Editorial

BackgroundThe fear of infertility or delayed return to fertility is a common barrier to contraceptive use in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly among young or nulliparous women. Global evidence on return to pregnancy after method discontinuation suggests these fears may be misplaced; yet the topic has not been widely studied in sub-Saharan Africa nor by age and parity group.MethodsReproductive calendar data from recent Demographic and Health Surveys of 15 sub-Saharan African countries were used to analyze time-to-pregnancy following discontinuation of a contraceptive method with the reason to become pregnant. The probability of pregnancy at 12 months was estimated using single-decrement life tables run by type of method discontinued, age and parity. Results are presented by region: francophone West Africa, anglophone West Africa and East Africa.ResultsThe 12-month probability of pregnancy after discontinuation of contraception to become pregnant was 73.0% in francophone West Africa, 78.8% in anglophone West Africa, and 82.0% in East Africa. Our results showed significant regional differences in return to pregnancy by 12 months, with probabilities in francophone West Africa being significantly lower than in anglophone West Africa or East Africa. A lower return to pregnancy by 12 months was seen among women ages 35–49 years and was lowest after discontinuation of a hormonal method for all age groups. Differences by parity group were only evident after discontinuation of hormonal methods in francophone West Africa.ConclusionsSustainable gains in increasing contraceptive uptake, especially among youth, may be difficult to achieve without information and counseling that address concerns about infertility and potential delays in return to pregnancy following use of hormonal methods.

The emergence of the Y en a marre movement in 2011 has reshaped the face of social activism in Francophone sub-Saharan Africa. In less than a decade of its existence, Y’en a marre has become iconic in Senegalese civil society and beyond. Their effective opposition to the Wade regime between 2011 and 2012 reverberated beyond the Senegalese border through their slogan “touche pas à ma constitution” (Do not touch my constitution), a rallying cry that young people in Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic of Congo later appropriated, thus giving the movement a Pan-African platform. The birth of Y’en a Marre and its confrontation methods (street protests, verbal attacks via radio, TV, concerts, rap sons to name a few) enabled several important interrogations that this project aims at exploring. What triggers the formation of social movements in contemporary Senegal and Francophone West Africa? How does Y’en a Marre’s blueprint fit in the general struggle for Pan-Africanism today? How are music and art used to create a transnational solidarity against bad governance and foreign influence in West African affairs? This dissertation explores how contemporary social movements in Francophone West Africa are re-appropriating Pan-African principles to fight for democracy and good governance as well as to curb foreign influence in African affairs. This dissertation argues that such movements use various innovative means including music, visual art, social media, and street protests to draw popular support and foment resistance to confront regimes that fail to safeguard basic democratic principles, such as fair and transparent elections. In doing so, social movements in Francophone West Africa help foster a new era in the development of Pan-Africanism called “Neo Pan-Africanism” in which social activist and popular movements become one of the key driving forces of Pan-Africanism as a transatlantic movement and ideology. The dissertation also contends that the Y’en a marre movement is spearheading a new type of transnational collaboration partly grounded in popular culture (especially hip-hop), advocacy training and sometimes litigation, to enable social movements in West Africa to fight against common issues that pertain to the safeguard of their national sovereignties.

Very little is known about the business environment in the countries of l'Afrique Occidentale Française (or francophone), the French‐speaking countries of West Africa, here referred to as francophone West Africa (FWA). Yet chief executive officers and corporate managers are under increasing pressures to assess the business environment before entering any such overseas markets. Therefore, the aim of paper is to scan the macro‐environmental forces operating in the FWA market. An audit of these external factors produces an “ETOP” framework, describing the current external threats and opportunities for would‐be entrants, and identifying practical implications for international marketing planners. The FWA countries are classic case of an emerging market, about which more deserves to be known, especially by non‐francophone decision makers in multinational corporations.

Francophone West Africa (FWA) is a diverse subregion known for its strong national identities and regional collaboration. With high maternal and child death rates and low contraceptive prevalence compared to other parts of West Africa, Francophone countries have worked together to pursue common health and development goals, such as enhancing access to family planning/reproductive health; meeting the health, education, and employment needs of a growing population of young people; and addressing challenges such as climate change and conflict. Over the past three decades, the Population Council has worked to advance subnational, national, and regional efforts to improve health and promote evidence-based policies across FWA. This brief highlights the Council’s work in FWA and the Sahel, which has included research activities, technical assistance, and collaborations across 11 countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Togo.

