Wilderness, Wildlife, and Neocolonialism in Africa

T tHIS paper is concerned with foreign investment in the four countries of West Africa which are attached to the British Commonwealth-Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia. It has become normal to speak of British investments in the four countries as 'foreign'. Our passports describe us as 'British Subject: Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies': yet in the four countries of West Africa we have no right of entry for our persons, and British capital is subject to disabilities and limitations which apply equally to capital of other national origins. It seems to have been accepted, by us as a nation, that as part of the process of giving self-government to the colonies, we shall call ourselves foreigners in them, and be treated as such. Some British investors, long established in West Africa, regret this. Their prosperity is so closely identified with the prosperity of West Africa; their senior managers have for so many years lived in those places and feel so much part of the local communities; and so many of the political leaders are closely associated with British firms as former employees, or as sons of employees, or by other personal links, that it seems a pity that these close relationships and common interests cannot be recognized by some status better than that of foreigners. French investment in French West Africa is certainly not 'foreign', and it would be absurd to apply that adjective to it. A recent article in The Times on the Belgian Congo, used the phrase 'foreign capital' to describe non-Belgian capital. Nevertheless, there it is. So for the purpose of this paper the description of British investment in the four countries as 'foreign' is accepted. How much foreign capital is there in the four countries? Professor Frankel has given us figures for the period up to I936. I have also consulted figures published by the OEEC, by the International Bank Mission to Nigeria, and by various official inquiries and company reports. In addition to fixed assets, we must count the value of trading stocks of merchandise and produce; for West Africa, in Sir Keith Hancock's famous phrase, is the Traders' Frontier. This value can be fairly closely estimated. All these figures support the view that the total value of foreign capital invested in the four countries is of the order of ?200 million. This figure happens to be fairly near the figure which ICI spent on new plants and factories between I946 and I954. In terms of British investment, therefore, foreign capital in the four countries must be reckoned small. What is surprising is that it is of the same order of magnitude as Mr Tyson gave in his paper on foreign investment in India.1 See International Affairs, vol. 3I, no. 2 (April I955), pp. I74-8I.

Historically, foreign capital has played a significantly larger role in the functioning of African economies than in other large developing regions. The past 20 years have been a period of rapid economic growth in Africa, accompanied by a dynamic growth in the continent’s investment attractiveness. The purpose of the article is to provide a political and economic analysis and assessment of the impact of foreign capital on the development of African countries, primarily from the point of view of achieving a difficult balance in their state policy between the interests of overcoming backwardness and ensuring economic growth, on the one hand, and overcoming the rudiments of economic dependence that have persisted since colonial times, on the other. The main attention is paid to the current stage of competition between American, Chinese and European capital in Africa For about thirty years, African countries have been pursuing a policy of encouraging the inflow of private direct investment, which, according to the leadership of these states, should contribute to sustainable growth and diversification of local economies. To a certain extent, these hopes were justified. Average annual GDP growth rates of the continent’s countries in the 21st century turned out to be the highest over long time periods for the entire period of independent development. In addition, there are certain achievements in the field of diversification of African economies and modernization of production facilities, including even the creation of separate facilities and technological production facilities (in South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania). that meet the requirements of the 4th industrial revolution. The negative shifts in the global investment climate stemming from the total sanctions and trade war unleashed by the West seriously complicate the conditions for the development of African countries. Objectively, they lead to a narrowing of the possibilities for attracting foreign capital to their economies and deriving structural advantages from the free use of FDI in their own interests. Prospects for improving the situation, it seems, for African countries today depend more on the possibilities of improving the global situation than on the efforts of national governments to create legal and economic conditions in the domestic capital markets. Otherwise, the decisive factors determining the volume and direction of the inflow of foreign capital to Africa will increasingly be the geopolitical decisions of large external players. The author concludes that at the same time, it is likely that in the medium-and long - term perspective, African countries will not only remain attractive but uneasy market for foreign capital to operate, but will gradually bypass many of the modern investment priority countries and regions in Europe, Asia and Latin America in terms of attractiveness.

