African Development Community Research Articles

The pervasive triad of food security, gender inequity and women's health: exploratory research from sub-Saharan Africa.

This study was designed to explore the interactions between food securing activities, health and gender equity from the perspective of rural east African women. The specific objectives were to document the critical interaction among these three issues-food security, gender inequity, women's health within the context of sub-Saharan Africa; to describe the nature of this triad from the perspective of women farmers in Africa; and to propose a framework for linking available interventions to the vicious nature of this triad. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with rural women farmers in Kwale District, Kenya and Bagamoyo District, Tanzania. A total of 12 in-depth interviews and 4 focus group discussions have been included in this analysis. Transcribed text from interviews and focus group discussions were coded and thematic conceptual matrices were developed to compare dimensions of common themes across interviews and settings. A thematic analysis was then performed and a framework developed to understand the nature of the triad and explore the potential for interventions within the interactions. The vicious cycle of increasing work, lack of time, and lack of independent decision making for women who are responsible for food production and health of their families, has health and social consequences. Food securing activities have negative health consequences for women, which are further augmented by issues of gender inequity. The African development community must respond by thinking of creative solutions and appropriate interventions for the empowerment of women farmers in the region to ensure their health.

Revisiting African States Participation in the WTO Dispute Settlement through Intra-Africa RTA Dispute Settlement

AbstractWhereas developed countries were the main players in the GATT dispute settlement mechanism, the era of the WTO saw a sharp increase in the developing countries’ participation in trade disputes. Thus, developing countries are active complainants and defendants in the WTO dispute settlement processes. Nevertheless, African states are still marginalised, and this situation has attracted attention of many scholars. As a result, scholars in the field have come up with many reasons to explain why African states do not appear as either complainants or respondents. The reasons for Africa’s non-participation have been argued to include cost of WTO litigation relative to the gains, low trade volumes, legal knowledge and non-integration of African countries in the WTO system. This article seeks to contribute to the existing literature on Africa’s non-participation in the WTO dispute settlement. The goal in this article is to confirm or dispel assumptions that African states have interests that they need to safeguard through dispute settlement but are inhibited from doing so because of the reasons mentioned above. Unlike other studies, the determination on Africa’s non-participation in the WTO dispute settlement will be approached from African states’ participation in intra-Africa RTA dispute settlement mechanisms. While there are six intra-Africa RTAs notified to the WTO, this work focuses on only two – East African Community and Southern Africa Development Community.

European/Southern African Development Community (SADC) states' bilateral investment agreements (BITs) for the promotion and protection of foreign investments vs post‐apartheid SADC economic and social reconstruction policy

PurposeThis article aims to examine the sustainability of European and SADC states' practice of agreeing bilateral investment agreements (BITs) for the promotion and protection of foreign investments in light of the latter's recent inauguration of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) as a basic norm of regional customary international law and strategy for countering the social and economic legacy of apartheid rule on their territories for over half a century.Design/methodology/approachThe approach taken is textual analysis and deconstruction of emergent SADC BEE legislation, substantive BIT legislation provisions, dispute settlement mechanisms and emergent jurisprudence on the tensions between BEE policy and BIT obligations.FindingsThe strong elements of exclusivity between European/SADC BIT dispute settlement mechanisms on the one hand, and the “ouster clauses” of SADC BEE legislation and regulations on the other, are mutually incompatible. This incompatibility threatens the sustainability of the EU/SADC states' BIT dynamic for the promotion and protection of foreign direct investments (FDIs).Originality/valueDemonstration of BEE as SADC's emergent basic norm of social reconstruction for countering the social and economic legacy of apartheid rule in affected states and implications of that for EU/SADC policy on the promotion and protection of FDIs.

COLLABORATION AND SYNERGY IN ENVIRONMENTAL AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAMMES IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

ISEE-322 Abstract: Over the last decade, a number of transgovernmental organisations, academic institutions and funding agencies have commenced various programmes in occupational and environmental health (OEH) in Southern Africa. Each of these programmes have clearly stated independent but inter-related objectives, which allows for or may promote close collaboration and synergy. This collaboration is an essential goal to ensure the broader objective of strengthening the OEH agenda in Southern Africa. The danger in failing to collaborate will at best result in less satisfactory outcomes (e.g. duplication of activities or projects), but at worst, the existence of incoherent structures and programmes when funding draws to a close, threatening long term sustainability of these programmes. Several of these programmes have broad geographic spread across the subcontinent (Fogarty International Center/University of Michigan Southern African Programme, the Swedish Development Agency/National Institute of Working Life/Southern African Development Community and the WHO/ILO African Joint Effort), while a few initiatives have focussed programmes in one or two countries (Fogarty International Center/University of Arizona; Danish Development Agency; Norwegian Development Agency/University of Bergen etc). Programmes either have developmental or academic/research objectives and work either with government directly or with non-governmental organisations, including trade unions or with academic institutions. Several factors contribute to the synergies among these programmes: (1) clearly defined specific aims and endpoints permitting pooling of resources to achieve aims; (2) existence of centres of potential strengths across the subcontinent working with more than one programme; (3) different programmatic foci (development vs research) allow for trans- programme collaboration where for example, a research project provides the necessary data for intervention or policy development; (4) clearly defined management and oversight structures, staffed by professionals with past history of collaboration. In the longer term, the viability of these programmes in themselves and the close collaboration between programmes depends on the establishment of strong oversight structures, which include the relevant stakeholders, development of projects or sub-programmes in consultation with stakeholders and the presence of an empowered management team resident in the country/countries of operation. For programmes that are not directly linked to a government department/ministry, the management team must be independent of government. The establishment of a management structure may permit the development of a cross-programme consultative forum.