In an article on educational planning, C. Arnold Anderson and Mary Jean Bowman (1968) suggest that there is a conflict between equity and efficiency in the distribution of schools. Since independence, each Anglophonic African state has altered the English educational inheritance of local religious and voluntary schools and has opted in favor of a more centralized system of state control. Centralized control, according to Anderson and Bowman, could theoretically act as a vehicle for an increase in equity by spreading schools more evenly throughout the population and therefore limiting the advantages which could accrue to the children of the privileged. On the other hand, the authors view centralized control as a device which might obstruct the efficient utilization of schools, since the pattern of school distribution reflects the local population's interest in education and their effort to acquire it.

By extension, Anderson and Bowman infer that localized decision-making would tend to maximize efficiency. They say that “[in] localities where given educational efforts will evoke the largest response in attendance and in demand for further schooling … [such effort] tends to be realized by local interest and resources” (1968: 361).

I wish to explore the Anderson and Bowman equity-efficiency dilemma by focusing upon Uganda as a case in point. I do not differ substantially from them. As assumed from their thesis, there have been changes in efficiency and in equity since Ugandan government became involved in primary education. But in contrast to the expectations of their thesis, I question whether the effect of government involvement has not been detrimental to three specific areas of equity—the same equity under whose guise centralized action was originally motivated.

This article examines how multinational corporations, recognizing the symbolic value of oil pipelines, flow stations, and platforms as ancestral promises of wealth to subject populations, work with NGOs and communities (sometimes in collaboration with the latter, but sometimes in a more adversarial manner) in setting up governance structures that often compete with, and sometimes oppose, the state in struggles over territorial control and resource extraction. These forms of contestations, it argues, create new sites of power in which NGOs aid multinational oil corporations in negotiating new sites of governance that in themselves create new structures of power.

This article provides a ground-level view of market taxation in two local government areas in Ghana’s relatively disadvantaged northern region. It describes a system shaped by informal practices that are grounded in social relationships and collective norms, which sometimes foster greater equity and in other cases serve to reinforce existing inequalities. The evidence suggests the need for a more nuanced understanding of the highly informal and socially embedded realities of local tax collection, and the possibility that improved outcomes could be achieved by “working with the grain” of these inescapable local realities, while seeking to minimize potential costs of informality.

Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African country to achieve independence after World War II, has experienced several diverse forms of government, including a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy, a socialist single-party republic, and two military regimes following coups d'etat in 1966 and 1972. Like most of the developing states of West Africa, Ghana has been plagued by post-independence political instability. In fact, the search for a permanent and viable solution to what appears almost as a persistent governmental crisis—a crisis of political legitimacy, of credibility, confidence and trust in existing political institutions—seems to be the dominant public preoccupation in most West African nations today.

In a recent, perceptive review of three major works on contemporary Ghanaian politics, Paul Ladouceur concludes that “the ‘political kingdom’ has come to mean, not to govern, or to govern wisely, but rather to win by election or by a coup. Ghana has entered a period of political stagnation parallel to the economic stagnation of the last decade or two. Hopefully it will nonetheless find its way to a representative and a stable form of government, perhaps different from what it might be expected” (1977: 348) [emphasis added].

Toward the end of 1976 the ruling Supreme Military Council (SMC) headed by General I. K. Acheampong initiated an historic proposal for a Union Government, a plan designed to provide a real solution to Ghana's quest for a stable and representative government.

This article aims to analyze the emergence of the migration-development nexus after decolonization in Francophone sub-Saharan Africa. The first section explores the way in which French governmental bodies and NGOs started to frame public policies linking migration and development in the 1960s and 1970s. The second section highlights how developmentalist ideology was mobilized in the 1980s in order to set up return policies in partnership with African governments who were increasingly inclined to control migrants’ monetary remittances. The last section emphasizes how the migration-development nexus was orchestrated to control migratory flows from the late 1980s onwards.

For many young Malian men, trade offers, or seems to offer, the possibility of escape from the poverty endemic to their society. Important traders are well dressed, well fed, have large families and entree to high circles of wealth and power (Amselle 1987a). Many believe that, through dint of hard work, savvy and a with little luck, anyone can become a successful trader.

While no one knows exactly how many attempt a career in commerce, Malian cities and towns teem with boys and men engaged in petty trade. Women are also involved in trade, though most deal only in small quantities of cooked food or garden produce. Men and boys sell pre-recorded cassettes, cigarettes, kola and other inexpensive merchandise. All believe that if they do the right things, and it is the will of God, they will succeed.

Success, for men, means progressively increasing the size of their business and eventually owning a large store, several trucks or another large enterprise. Women generally do not operate financially important businesses. However, they may have substantial behind-the-scenes investment in them.

For a Malian man, becoming a prosperous merchant can be seen as a process of joining a commercial community. The members of the commercial community control access to the wealth and the connections that can transform a poor shopkeeper into a wealthy merchant. Aspiring merchants must follow a course of action that allows them to identify increasingly with and be accepted by this community.

