Africa News Headlines for 19 August 2014

Plan early, Uganda sports federations urged
Source: Kawowo

Gender Commission criticises Uhuru’s Envoys list
Source: Kenya Satellite Network

United Nations warns Nigeria on dangers of open defecation
Source: The Guardian

UN predicts rapid urbanization in Uganda
Source: New Vision

African elephant numbers collapsing
Source: Nature

Legalising prostitution could 'boost' SA's economy
Source: Eyewitness News

Biggest porn watchers in SA revealed
Source: mybroadband

Museveni to water down anti-gay law
Source: Legalbrief Today

Africa needs ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ projects
Source; Business Day

Uganda criminalises HIV transmission
Source: GayNZ.com

The President of Gabon meets with Eni’s CEO
Source: Energy Global

Africa' top business school goes on show in Johannesburg
Source: Bizcommunity

Nigeria-South Africa forum to discuss intra-African trade
Source: SouthAfrica.info

Ugandan President Says Humanities Are Useless; Here’s Why He’s Wrong
Source: Ventures Africa

Partnership with Lagos is for skill acquisition, capacity building – Nigerite
Source: Business Day

UPDF Somalia troops not paid for six months
Source: The Observer

Ugandan archbishop acknowledges gays are “human beings”
Source: Metro Weekly

Arusha college launches degree in good governance
Source: Daily News

African Writers Rip U.S. Summit, Asking ‘For Whose Benefit?’
Source: Black Press USA

Middle Class in Nigeria, Others to Balloon, Says Standard Bank
Source: This Day Live

Crude Oil from Africa Surging to Decrease Dependency on Middle East
Source: Business Korea

Can South Africa's Tourism Boom Survive Its Own Government's Regulations?
Source: Travel Pulse

In Rural Kenya, Pressure Builds Against Female Circumcision
Source: Big News Network/VOA

Uganda’s Anti-Gay Law Masks The Real Scandal – 
A Growing Western Child Sex Trade In Africa
Source: The Daily Caller

Post US-Africa Summit Analysis: Kenya Won The Beauty Pageant
Source: AFK Insider

Ten Books for Approaching Religious Conflict in Nigeria
Source: Africa in Transition

Angola’s Benguela rail project is complete, says construction firm
Source: Out-Law.com

Diplomatic appointments unconstitutional, Uhuru told
Source: News24

About Sub-Saharan Monitor

An interview with Greg Mills about 'why Africa is poor'

Why is Africa poor? What can Africans do about it?

These two questions are combined in the title of a 2010 book, Why Africa Is Poor and What Africans Can Do About It, by South African scholar Greg Mills. The book was released in paperback in 2011 and in a Kindle edition in 2012.

Mills is director of the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation, which “was established in 2005 by the Oppenheimer family,” he told me in an interview after a book forum at the Cato Institute in Washington. He is also the co-author, with David Williams, of Seven Battles that Shaped South Africa and, with Jeffrey Herbst, of Africa's Third Liberation: The New Search for Prosperity and Jobs (2012; Kindle edition, 2014).

The foundation’s objective, Mills said, is to “try to strengthen African economic performance. Essentially we operate at a strategic level with African presidencies, at their request,” providing research and advice “based on primary fieldwork in African countries” and drawing “a lot of good and bad examples from around the world: things to avoid and things to try to replicate.”

Describing Why Africa Is Poor and What Africans Can Do About It, Mills explained it has three parts.

“It tries to understand, firstly, why Africa is poor, and it advances the idea that this is a choice of African leadership. It’s an option that they have taken; it’s a result of their poor decisions,” he said.

It also tries to explain, Mills added, “why those decisions have been made. It often relates to the fact that African electorates are apathetic. In many cases, they don’t hold their leaders to account.”

The book also relates how economic aid from developed countries – or lack of it, depending on how one looks at it – “provides an opportunity for Africans to externalize their problems and also their solutions.

The second part of the book, Mills said, “focuses on international experiences and the best examples that Africa can draw” upon, while “the third part of the book really focuses on some of the opportunities in Africa [and] how these ideas might be implemented.”

That third section, he explained, examines the coming “demographic dividend in Africa and what this means [as] a huge opportunity for Africa, and what we have to do to realize this.” It also focuses on issues like agriculture, mining, and tourism, “three areas of great comparative advantage for the continent.”


