Volume 27, number 2 (2006)
Theme Issue: Africa Confronts Development
Africa and Development: Between Liberal Dictates and the Needs of the State — Introduction
“There is some evidence of a resurgence of interest in research on development, at least within North American universities. This resurgence is often combined with a renewed interest in Africa since this continent crystallizes the greatest developmental challenges and, due to its brief political history, still constitutes one of the best laboratories possible for observing the complex process of designing and implementing development policies … The Canadian Journal of Development Studies could not fail to notice the renewal of research on the African continent, and thus this special issue is devoted to the problems of development in Africa … Beyond the specific nature of the topics they address, the articles in this issue all raise a recurring problem: the partitioning of African societies between the dictates of neo-liberalism and the need for government. Yet the scope of the challenges to be met in the areas of health, jobs, the environment, and so on begs the question raised by Mkandawire (2003) of what happens if Africa fails, in its quest for development, to make the private market and private initiative a complement to rather than a substitute for government?”
Le Nouveau partenariat pour le développement de l’Afrique (NEPAD) : trois éléments de critique
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (better known as NEPAD) is a strategic development framework for the African continent. This article examines the document’s relevance as well as the policies advocated. Criticisms focus on the document’s economic content. This paper argues that (1) the issue of investment financing is handled rather awkwardly and the investment options are not adequately ranked, (2) policies to battle poverty are insufficiently developed, and (3) the project is based on an excessively minimalist approach to the role of governments in Africa.
The Implications of NEPAD for Capital Accumulation
The role of private investment in Africa’s economic development has been underscored since the advent of neo-liberalism. Many of the macroeconomic and sectoral policy reforms of structural adjustment programmes were aimed at reinvigorating local entrepreneurs and attracting foreign investment to African economies. This objective was largely unsuccessful. While the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) follows similar objectives in promoting the role of the private sector in the capital accumulation drive, it introduces new elements in the policy environment. The three major elements are the initiatives regarding good governance, infrastructure, and regional economic integration with the objective of effectively integrating Africa into the globalization process. The paper investigates the implications of these three initiatives of NEPAD for capital accumulation in Africa. It also comments on the impact NEPAD may have on the forms of accumulation; that is, how it may reconfigure the relative position of local entrepreneurs, public enterprises, and foreign investment in African economies.
Acteurs locaux, représentation et « politics » des éco-pouvoirs dans le Cameroun rural post-1994
One of the major innovations in Cameroon’s forest industry is the devolution of management authority to local communities. These communities have viewed this shift as a response to their age-old demands — and frustrations — regarding profits from commercial harvesting of forests on their land base. The creation of community forests, local exploitation of those forests, and management of the income generated by sales of logs and timber, on the one hand, and access to forms of forest taxes by village communities, on the other hand, are significant factors in this change. The following lines briefly describe the basic mechanisms for this transfer of power over “nature and money.” They then explore the results generated by the “powers game” and local politics before assessing the role of local representatives — management committees — in the dynamics at work. Finally, working from the assumption that the observed limits arise to a large extent from the lack of benchmarks for decentralized management, the author proposes a research approach generally based on identifying indicators for monitoring the exercise of powers over the forest environment and forestry revenue.
Getting Natuye Off the Ground: Professional Capacity Building for the SADC’s Environment and Development Sectors
This article reviews the current experience in establishing Natuye: Institute for the Environment, a Namibia-based NGO whose goal is to support professional development in the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) environment and development sector. Despite its seeming comparative advantage to meet an identified need, the institute has faced many obstacles in becoming established. Some lessons for Natuye are gained from a similar initiative, NetWise, which failed when donor funds dried up. Innovative funding, institutional partnerships, and business-like delivery models are required to get Natuye off the ground. Wider conclusions on the strategic direction and modalities of southern African capacity-building initiatives are offered.
Lost in the Fray: State HIV/AIDS Policies in South Africa and their Impact on Women
This paper examines the situation of women regarding HIV/AIDS in South Africa and the apparent impact of the state’s policies. It identifies policies and trends in the context of the stakeholders, constraints, resources, and capacities as well as such external factors as bilateral and multilateral policies. Given that South Africa is the country with the largest number of HIV/AIDS-affected people worldwide, and that the majority are women, this paper suggests that the policies, although established in nearly all sectors, are relatively small and piecemeal and require a significantly more coordinated, women-inclusive, large-scale effort to effectively combat the disease.
« Dé-privatisation » de la politique commerciale ? Le cas du tarif extérieur commun de l’Union Économique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine
Industrial lobbying has long influenced trade policy in West African countries. At one point, conflicting World Bank and IMF doctrines impeded trade liberalization in West Africa and played into the hands of pressure groups. In the 1990s, the reforms advocated by these two institutions moved into closer alignment, especially as part of support for regional integration. Although the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) tends to favour the status quo in trade policy reform, support of the Washington Consensus and of the European Union has allowed partial trade policy deprivatization by applying a common external tariff (CET). However, maintaining national tax exemptions and incentives very seriously erodes the CET’s impact and may jeopardize the reform’s sustainability as well as the opportunity to expand the Customs Union to other West African countries with the negotiation of the Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union.
Franchising and the Potential for Economic Development in Africa
This paper examines the contribution of franchising to economic development in Africa. It is based on a recent questionnaire/interview survey of 52 franchising systems (franchisors and franchisees) in South Africa, Egypt,Morocco, and Côte d’Ivoire done for the African Development Bank. The paper explores the role of franchising in the promotion of entrepreneurship, employment creation, transfer of technologies and know-how, innovation, the generation of foreign exchange earnings, poverty alleviation, and the enhancement of saving. Franchising is defined here as business format franchising (excluding thereby pure trademark franchising, in which the rights to a company identity would not be accompanied by the product itself, the processes, specific business know-how, training, etc.). The study concludes that franchised business has experienced very strong growth, especially in South Africa, and that it contributes significantly to technology transfers, employment creation, and poverty alleviation.
Reviews
Reclaiming Development: Independent Thought and Caribbean Community, Kari Levitt
The Power of Greed: Collective Action in International Development, Michael Mosberg