Angola is a large country with a relatively small population and abundant natural resources, including oil reserves. The high price fetched by oil, the mainstay of the Angolan economy, on international markets has helped this leading producer attain growth rates that are among the highest in the world. However, Angola is also noted for its unequal distribution of wealth and notorious political corruption. This article seeks to explore this paradox within the framework of the so-called resource curse theory and analyze the role played by the oil industry in the process.

This article examines the continued salience of sung protests in South Africa by investigating the adaptation of anti-apartheid freedom songs along with the emergence of new expressive forms in ongoing community mobilizations. Based on sixteen months of ethnographic research in Johannesburg, this article argues that freedom songs constitute a distinct register that is politically efficacious due to singing’s aesthetically embodied effects. Formative elements of antiphony, repetition, and rhythm constitute a musical practice that organizes protest gatherings, allows for democratic leadership, and fosters collective participation. These practices yield a plasticity in the songs that makes them adaptable to changing political circumstances.

The flight of human capital is a phenomenon that has been of concern to academics and development practitioners for decades. Termed the brain drain, it represents the loss of highly skilled professionals from a source country to a recipient country. Migrants leave one country for another as a result of strong attractions associated with differentials in living conditions, opportunities for professional advancement, and the existence of an environment that is conducive to peace and security. The term brain drain gained currency in the 1950s. Then it referred to emigration of scientists to the United States from countries such as Britain, Canada, and the former Soviet Union. Today, the concept is used to denote the flight of highly skilled professionals and academics from developing to developed countries.

This article examines an environmental experiment in northern Kenya that went badly amiss. Focusing on the introduction of an invasive plant, prosopis juliflora, it explores wider issues of scientific hegemony, political identity, and land conflicts. Two legal cases pitting a small pastoralist community against the Kenyan state are discussed, which reveal a new but generally unsuccessful strategy by indigenous groups of utilizing courts to address injustices. The research draws on ethnographic, archival, and visual materials collected over a thirty-five-year period to demonstrate the violence and impoverishment that can be associated with technical interventions aimed at “greening” the environment.

In a recent contribution, Bruce Johnston and William C. Clark (1983) deplore the “inconclusive skirmishes among development advisors” which lead to the danger that “those bent on self-interested efforts to exploit or to ignore the poor can invariably find some advisory recommendation to interpret as support for their favoured programs….” While “academic pursuits may thrive on conflict, effective implementation of a social action program requires substantial consensus … because policy makers, with their time and attention limited, otherwise find it difficult to make the ‘right purchases’ of policy options.” The “nay-sayers carry the day.”

All those who have, since September 1981, been parties to the discussion of the World Bank's Report on Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action (hereafter Accelerated Development) should take these warnings seriously. As the flow of words has increased, the crisis in Africa has deepened. While this paper adds to the flow of words, it attempts to find the commonalities upon which agreements for action can be based.

In particular, we attempt to clear up some widespread misunderstandings regarding the position taken by the report on certain key issues. After two years of intensive discussion, there is a clear need to reflect both on the markedly deteriorated global circumstances within which Africa has to live and to devise its programs, and on the component parts of Accelerated Development's Agenda for Action.

This article replicates Guyer's finding in Marginal Gains (2004) of a social gradient in expenditure patterns of Ghanaian households using more flexible statistical techniques than those used in the book. We show that similar gradients are found in Cote d'lvoire and in Kagera, Tanzania, suggesting that Guyer's finding in Ghana is a manifestation of a more general phenomenon. In addition, we examine patterns of measurement error in household expenditure data from Ghana. This reveals a worrying possibility that survey reports of expenditure may reflect respondents' beliefs about what expenditures should be, as well as actual expenditures within the household.

This article analyzes the value chain for Chinese manufactured goods such as garments and textiles sold in sub-Saharan Africa. It explores the opportunities for Africans with small, private businesses in the export trade from China, the potential for long-term business development, and how strategies of engagement have changed over time. It finds that the value chains for low-cost goods vary. There is great diversity of entry levels and opportunities for socioeconomic mobility, and traders evolve diverse strategies to obtain and defend their position in the chain. These findings are discussed in terms of understandings of international value chains, the informal economy, and African economic development strategies.

Karin Barber's thoughtful and substantial overview of popular arts in Africa comes at a critical juncture in the development of this field of study. Only in the past decade has a dialogue been initiated among scholars in the various disciplines who study popular arts. Barber's essay stands as an important contribution to this dialogue. Her commentary reflects the richness and complexity of this potential field of study whose purview includes visual, literary, and performance arts.

Studies of the popular arts consistently describe them as topical, new, innovative, and modern. Most scholars, Barber included, identify the emergence of an African popular art with one setting and one period, the urban colonial and post-colonial world.

