New World University Announces Partnership with 'Sub-Saharan Monitor'

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New World University Announces Partnership with 'Sub-Saharan Monitor'

Africa News Aggregator Now Hosted on Caribbean Academic Web Site

(Roseau, Commonwealth of Dominica, 15 December 2014) --- Sub-Saharan Monitor, an African news aggregator, will now be published on the web site of New World University.

New World University educates students through distance learning and partner organisations, building upon the resources of its Free Curricula Centre, which promotes the development of open educational resources as a way to approach one the most significant costs for tertiary students. With “brick and mortar” learning centre partners in India, Nigeria, and Rwanda, and with independent study available worldwide, New World University currently offers a bachelor's degree programme in international business leadership and will soon be launching degree programs in information systems, development studies, and professional studies.

Sub-Saharan Monitor began in the early 1990s as a print newsletter published by the International Freedom Foundation (IFF). That newsletter was edited by IFF's director of African affairs, Richard Sincere. In its newest incarnation, launched in April 2014, Sub-Saharan Monitor is a news aggregator with an aim to become a provider of original reporting and content for readers interested in events and trends in Africa south of the Sahara. Emphasis is on economic and business news with an appropriate admixture of information about politics and culture. In keeping with the educational mission of its host, New World University, book reviews will be featured prominently on Sub-Saharan Monitor.

Richard Sincere

The publication's editor-in-chief, Richard Sincere, is a senior research fellow at New World University, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. He is the author of two books, The Politics of Sentiment: Churches and Foreign Investment in South Africa (1984) and Sowing the Seeds of Free Enterprise: The Politics of U.S. Aid in Africa (1990), as well as co-editor (with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Marin Strmecki, and Peter Wehner) of Promise or Peril: The Strategic Defense Initiative (1986). His articles and reviews have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Wall Street Journal, Washington Examiner, Washington Star, Washington Times, and various other publications.

“We welcome Sub-Saharan Monitor to New World University as an addition to our academic and research programmes,” said Stephen H. Foerster, the university's president. “Highlighting cultural, economic, and political news from Africa in an accessible manner fits precisely in our mission to provide innovative and exciting educational opportunities in developing nations.”

The entire archive of Sub-Saharan Monitor, dating to 5 April 2014, is found at http://newworld.ac/subsaharan.

For more information, visit http://newworld.ac or send a message to info@newworld.ac.

News tips, press releases, announcements, original articles for publication consideration, and letters to the editor may be submitted directly to subsaharanmonitor@gmail.com.

About Sub-Saharan Monitor

New Africa Book of the Day - 8 July 2014

Continuity and Change in Sub-Saharan African Demography, edited by Clifford O. Odimegwu and John Kekovole

Release Date: July 8, 2014
Publisher: Routledge African Studies

This book offers an in-depth African perspective to the major issues in demographic discourse in sub-Saharan Africa. It provides comprehensive analysis of sub-Saharan African censuses, profiling demographic changes, trends, patterns and consequences in the region. Interdisciplinary, comprehensive, accessible, simple and topical, this volume is perfectly suited to researchers, students and lecturers who are interested in understanding sub-Saharan African population dynamics and issues.

Clifford O. Odimegwu is the head of Demography and Population Studies Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand and John Kekovole is executive manager in charge of Census Inputs and Outputs at Statistics South Africa. Together they have edited Social Demography of South Africa: Advances and Emerging Issues (2014) while Kekovole is author of Components of Kenya's future population growth and population policy implications (1996).  Odimegwu also wrote a research report entitled An appraisal of the national population policy for development (1998).

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).