USD $67.00
Search Results
Page:12
Author:
Abstract
Political liberalisation in Africa has often been accompanied by a somewhat paradoxical obsession with autochthony, leading to more or less violent forms of exclusion of migrants. South West Province, one of the two provinces in the Anglophone region of Cameroon, provides an interesting case study to illustrate this striking phenomenon. In an area where a plantation economy was established during German colonial rule, massive labour migration has been encouraged from elsewhere in the country, particularly from the other Anglophone province, North West Province. Following large-scale settlement of northwestern migrants in the South West, the ‘autochthonous’ population began to resent their increasing domination in demographic, economic and political terms. When the government and its regional allies felt threatened by widespread opposition and federalist/-secessionist tendencies in the Anglophone region during the political liberalisation process in the 1990s, they started exploiting existing tensions between the ‘autochthonous’ and ‘allochthonous’ populations to boost South-West identity, promote various forms of ethnic cleansing, and thus split the Anglophone front.
In:
Mobile Africa
Author:
The year 2006 was marked by two landmark events. First, there was the country's attainment of the completion point under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt-relief initiative. One of its immediate consequences was the heightening of expectations among ordinary Cameroonians of a rapid end to their precarious living conditions, which the government felt obliged to dampen. Second, there was the achievement of an equitable agreement with Nigeria on the modalities of Nigerian withdrawal from the Bakassi peninsula, in accordance with the October 2002 International Court of Justice (ICJ) verdict.
Author:
Following their overwhelming victories in the most recent presidential (2004) and legislative elections (2002), President Biya and his party continued to dominate the political scene, aided by divisions and disagreements among the opposition. The government's main objective was to reach the completion point under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt-relief initiative. To this end, the restoration of fiscal discipline was at the centre of its economic reform programme. However, cuts in public expenditure on goods and services and a substantial increase in taxes lowered purchasing power and disturbed business confidence.
Author:
The position of President Paul Biya, who celebrated his 25-year hold on power during 2007, was reinforced by the overwhelming victory of the ruling party in the July legislative and municipal elections. There was growing evidence that he might use the ruling party's two-thirds majority in parliament to enact constitutional amendments to remove the two-term presidential limit, thereby allowing himself to stand for another term of office. While his government succeeded in meeting most of the quantitative targets under the current PRGF, especially those related to fiscal performance, it failed to fulfil the heightened popular expectations for an improvement in the precarious living conditions following last year's substantial debt relief.
Author:
In 2004, Cameroon maintained a remarkable degree of political stability, in spite of its stark ethnic and regional cleavages. One of the most significant events was the re-election of the incumbent Paul Biya as president. This will most probably result in the continuation of the national and international policies pursued since his assumption of office in 1982. A major setback for Cameroon's socioeconomic development was the government's failure to successfully implement the three-year poverty-reduction and growth programme prescribed by the Bretton Woods institutions and Western donors.
Exploring the Wealth of the African Neighbourhood
Series:
African Dynamics, Volume: 5
At times of economic and political crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa, urban dwellers display a large degree of creativity in their survival strategies by developing social networks and constructing imaginative and original practices and ideas. This volume views the urban neighbourhood from two different perspectives and explores the importance of these creative processes. The first approach considers the neighbourhood as a geographical domain in which people are engaged in a variety of activities to advance their material and immaterial well-being, making use of their ‘wealth’ of opportunities, assets and diverse forms of natural, physical, financial, human and social ‘capital’. The second angle sees the neighbourhood as not necessarily geographically located or bounded but as having been created and defined by human beings. These neighbourhoods may take on the form of self-help organizations, associations or churches, or may be based on gender, generational, ethnic or occupational identities. As the contributions from all over Sub-Saharan Africa show, the two approaches do not necessarily exclude each other.
Exploring the Wealth of the African Neighbourhood
Series:
African Dynamics, Volume: 5
At times of economic and political crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa, urban dwellers display a large degree of creativity in their survival strategies by developing social networks and constructing imaginative and original practices and ideas. This volume views the urban neighbourhood from two different perspectives and explores the importance of these creative processes. The first approach considers the neighbourhood as a geographical domain in which people are engaged in a variety of activities to advance their material and immaterial well-being, making use of their ‘wealth’ of opportunities, assets and diverse forms of natural, physical, financial, human and social ‘capital’. The second angle sees the neighbourhood as not necessarily geographically located or bounded but as having been created and defined by human beings. These neighbourhoods may take on the form of self-help organizations, associations or churches, or may be based on gender, generational, ethnic or occupational identities. As the contributions from all over Sub-Saharan Africa show, the two approaches do not necessarily exclude each other.
A Study of the Politics of Recognition and Representation in Cameroon
This is a significant and timely book on the politics of belonging. It captures, with fascinating detail and insight, the current widespread disaffection with the sterile rhetoric of nation-building that has characterised much of postcolonial African politics. Until the liberation struggles of the 1990s, dictatorship only paid lip service to democracy with impunity, often by silencing those perceived to threaten national unity. Since then, individuals and groups have reactivated claims to rights and entitlements and nowhere more so than in Cameroon. The book articulates the experiences and predicaments of the country's Anglophone community trapped in a marriage of inconvenience pregnant with tensions and conflicts.
A Study of the Politics of Recognition and Representation in Cameroon
This is a significant and timely book on the politics of belonging. It captures, with fascinating detail and insight, the current widespread disaffection with the sterile rhetoric of nation-building that has characterised much of postcolonial African politics. Until the liberation struggles of the 1990s, dictatorship only paid lip service to democracy with impunity, often by silencing those perceived to threaten national unity. Since then, individuals and groups have reactivated claims to rights and entitlements and nowhere more so than in Cameroon. The book articulates the experiences and predicaments of the country's Anglophone community trapped in a marriage of inconvenience pregnant with tensions and conflicts.
Page:12