A plethora of new arts combining local African and Western forms have emerged and been documented precisely during this period. Barber identifies this syncretism as a characteristic feature of African popular art. She argues persuasively that many contemporary urban popular arts seem to derive their vitality and energy from the scale and tempo of this change and to be fundamentally about this change. Although this definition of popular arts in Africa is especially seductive to scholars because of the scale and tempo of change in the colonial and post-colonial urban setting, it risks too close an identification of African popular arts with one period and setting and denies them any history within the pre-colonial era and within non-urban settings.

The ahistorical tendency of most studies of popular arts arises in part from scholars' retention of a Western model of art which categorizes the arts as folk/traditional, popular, and elite. Barber notes that the Western tripartite classification is still invoked with only minor modifications in most accounts of African popular arts. The paradigm which characterized African traditional society and its arts as closed, consensual and unchanging has been successfully challenged in the past decades by Africanists in history, anthropology, and art history. Few scholars would now assert that “traditional” societies or their arts were ever static or frozen. Yet, it is still tacitly held in studies of popular arts that African “traditional” arts are monolithic and undifferentiated in their local setting and thus they are all subject to the same rate of change.

Today, high-tech surveillance seems omnipresent in Niger, particularly because of the conflicts in neighboring Mali, Libya, and Nigeria and efforts by the U.S. and France to boost local security agencies. However, Niger is not a very efficient “registering machine,” and the gendarmes have very limited knowledge of the communities in which they work. The key to overcoming this problem of knowledge—to “see things,” as the gendarmes put it—is the nurturing of good relationships with potential informants. But as the gendarmes depend on the knowledge of locals, the power relationship between the surveillers and those observed proves far more ambiguous than generally assumed.

Investigating the sour grapes of the post-colonial order has led some scholars to revisit colonialism in ways antithetical to the nationalist “consecrated rhetoric” (Heesterman 1978, 31). In the perspective of this revision, colonialism is seen as its own grave digger. Constrained by conflicting local contexts, colonial administrations, it is argued, had to make ad hoc adjustments (Phillips 1989, 11-12). Decolonization is viewed by these revisionists as a “recognition of the failure of colonialism rather than a response to the powers of nationalism” (1989, 13). It is true, perhaps, that decolonization has been studied with an overemphasis on resistance. Resistance, of course, cannot be discounted in accounting for the shoddy performance of the colonial state. However, much of the self-serving discourse of the nationalists can be easily scrapped without hurting the cause of resistance. For a better understanding of resistance itself, scholars argue, it is useful to start discussing it in “a sceptical frame of mind” (Gledhill 1994, 82).

Basic to this revision of the reasons that led to the end of the empire is an investigation of the inherent disabilities of the colonial state (Robinson 1972; Phillips 1989; Darwin 1991). It has been graphically called a “facsimile of a state” (Phillips 1989, 11) for being taken out and set apart from society (Heesterman 1987, 54). This dramatic severing of the colonizer and the colonized is reminiscent of Fanon's characterization of the colonial condition, for being unswervingly divided into European and native quarters, as “manichaean.”

A radical change in an educational system, as well as being the result of a social revolution, is a means of consolidating it. In a developing nation like Ethiopia which is undergoing a social upheaval, education has a vital role to play. It permits the articulation of the aspirations of the masses as a subject fit for knowledge. It helps to associate knowledge with the critique of the oppressive conditions of life and commits it to the transformation of society and the development of human potentialities.

It is a truism that education, as a conveyer belt of human values, skills, ideas, and facts, is an integral aspect of a society's reproduction of itself. The conflicts and tensions that germinate in a given society, the solutions, both functional and dysfunctional, that the political system generates to resolve them find their way into the educational system and condition its structure and content.

The educational system and the education imparted therein could even be in certain situations, the expression, indeed the embodiment of one of society's tensions, and as such, is transformed into a catalyst—if not of social change, at least of social awareness that leads to the development of an action oriented ideology. The study presented here will attempt to elaborate on these different aspects of education through an empirical investigation of the relationship between traditional education and socio-political processes in Ethiopia in the course of this millenium.

In rural Kenya, the main visible security force is the Kenya Police Reserve, an unpaid force guarding localities and armed by the state. Turkana County faces challenges of low state penetration, small arms flows, and armed intercommunal conflict. The state has a weak hold on Kenya Police Reservists (KPRs) and their arms, and this situation is weakening further as many move into paid private security roles, including guarding oil exploration and drilling sites. Security is critical in view of the recent oil discovery and ensuing land disputes which could trigger widespread conflict, and the recent devolution of development and administrative functions to counties in Kenya.

Host governments have responded to the migration of Somali refugees throughout Africa in recent decades in different ways. Kenyan policymakers have treated Somalis primarily as a security threat, imposing restrictions on them that especially target this group. In South Africa, where economic and political competition fuel xenophobia, Somalis are part of a larger foreign national population that is seen as having disproportionate economic influence. However, Somali Bantus have been welcomed in Tanzania, which granted them citizenship even as it limited the mobility and activities of other refugees. A comparative analysis suggests that the relative balance among security, economic, political, and normative considerations shapes the extent and scope of host government policies.