Events & Issues
– These Kenyan Farmers Are Coding Apps to Cope With a Devastating Drought
Rajiv Gollai Jul 11 2017,
I went to a hackathon in Eldoret, Kenya to see if homegrown technology could work where foreign solutions have failed.
Kenya is facing one of its worst droughts in decades. Families are camped by dry wells, livestock has become too skinny to be eaten or sold, and armed conflict is flaring up between cattle grazers. Maize, a staple crop here, has been hit the hardest. In February, President Uhuru Kenyatta announced a national disaster, with 2.6 million people in need of food aid after the drought started in 2014.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywg3ay/these-kenyan-farmers-are-coding-apps-to-cope-with-a-devastating-drought
– The CFA Franc: French Monetary Imperialism in Africa
By Ndongo Samba Sylla
Ndongo Samba Sylla argues that the CFA franc – officially created on 26 December 1945 by a decree of General de Gaulle – used across much of Africa today is a colonial relic. For those hoping to export competitive products, obtain affordable credit, work for the integration of continental trade, or fight for an Africa free from imperialist control, the CFA franc is an anachronism demanding orderly and methodical elimination.
On 11 August 2015, speaking at the celebrations marking the 55th anniversary of the independence of Chad, President Idriss Deby declared, ‘we must have the courage to say there is a cord preventing development in Africa that must be severed.’ The ‘cord’ he was referring to is now over 71 years old. It is known by the acronym ‘CFA franc’.
Read more on the story in this link:
– Uber Can be Fixed; and Mideast Women Need It
By Neslihan Cevik | (Informed Comment) | Jul. 12, 2017 |
While in such metropolises as New York or Istanbul, Uber is most famous for hacking the commercial taxi system, it has hacked something much bigger in places like Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In KAS, it is still unlawful for women to drive. Women who have a driver are lucky, but ones who don’t have to rely on cabs. Cabs, however, do not always stop for ‘unaccompanied females’—females without a male guardian— waving their hands on the streets, and when they do, it raises the question of security and driver’s intention on the part of the women.
Read more on the story in this link
https://www.juancole.com/2017/07/fixed-mideast-women.html
– The Imperialist People’s Republic of Africa?
Hannah Ryder| JUL 13, 2017
BEIJING – A few months ago, a New York Times magazine cover was emblazoned with the question “Is China the World’s New Colonial Power?” The notion that China is a twenty-first-century colonizer is not new: commentators have been batting it around for a decade. But, to anyone who has experienced or even studied colonialism, the claim seems inappropriate, if not insulting.
The colonialism described in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, and Franz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks was insidious and potent. Yes, there were strong trade and investment relationships, but there was always explicit dominance, exemplified in imposed curricula, curfews, and movement restrictions based on skin color.
In the countries that experienced such colonialism – including my home country, Kenya – the effects can be felt to this day. To call China a colonial power is to diminish the true horrors that were faced by the colonized communities, including by my own relatives, who were detained by the British colonial authorities.
Read more on the story in this link
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-investment-africa-power-dynamic-by-hannah-ryder-1-2017-07?mc_cid=81ed903b95&mc_eid=fab0566d63
– Call for Applications: Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program
Greetings,
We hope this message finds you well. The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program competition is open and accepting applications for awards in Sub-Saharan Africa for the 2018-2019 academic year. Fulbright grantees teach and conduct research abroad to deepen their expertise, build networks and foster partnerships that help further internationalize campuses. Proposals will be considered from academics and appropriately qualified professionals in a wide variety of disciplines.
The Fulbright Scholar program offers opportunities in over 25 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. A complete list of opportunities available in the region can be found in our Catalog of Awards (http://awards.cies.org). Highlights include:
All Disciplines awards: Propose teaching or a combination of teaching research in any discipline in countries like Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Mauritius, Niger, and Zimbabwe.
1 Francophone and Lusophone Africa: The Fulbright program is in need of French or Portuguese speaking applicants to teach and conduct research in any field of specialization. Consider opportunities from Economics and Finance in Cote d’Ivoire to Agriculture, Business Administration, Information Technology, Economics, or Public Administration in Mozambique.
2 Opportunities in Environmental Science: From Engineering and Environmental Sciences in Burkina Faso and Agriculture or Environmental Studies in Cote d’Ivoire, the Fulbright offers several awards for scholars and professionals in environmental sciences.
3 Opportunities in Health: Did you know that the Fulbright program has a Public Health award in Botswana, Medical Sciences award in Mozambique, and Midwifery Education award in Zimbabwe? Take a look at the award descriptions to learn more.
For eligibility factors, detailed application guidelines and review criteria, please visit our website. Applicants must be U.S. citizens and the current competition will close on August 1, 2017. Our next competition will open in February 2018.
Also, join us for an informational webinar on Wednesday, July 26th at 2pm. We’ll be share an overview of the application process and requirements.
Feel free to contact us with any questions and please share this message with any of your colleagues who may be interested.