Huge Potential for Tourism
With regard to tourism, Mills noted, “Africa currently gets about 4 percent of the global one billion-person tourism market,” meaning that Africa is wildly underrepresented in that economic sector, even though “in terms of wildlife and other beach and safari-type options, we have tremendous potential.”

Greg Mills at the Cato Institute, 2010

He gave the examples of “a country like Kenya has a million fly-in tourists a year. Tanzania has 500,000 fly-in tourists a year, [while] Mozambique just has 50,000,” despite being “right next door to South Africa. There’s clearly a lot of potential in terms of an increasing that market.”

To increase tourism, Mills said, “we need to make it easier to get to Africa, cheaper to get to Africa, [and provide] higher quality resorts when people get there,” as well as assure “safer conditions where people don’t have to be worried about what surprises they’re going to find en route.”

He said that “the way to do it is to try to make it cheaper for South African tourists, in particular, to fly” to other African countries, “and then to relax visa restrictions on other external tourists.” In his formal remarks, Mills had pointed out that the Republic of Georgia no longer requires tourist visas for visitors from countries that have a bigger GDP than Georgia has, because such people are unlikely to stay there looking for work.

“Unfortunately,” Mills lamented, “most African countries have a very onerous visa regime and the air flights are not only unreliable, but relatively sparse in terms of their coverage and penetration of African markets.”

Still, he concluded, there is “certainly a huge amount of unrealized potential in tourism with all the multiplier employment prospects that it offers.”


‘Ditto’ for Agriculture
“Ditto,” he said, “in terms of agriculture,” which is extremely underdeveloped in relation to its potential in Africa.

“Africa’s agricultural yields have been two-thirds below that of the rest of the world,” Mills explained, due to “a huge lack of investment in extension services and fertilizer and seed programs.”

African agricultural output, he said, has “more or less flat-lined since independence in terms of its yield increases. This means that 38 of 48 sub-Saharan African countries are net food importers. It’s a staggering statistic.”

With more and more Africans moving to urban areas, he warned, “if we are to develop in our cities and if we are able to reduce food costs, we need to up our game.”

That means “addressing questions about land title, it means improving extension services, it means getting the private sector involved. It means upping scale in terms of agriculture, because that obviously brings certain efficiencies, and it means introducing technologies.”

In essence, Mills said, Africa must move “from a subsistence, peasant-type farming environment to a large-scale commercial involvement, [with] all the steps in between, particularly in mid-level farming.”

Despite this current underutilization of agricultural resources, Mills continued, “there’s huge potential on the continent. We shouldn’t be stuck at 5 percent growth. We should be looking at 10 percent growth and find out and understand the reasons why we’re not doing 15 percent growth,” since Africa is starting “from such a low base.”

(This article originally appeared in two parts, and in somewhat different form, on Examiner.com, on October 7 and October 8, 2010.)

New Africa Book of the Day - 30 June 2014

A History of South Africa: From the Distant Past to the Present Day, edited by Fransjohan Pretorius

Release Date: June 30, 2014
Publisher: Protea Boekhuis

[This book's] broad scope includes South Africa's pre-colonial history, slavery, Afrikaner nationalism, an environmental history and an analysis of a post-apartheid South Africa.

Some relevant questions are asked in this book. For example, Who were the first people in South Africa? And who came after them? How did their interaction help to form this country? Where do we stand as a nation today? Chapters include the Anglo-Boer War, the establishment of apartheid, a different view on apartheid and the democratic puberty. Two chapters are about the struggle against the Afrikaner and focus on the black resistance movement.

The [editor] said in a recent interview: "We did not try and justify apartheid, but one has to know what it was all about". Prof Hermann Giliomee also poses the question in his chapter: "Was apartheid all bad?"

This extensive history of South Africa was written by some of the country’s most prominent historians and is meant to put the complex history of South Africa into perspective.

The [editor] emphasizes that the book is an effort to understand people's behavior in the history of South Africa.

Fransjohan Pretorius, professor of history at the University of Pretoria, is author of The A to Z of the Anglo-Boer War (2010), Historical Dictionary of the Anglo-Boer War (2009), and Life On Commando During The Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 (1999), among other books.  This edited volume includes chapters contributed by David Scher, Jan Visagie, Hermann Giliomee, and Jan-Jan Joubert.

