecologists have contributed studies telling more complex stories about human fire use. Together with detailed histories of landscape change offered by remote sensing and analysis of charcoal and pollen deposits, these approaches to the intertwined human and ecological dimensions of fire in African landscapes offer the prospect of integrated histories that can inform our understanding of the past and guide our policies and management in the future.

Orthography and identity in Cameroon

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Bird
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Tone Languages ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
New Nation

The tone languages of sub-Saharan Africa raise challenging questions for the design of new writing systems. Marking too much or too little tone can have grave consequences for the usability of an orthography. Orthography development, past and present, rests on many sociolinguistic issues having little to do with the technical phonological concerns that usually preoccupy orthographers. Some of these issues are familiar from the spelling reforms which have taken place in European languages. However, many of the issues faced in sub-Saharan Africa are different, being concerned with the creation of new writing systems in a multi-ethnic context — involving residual colonial influences, the construction of new nation-states, detribalization vs. culture preservation and language reclamation. Language development projects which crucially rely on creating or revising orthographies may founder if they do not attend to the various layers of identity (colonial, national, ethnic, local, or individual) that are indexed by orthography. This study reviews the history and politics of orthography in Cameroon, with a focus on tone-marking. The article concludes by calling present-day orthographers to a deeper and broader understanding of orthographic issues.

Education and Social Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa

1980 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Foster
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
World War ◽  
Traditional Societies ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Individual

Few would disagree with the observation that the schools and universities of sub-Saharan Africa are perhaps the most important contemporary mechanisms of stratification and redistribution on the continent. They are not simply reflections of extant patterns of social and economic differentiation, but rather powerful independent forces in the creation of new and emergent groupings based on the variable possession of power, wealth, and prestige. Moreover, in using the word ‘contemporary’ we should not overlook the fact that formal educational systems are not a recent phenomenon in Africa. Schools existed on the western littoral in the eighteenth century, and their development in many parts of Africa, though slow up to the beginning of World War II, was of great significance. However, the African ‘educational explosion’ is largely a post-war phenomenon, and as a result we can no longer regard the school as an alien and intrusive institution perched precariously atop a range of predominantly ‘traditional’ societies. In most parts of Africa, the school is now as familiar a part of the local scene as the corrugated iron roof. Virtually everywhere, a whole generation would think it inconceivable to be without schools and, what is more, though Africa still remains the least formally educated of the continents, almost everyone now has a lively sense of the individual benefits that education can bring. As in other areas of social life, Africans perceive schooling in shrewd, pragmatic, and instrumental terms.

The Ethnogenesis of the Oromo Nation and Its Implications for Politics in Ethiopia

1995 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmond J. Keller
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist China ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The One ◽  
Ethnic Nation ◽  
The Cold War

The end of the cold war has coincided with, and in some cases fuelled, the politicisation of ethnically based nationalism, particularly in Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. The international political environment had previously been characterised by ideological competition and conflict between the United States on the one hand and the Soviet Union and Communist China on the other. Both of these ideological camps stressed the cohesion and viability of multi-ethnic nation-states, and as a matter of policy discouraged the representation of groups based upon a distinctive ethnic identity,1 a tendency reinforced in social science scholarship, which often focused on what was described as the process of national political integration. To the extent that it existed and was relevant, scholars generally agreed that ethnic solidarity was different from nationalism in that it did not require the creation of an ethnically pure nation-state. Today, however, the notion of the inviolability of certain internationally recognised entities is being seriously called into question as ethnic groups assert their right to self-determination up to, and including, separation from the multi-ethnic state.

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