News & Events

After an academic career of 27 years at the African Studies Centre, senior researcher Dick Foeken is retiring. Next to his research in the field of urban poverty, urban water supply and urban agriculture, Dick was a member of the management team and deputy director of the ASC. In the nineties he started to coordinate the publications department, thus arranging over 300 publications. Dick started working at the ASC in 1987, when he became part of the Food and Nutrition Studies Programme.

De Nederlandse anti-apartheidsbeweging was een van de sterkste sociale bewegingen van Nederland. Toch heeft de beweging slechts beperkte invloed gehad op het Nederlandse overheidsbeleid ten aanzien van Zuid-Afrika. De achtereenvolgende kabinetten hebben steeds gekozen voor de handelsbelangen van Nederland. Tijdens dit seminar op 1 mei zal onderzoeksjournalist en auteur Roeland Muskens de anti-apartheidsbeweging analyseren. Please note that this seminar will be held in Dutch.

The documentary film 'From Namibia with Love' tells the story of an old Finnish-Namibian couple who fought for Namibia’s independence. In the 1970’s the couple assisted the Namibian Liberation Movement SWAPO that fought the South African occupation. In the middle of the struggle Anita and Salatiel got into a conflict with the SWAPO leadership. The hardships they experienced in the 1970s still haunt them. Filmmaker Laura Meriläinen will be present at this ASC film seminar on 11 April.

East Africa has delivered an impressive economic growth rate and is expecting an economic boom in the near future. However, the ordinary East African does not feel the benefits yet. At the ASC seminar on 15 April Aidan Eyakuze, Associate Regional Director of the Society for International Development, will present the State of East Africa Report 2013, revealing new information and sparking the imagination for the processes that are shaping East Africa.

The ASC Country Portal is online! Offering an abundance of information on African countries. This database brings together sources of digital information, grouped per country: news, statistics (UN, Worldbank, elections turnout), publications, Africa experts, Twitter, maps and much more. While 29 out of the 54 African countries are now ready, all countries can be accessed. Countries that are still under construction are marked as such.

On 21 August 1986 all human and animal life in the Nyos Valley in Cameroon died, without a trace of damage to houses or crops. Until today the cause of this disaster is not known. Was it an eruption of gas from a nearby crater? Or a French nuclear test? An Israelian bomb? Or punshment from the gods? In his book Stikvallei Dutch author Frank Westerman examines not only the facts and theories with respect to this catastrophe, but also the emergence of myths surrounding the mysterious mass deaths. The splendidly researched Stikvallei is our latest Acquisition Highlight. (Please note that it is written in Dutch, as is the book).

 Verina Ingram will defend her PhD thesis entitled 'Win-wins in forest product value chains? How governance impacts the sustainability of livelihoods based on non-timber forest products from Cameroon' on 18 March at the University of Amsterdam. Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) such as nuts, leaves, resins, barks and honey have medicinal, food, energy, tool and cultural uses. This study examines eight such NTFP value chains from Cameroon, sold locally and exported worldwide. It shows that their combined value is over 32 million US$ annually, more than previously realised. Around 34,000 people, including harvesters and traders, derive income from this trade.

The ASC and the Netherlands African Business Council (NABC) will be organizing the second edition of the Africa Works! conference on 16 & 17 October 2014 in Leiden. The objective is to explore the challenges and opportunities Africa poses to companies, government bodies, NGOs and knowledge centers. Scientific seminars and practical workshops will highlight the themes that are relevant to people working in or with Africa today. Registration is now open!

This book is the first attempt to understand Boko Haram in a comprehensive and consistent way. It examines the early history of the sect and its transformation into a radical armed group. It analyses the causes of the uprising against the Nigerian state and evaluates the consequences of the on-going conflict from a religious, social and political point of view. The book is a co-publication of the ASC and IFRA-Nigeria (Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique).  

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been waging a brutal insurgency in Uganda since the late 1980s. Little is known, however, about the people who fought against the LRA. Who were these people and why did they take up arms against one of Africa’s most dreaded rebel groups? On 20 March, Klaas Castelein will consider the ‘Arrow Boys’, a militia that was founded in Teso in Eastern Uganda and successfully challenged Kony’s guerrilla fighters from 2003-2005. Castelein's findings are based on yet unpublished sources and data.