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New Africa Book of the Day - 26 June 2014

Education in East and Central Africa, by Charl Wolhuter

Release Date: June 26, 2014
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic [Kindle Edition]

Education in East and Central Africa is a comprehensive critical reference guide to education in the region. With chapters written by an international team of leading regional education experts, the book explores the education systems of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome, Gabon, the Republic of Congo and Rwanda. The book critically examines the regional development of education provision in each country as well as recent reforms and global contexts. Including a comparative introduction to the issues facing education in the region as a whole and guides to available online datasets, this handbook will be an essential reference for researchers, scholars, international agencies and policy-makers at all levels.

Charl C. Wolhuter is co-editor (with Alexander W. Wiseman) of The Development of Higher Education in Africa: Prospects and Challenges (2013) and (with K.G. Karras) of the two-volume International Handbook on Teachers Education Worldwide (2010). He also edited South Africa in Focus: Economic, Political and Social Issues (2013). Wolhuter teaches in the School of Education of North-West University, South Africa.

New Africa Book of the Day - 10 June 2014

Africa's Third Liberation by Greg Mills and Jeffrey Herbst

Release Date: June 2, 2014
Publisher: SA Penguin [Kindle Edition]

Africa has experienced two liberations: the first from colonial and racist regimes, and the second from the autocrats who often followed foreign rule. African countries now have the potential to undertake a third liberation - from political economies characterised by graft, crony capitalism, rents-seeking, elitism and social inequality. This third liberation will open up the economic space in which business can compete - a necessary condition for expanding employment. During the 2000s, the continent had its best growth decade on record since independence. High commodity prices offer a launch pad for sustained growth and employment creation. Now is the moment for African countries to act. This book asks how Africa's political leaders and interest groups can promote economic growth in their countries. Drawing on studies of countries outside Africa, Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills identify the factors separating the performers from the laggards worldwide. Aside from the need to create an enabling environment for business through good governance, provision of infrastructure and improvements in education, most critical is the need for a laser-like development focus by governments. In Africa's Third Liberation, Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills show why a new African political debate is necessary to make progress in accelerating growth and creating jobs.

Jeffrey Herbst, president of Colgate University, is author of The Politics of Reform in Ghana, 1982-1991 (1993), The Future of Africa: A New Order in Sight (2005), and States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control (2000). Greg Mills, director of the Brenthurst Foundation, is author of Why Africa is Poor: And What Africans Can Do About It (2011).

New Africa Book of the Day - 2 June 2014

The Ghosts of Happy Valley: Searching for the Lost World of Africa's Infamous Aristocrats by Juliet Barnes

Release Date: June 1, 2014
Publisher: Aurum Press Ltd

Happy Valley was the name given to the Wanjohi Valley in the Kenya Highlands, where a small community of affluent, hedonistic white expatriates settled between the wars. While Kenya's early colonial days have been immortalised by farming pioneers like Lord Delamere and Karen Blixen, and the pioneering aviator Beryl Markham, Happy Valley became infamous under the influence of troubled socialite, Lady Idina Sackville, whose life was told in Frances Osborne's bestselling The Bolter. The era culminated with the notorious murder of the Earl of Erroll in 1941, the investigation of which laid bare the Happy Valley set's decadence and irresponsibility, chronicled in another bestseller, James Fox's White Mischief. But what is left now? In a remarkable and indefatigable archaeological quest Juliet Barnes, who has lived in Kenya all her life and whose grandparents knew some of the Happy Valley characters, has set out to explore Happy Valley to find the former homes and haunts of this extraordinary and transient set of people. With the help of a remarkable African guide and further assisted by the memories of elderly former settlers, she finds the remains of grand residences tucked away beneath the mountains and speaks to local elders who share first-hand memories of these bygone times. Nowadays these old homes, she discovers, have become tumbledown dwellings for many African families, school buildings, or their ruins have almost disappeared without trace - a revelation of the state of modern Africa that makes the gilded era of the Happy Valley set even more fantastic. A book to set alongside such singular evocations of Africa's strange colonial history as The Africa House, The Ghosts of Happy Valley is a mesmerising blend of travel narrative, social history and personal quest.

Kenya-based Juliet Barnes has edited Fresh Water for the Future (2012), a report for the United Nations Environment Program. She has written for the Sunday Times and The Guardian as well as for Kenyan publications. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Commonwealth Broadcasting Award, Jomo Kenyatta Award, and the Baobab Prize.

