Women And The Governance Of Security And Development In Africa

Debates about security governance in Africa and about the place of women within it have moved in parallel despite their interconnection. In this book, the authors align the debates, locating African-specific and feminist analysis within the security discourse.

The defence and security of the African state was the sole focus of the security discourse and in that context, the security concerns of individual citizens, particularly women, rarely featured. [...] In the period since the end of the Cold War, the world has come to embrace the notion that individuals ought to be the reference point in security discourse and planning. [...] According to gender activists, reparations have the potential to facilitate the rebuilding of women's lives through addressing the "political and structural inequalities that shape the lives of women and girls" (Nairobi Declaration on the right of women and girls to a remedy and reparation 2007). [...] These include the domestication of major international Conventions and Protocols such as CEDAW, the Beijing Platform of Action and the International Convention on Economic and Social Rights (ICESCR); the enactment of WR bills such as The three Gender Bills and Child Protection Act; the establishment of vibrant Civil Society Groups/Activists like the Mano River Women's Peace Network, (MAWOPNET), 50. [...] The implication of what is included in different definitions in the first debate of GBV is the starting point for the latter strand in the literature, which is about measurement of the problem.

African Governance, Security, and Development explores the political economy of development in Africa. The contributors examine the impact and implications of the democratization process in Africa with particular focus on issues of economic, social, and institutional development. Through a variety of critical perspectives and disciplines, contributors analyze topics such as the impact of democratization on governance and institutional development, foreign aid and foreign direct investment, terrorism in Africa, identity politics, and the politics of oil extraction. African Governance, Security, and Development features the voices of scholars from institutions of higher learning in Africa and showcases case studies from the continent, bringing much-needed African and Africanist perspectives to current discussions about African political development and economy.

Good governance is an index of human development. What constitutes good governance is holistic and gender issues are key components in the formation and practice of governance. In pre-colonial Africa, governance is inclusive of men and women. In the pre-colonial era, it could be argued that women had spheres of power and powerlessness. In most post-colonial societies of Africa, it is a rarity to accord women positions in government. Yet, the United Nations Conferences held in Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985), Beijing (1995) and New York (2000), all had drafts and resolutions to change inequalities and vulnerabilities women encounter in public and private spaces. What are the issues to understand in the inclusion or exclusion of women in governance of African states and societies? This book explicates the experiential issues in gender, politics and governance. The 'known' are the stereotypes accorded to women as weak and unfit to take strategic roles in public life. Scholars across disciplines have debunked this perception. The known constantly linger in perpetuity because the development plans of African states fail to understand what it takes to have women empowered in all ramifications.

This edited volume reflects on some of the important discussions on the trends of governance, conflict and security in Africa. It explores some of the emerging concerns and offers a holistic understanding of the remote and immediate causes of the conflict and how the neo-colonial African states have been structured in a manner that makes violent conflict inevitable. The book thereby provides an overview of Africa’s security challenges and proffers some sustainable policy options for curtailing lawlessness and armed conflict on the continent. Literature is exhaustive about the nexus between governance, peace, and security; however, discourse on the impact of ‘new’ conflict on governance has been scant. Understanding these new trends has become a necessity and precondition for sustainable development, as reflected in both the African Union (AU) Agenda 2063 and the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This definitive handbook is the first reference of its kind bringing together knowledge, scholarship, and debates on themes and issues concerning African women everywhere. It unearths, critiques, reviews, analyses, theorizes, synthesizes and evaluates African women’s historical, social, political, economic, local and global lives and experiences with a view to decolonizing the corpus. This Handbook questions the gendered roles and positions of African women and the structures, institutions, and processes of policy, politics, and knowledge production that continually construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct African women and the study of them. Contributors offer a consistent emphasis on debunking erroneous and misleading myths about African women's roles and positions, bringing their previously marginalized stories to relief, and ultimately re-writing their histories. Thus, this Handbook enlarges the scope of the field, challenges its orthodoxies, and engenders new subjects, theories, and approaches. This reference work includes, to the greatest extent possible, the voices of African women themselves as writers of their own stories. The detailed, rigorous and up-to-date analyses in the work represent a variety of theoretical, methodological, and transdisciplinary approaches. This reference work will prove vital in charting new directions for the study of African women, and will reverberate in future studies, generating new debates and engendering further interest.

This book is a contemporary and sophisticated engagement with the "Africa rising" debate and politics. With 19 carefully curated chapters, this is a theoretically sound and empirically informed project, a compendium for anyone interested in fine-grain scholarly analyses of governance, security and development in Africa. -Temitope Oriola , Joint Editor-in-Chief of African Security, President of the Canadian Association of African Studies (CAAS) and Associate Professor, University of Alberta, Canada. In a moment of political and economic uncertainty throughout the continent, this volume charts out new paths, grounded in interdisciplinary research and rigorous evidence, to futures beyond sanguine declarations of 'Africa Rising' and their celebration of a failed neo-liberal model. -Adam Branch, Director, Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge. This is a comprehensive, timely, and serious interrogation of Africa rising discourses from a multidisciplinary perspective. Africa cannot rise if the multi-layered challenges and opportunities of security, governance, and development are not fully grasped. This anthology is, therefore, a rigorous and empirically grounded contribution to the debate and understanding of Africa's contemporary condition and prospects. It is an uncompromising call to jettison destructive economic and governance models and to adopt frameworks that are sustainable, accountable, and truly transformative. -Professor Ismail Rashid, Department of History, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York This edited book analyses the changing links between governance, security and development in Africa as they relate to the narrative that contemporary Africa has made remarkable progress in recent years, a phenomenon popularly known as "Africa rising." The book presents a rigorous evaluation of the Africa rising debate and consequently offers innovative policy guidelines for Africa's governance and development transformation. Kenneth Omeje is Director, Manifold Crown Research and Training Consult in Bradford, UK; Visiting Professor of Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia; and Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Nigerian Defence Academy in Kaduna. .

This edited book analyses the changing links between governance, security and development in Africa as they relate to the narrative that contemporary Africa has made remarkable progress in recent years, a phenomenon popularly known as “Africa rising.” The book presents a rigorous evaluation of the Africa rising debate and consequently offers innovative policy guidelines for Africa’s governance and development transformation.

This Discussion Paper explores the debates, theoretical perspectives and current trends in gender, conflict and post-conflict reconstruction, and security sector reform (SSR) in Africa. It provides a broad overview of and critical insights into the gender-conflict-security nexus, capturing the trends in the discourses, identifying the gaps in the literature and prioritising issues and areas for future research. This Discussion Paper is essential reading for all those with a deep interest in gender, peace, development and security in Africa, particularly gender scholars, students, activists and practitioners.