A recent report by the United States General Accounting Office stated that the federal government's primary means of land reconfiguration, the land exchange, was so fraught with problems that it recommended Congress discontinue all land exchange programs. (1) At least one Congressional Representative, not apt to mince his words, stated that the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service, the two principal land management agencies, flat got conducting exchanges. (2) His comments reflect an all too common perception that something is fundamentally wrong with the way the federal government conducts land reconfiguration. Partially in response to such criticism, Congress has passed several pieces of legislation aimed at reforming the land reconfiguration process in recent years. The first was the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998. (3) More recently, the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act of 2000 was signed into law. (4) Both Acts authorize the sale of land and the retention of the proceeds by the land management agencies in order to purchase private land better suited for conservation and protection. The two Acts differ remarkably in terms of scope and authority. In many ways the sale processes authorized by these Acts appear to solve or avoid many of the problems that have plagued the traditional land exchange process. Therefore, these laws are an important step in the evolution of western land reconfiguration. In other ways, these new laws fail to meet their statutory intent. Part I of this note will examine how the land disposition laws of the nineteenth century resulted in a fragmented pattern of western land ownership. In addition, it will detail how the land exchange process became the solution. Part II will explore some of the problems and criticisms of the land exchange process, which have lead many to claim that the federal government gets snookered conducting land exchanges. Part III will survey the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act of 1998 and the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act of 2000. This note will compare and contrast the scope and authority of the two laws and point out each Act's relative strengths and weakness. Finally, this note will conclude by submitting that while the two Acts are clearly aimed at encouraging better land management and reconfiguration, only the Southern Nevada Act will ultimately be successful. I. FRAGMENTED WESTERN LAND OWNERSHIP AND THE ROLE OF THE LAND EXCHANGE As of 1998, the federal government owned more then 29 percent of the United States total landmass, some 654 million acres. (5) Often called the public domain or the public lands, most of this land is concentrated in 12 western states. (6) But this represents only a fraction of what the federal government once owned. Beginning in mid-nineteenth century, the official policy of the United States was to dispose of the lands in order to promote settlement and development of the West. To further this policy Congress gave away lands through various provisions such as the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Desert Lands Act of 1877. (7) To increase settlement, Congress encouraged the building of railroads throughout the west by passing the Act of July 1, 1862, which helped finance the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads. (8) The Act granted the railroads alternating one square mile sections (640 acres) of lands along the route. (9) All told, the federal government granted over 130 million acres of land to the railroads in this alternating pattern. (10) The railroad grants resulted in the checkerboard problem, a pattern of ownership whereby neither a private owner nor the can gain access to its property without encroaching on the others land. (11) Adding to this intermingled pattern of western land ownership were an array of grants made to the states in order to promote education. …

This interplay between cultural identity and national sovereignty in globalization has been complex, with the increasing challenges that face nations in trying to retain their cultural heritage amidst participation in an interdependent world. In media, education, and policy-making, there is the tension between embracing global influences and maintaining cultural distinctiveness, with Western ideals more often than not overshadowing local traditions. A significant gap in current research involves the lack of in-depth analysis concerning how countries like the Philippines grapple with these dual pressures, which often struggle to uphold national sovereignty and protect cultural identity from foreign influences. The available literature does indeed discuss globalization from an economic and political point of view but very often neglects the cultural dimensions, especially the way globalization affects national identity and sovereignty. This study sought to find out how countries can balance cultural identity and national sovereignty amidst globalization. Through thematic and content analysis of available documents, reports, and studies, this paper explores the strategies that nations could employ in balancing these competing demands: what policies should they adopt in cultural preservation while selectively engaging with global standards? How should they promote cultural education, regulate foreign media content, and strengthen local cultural industries? The significance of the study is that it articulates strategies on how to integrate cultural concerns into national policy frameworks to improve national identity amidst globalization.

Objective - This article is to introduce theoretical motivation for the interaction and links joining national identity, collective memory, cultural heritage, digitization and libraries understood as memory institutions, and substantiate memory institutions and digital collective memory as an essential source for national identity. Research methods - The author claims that the digital resources managed by memory institutions, particularly libraries, are the fundamentals of national identity. Therefore she discusses postmodernism as a theoretical basis for the system of concepts of "national identity – collective memory – cultural heritage – memory institutions – digital resources – users", and presents the structure and individual concepts of this system. The research method used was qualitative research with discourse analysis and a theoretical analysis of information sources such as: J. Baudrillard, I. Hassan, D. Harvey, R. J. Lifton, J. F. Liotard, P. Waugh, A. J. Toynbee, G. E. Veith et al., conventions and resolutions of the European Commission, Committee and Parliament, legal provisions in culture and cultural heritage by the Government of Latvia. Results and conclusions - National identity is seen as a totality of meanings the main manifestations of which are the cultural and national heritage as the basis for the personal system of values and experience. National identity is formed by the totality of conceptions on affiliation with something. Conceptions, ideas are formed in the interaction process of personality and the collective memory based on digital resources. The collective memory, i.e. the resources in libraries, museums and archives, particularly the digital ones, is the main element for the construction of national identity. This construction is delivered by memory institutions through collecting, harvesting, saving, arranging and providing access to resources via the digitization process. Digitization should become the main tool for maintenance, inclusion, communication, and identity in the process of globalization. The author introduces theoretical model, based on the discourse of postmodernism ideas, theoretical conclusions of world researchers and philosophers, official conventions, guidelines and declarations - for justifying memory institutions’ resources as the basis of national identity. Such a theoretical analysis of the "national identity – collective memory – cultural heritage – memory institutions – digital resources – users" is the first experiment in Latvia to place the important role of memory institutions, particularly libraries, in a system of cultural heritage, digitization, new environment and national identity. The main conclusion is that the philosophical discourse of postmodernism accepts the idea of the leading role of memory institutions in the structure of national/digital heritage and national identity.