New Africa Book of the Day - 31 May 2014

Displacement Economies in Africa: Paradoxes of Crisis and Creativity by Amanda Hammar

Release Date: June 2, 2014
Publisher: Zed Books

Large-scale displacement - whether caused by war, state-related political or development projects, different forms of political violence, structural crisis, or even natural disasters - evokes many stereotyped assumptions about those forcibly displaced or emplaced. At the same time there is a problematic lack of attention paid to those who benefit economically from, manage, or in various unexpected ways are affected by processes of displacement.

In this highly original volume, based on empirical case studies from across sub-Saharan Africa, the authors provide fresh insights into the unexpected changes, complex agency and persistent dynamism entailed in displacement processes. In doing so, the book explores the diversity of actors, strategies and practices that reshape the world in the face (and chronic aftermath) of dramatic moments of violent dislocation and /or enclosure.

An important contribution to a topic of growing scholarly and policy interest.

Amanda Hammar is co-editor (with Brian Raftopoulos and Stig Jensen) of Zimbabwe's Unfinished Business (2000) and author of Zimbabwe and Norway (1996). She is professor of African studies at Copenhagen University.

About Sub-Saharan Monitor

New Africa Book of the Day - 21 May 2014

China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa by Howard W. French

Release Date: May 20, 2014
Publisher: Knopf

An exciting, hugely revealing account of China’s burgeoning presence in Africa—a developing empire already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people.

A prizewinning foreign correspondent and former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and in West and Central Africa, Howard French is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China in Africa. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting—conducted in Mandarin, French, and Portuguese, among other languages—French crafts a layered investigation of astonishing depth and breadth as he engages not only with policy-shaping moguls and diplomats, but also with the ordinary men and women navigating the street-level realities of cooperation, prejudice, corruption, and opportunity forged by this seismic geopolitical development. With incisiveness and empathy, French reveals the human face of China’s economic, political, and human presence across the African continent—and in doing so reveals what is at stake for everyone involved.

We meet a broad spectrum of China’s dogged emigrant population, from those single-handedly reshaping African infrastructure, commerce, and even environment (a self-made tycoon who harnessed Zambia’s now-booming copper trade; a timber entrepreneur determined to harvest the entirety of Liberia’s old-growth redwoods), to those just barely scraping by (a sibling pair running small businesses despite total illiteracy; a karaoke bar owner–cum–brothel madam), still convinced that Africa affords them better opportunities than their homeland. And we encounter an equally panoramic array of African responses: a citizens’ backlash in Senegal against a “Trojan horse” Chinese construction project (a tower complex to be built over a beloved soccer field, which locals thought would lead to overbearing Chinese pressure on their economy); a Zambian political candidate who, having protested China’s intrusiveness during the previous election and lost, now turns accommodating; the ascendant middle class of an industrial boomtown; African mine workers bitterly condemning their foreign employers, citing inadequate safety precautions and wages a fraction of their immigrant counterparts’.

French’s nuanced portraits reveal the paradigms forming around this new world order, from the all-too-familiar echoes of colonial ambition—exploitation of resources and labor; cut-rate infrastructure projects; dubious treaties—to new frontiers of cultural and economic exchange, where dichotomies of suspicion and trust, assimilation and isolation, idealism and disillusionment are in dynamic flux.

Part intrepid travelogue, part cultural census, part industrial and political exposé, French’s keenly observed account ultimately offers a fresh perspective on the most pressing unknowns of modern Sino-African relations: why China is making the incursions it is, just how extensive its cultural and economic inroads are, what Africa’s role in the equation is, and just what the ramifications for both parties—and the watching world—will be in the foreseeable future.

Howard W. French is author of A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa (2005) and contributed photographs (with poems by Qiu Xiaolong) to Disappearing Shanghai: Photographs and Poems of an Intimate Way of Life (2012). He is a former correspondent for the New York Times and teaches journalism at Columbia University.