Best regards,
Sub-Saharan Africa Team
Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program
Institute of International Education
1400 K Street NW, Suite 700 • Washington, DC 20005
subsaharanafrica@iie.org
IIE • The Power of International Education
– Call for Papers: The Toyin Falola @65 Conference: African Knowledges and Alternative Futures
What makes alternative knowledge systems possible? How can new knowledge manifestoes be produced? How will cultural imperialism be demolished? Must Africa be bound by the logic of neoliberal capitalism? Must globalization be a one-sided Western agenda? These and other questions relating to how knowledge is produced, circulated and converted to policies will constitute the core of the conference, which is meant to critically interrogate the state of knowledge production in Africa, and to review the state of cumulative knowledge about Africa. The objective of the conference is to insert Toyin Falola, one of Africa’s most prolific and profound scholars, into the discourse that relates knowledge to policies, and thereby suggest ways to move Africa forward. Toyin Falola’s scholarship is significant because he has not only been a major theorist of the historical, philosophical and socioeconomic forces and factors that have created the African predicament, but he has also vigorously enunciated a critical Pan-Africanist alternative agenda that could serve as the basis for reinventing the continent.
The Conference will be held from January 29-31, 2018 at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
For more information, please visit: http://toyinfalolacenter.org/index.php/toyin-falola-at-65-conference/
NEW BOOKS كتب جديدة
– Moroccans in Europe: Fassi Merchants Come to Manchester
[المغاربة في أوروبا: التجار الفاسيين بمدينة مانجستر]
Author: Khalid Bekkaoui
Moroccan Muslim and Jewish traders, predominantly from Fez, relocated to Manchester in the 1830s. This was made possible thanks to a series of treaties between Morocco and Britain granting each other’s subjects the right to travel and conduct trade in the other country. In his negotiation of a Treaty of Peace and Commerce with William Petticrew in 1751, Sultan Moulay Abdellah of Morocco insisted that, “his subjects, whether Jewish or Muslim, should not be prohibited from living and working in Gibraltar, as they wished to do so.” A clause in the treaty singed in Fez on 28 July 1760, renewed in 1791, 1801 and 1824, guaranteed the right of Moroccan merchants to trade in Britain. This book presents the history and stories of these Moroccan communities as they settled in Britain.
Publisher: Moroccan Cultural Studies Centre, Morocco, Fez 2016
– Research on Gender and Sexualities in Africa
[البحوث المتعلقة بالجنسين ودراسة العلاقات الجنسية في أفريقيا]
Author: Jane Bennett & Sylvia Tamale (editors)
This collection comprises a diverse and stimulating collection of essays on questions of gender and sexualities, crafted by both established and younger researchers. The collection includes fascinating insights into topics as varied as the popularity of thong underwear in urban Kenya, the complexity of Tanzanian youth’s negotiation of HIV-cultures, the dialogues between religion and controversial questions in sexualities activism, and the meaning of living as a Zimbabwean girl, who became HIV-positive because her mother had no access to antiretroviral drugs during pregnancy. Some pieces deepen contemporary debates, others initiate new questions. The collection seeks to sustain and invigorate research, policy-making and continentaly-focused thought on difficult, yet compelling, realities.
Publisher: CODESRIA, Senegal, 2017
– Being and Becoming Gender, Culture and Shifting Identity in Sub-Saharan Africa
[أن تكون و تصبح: الجنسين، والثقافة وتغيرالهوية في أفريقيا جنوب الصحراء]
Author: Chinyere Ukpokolo
This book illuminates the complex and constantly shifting social and cultural dynamics that shape people’s identity. Specifically, the volume focuses on the intersections of gender with, culture and identity, and at different historical epochs; on the way men and women define themselves and are defined by diverse peoples and cultures across time and space in sub-Saharan Africa. The discussions presented in this anthology primarily focus on ‘being’ as ‘a state’ or ‘condition’, defined by sex identity, and how this identity shifts, and hence ‘becoming’, assuming diverse meanings in disparate societies, contexts, and time. The discourse, therefore, moves from how the perception of the self in cultural and historical contexts has informed actions and at some other times shaped interpretations given to historical facts, to how changing economic realities also shape the definitions and constructions of social and relational issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. The historical trajectories of Islamic religion, colonialism and Christian missionary activities in sub-Saharan Africa have shaped the worlds of the peoples of the region and impacted on gender relations.
Publisher: Spears Media Press, Cameroon, 2016
– Defying Dictatorship: Essays on Gambian Politics, 2012 – 2017
[في مواجهة الديكتاتورية: مقالات حول السياسة في غامبيا]
Author: Baba Galleh Jallow
Defying Dictatorship is an illuminating account of the nature and patterns of the 22-year autocratic rule of a former Gambian leader – Yahya Jammeh. In these pacy and pungent essays, the author exudes optimism in the redemptive power of knowledge to liberate The Gambia from the vice-like grip of tyranny and usher in an era of national renewal marked by liberty and egalitarianism.
Publisher: CENMEDRA, The Gambia, 2017
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