You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Drawing on in-depth empirical research spanning a number of countries in Africa, Booth and Cammack's path-breaking book offers both an accessible overview of issues surrounding governance for development on the continent, whilst also offering a bold new alternative. In doing so, they controversially argue that externally imposed 'good governance' approaches make unrealistic assumptions about the choices leaders and officials are, in practice, able to make. As a result, reform initiatives and assistance programmes supported by donors regularly fail, while ignoring the potential for addressing the causes rather than the symptoms of this situation. In reality, the authors show, anti-developmental behaviours stem from unresolved - yet in principle soluble - collective action problems. Governance for Development in Africa offers a comprehensive and critical examination of the institutional barriers to economic and social progress in Africa, and makes a compelling plea for fresh policy thinking and new ways of envisioning so-called good governance.
The Government should re-instate its programme of General Budget Support for Malawi, according to MPs on the International Development Committee. The Department for International Development (DFID) suspended General Budget Support to Malawi - the provision of funds directly to the Malawian exchequer - in July 2011, preferring to provide its aid by other means. This decision was taken in response to the policies of the then President of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika. His policies had created an economic and political crisis, whilst his authoritarian tendencies were becoming ever more apparent: the UK's High Commissioner had been expelled from Malawi for criticising Mutharika. However, following the death of President Mutharika in April this year, his successor - President Joyce Banda - has begun to reverse many of his policies. The currency has been devalued, whilst the new Government has indicated its intention to repeal many of its predecessor's authoritarian measures. Subject to the continued progress of reforms, general budget support is likely to be the most efficient way of providing aid to Malawi.
The development discourse has long been dominated by best practices prescriptions for reform, but these are not a useful way of responding to the governance ambiguities of the early 21st century. Working with the Grain draws on both innovative scholarship and Brian Levy's quarter century of experience at the World Bank to lay out an alternative-a practical, analytically grounded, "with-the-grain" approach to reducing poverty and addressing weaknesses in governance. Best practice prescriptions confuse the goals of development with the journey of getting from here to there. A strong rule of law, capable and accountable governments, and a flexible, level playing field business environment are i...
This book examines the limits to cosmopolitan liberal peacebuilding caused by its preoccupation with the values and assumptions of neoliberal global governance. The peace people experience is determined by the processes privileged in peacebuilding. This book is about four things that shape the processes involved. First, it is a critique of orthodox postconflict peacebuilding. It takes the position that the present approach, although seemingly hegemonic, is routinely ignored or manipulated by elites and society and converted into a miasma that to some degree wastes the energies and opportunities involved. Second, it is about alternatives which invoke the kind of peace people might seek in pos...
In A Tapestry of African Histories: With Longer Times and Wider Geopolitics, contributors demonstrate that African historians are neither comfortable nor content with studying continental or global geopolitical, social, and economic events across the superficial divide of time as if they were disparate or disconnected. Instead, the chapters within the volume reevaluate African history through a geopolitically transcendent lens that brings African countries into conversation with other pertinent histories both within and outside of the continent. The collection analyzes the pre- and post-colonial eras within African countries such as Kenya, Malawi, and Sudan, examining major historical figures and events, struggles for independence and stability, contemporary urban settlements, social and economic development, as well as constitutional, legal, and human rights issues that began in the colonial era and persist to this day.
As the millennium approaches, war, political oppression, desperate poverty, environmental degradation and disasters are increasing the world's millions of forced immigrants. This text provides gendered case studies from around the world.
Most capital markets that have been established in developing economies like Africa have struggled to make progress over two decades down the line. Development of African Capital Markets explores why these markets have remained underdeveloped and discusses a possible development theory that can be used in designing and implementing legal and institutional reforms to reinvigorate capital markets in African and other developing countries. Boniface Chimpango analyses the weaknesses of capital markets in developing countries, and argues that legal and institutional framework for capital markets in developing countries should be tailored to the unique informal rules prevalent in each country rather than being transplanted from developed countries. This book will be of interest to scholars, students and policy makers in the fields of economic development, African Studies, law, development and regulatory policy.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1990.
This book directs attention away from unattainable 'good governance', and towards 'with-the-grain' institutional reforms that can initiate and sustain development momentum. It shows how to find a 'good fit' between country context and governance reform - with virtuous circles of change sometimes transforming seemingly modest reforms into a cascading sequence of gains.
"Denis Venter's book, Malawi's Transition from One-Party Autocracy to Enfeebled Democracy, takes us through six decades of Malawi's politics, the changes and the confronting challenges His sense of humour and his command over the subject make the reading insightful and enjoyable. The book is a must-read for all academics and practitioners. I can't wait to hold this book in my hands." Dr Nandini Patel, Professor emeritus, Catholic University of Malawi