Africa News Headlines for 13 May 2014

Book Reveals Wider Net of U.S. Spying on Envoys
Source: New York Times

SA the ‘drunkest’ country in Africa
Source: The Citizen

Assessing Africa’s readiness for multi-million dollar tech startup deals
Source: Technology Zimbabwe

Uganda at centrestage of Pan African tourism debate
Source: New Vision

Africa is buzzing with entrepreneurial spirit
Source: KSPR/CNN

Global crisis on torture exposed by new worldwide campaign
Source: Amnesty International

High fees on diaspora funds holding back Africa’s growth
Source: Standard Digital

Eskom eyes the rest of Africa
Source: SAPA

Developing Africa Losses $15 Billion in Tax Revenue Over Decade
Source: Wall Street Journal

Indian IT companies tap Africa’s new-fangled fad for technology
Source: Economic Times

Cooperation, trade and education key to Africa's success – Coleman
Source: Media Club South Africa

David Brooks: Get to know the real Africa
Source: The Fresno Bee

American Billionaire Ronald Lauder Is Funding Africa's Cheapest Car
Source: Forbes

Africa is rising – but much remains to be done – WEF
Source: Business Day

The reason every book about Africa has the same cover—and it’s not pretty
Source: Quartz

U.S. Marines Lock & Load: Close Ranks With Anti-Poachers
Source: Global Animal

Scientist urges nuance for Africa-China timber policies
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Death of Ambassador of Togo Under Investigation in Gabon
Source: Prensa Latina

Majority of African Farm Workers Struggle to Afford Food
Source: Gallup World

New Africa Book of the Day - 5 May 2014

Displacement Economies in Africa edited by Amanda Hammar

Release Date: May 8, 2014
Publisher: Zed Books [Kindle Edition]

Large-scale displacement - whether caused by war, state-related political or development projects, different forms of political violence, structural crisis, or even natural disasters - evokes many stereotypes about those forcibly displaced or emplaced. At the same time there is a problematic lack of attention paid to those who benefit economically from, manage or in various unexpected ways are affected by processes of displacement. In this highly original volume, based on empirical case studies from across sub-Saharan Africa, the authors provide fresh insights into the unexpected changes, complex agency and persistent dynamism entailed in displacement processes. In doing so, the book explores the diversity of actors, strategies and practices that reshape the world in the face (and chronic aftermath) of dramatic moments of violent dislocation and/or enclosure.

An important contribution to a topic of growing scholarly and policy interest.

Amanda Hammar is author of Zimbabwe and Norway (1996) and co-editor (with Brian Raftopoulos and Stig Jensen) of Zimbabwe's Unfinished Business (2000). She is professor of African studies at Copenhagen University.

About Sub-Saharan Monitor

New Africa Book of the Day - 4 May 2014

Agricultural Land Redistribution and Land Administration in Sub-Saharan Africa: Case Studies of Recent Reforms edited by Frank F. K. Byamugisha

Release Date: May 5, 2014
Publisher: World Bank Publications [Kindle Edition]

Agricultural Land Redistribution and Land Administration in Sub-Saharan Africa: Case Studies of Recent Reforms focuses on “how” to undertake land reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa, but with relevant lessons for other developing countries. It provides details, with case studies, on how reforms were undertaken to address a pressing and controversial development challenge in Africa – land ownership inequality – and an intransigent development issue – inefficiency and corruption in land administration. An equally important contribution of the book is assessing reforms and highlighting valuable lessons for other countries contemplating reforms.

The six case studies collectively cover two main areas of land governance: reforms in redistributing agricultural land and reforms in land administration. The first two case studies discuss reforms in redistributing agricultural land in Malawi and South Africa, part of the southern Africa region where land ownership inequalities rival those in Latin America. The remaining case studies, four in number, are focused on addressing corruption and inefficiency in land administration in a variety of contexts of governance including stable and post-conflict countries. The case studies cover:

• Decentralizing land administration with demonstrations from Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Ghana;
• Developing post-conflict land administration systems with examples from Liberia and Rwanda;
• Re-engineering and computerizing land information systems with examples from Ghana and Uganda; and
• Improving management of government land through land inventories with examples drawn from Ghana and Uganda.

The common elements between sometimes disparate experiences provide lessons of relevance to African and other developing countries contemplating similar reforms. The rigorous analysis and yet down-to-earth lessons of experience are a reflection of the authors’ deep global experience underpinned by personal participation in the reforms covered by the book. This volume will be of interest to a wide audience including land specialists and practitioners, African policy makers, experts and managers in the international development community, and the academia.

Frank F. K. Byamugisha is author of Securing Africa's Land for Shared Prosperity: A Program to Scale Up Reforms and Investments (2013) and The effects of land registration on financial development and economic growth: A theoretical and conceptual framework (1999).

