Contemporary Africa: Challenges and Opportunities (African Histories and Modernities)

60 years after independence, African nations still find it difficult to face a number of challenges, from establishing meaningful democratic institutions to establish social structures centered on the advancement of gender equality. This volume approaches these contemporary African challenges while combating a reflexive and facile Afro-Pessimism. The challenges facing Africa today have changed little since the end of colonial rule. Once the optimism that characterized the African struggle for independence dissipated in the 1960s, statesmen of the continent's respective nations were quick to realize how many unsettling issues had developed during the period of European colonial rule. For the most part, these new statesmen focused so much on retaining their political power that they focused little attention and resources to the socioeconomic welfare of their subjects. As a consequence, sixty years after independence, African nations still find it difficult to face a number of challenges: to establish meaningful democratic-governing institutions that could permanently eradicate graft, unwarranted patronage and corruption; to configure self-reliant economies capable of redressing the poverty gap and adapt to the developmental needs of the people of the continent; and to establish concrete social structures centered on the advancement of gender equality, the protection of women's rights, and the promotion of education and healthcare. Many researchers and policy analysts have emphasized the consequences of bad political leadership on the continent, limiting the discussion to one about power and the powerful. This volume shifts the focus to the plight of the powerless, poor, and destitute millions on the continent who continue to search for opportunities despite the accumulated negatives of bad colonial, political, and economic policies. For these millions, the day-to-day challenges of dealing with the negative effects of debt-ridden and corrupt societies, diseases such as HIV/AIDS, population growth and poor family planning, ineffective attention to human and environmental rights issues, and the flight of many of their brightest sons and daughters remain their plight. The collection's strength lies in its approach to contemporary African challenges with a twenty-first-century framework-namely, the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDG)-while also presenting important issues from various African perspectives. Unlike the pessimistic emphasis on corruption and conflict articulated by many scholars, the studies gathered here constitute a more balanced view of African agency, both positive and negative, in the face of global pressures Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Introduction: Change and Continuity in Contemporary Africa....Pages 1-19 Front Matter....Pages 21-21 Mau Mau Inventions and Reinventions....Pages 23-45 The Development of the Civil Service in Africa....Pages 47-62 The Second World War and Africa’s Socioeconomic Infrastructures: A Case Study of the Nigerian Railroad System....Pages 63-87 The Cold War and the Emergence of Economic Divergences: Africa and Asia Compared....Pages 89-125 Front Matter....Pages 127-127 Africa’s Debt Burden and the HIPC Initiative: Cameroon, from Challenges to Opportunity....Pages 129-153 The Effects of Family Size on Socioeconomic Status in Cameroon: A Critical Analysis....Pages 155-174 Music and the Politics of Culture in a South African Zulu HIV/AIDS Experience: Implications for “Post-Apartheid” Discourse....Pages 175-190 Land and Conflict in Kenya’s Rift Valley: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives....Pages 191-223 The Migration of Professionals from Africa: Assessing the Impact of the “Brain Drain” from the Continent....Pages 225-244 Conclusion: Africa that Works....Pages 245-251 Back Matter....Pages 253-261