FOREWORD by Ian Smillie, Partnership Africa Canada, Ottawa Introduction: Resuscitating the Policy and Research Agendas for Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining 1. Section 1: Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in West Africa - An Overview of the Issue 2. Poverty and Economic Development in West Africa: An Historical Analysis 3. Poverty and Artisanal Mining in West Africa 4. Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in West Africa: An Overview of Sustainable Development and Environmental Issues 5. Mercury: An Agent of Poverty in West Africa's Small-Scale Gold Mining Industry 6. Fostering cooperation between small- and large-scale gold miners in West Africa 7. Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in West Africa: Achieving Sustainable Development through Environmental and Human Rights Law 8. Section 2: Country Case Studies - Francophone West Africa 9. Artisanal Mining in Mali: An Overview of the Issues 10. Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mines in Burkina Faso: Today and Tomorrow 11. Artisanal Gold Mining in Burkina Faso: Permits, Poverty and Perceptions of the Poor in Sanmatenga, The 'Land of Gold' 12. Artisanal Gold-Mining in Northern Benin: A Socio-Cultural Perspective 13. Section 3: Country Case Studies - Anglophone West Africa 14. Diamonds, poverty and war in Sierra Leone 15. Reflections on the Political Economy of Artisanal Diamond Mining in Kono District, Sierra Leone 16. Integrative Perspectives on Diamond Mining and Public Health in Akwatia, Ghana 17. Socio-Economic, Environmental and Policy Implications of Alluvial Diamond Mining in the Birim 18. 'Live and Let's Live' - The Relationship between Artisanal/Small-Scale and Large-scale miners in Ghana: The Abosso Goldfields' Experience 19. Strained relations: a critical assessment of the mining conflict in Prestea, Ghana 20. Addressing the Environmental Challenges of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in Nigeria Postscript: Progress on the Horizon?

The study aimed to analyse the challenges and solutions for maintaining the continuity of essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Francophone West Africa. A cross-sectional study involving the managers of Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal, Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) and vaccination programmes in Francophone West Africa was designed. The challenges that limited the supply and use of RMNCAH services included: lack of standardized guides and procedures for appropriate care, limited knowledge of health workers on the new coronavirus disease, lack of diagnostic materials and kits, ineffective organization of services, anxieties of health workers and populations, and postponement of immunisation mass campaigns. The solutions proposed to address these challenges, included better organization of services to respect the physical distance, provision of adapted guides and care procedures, enhanced communication, training of health workers, effective use of social media and information and communication technologies. This study showed that the managers of RMNCAH programmes are aware of the challenges that could limit the supply and use of essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While there have been a lot of studies on the possibility and relevance of critical pedagogy and postmethod in other contexts, few studies exist in Francophone West Africa. Besides, this chapter responds to the calls of many African authors for a more critical, democratic, and liberatory education in sub-Saharan Africa. This chapter is an attempt to bridge these gaps and expands the body of literature on critical pedagogy and postmethod by bridging theory and practice. First, it reflects on the significance and rationale of the use of critical pedagogy and postmethod in Francophone West Africa. It then provides an overview of the context of Francophone West Africa and proceeds to examine the rationale and relevance of critical pedagogy and postmethod. Various limitations and possibilities of these paradigms are discussed. The chapter then concludes with some possible and practical steps to espouse critical pedagogy and postmethod by drawing on Mali as a specific example.

The socially and politically committed films of francophone West Africa have for decades been incorporating progressive representations of African women. Although female directors are hugely underrepresented in West African film-making, as they are the world over, the last two decades have seen the gradual emergence of female directors in francophone West Africa. An increasing number of women in francophone West Africa are directing their own films, building on the work of the pioneering, mostly male, West African film-makers. This article will discuss the emergence of female film-making in francophone sub-Saharan Africa, from the pioneering figures to a number of contemporary directors following in the footsteps of those female directors who have initiated the tradition of female film-making in francophone sub-Saharan Africa. Some of the key films made by African women will be discussed, with a focus on the themes, genres and styles that female film-makers employ in their work. The article conclude that African women’s film-making in francophone West Africa is an emerging tradition of plurality and multiplicity, with a diverse range of genres and themes being employed, informed by the lived experiences of the directors

Since the 1980s, decentralisation has become a key development theme in Francophone West Africa for various reasons. Perhaps most significant is the great dissatisfaction with centralised approaches of the past. Despite the heavy interest in decentralisation, however, progress of implementation has been rather slow and problematic. Except in Senegal, decentralisation is a relatively new phenomenon in Francophone West Africa and even there the decentralisation process is far from complete. Other more recently decentralising countries have taken very different paths. Burkina Faso, for example, is gradually phasing in decentralisation in the rural areas, while Mali created local governments across the entire country simultaneously. Such differences in approach can be a justifiable response to variations in the political and social climate across countries. One factor that has been uniformly given inadequate attention in decentralisation efforts is the role of traditional local institutions and how they respond to the introduction of new local institutions. This and other aspects of decentralisation in Francophone West Africa require further careful study if policymakers are to better understand how to design and implement more effective and sustainable decentralised systems. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Few culturally congruent interventions are available to reduce abusive practices in families living in abject poverty in francophone West Africa. This study tests the effects of economic intervention—alone and in combination with a family-focused component—on parenting outcomes and children’s reports of violence in rural Burkina Faso. Female caregivers and their 10- to 15-year-old children from 360 ultrapoor families were recruited to participate in a parallel cluster randomized control trial with 3 study arms: the waitlist (control) group, the economic intervention group (Trickle Up [TU]), and the economic intervention plus family coaching group (TU+). Effects were tested using repeated-measures mixed-effects regressions. At 12 months from baseline, caregivers from the TU+ group reported a reduced use of harsh discipline compared to the control group (Cohen’s d = –0.57, p = .001) and the TU group (d = –0.48, p = .001). Changes were maintained at 24 months. TU+ caregivers also expressed more supportive parenting attitudes at 12 months compared to the control group (d = 0.39, p = .022) and the TU group (d = 0.55, p = .001). Compared to TU caregivers, caregivers in the TU+ group also reported a better quality of child–parent relationship (d = 0.40, p = .041). At 24 months, children in the TU+ group had lower odds of experiencing physical (odds ratio = 0.35, p = .050), 95% confidence interval [0.12, 1.00], and emotional (odds ratio = 0.52, p = .033), 95% confidence interval [0.28, 0.95], violence at home, compared to the control group children. The evidence suggests that involving all family members in sessions on child protection in addition to economic strengthening strategies can foster supportive parenting environments and reduce family violence among children living in ultralevel poverty in West Africa.