New Africa Book of the Day - 3 May 2014

African Development Finance and Business Finance Policy edited by Atsede Woldie and Victor Murinde

Release Date: May 1, 2014
Publisher: Routledge [Kindle Edition]

Financial plans that stimulate growth and eliminate poverty in developing African countries!

African Developmental Finance and Business Finance Policy presents theoretical/conceptual and empirical articles that provide invaluable insights into successful business techniques and strategies for the African business arena—the last great frontier of international business expansion. Researchers and practitioners in the field of developmental finance discuss the design and implementation of financial policies for pro-poor growth and poverty alienation in developing countries, including Kenya, Zambia, Nigeria, Mauritius, and Zimbabwe. The book focuses on banking, business finance, and investment, detailing strategies for coping with a small financial system, bank licensing policies, correction action rules, quality of banking services, and the revitalization of the African stock exchange.

African Developmental Finance and Business Finance Policy features papers presented on key policy issues addressed at the April 2001 international conference of the Institute for Developmental Policy and Management at the University of Manchester in England...

Topics addressed include:

- financial regulation, interest rates
- bank ownership
- regulatory forbearance
- emerging stock markets
- determinants of capital structure
- financial reform
- and much more!

Targeted to policymakers in government and international agencies, academics, consultants, and executives, African Developmental Finance and Business Finance Policy is an essential resource for advancing and communicating research on developmental policy in developing countries.

Victor Murinde is author of Bank Regulatory Reforms in Africa (2012) and Macroeconomic Policy Modelling for Developing Countries (1993).  Atsede Woldie is principal lecturer in the faculty of business and society at the University of South Wales.

New Africa Book of the Day - 1 May 2014

The Trans-Oceanic Marketing Channel: A New Tool for Understanding Tropical Africa's Export Agriculture by H. Laurens van der Laan

Release Date: May 1, 2014
Publisher: Routledge [Kindle Edition]

If you feel you have a disjointed, or unbalanced, view of the global system of demand and supply, you are probably correct. Most studies leave out a very important part of the system--the marketing channel. That is why Laurens van der Laan developed and wrote this book, The Trans-Oceanic Marketing Channel. To help you understand what happens to export crops, such as cocoa, coffee, cotton, groundnuts, tea, and tobacco, between their country of origin and consumer markets, this book analyzes the roles of different actors in trans-oceanic trade, inherent differences between world markets, export diversification policies, and the commercial and institutional forces at play.

The Trans-Oceanic Marketing Channel will give you a strong background in marketing channel concepts, and because of its focus on the exporter rather than on the government, it will provide you with an excellent model for microanalysis. As you read about the special features of trans-oceanic trade, you will also learn about:

- trade associations and their role in shaping world markets for trans-oceanic crops
- the uneasy relationship between exporters and shipping companies
- the selling conduct of agricultural exporters in Africa
- the tendency of actors in Africa to accelerate the trans-oceanic product flow
- the effectiveness of export marketing boards as channel leaders
- private enterprise, the chief agent of development
- the theory of “exporter preference”

The Trans-Oceanic Marketing Channel invites policymakers, international businessmen, professors, and students to examine the opportunities, problems, and policies that confront the various players in trans-oceanic trade, especially the exporters. As the book discusses the divergent institutional arrangements in the world markets for agricultural products and their differential effect on African exports, you will become keenly aware of how vertical marketing systems differ from conventional marketing channels. No other book brings together the three fundamental sections of export agriculture, the country of production, the channel through which the products flow, and the country of destination, to provide you with a complete understanding of trans-oceanic marketing.

H. Laurens van der Laan is author of Dutch Enterprise in Colonial Africa: Some Notes and Comments (2003) and The Ambivalent Relationship Between Agricultural Cooperatives and the Marketing Board ONCPB (1988).

New Africa Book of the Day - 29 April 2014

Combating Corruption: Legal Approaches to Supporting Good Governance and Integrity in Africa by John Hatchard

Release Date: April 28, 2014
Publisher: Edward Elgar

Drawing on numerous recent examples of good and bad practice from around the continent, this insightful volume explores the legal issues involved in developing and enhancing good governance and accountability within African states, as well as addressing the need for other states worldwide to demonstrate the 'transnational political will' to support these efforts.