This article analyses and compares government and media representation of ‘illegal’ immigrants in Spain and Australia. Despite some obvious differences in the two case studies, the study reveals remarkable similarities in the development of national ‘border protection’ discourses in an age of globalisation. It is argued that both national examples of ‘anti-immigrant’ discourse show clear signs of elite manipulation of historically entrenched popular fears, and seek to define immigrants and refugees as a social problem which is threatening to both national sovereignty and identity. We examine these case studies to illustrate the argument that border protection discourse is emerging in mid-level Western states as a symbolic substitute for the ‘old nation’ which regulated a national economy, minimising various forms of social and economic ‘risk’ for its citizens. In an age of increasing transnational mobility, the public representation of forced (Australia) or economic migrants (Spain) tests the limits of globalisation ideology, as the exclusion of certain others from modes of transnational mobility becomes central to maintaining popular conceptions of national ‘borders’. In their focus on national sovereignty and the integrity of state borders, these modes of representation tend to elide the critical distinctions between the ‘push factors’ driving the two migration flows, conflating them in their exclusive focus on the developed host nations' so-called ‘pull factors’. Despite their high success rate in application for convention refugee status—up to 90 per cent in the case of Iraqi and Afghan asylum seekers—the tag of ‘economic migrants’ seeking opportunity rather than asylum highlights the common ground in the ‘border protection’ discourse of the two countries. These discourses have a strong contemporary role in the construction of both national identity and state sovereignty in a global age.

The impact of the redistribution of Partition’s evacuee property on the patterns of land ownership and power in Pakistani Punjab in the 1950s

Patterns of land ownership and forest cover are related in complex and ecologically significant ways. Using a Geographic Information System and regression analysis, we tested for spatial relationships between the structure of land ownership and forest cover across 66 watersheds in the state of Oregon (USA), Coast Range mountains. We found that in these watersheds (1) forest cover diversity increased with land ownership diversity, (2) size of forest patches increased with size of land ownership patches, and (3) connectivity of forest cover increased with connectivity of land ownership. Land ownership structure explained between 29% and 40% of the variability of forest cover structure across these watersheds. Driving this relationship are unique associations among particular ownership classes and various forest cover classes. The USDA Forest Service and the USDI Bureau of Land Management were associated with mature forest cover; private industry was associated with young forest cover; nonindustrial private forest owners were associated with a wide diversity of cover classes. Watersheds with mixed ownership appear to provide greater forest cover diversity, whereas watersheds with concentrated ownership provide less diverse but more connected forest cover. Results suggest that land ownership patterns are strongly correlated with forest cover patterns. Therefore, understanding landscape structure requires consideration of land ownership institutions, dynamics, and patterns.

The UNESCO Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage balances the dialectical tension between state sovereignty and interests of the international community by entrusting state parties with the protection and conservation of cultural and natural heritage situated on their territory while simultaneously establishing international mechanisms for monitoring and supporting these efforts. The Convention affords protection to all properties meeting the criteria of cultural or natural heritage regardless of their inclusion in the World Heritage List, that itself is mainly of declarative character. By committing state parties to use best efforts to protect heritage sites (Bemühensverpflichtungen) the convention gives rise to genuine legal obligations. For federal states such as Germany, a federal clause in art. 34 modifies the obligation to implement the Convention. Since, however, the German Länder, as far as necessary, adopted the statutory regulations which fall within their legislative powers, Germany now vouches for compliance with the whole convention. Pursuant the principle of sincere cooperation (Bundestreue), the Länder may not revert to a status that implies breaching Germanys international obligations. Whereas explicit provisions quite satisfactorily protect natural heritage, the legal protection of cultural heritage remains flawed, as authorities sometimes fail to install comprehensive preservation orders. In their heritage protection laws, only five Länder refer to the UNESCO Convention. Additionally, they often do not conceptualize heritage in congruence with the Conventions terms. Due to the absence of a legislative act of approval (Vertragsgesetz), the Convention does not form part of the German legal order. As far as internal law does not reproduce what is called for by the Convention, however, the Basic Laws commitment and openness to public international law (Völkerrechtsfreundlichkeit des Grundgesetzes) still warrants the implementation of an international treaty as far as legally possible. Therefore, all administrative and judicial bodies must interpret and apply existing law in conformity with the UNESCO Convention (although the legislatives obligation to comply has been curtailed in a questionable manner by the recent Treaty Override-decision of the Federal Constitutional Court). Most importantly, they have to deploy instruments of nature and heritage conservation law in a manner that protects and conserves world cultural and natural heritage best. Land use and sectoral planning must not only pay due regard to World heritage protection but ensure the best possible preservation result. This is also subject to judicial oversight although claimants often may not invoke the protection of World heritage in court. By way of conclusion, the present implementation of the UNESCO Convention in German law mostly achieves the preservation and protection of cultural and natural World heritage as is called for by international law – with the Dresdner Elbtal being the unfortunate exception.

