On the Historical Roots of Gender Norms: Evidence from Matrilineal Societies in Sub-Saharan Africa

Leguminous crops are key components of low input agricultural cropping systems, and play an important role in ensuring food security in many societies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, legume crop productivity in SSA is frequently limited by mineral nutrient deficiencies (particularly phosphorus, P). A common remedy for P deficiency is the application of P-fertilizers or in the case of low input cropping systems the reliance on symbiotic relations between crops and beneficial soil bacteria (rhizobia) and fungi (mycorrhizas). More recently, identification of legume species and genotypes with high efficiencies of P uptake and P use has been the focus of improvement programs using conventional breeding techniques. Due to inherent time limitations in conventional breeding approaches, progress in improving legume P uptake and P use efficiencies has been slow. Advances in attaining this goal could be by integrating molecular tools with conventional improvement strategies. A consideration of molecular and physiological mechanisms underlying differences in P uptake and P use efficiencies can result in more precise targeting of genetic variation and improvement through marker-assisted selection and other conventional techniques. This article discusses the potential for improving legume crop P uptake and P use efficiency in low-P, acid soils of SSA by integrating physiological and genomic tools, with conventional crop improvement in acid soils. Key words: Legume, phosphorus uptake, breeding, comparative genomics, crop improvement, Sub-Saharan Africa.

This article compares the effectiveness of informal and formal institutions for sustainable common pool resources (CPRs) management in Sub-Saharan Africa and investigates the social, political and demographic conditions that influence the institutions' effectiveness. By focusing on publications addressing micro-level CPR management, a comprehensive literature review was conducted. Articles were grouped, based on the main themes of the study, including types of institutions and conditions that influence their effectiveness. A qualitative meta-analysis was conducted using a deductive coding approach. The results revealed that informal institutions have contributed to sustainable CPR management by creating a suitable environment for joint decision-making, enabling exclusion at low cost for CPR users and using locally agreed sanctions. Although the published evidence suggested less support to formal institutions under decentralised governmental reforms, they played an important role in implementing technologies for sustainable CPR management. Conditions that influence the effectiveness of both types of institutions include high population growth on limited CPRs, the growing scarcity of CPRs due to land use change and the lack of human and financial capacities. Improving the conditions that hinder the contributions of both types of institutions is crucial to enhance the institutions' effectiveness in sustainable CPR management. Moreover, policies and development interventions should strengthen the involvement of well-functioning informal institutions in decision-making so that sustainable CPR management can be achieved.

En Afrique sub-saharienne, l’epidemie de VIH/sida est largement repandue et le virus du VIH se transmet essentiellement par voie heterosexuelle et de la mere a l’enfant au cours de la grossesse, de l’accouchement et de l’allaitement. Le couple est le premier lieu de la transmission sexuelle du VIH, et lorsque la femme est infectee, le risque de transmission verticale du VIH pese sur les choix de procreation. Cet article decrit, a partir d’une revue des etudes africaines sur le sujet et des resultats d’un programme de recherche mene a Abidjan de 1997 a 2001, le projet Ditrame, les modifications observees en matiere de sexualite et de procreation face a la menace du VIH. Apres un panorama des evolutions observees en population generale, l’analyse porte plus precisement sur les femmes ayant appris qu’elles etaient infectees par le VIH au cours d’une grossesse, dans le cadre d’un programme de reduction de la transmission mere-enfant du VIH, et sur leur gestion des risques de transmission sexuelle et verticale du VIH, au sein de leur couple et dans leurs choix de procreation. La difficulte que ces femmes rencontrent a informer leur partenaire de leur infection puis a negocier l’adoption de nouveaux comportements se revele etre un obstacle important. Le succes des programmes de prevention futurs dependra de leur capacite a prendre en compte la relation homme-femme.

On sustainable urban development in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper examines how coloniality continues to shape international trade procedures and processes, thereby contributing to persistent underdevelopment in countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Although formal colonial rule has ended, the paper argues that its underlying power structures remain embedded in global economic systems. These manifest in countries of sub-Saharan Africa through unequal terms of trade, dependence on primary commodity exports, and externally driven development agendas. Drawing from dependency theory and Schumpeter’s notion of creative destruction, the paper specifically analyzes how historical patterns of exploitation and knowledge hierarchies are reproduced through contemporary trade agreements, financial institutions, and global value chains. The paper highlights how structural constraints of limited industrialization, vulnerability to price fluctuations, and asymmetrical bargaining power perpetuate economic dependency and destabilize social productive forces in countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Consequently, creative talents to create new products and technologies to transform societies in sub-Saharan Africa are befuddled and crumpled. The paper concludes that addressing underdevelopment in sub-Saharan Africa requires confronting the colonial logics embedded in global trade structures and advancing alternative models grounded in economic sovereignty, regional integration, and equitable global governance. Thus, there is a need for the formation of capital for competitive innovation to support indigenous businesses in countries of sub-Saharan Africa. This is necessary because innovation tends not to occur in a free market; instead, innovation is deeply shaped by choices and investments made by the State in industrial policy (subsidies), research and development (R&D) funding, infrastructure, education, and human capital development.