John Hatchard considers the need for good governance, accountability and integrity in both the public and private sector. He studies how these issues are reflected in both the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. The book demonstrates that despite the vast majority of African states being party to these conventions, in practice, many of them continue to experience problems of bad governance, corporate bribery and the looting of state assets. It explores how the 'art of persuasion' can help develop the necessary political will through which to address these challenges at both the national and transnational levels.

This unique and influential book will be of worldwide interest to those studying law, politics or business, as well as legal practitioners, policymakers, senior public officials, parliamentarians, law reformers, civil society organizations and the corporate sector.

John Hatchard is co-author (with Tunde I. Ogowewo) of Tackling the Unconstitutional Overthrow of Democracies: Emerging Trends in the Commonwealth (2003) and (with Colin Nicholls, Timothy Daniel, and Alan Bacarese) of Corruption and Misuse of Public Office (2011).

New Africa Book of the Day - 28 April 2014

Modernization as Spectacle in Africa, edited by Peter J. Bloom, Stephan F. Miescher, and Takyiwaa Manuh

Release Date: May 1, 2014
Publisher: Indiana University Press

For postcolonial Africa, modernization was seen as a necessary outcome of the struggle for independence and as crucial to the success of its newly established states. Since then, the rhetoric of modernization has pervaded policy, culture, and development, lending a kind of political theatricality to nationalist framings of modernization and Africans’ perceptions of their place in the global economy. These 15 essays address governance, production, and social life; the role of media; and the discourse surrounding large-scale development projects, revealing modernization's deep effects on the expressive culture of Africa.

Peter J. Bloom is author of French Colonial Documentary: Mythologies of Humanitarianism
(2008). Stephan F. Miescher is author of Making Men in Ghana (2005). Takyiwaa Manuh is author of At Home in the World? International Migration and Development in Contemporary Ghana and West Africa (2005).

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New Africa Book of the Day - 27 April 2014

The Rise and Fall of Philanthropy in East Africa: The Asian Contribution by Robert G. Gregory

Release Date: April 30, 2014
Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Robert G. Gregory challenges the apparent assumption that non-Western peoples lack a significant indigenous philanthropic culture. Focusing on the large South Asian community in East Africa, he relates how, over a century, they built a philanthropic culture of great magnitude, and how it finally collapsed under the ascendency of increasing state regulation and policies directed against non-African communities.

Compelled by poverty to seek better oppurtunities overseas, most Asians arrived in East Africa as peasant farmers. Denied access to productive land and sensing economic opportunity, they turned to business. Despite severe forms of racial discrimination in the colonial society, they suffered few restrictions on their business enterprises and some became very wealthy. Gregory’s historical analysis shows philanthropy as an important contribution, one that stemmed from deep roots in Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist culture. The sense of nonracial social responsibility cultivated social, medical, and educational facilities designed for all.

This age of philanthropy terminated with the Asian exodus. The socialist and racial policies adopted by East African governments over the past few decades have virtually destroyed the foundation necessary for philanthropy as well as the distinct Asian cultural identity. Gregory’s account of the East Asian’s role in philanthropy deserves great attention and sober reflection.

Robert G. Gregory, professor of history emeritus at Syracuse University, has also written India and East Africa: History of Race Relations within the British Empire, 1890-1939 (1972), South Asians in East Africa: An Economic and Social History, 1890-1980 (1993), and A guide to daily correspondence of the Coast, Rift Valley, Central, and Northeastern Provinces: Kenya National Archives microfilm (1984).

ASA Announces April 30 Deadline for Award and Prize Nominations

The African Studies Association has sent out a note about approaching deadlines for various prizes and awards to be presented at the ASA's annual meeting in Indianapolis, November 20-23, 2014. These four awards have a nomination deadline of Wednesday, April 30:

The Melville J. Herskovits Award -- awarded to the author of the most important scholarly work in African studies published in English during the preceding year.

The Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize -- awarded to the author of the best book on East African studies published in the preceding year.

The Distinguished Africanist Award recognizes a lifetime of distinguished contributions to African studies.

The Graduate Student Paper Prize -- awarded to the best paper presented by a graduate student at the previous year's Annual Meeting.