This article examines relations between state and customary land claims in Francophone West Africa. This region, despite a broadly common legal heritage at the time of independence, experienced a wide variety of changes at the national scale to the point where these countries now form a full spectrum of statutory/customary relations. After a historical review of rural property rights in Francophone West Africa, this article proposes a typology of State vs. Customary ownership in the region with a focus on four exemplary cases: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Mauritania.

Using a simple and conservative methodology, we estimated the volume and monetary value of the human milk produced by lactating women in Francophone West Africa. In that region, children zero to 35.9 months old consume over 1.1 billion liters of human milk per year. However, suboptimal breastfeeding practices account for the loss of 175 million liters of human milk annually. If the human milk consumed by children zero to 35.9 months old were to be adequately replaced using commercial breastmilk substitutes, an annual expenditure of about 2 billion US dollars would be needed. At the household level, the annual replacement cost of human milk would amount to US$412 per infant. This is beyond the reach of most families in West Africa, where as many as 61% of families in some countries live on less than one US dollar per day. Appropriate policies to foster breastfeeding need to be developed and adequately implemented. Such policy action is more likely to occur if decision makers fully appreciate the monetary value of human milk.

The rise of Turkish television drama series—or dizi as they are known in Turkey—is one of the most notable media phenomena of the past decade in francophone West Africa, particularly Guinea. This is taking place at a time when Turkey has significantly ramped up its economic, political, and cultural investments in Africa, with countries such as Guinea, rich in natural resources and with geostrategic sea access, rapidly emerging as new targets for Turkey's outsized ambitions. This article asks what we can learn about the global circulation of Turkish modernity—a unique blend of tantalizing consumerism and piety conceptualized as “neo-Ottoman cool”—in francophone West Africa by analyzing the hugely popular dizi alongside public debates on Turkey's investments in energy, transportation, energy, culture, or construction. Drawing on Joseph Tonda's notion of éblouissement (dazzlement), it argues that Guineans, like other West Africans, encounter the dazzling images of Istanbul's rich and famous that permeate dizi in stark contrast with Turkish investments in floating power plants and public transport or the Turkish-built Abdul Hamid II Mosque in Bambeto, a popular quarter of Conakry. The article proposes the phrase dazzle-to-diesel to account for the constant oscillation between blinding power and toxic fumes that accompanies encounters with neo-Ottoman cool in West Africa.

Part I: The End of the Colonial Period 1. The Economic Dimensions of British and French Decolonisation in Black Africa 2. The Colonial Inheritance Part II: Economic Performance and Explanations, 1960-1980 3. Performance, Expectations and the 'Policy' Approach 4. 'Non-Policy' Explanations of Limited Development Part III: The 'Policy' Explanation in Six African States 5. Anglophone West Africa: Ghana and Nigeria 6. Anglophone East Africa: Kenya and Tanzania 7. Francophone West Africa: Ivory Coast 8. Francophone West Africa: Senegal 9. Summary and Conclusions: Economic Decolonisation and 'Arrested Development'.

The democratic process that was triggered in Africa in the 1990s, especially in Francophone West Africa is choked with various problems. Few years ago, many African countries were either under military regimes or one party system. Today, the continent has witnessed a positive change at least in form and nomenclature with the exception of few countries where there were military coups recently namely: Mali, Niger Republic, Burkina Fasso. From Gambia to Benin Republic to Togolese Republic, countries have adopted democratic constitutions through popular elections. Yet in the course of transition through national conferences or military regimes to democratic regimes, most of these countries find themselves at crossroads. Democratization is synonymous to democratic consolidation which must entails guarantee of free and fair elections, fundamental human rights, freedoms, participation and rule of law. This paper discusses transitions to democracy of some francophone West African countries and analyses the problems confronting its development process. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex process of democratization in Francophone West Africa.