IFAD RESEARCH SERIES 53 Youth Access to Land, Migration and Employment Opportunities: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa Papers of the 2019 Rural Development Report

Protection of constitutional identity in light of the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Poland – a comparative study

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of national savings on economic development, as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI), Inequality-adjusted HDI (iHDI), and Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), in ten of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study employs a sequential Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) analysis to address potential endogeneity issues and account for the dynamic nature of the relationships, covering the period from 2009 to 2019. The findings reveal a complex relationship between national savings and the selected development indicators. While national savings exhibit positive impacts on HDI and iHDI, the results are not consistently statistically significant across all the sequential models. However, the analysis suggests that national savings have a positive influence on reducing multidimensional poverty, as measured by MPI, particularly when effectively channeled into productive investments. The study also highlights the significant positive impact of government expenditure and foreign direct investment (FDI) on human development, underscoring the importance of strategic public investments and foreign capital. The results suggest that while national savings are crucial, their effective utilization is essential for enhancing human development indices. Strategic investments in public goods and foreign capital are also important. The mixed effects of inflation and official development assistance (ODA) emphasize the need for stable economic policies and effective utilization of foreign aid. The modest positive impact of institutional quality suggests that improvements in governance and institutional frameworks can contribute to human development. The findings underscore the need for policies promoting financial inclusion, efficient public expenditure, foreign direct investment, and stable macroeconomic conditions to leverage national savings for economic development. The study’s findings provide valuable insights for policymakers in Sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting the need for comprehensive strategies that leverage national savings, public expenditure, and foreign investment to drive sustainable economic development and poverty reduction.

National Identity, Constitutional Identity, and Sovereignty in the EU This article challenges the assumption, widespread in European constitutional discourse, that ‘national identity’ and ‘constitutional identity’ can be used interchangeably. First, this essay demonstrates that the conflation of the two terms lacks grounding in a sound theory of legal interpretation. Second, it submits that the requirements of respect for national and constitutional identity, as articulated in the EU Treaty and in the case law of certain constitutional courts, respectively, rest on different normative foundations: fundamental principles of political morality versus a claim to State sovereignty. Third, it is argued that the Treaty-makers had good reasons for writing into the EU Treaty a requirement of respect for the Member States’ national identities rather than the States’ sovereignty, or their constitutional identity.

Land is an essential commodity everywhere in the world, for people who use it mainly as a source of livelihood, either for farming or other subsistence purposes. Land becomes a quintessential means of survival and even a natural entitlement for them and their families. Women who are the primary users of land for farming faces challenges on owning landed properties as a result of their gender. Women, frequently and systematically lack access to land rights in many countries. Yet, land rights are keys for a life with dignity; they are the basis for entitlements which can ensure an adequate standard of living and economic independence and thus, personal freedom. This study therefore aims at examining land ownership patterns and livelihood of women in Ado-Odo local government of Ogun state. The paper was hinged on Social exclusion and feminist theory. Method of data collections was triangulated. Five hundred questionnaires were distributed to participants through multistage sampling technique. While indepth interviewed were conducted for twenty respondents that were purposively picked. Quantitative data was analysed using simple percentage and frequency distribution. Hypothesis was tested with chi-square method. Qualitative data was analyzed through content analysis and ethnographic summaries. Findings from the study revealed that patterns of land ownership in Ado-Odo local government affects women livelihoods and that majority of women respondents want change, as they narrated their challenges as regards patterns of land ownership. The paper recommends that for women to have full access and rights to ownership of lands there is need to deconstruct, re-construct, and re-conceptualize customary law notions as they pertain to issues of land inheritance by women. This is important for sustainable development in Ogun state, Nigeria.

Lessons for Left-Wing Populism from the 2010s Austerity Wave in Europe