The African Renaissance and the Afro-Arab Spring

The African Renaissance and the Afro-Arab Spring
Author: Charles Villa-Vicencio
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2015-04-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1626161984

The African Renaissance and the Afro-Arab Spring addresses the often unspoken connection between the powerful call for a political-cultural renaissance that emerged with the end of South African apartheid and the popular revolts of 2011 that dramatically remade the landscape in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. Looking between southern and northern Africa, the transcontinental line from Cape to Cairo that for so long supported colonialism, its chapters explore the deep roots of these two decisive events and demonstrate how they are linked by shared opposition to legacies of political, economic, and cultural subjugation. As they work from African, Islamic, and Western perspectives, the book’s contributors shed important light on a continent’s difficult history and undertake a critical conversation about whether and how the desire for radical change holds the possibility of a new beginning for Africa, a beginning that may well reshape the contours of global affairs.

The Wealth and Poverty of African States

The Wealth and Poverty of African States
Author: Morten Jerven
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2022-01-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108424597

A new account of economic performance and state development in African countries across the long twentieth century.

The Great Rebirth

The Great Rebirth
Author: Anders Aslund
Publisher: Peterson Institute for International Economics
Total Pages: 531
Release: 2014-10-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0881326976

The fall of communism 25 years ago transformed the political and economic landscape in more than two dozen countries across Europe and Asia. In this volume political leaders, scholars, and policymakers assess the lessons learned from the “great rebirth” of capitalism, highlighting the policies that were the most successful in helping countries make the transition to stable and prosperous market economies, as well as those cases of countries reverting to political and economic authoritarianism. The authors of these essays conclude that visionary leadership, and a willingness to take bold and comprehensive steps, achieved the best outcomes, and that privatization of state-owned enterprises and deregulation were essential to success. Recent backsliding, such as the reversal of economic and democratic reforms in Russia and Hungary, has cast a shadow over the legacy of the transition a quarter century ago, however.

A Giant Reborn

A Giant Reborn
Author: Johan Van Overtveldt
Publisher: Agate Publishing
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2015-07-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1572847506

The world is in turmoil. Whether one looks at Europe, Asia, North America, the Middle East, Africa, or Latin America, uncertainty and upheaval seem to be the order of the day. Nevertheless, there seems to be an odd certainty in the minds of many pundits, writers, and citizens in this highly volatile world of geopolitics: the days of the United States as the world's sole superpower are over. The consensus tells us that the United States will not be able to keep a status as a major power among China, the European community, and a resurgent Russia. How realistic is this perspective, though? Is the "air of inevitability" concerning America's demise merely a passing breeze? How solid is the "unstoppable rise" of the Chinese? How likely is it for Europe to right its ship? A Giant Reborn, from critically acclaimed author and leading economic journalist Johan Van Overtveldt, dispels many of these ingrained assumptions and argues that the 21st century will be defined by the country currently best set up to succeed: the United States of America. In the current chaotic political climate it seems risky to say any country will be able to maintain its current status. But Van Overtveldt provides a measured, insightful, and thoroughly engaging examination of the evidence. In his richly detailed style and straightforward explanations, he masterfully lays out a case for why America, against many pundits' best predictions, is set up to continue its 20th-century success into this millennium. A Giant Reborn shows readers that the reports of America's death, to paraphrase the father of American literature, have been greatly exaggerated.

How to Make the 21st Century the Century of African Economic Rebirth

How to Make the 21st Century the Century of African Economic Rebirth
Author: Ashford Chea
Publisher: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2012-04
Genre: Africa
ISBN: 9783846590423

The book is divided in two parts. The first analyzes macro-issues and government policies. It begins with analyzing the effects of the global financial crisis of 2008 on Sub-Saharan African economies. It also looks at global private capital flows for development finance in Sub-Saharan Africa with focus on best performing economies. This is followed by a review of the sources of global private capital and implications for Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, the financial sector and capital account liberalization in economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa are discussed. Finally, strategies to market Sub-Saharan African economies and create wealth are outlined. The Second section of the book focuses on micro-issues such as individuals and firms and their role in economic development. It starts with an analysis of self-management and personal leadership of highly effective people and implications for political and business leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa. Also discussed are the role of conflict in organizations, exemplary leaders in organizations, firm innovations, and the process of entrepreneurial opportunity-identification with implications for Sub-Saharan African businesses.

Domesticating the World

Domesticating the World
Author: Jeremy Prestholdt
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2008-01-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780520254244

“ Ingeniously stands the study of globalization and trade on its head.”—Edward Alpers, Chair of Department of History, UCLA

A Blighted Harvest

A Blighted Harvest
Author: Peter Gibbon
Publisher: Africa World Press
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1993
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780865433878

An in-depth look at the social and political results of the World Bank agricultural adjustment policies. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

The Rebirth of Education

The Rebirth of Education
Author: Lant Pritchett
Publisher: CGD Books
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2013-09-30
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1933286776

Despite great progress around the world in getting more kids into schools, too many leave without even the most basic skills. In India’s rural Andhra Pradesh, for instance, only about one in twenty children in fifth grade can perform basic arithmetic. The problem is that schooling is not the same as learning. In The Rebirth of Education, Lant Pritchett uses two metaphors from nature to explain why. The first draws on Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom’s book about the difference between centralized and decentralized organizations, The Starfish and the Spider. Schools systems tend be centralized and suffer from the limitations inherent in top-down designs. The second metaphor is the concept of isomorphic mimicry. Pritchett argues that many developing countries superficially imitate systems that were successful in other nations— much as a nonpoisonous snake mimics the look of a poisonous one. Pritchett argues that the solution is to allow functional systems to evolve locally out of an environment pressured for success. Such an ecosystem needs to be open to variety and experimentation, locally operated, and flexibly financed. The only main cost is ceding control; the reward would be the rebirth of education suited for today’s world.

Contemporary Issues in Africa's Development

Contemporary Issues in Africa's Development
Author: Ehimika A. Ifidon
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2018-04-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1527509524

This volume reports on the state of crisis in Africa in the early twenty-first century. Africa, on the eve of the ‘independence revolution’, was the continent of hope and high expectations. By the third decade of independence, optimism had been replaced by dismality. African states had been beset by ethno-political squabbles, military rule, civil wars, Islamic and insurgent movements, extreme poverty and disease. With the ascent of redemocratization in the 1990s and of ‘new’ pan-Africanism derived from the formation of the African Union, Africa appeared set to claim its vaunted destiny. This book asks, with hindsight to the first decade of the twenty-first century: how real was the renaissance in African life? If the dismal African condition is a phase in the historical development of Africa, this volume does not see any golden age in the past to which Africa aspires to return. There is clearly a continuation and persistence of crisis, with an absence of good governance, personalisation of state power, widespread disease, and policy failure in education, economy and infrastructural development. Although endowed with abundant human and natural resources, Africa remains the least developed and most indebted continent. Whither then the African Renaissance? The methodologies that underpin the contributions in this book are as diverse as the specialisations of the contributors. The collection questions ideologically protected assumptions and presumptions, presenting Africa as it is, because it is only by knowing where Africa truly stands that a proper direction can be charted for it.