News & Events

According to the editors of Le Mali contemporain, the lack of information on the socio-political, economic and demographic changes that Mali has seen since its independence (1960) has diminished an understanding of what is actually happening in Mali considerably. This work, with contributions by Malian and European researchers in the fields of the social sciences and the humanities, (the outcome of a conference in 2013), aims to remedy this knowledge deficit by describing contemporary Malian society, just before the crisis broke out. Le Mali Contemporain is the subject of our latest Library Highlight.

The ASCL has recently started a scoping study focusing on regional trade integration in West Africa: ‘Improving the perspective for regional trade and investment in West Africa: the key to food security, economic development and stability in the region?’. The study has been commissioned by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The project will be carried out by a joint venture of knowledge institutions that, in addition to the ASCL, consists of the Agro-Economic Research Institute of the Agricultural University of Wageningen and the European Center for Development Policy Management.

This book, edited by ASCL researchers Akinyinka Akinyoade and Jan-Bart Gewald, brings together the results of studies of the various cultural, social, economic and historical aspects that are formative in African societies’ experiences of how people negotiated the spaces and times of being in transit on the road to prosperity. The book analyses the various outcomes of the process of mobility and the experience of spaces and times of transit across gender, generational, and class-differences. Many ASCL researchers have contributed to the book, that has been published by Brill.

On the occasion of the Stephen Ellis Annual Lecture 2015, to be given by journalist-photographer Howard French on 10 December, the ASC Library compiled a web dossier on the Africa-Asia relations. French is the author of China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants are Building a New Empire in Africa, and will address the China-Africa encounter. The relationship between Africa and China and other Asian powers features heavily in the Library's collection. The subject is also well represented in ASC research, including in the research collaborative group ‘Africa in the world’, that contributed to the web dossier. The introduction is written by ASC researcher Mayke Kaag.

In contrast to historians who argue that colonial Northern Rhodesia (current Zambia) nearly collapsed during the course of the First World War, Prof. Jan-Bart Gewald in his latest book argues that it was precisely on account of the war that the British South Africa Company was able to establish effective colonial administration. Gewald will talk about his findings during the ASCL seminar on 28 January. All welcome, please register!

Merel van 't Wout, winner Africa Thesis Award 2015, will take a closer look at efforts to promote entrepreneurship as a development strategy during this Africa Today seminar on 14 January. Based on the stories of seamstresses in Bolgatanga (Ghana) she argues that there is a huge discrepancy between the theoretical arguments underlying efforts to advance entrepreneurship among the poor, and the everyday realities that people portrayed as “entrepreneurs” are facing on a daily basis.

This new working paper by Marion Eeckhout focuses on the financial means of implementation generated since the Monterrey Conference for attaining the Millennium Development Goals in Sub-Saharan African countries. It explores whether the Monterrey Consensus in 2002 constituted an inclusive action agenda, thus creating an equal chance for all developing countries to benefit from the additional financial resources mobilized. 

The ASC is saddened by the news that Professor Sam Moyo, former President of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) passed away on 22 November. Professor Moyo had a car accident in New Delhi, India, where he was attending a conference on labour questions in the Global South. ASC director Ton Dietz worked closely with Professor Moyo in the 1990s and wrote a tribute to commemorate him. 

On the occasion of the retirement of ASC researcher Wijnand Klaver, the ASCL is organizing the seminar 'Nutrition in Sustainable Development – Africa on its way from undernutrition to obesity?' on 15 December. Invited speakers are Thom Achterbosch (Wageningen University) on 'Pathways towards sustainable food systems for healthier African diets', and Patrick Kolsteren (Ghent University) on 'Sustainabe nutrition research for Africa in the years to come'. Plus: read the interview we did with Wijand! 

Since March 2013 the Central African Republic (CAR) has been the stage of violence. Accounts of genocide, interreligious conflict and cannibalism have coloured what has been called the ‘most forgotten conflict on earth’. Elections are due 27 December 2015. Will elections help the country out of the impasse? What are the roots of the violence? And how do citizens navigate through insecurity? Two guests from CAR, cartoonist Didier Kassaï and journalist Pacôme Pabandji, will participate in the debate, that is to be followed by the launch of kassaï's comic book ‘Tempête sur Bangui’.