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New Africa Book of the Day - 26 April 2014

Biotechnology in Africa: Emergence, Initiatives and Future by Florence Wambugu and Daniel Kamanga

Release Date: April 30, 2014
Publisher: Springer

In this book, Florence Wambugu and Daniel Kamanga of Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International bring together expert African authorities to critique various biotechnology initiatives and project future developments in the field in Africa. For the first time, African voices from multidisciplinary fields as diverse as economics, agriculture, biotechnology, law, politics and academia, demand to be allowed to set the continent’s biotech development agenda. This book argues that there is a great future for biotechnology in Africa which sidesteps western interests that do not match those of the local populace. In these diverse chapters, Africa’s political and scientific leaders demand a greater say in how research and development funds are allocated and spent. They argue that Africa’s political leaders must see both clear benefits and have elbow-room to drive the change required. This is the way that African governments can employ workable policies, suitable biosafety legislation and regulation and respond effectively to public-private partnerships. Wambugu and Kamanga show that biotechnology has the potential to improve food security and standard of living as well as mitigate the detrimental effects of climate change on the African continent.

Florence Wambugu is the CEO of Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International (AHBFI). She has also written Modifying Africa: How biotechnology can benefit the poor and hungry, a case study from Kenya and The benefits of biotechnology for small-scale banana producers in Kenya (both 2001).

Daniel Kamanga is director of the communications program at AHBFI.

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New Africa Book of the Day - 24 April 2014

Advancing the Ugandan Economy: A Personal Account by Ezra Sabiti Suruma

Release Date: April 30, 2014
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Internal conflicts, dictatorship, and economic disintegration characterized the first twenty-five years of Uganda's independence from British colonial rule, which culminated in the reign of Idi Amin and a violent civil war. The country has since achieved an astounding turnaround of stability and growth. Advancing the Ugandan Economy is a first-hand look at the remarkable policy changes that took place from 1986 to 2012 and their effect in contrast with the turbulent events after independence.

Ezra Suruma held several key positions in the Ugandan government during the nation's transition period, including minister of finance. His insightful recounting of those times demonstrates that African countries can achieve economic stability and sustain rapid growth when they meet at least two interdependent conditions: establishing a stable and secure political framework and unleashing entrepreneurialism. Suruma also highlights the strategic areas that still require fundamental reform if Uganda is to become a modern state and shares his vision for the future of his country.

Rarely in African history has so much positive political and economic transformation of a country been achieved in such a short time. Suruma's account of the commitment, determination, vision, and dexterity of the Ugandan government holds invaluable lessons in managing the still complex policy challenges facing the African continent.

A former Ugandan minister of finance (2005-2009), Ezra Sabiti Suruma has also been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and serves as am advisor on finance and planning to President Yoweri Museveni.

New Africa Book of the Day for 23 April 2014

Evocative Africa: Ventures of Discovery by Gerald Cubitt

Release Date: April 25, 2014
Publisher: John Beaufoy Publishing

Come on a journey with Africa's finest nature photographer to lands of time-honoured cultural traditions and unspoilt natural wilderness. Here is the 'real Africa' - astonishing in its diversity of wildlife, breathtaking in its natural beauty and unforgettable in its bursting floral kingdom. Evocative Africa is a visual journey taking the reader through Gerald Cubitt's selection of the 'unmissable' in sub-Saharan Africa. This extensive collection of images juxtaposes the scale and grandeur of the continent with an intimate attention to smaller, less obvious wonders. The informative commentary reveals the social, ecological and geographical context of the images. The book bursts with a multitude of images. The reader will be immersed in South Africa, will visit Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Botswana and Namibia. Just offshore, no lifetime's safari on the east coast of Africa can ignore Madagascar, perhaps the most compelling hotspot of biodiversity in the world. Four and a half years have gone into the design and preparation of this book and the endeavour of the photographer and publisher is to make Evocative Africa the best of its kind ever produced in South Africa: a book that captures the magic and character of the 'real Africa' - its timeless wildlife and wilderness, its colourful and proud ethnic heritage and, of course, its stunning diversity of landscape. It represents the culmination of many years of photographing Africa, her people, her places and her wildlife. It celebrates destinations we can all enjoy, showing them in a new light, giving us many moments of delight from places we already know to be astonishing.

Photographer Gerald Cubitt's other books include This Is Namibia (1999, with Peter Joyce), This Is Kenya (2000, with Jean Hartley, Peter Joyce, Daryl Balfour, and Sharna Balfour), Portraits of the African Wild (1993, with Mike Nicol and Anton Rupert), and Kruger National Park (1994, with David Rogers, Nigel Dennis, Daryl Balfour, and Peter Pickford).

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