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Africa is now in a much-improved position to support its poor and vulnerable people. It has more money, more policy commitment and abundant intervention programmes. Yet the number of citizens living lives of desperation, or at risk of destitution, is at an all-time high, and still rising. What is turning such positive prospects into such a disappointing result? This book reveals key answers, drawing on empirical studies of cash transfer programmes in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. The studies uncover the motives of donors, politicians and the poor themselves and why governments are not expanding the donor-driven pilot programmes as expected.
For millions of Africans, the social situation is dire. Over half of the population of Sub-Sahara Africa do not have access to improved sanitation facilities, and about a quarter are undernourished. If factors such as armed conflicts in the region, the impact of climate change, or the widespread presence of a broad range of infectious agents are considered, it shows a large number of Africans living in very fragile circumstances, highly vulnerable to any kind of shock or rapid change. Small, informal community groups deliver the majority of social protection services in Africa, but most of these are disqualified from official recognition, support or integration with state systems because the...
Smuggling is typically thought of as furtive and hidden, taking place under the radar and beyond the reach of the state. But in many cases, governments tacitly permit illicit cross-border commerce, or even devise informal arrangements to regulate it. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in the borderlands of Tunisia and Morocco, Max Gallien explains why states have long tolerated illegal trade across their borders and develops new ways to understand the political economy of smuggling. This book examines the rules and agreements that govern smuggling in North Africa, tracing the involvement of states in these practices and their consequences for borderland communities. Gallien demonstrates that, co...
The educational experience reproduces gender ideologies and social norms, which interact with schooling for girls in very particular ways and are implicated in their persistent gendered exclusion and marginalization. The authors in this volume focus on this link by taking a social norms approach to profile the processes, strategies of and research on community-led interventions. The chapters are paced around a pilot project that critically adapted a successful model in India to develop context-appropriate integrated approaches to universalizing secondary education for girls in purposively selected rural and urban poor contexts in Kenya and Uganda. The analyses provide reflexive documentation of the successes and challenges of project implementation activities that have successfully contested girls’ exclusion and marginalization in education. This requires a sustained focus on the link between social and educational institutions and policies and working in an integrated manner with a range of policy actors including young people and targeted communities to bring about significant and sustainable change.
Over the past three decades, African countries have been reforming their public sector with a view to improving efficiency, effectiveness, accountability and transparency as part of efforts to improve the delivery of public services. Reform actions have included privatisation, public/private partnerships, commercialisation and adoption of private sector approaches in managing public organisations. This book, put together by OSSREA, reviews measures by African countries in that regard, the extent to which the measures have achieved their intended results, as well as the factors behind the failure to achieve those results, where this was the case.
Over recent decades, decentralization has emerged as a key Public Sector Reform strategy in a wide variety of international contexts. Yet, despite its emergence as a ubiquitous activity that cuts across disciplinary lines in international development, decentralization is understood and applied in many different ways by parties acting from contrary perspectives. This book offers a fascinating insight into theory and practice surrounding decentralization activities in the Public Sectors of developing and transitional countries. In drawing on the expertise of established scholars, the book explores the contexts, achievements, progress and challenges of decentralization and local governance. Not...
This book explores the ways in which political settlements can contribute to positive changes in Africa’s agricultural and manufacturing sectors. Contemporary Africa has seen many governments, donors, and commercial private enterprises supporting innovative agricultural and agroprocessing schemes with the purpose of diversifying economies. However, many of the schemes collapse or at best fail to generate the needed jobs. Focusing on case studies in Kenya, Nigeria, and Ethiopia, this book takes an interdisciplinary approach that combines economic analysis, life histories, policy approaches methods, and political economy theory to reframe the field with new questions. The contributors offer ...
This authoritative, up-to-date resource will become the standard reference on the theory and practice of public management around the world. Public management addresses strategy, policy processes, and governance as well as the bureaucratic concerns of public administration. Reflecting this diversity, the Dictionary incorporates concepts from various other fields including economics, political science, management, sociology, and psychology. The reference draws from an extensive literature base including books, journals, websites, research reports, government proceedings, legal documents, and international and organizational reports. As the primary source of ready information for students, researchers, scholars, and practitioners, it defines all the fundamental concepts of public management, their applications, and all relevant theories, complete with sources and references.
Africa is now in a much-improved position to support its poor and vulnerable people. It has more money, more policy commitment and abundant intervention programmes. Yet the number of citizens living lives of desperation, or at risk of destitution, is at an all-time high, and still rising. What is turning such positive prospects into such a disappointing result? Politics, Public Policy and Social Protection in Africa reveals key answers, drawing on empirical studies of cash transfer programmes in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. Social cash transfer might be the most effective "safety net" formula to emerge so far. The country chapters in this book explore why it works and how it m...