News & Events

The Netherlands has been an active supporter of international development aid. Dutch development cooperation started in response to Truman’s 'Four point programme' announced in 1949. It began as technical assistance, channelled through multilateral channels. Bilateral aid started in 1962 and was introduced by (then) Minister for Development Cooperation Berend-Jan Udink. Since then, the priorities, target countries and budget of Dutch development cooperation have continuously shifted. This thematic map illustrates how the partner countries for Dutch development cooperation have changed throughout the years.

The research project 'Defining, targeting and reaching the very poor' has resulted in field reports on Bangladesh, Benin, Jeldu (Ethiopia), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and a synthesis report. Anika Altaf is a PhD candidate whose research aims to discover how extremely poor people can benefit on a long-term basis from poverty-alleviation initiatives. In addition, she attempts to find out who the ultra poor are and what struggles they face.

In October 2014 a massive popular uprising in Burkina Faso, spearheaded by the trade unions, toppled the regime of Blaise Compaoré. The unrest bore a striking resemblance to that of January 1966, when the trade unions led widespread demonstrations that ousted the country’s first president, Maurice Yaméogo. On neither occasion was the trade union movement sufficiently united to define a new political agenda for the country. Professor Craig Phelan (Kingston University London) will discuss the pros and cons of trade union pluralism in Burkina Faso on 21 April.

Youth culture and popular music are important sites for critical reflection on contemporary society and social change. They emerge as forms of protest and critique in response to discrimination and marginalization, inequality and injustice. Mirjam de Bruijn (Leiden University), Kno’Ledge Cesare (poet, blogger and motivational speaker) and Croquemort (slam artist) will discuss these issues on Wednesday evening 20 April in Museum Volkenkunde, in the African Arts and Literatures series (#3). 

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 2004 decided to document the Southern African liberation struggles and to publish the results in a series of books. In 2015 the 9-volume work appeared, describing the liberation wars in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and the experiences in frontline states Botswana, Tanzania and Zambia and in the ‘extension countries’ Lesotho, Malawi and Swaziland. Historical chapters are followed by personal stories of liberation fighters, such as Saara Kuugongelwa, Namibia's current Prime Minister. The books are the subject of our latest Library Highlight.

UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was killed in September 1961 when his plane crashed in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). His period in office was marked by the challenges of the Cold War and the decolonization of Africa, in particular Congo. Initial investigations could not clarify the reasons for the crash. More than 50 years later further evidence emerged. Henning Melber (director emeritus Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala) will discuss Hammarskjöld’s approach to Congo and the efforts to establish the circumstances of the plane crash, during the seminar on 17 March.

This film is part of the Movies that Matter Festival. Both Fadimata 'Disco' Walet Oumar, one of the main characters, and film director Johanna Schwartz will be present. In 2012, extremist groups captured most of northern Mali. Sharia law banned all music. Forced into exile, singers Khaira Arby and Fadimata ‘Disco’ Walet Oumar join the resistance. The film follows the musicians up to their first public concert in Timbuktu since the music ban.

Press cuttings from 1968 about the banning of the miniskirt in Malawi, a proposal for the Republican Constitution of Malawi dated 1965, field notes of conversations with local court chairmen: the Library of the African Studies Centre Leiden is thrilled to have acquired the archives of scholar Franz von Benda-Beckmann, who collected material about legal pluralism in Malawi in the 1960s. His wife, Keebet von Benda-Beckmann, kindly donated 3 small boxes containing interesting material on Nyasaland and Malawi, including old Constitutions, law books, reports from local courts, penal codes and folders.

Excellent news from the research programme Society and Change in Northern Ghana: Dr Samuel Ntewusu, co-coordinator of the programme, has been appointed KNAW Visiting Professor for 2016-2017 by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. The position allows Samuel to travel to Leiden three times for the programme, and organise a conference and several workshops. Within the same programme, Dutch photographer Jan Banning will do a photo project on the chiefs of Gonja and Dagomba, in the form of ‘portraits in context’. 

The religious movement of the Ahmadiyya was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a 19th Century Indian Muslim scholar. It reached West Africa in the 1920s. The Ahmadis seek restoration of true Islam and disseminate their message discreetly via medical centres, schools and development projects. On 25 February visiting fellow Kathrin Langewiesche (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität) will situate the Ahmadiyya movement in the context of modern Islamic movements and examine the importance of active faith spreading in Islamic countries.