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Electronic Payments in Sub Saharan Africa: Will Mobile Telephony Accounts Systems be the Next Leapfrog Technology for Development?
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Beyond the Geometry of State Sovereignty: Regionalism and Non-State Actors in the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
Get PDFThe collapse of the Cold War and accelerated globalization have reshaped the international political economy and in the process ignited a new impetus for regionalism. This paper posits that despite the transformation of SADCC into SADC, regional integration in southern Africa remains quintessentially statist with minimal (if any) involvement of civil society organizations and the private sector. This suggests that states in SADC remain crucial in lending scope and providing guidance about the content and character of regional integration. There is, therefore, in SADC, not yet a realization about the complimentary roles to be played by states, civil society organizations and the private sector in the integration process. To illustrate, SADC-PF, a non-governmental entity in the region cannot hold the SADC Summit (the regional executive) accountable and is therefore reduced to a powerless watch-dog body as the ruling elites shape and drive regional integration with little input from other non-state actors. Notwithstanding this state centric nature of SADC, extending the frontiers of globalized markets and globalized democracy, has led to the enfeeblement of the state. In southern Africa, this has opened-up opportunities for non-state informal actors to broaden the conception of the region and the notion of a regional community. This paper asserts that through economic and cultural trans-regional engagements, ordinary citizens are already constructing a southern Africa that lies beyond the geometry of state-sovereignty
Regional Variations in Maternal Mortality, Infant Mortality, and Infants with Low Birth Weight: Implications for Sub Sahara Africa and Gender-Sensitive Policies
Get PDFThe paper examines regional variations in maternal mortality, infant mortality, and percentage infants with low birth weight in relation to economic development, gender equality, and women\u27s rights by using data obtained from 137 developing countries (or areas). The 137 developing countries are divided into six regions: sub-Saharan Africa (N=45), Arab states (N=20), East Asia/Pacific (N=28), South Asia (N=9), Latin America/Caribbean (N=33), and Southern Europe (N=2). To examine regional variations, this paper is divided into four parts. The first part discusses regional variations in maternal mortality, infant mortality, and infants with low birth weight across and within regions. Part two focuses on cluster analysis to group countries (areas) with similar values on infant and maternal mortality and infants with low birth rates. Part three provides discussions on the tests of statistical significance in regional variations. The findings support the hypothesis that geographic locations are important for people\u27s health, particularly the health of women and children, and that geographic variations in the health of women and children are directly affected by environmental and social-economic factors to enhance economic growth and to advance women\u27s education, political participation, and financial independence. The women\u27s rights hypothesis is not supported by the data. Perhaps human rights instruments and legislations provide a legal discourse for political functions, but the legal approach does not necessarily provide a moral and social foundation to ensure the health of women and children. Part four discusses the dilemma of the sub-Saharan Africa region with regard to the health of women and children and provides suggestions for policy considerations
State Integrity and Democratic Governance: The Security Implications of Liberalization Policies in Africa
Get PDFThis article examines the levels of security/insecurity-related issues in Africa within the context of political and economic liberalization policies. It is argued that the interactive effects of internal and external systemic developments that characterize globalization processes have had serious security implications for governance in Africa. The indicators of insecurity and immiseration imply that Africa needs to reevaluate its approach to development in relation to the combined effects of national and international imperatives
Political Parties and Factionalism in Nigeria\u27s Fourth Republic: Their Impact on Political Stability
Get PDFThe desire to transform a nation\u27s political system through organized political parties forms the bedrock of a genuine patriotism to move the country forward. When such patriotism becomes pseudo in nature through factions which produce strife leading to stresses and strains and other discord of malfunctioning organizations, the grand political edifice constructed through a genuine patriotism begins to crumble, and in a poetical manner, things will begin to fall apart and the center will no longer hold. This in a nutshell describes the Nigerian party system from inception. Thus, the enthusiasm that metamorphosed into the creation of political parties in Nigeria by the elite to fight against the colonial rule divided and disappeared after the struggle against the colonial rule as the colonialists could no longer come up with vibrant nationalist parties.
The crave to intensify party politics by these same people after independence degenerated into intense ethnic rivalries. In the same vein, party politics among the intellectuals who traveled abroad in search of more knowledge also took an ethnic dimension. They failed to come together. It was not therefore surprising to see the Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa students in their mushroom gatherings with ethnic leanings. Obviously, this is a carry over of what transpired at home (Nigeria) among the founding fathers of Nigerian political parties.
This paper shows that Nigerian politicians have not eschewed the politics of bitterness and acrimony, which have hitherto led to factions in many of the country\u27s political parties. It further argues that such a development would endanger the politics of the fourth republic