Data on youth emotional and behavioral problems from societies in Sub-Saharan Africa are lacking. This may be due to the fact that few youth mental health assessments have been tested for construct validity of syndrome structure across multicultural societies that include developing countries, and almost none have been tested in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Youth Self-Report (YSR), for example, has shown great consistency of its syndrome structure across many cultures, yet data from only one developing country in Sub-Saharan Africa have been included. In this study, we test the factor structure of YSR syndromes among Kenyan youth ages 11-18 years from an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya and examine sex-differences in levels of emotional and behavioral problems. We find the eight syndrome structure of the YSR to fit these data well (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation=.049). While Kenyan girls have significantly higher internalizing (Anxious/Depressed, Withdrawn/Depressed, Somatic) problem scores than boys, these differences are of similar magnitude to published multicultural findings. The results support the generalizability of the YSR syndrome structure to Kenyan youth and are in line with multicultural findings supporting the YSR as an assessment of emotional and behavioral problems in diverse societies.

Chapter 2 - Drought, migration, and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa: what are the links and policy options?

In the past decades sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has witnessed urbanisation at unparalleled rates of increase, together with changing lifestyles. The consequence of this epidemiological transition has been a dramatic increase in the incidence of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), in particular cardiovascular disease (CVD). At the same time social disintegration and inequality, compounded by the dwindling economy in many countries in SSA, have seriously hindered a cohesive response to NCDs. Moreover, infections remain rife and many societies in SSA have to contend with the twin epidemics of both communicable diseases and NCDs.

Sibling Correlations and Intergenerational Mobility in Latin America

After establishing the undeniable importance of knowledge as ingredient for happy living in the 21 st century, this paper probes into the pertinent question ‘which types of knowledge may guarantee the sustainable development of Sub-Saharan Africa?’. The paper argues that the establishment of the modern knowledge society (all human societies having been eternal learning or knowledge societies) is linked to the modern concept of globalisation whose core mission is to promote learning and the knowledge of the new world economic order established and advertised from the North. After highlighting the nefarious effects of uncritical adoption of Western concept of knowledge society, the paper advises that while it is proper for Sub-Saharan Africa to share in knowledge advertised by the North, that which would guarantee sustainable development of Africa is a critical integration of pieces of knowledge drawn from both the Global North and the Global South.

Before the arrival of colonialism, most societies in sub-Saharan Africa were oral communities whose languages were not written. This is interesting because Africa was the first place in the world where fully written linguistic characters were established and used for communication with the introduction of the hieroglyphics alphabet and structure of writing in ancient Egypt in about 3000 B.C. The Egyptian system represented a system of writing that mainly contained pictorial characters. As such, it was sometimes called the picture script of ancient Egyptian priesthood.KeywordsOral CommunicationOral TraditionCommunicative SpaceAfrican LanguageAfrican PeopleThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Risk communication and community engagement are critical elements of epidemic response. Despite progress made in this area, few examples of regional feedback mechanisms in Africa provide information on community concerns and perceptions in real time. To enable humanitarian responders to move beyond disseminating messages, work in partnership with communities, listen to their ideas, identify community-led solutions, and support implementation of solutions systems need to be in place for documenting, analyzing, and acting on community feedback. This article describes how the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and its national societies in sub-Saharan Africa have worked to establish and strengthen systems to ensure local intelligence and community insights inform operational decision making. As part of the COVID-19 response, a system was set up to collect, compile, and analyze unstructured community feedback from across the region. We describe how this system was set up based on a system piloted in the response to Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which tools were adapted and shared across the region, and how the information gathered was used to shape and adapt the response of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the broader humanitarian response.

The aim of this article is to present the role that ethical factors play in providing humanitarian aid to the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that are considered the poorest, and are sometimes even extremely poor and underdeveloped. The administrative and economic weakness of these countries is due to the colonial legacy inherited by the newly independent states, among other reasons. Moral sensitivity plays an important role in the European Union and its member countries providing humanitarian aid and development assistance, but these considerations often give way when the significant political and economic interests of donor countries are at stake. The research method is a literature review and analysis of documents and secondary sources.

Muslim societies in sub-Saharan Africa as elsewhere in the Muslim world have been characterized by their staggering diversity, not only with respect to different cultural expressions of 'Islamicite', but also vastly different historical experiences, their variegated integration into different regional geographic settings as well as the dynamics of interaction with Christian, Jewish and other religious traditions. This introductory chapter of the book presents the negotiation of Islam in Africa. The norms of Islamic law were accepted by the Berber tribes of the Western Sahara under the influence of the Almoravid movement of reform in the 11th century. The trans-local and trans-temporal canon of 'Islam' and the numerous local interpretations and contextualizations of Islam were always interconnected by a number of institutions and groups that acted as brokers.Keywords: Almoravid movement; Islamic law; sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACTGrowing evidence suggests that health aid can serve humanitarian and diplomatic ends. This study utilised the Fragile States Index (FSI) for the 47 nations of the World Health Organizations’ Africa region for the years 2005–2014 and data on health and non-health development aid spending from the United States (US) for those same years. Absolute amounts of health and non-health aid flows from the US were used as predictors of state fragility. We used time-lagged, fixed-effects multivariable regression modelling with change in FSI as the outcome of interest. The highest quartile of US health aid per capita spending (≥$4.00 per capita) was associated with a large and immediate decline in level of state fragility (b = −7.57; 95% CI, −14.6 to −0.51, P = 0.04). A dose–response effect was observed in the primary analysis, with increasing levels of spending associated with greater declines in fragility. Health per-capita expenditures were correlated with improved fragility scores across all lagged intervals and spending quartiles. The association of US health aid with immediate improvements in metrics of state stability across sub-Saharan Africa is a novel finding. This effect is possibly explained by our observations that relative to non-health aid, US health expenditures were larger and more targeted.