Participation In Africa Research Articles

How acceptable is it for HIV positive African, Caribbean and Black women to provide breast milk/fluid samples for research purposes?

BackgroundThe African, Caribbean and Black communities have been found to be reluctant to participate in health research in North America. This is partly attributed to historical experiences as well as their cultural beliefs. Cultural beliefs about the uses of breast milk/fluids could further hinder the participation of African, Caribbean, and Black communities in research involving the collection of breast milk/fluids samples.MethodsWe conducted 17 in-depth interviews and three group interviews (n = 10) with HIV+ African, Caribbean and Black women living in Ontario, Canada to explore their cultural beliefs about breast milk/fluids and their acceptance of participating in research that involves the provision of breast fluid samples.Study designQualitative study involving in-depth interviews.ResultsOur respondents believed that breast milk/fluids should be used for infant feeding and for curative purposes for a variety of children’s health ailments as well as ailments experienced by other family members. The cultural belief that breast milk/fluids could be used to bewitch the baby and mother and the perception that it is intrusive (equating breast milk/fluids research to DNA testing), could prevent African, Caribbean and Black women from participating in research involving the collection of breast milk/fluids. Despite these fears, some respondents expressed that they would participate if the research results would benefit them directly, for example, by finding a cure for HIV, enabling HIV+ mothers to breastfeed, or contributing to developing new drugs or vaccines for HIV. Women’s recommendations to facilitate successful recruitment included giving incentives to participants, and employing a recruiter who was trustworthy, informed, and culturally sensitive.ConclusionCultural beliefs could present barriers to recruitment and participation of Africa, Caribbean and Black communities in health research involving breast milk/fluid samples. Successful recruitment for future studies would necessitate researchers to be culturally aware of the beliefs held by African, Caribbean and Black women, to build trust, and use an appropriate recruiter. While the findings relate to breast milk/fluids, the suggested recommendations for facilitating recruitment of research participants from these communities may be useful to consider when recruiting ethnically and culturally similar participants for research involving biological samples.

Norm dynamics and international organisations: South Africa in the African Union and International Criminal Court

Over the past two decades, South Africa has sought to perform several roles on the world stage, such as the economic dynamo of Southern Africa, a diplomatic heavyweight representing the African continent, and a norm leader on the world stage as a so-called ‘middle-power’. Although South Africa's evolution and rise as an important player in global affairs has generated a welcome body of critical scholarly literature, comparatively little analysis has been allocated to understanding how norm dynamics and the country's ever-evolving international identities have enabled it to construct and reconstruct its ‘interests’. Social constructivism is best suited for such an analysis because it can operationalise norms, commitments, identities, and interests, and it provides the epistemological tools to map the increasingly multilateral connections between global, regional, and domestic forums. By employing a rationalist approach to constructivism, this paper remedies the aforementioned gap in the literature by illustrating how South Africa constructs and reconstructs its identities and interests in relation to membership in international organisations (IOs). To that end, the paper examines the evolution of South Africa's participation in the African Union (especially ‘peacekeeping’ contributions) and the International Criminal Court. The paper concludes by assessing the theoretical implications and practical ramifications of the norm dynamics involved in South Africa's commitment to these two IOs.

Benefit sharing in health research

The necessity of benefit sharing may be questioned when research activities are funded by international sources within a developing country. Benefit sharing is a topic which remains uncertain in the context of genetic research, particularly with regard to how and with whom benefits should be shared. A Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) is one way (and in some instances the only way) in which the transfer of human biological materials is regulated. With biobank research increasing and the historical exploitation of research participants in Africa a reality, it is essential that the transfer of human tissues across national boundaries is regulated with specific regard to the sharing of benefits and the respect and protection of traditional values. This paper will debate the requirement of benefit sharing when research is undertaken; discuss its meaning in the context of genetic research; and outline some South African and international perspectives on the sharing of benefits. While this paper emphasises benefit sharing in the context of genetic research, the principles apply to all human participant research.

South Africa, BRICS and the South African Development Partnership Agency: redefining Canada's development assistance to Africa through triangular cooperation

/RésumésThis study analyzes South Africa's participation in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), its emergence as a development partner in Africa, and Canada's opportunity to boost both sustainable development and its standing following its failure to secure a seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2010. Despite political and institutional setbacks, the South African government is planning to operationalize the South African Development Partnership Agency (SADPA) amid observers’ concerns about BRICS regarding the group's potential domination on the African continent. Given ongoing consolidation of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD), this paper argues that the Canadian government could provide SADPA with expertise, knowledge and best practices according to the triangular cooperation model to improve future development efforts in Africa and policy coherence at DFATD. Evidence is provided to show how the model can both benefit African development and achieve Canadian political objectives.

English

In Senegal, as in other emerging African democracies, political corruption remains rampant. While all experts on Africa acknowledge the profound impact of widespread corruption on politics, there is disagreement on the role corruption plays on average citizens' behavior. Does corruption affect participation in Africa, and if so, does it do so because powerful patrons compel or bribe Africans to vote? Or, are Africans motivated to vote because they dislike corruption and want to punish or remove corrupt leaders? Using a field based experiment set in Senegal, we study the effect of perceptions of national-level corruption on political participation. We find that as perceived corruption increases, subjects are more likely to vote. We replicate these findings with Round 3 of the Afrobarometer survey. Key words: Corruption, voting, turnout, ethnicity, participation.

Circumventing Apartheid: Racial Politics and the Issue of South Africa's Olympic Participation at the 1984 Los Angeles Games

Behind the shadows of an Olympiad replete with tales of Cold War acrimony and lavish commercial excess, emerges South Africa's bureaucratic attempt to achieve readmission to the Olympic Movement prior to the 1984 Los Angeles Games. In the backdrop of the Reagan administration's conciliatory policy of ‘constructive engagement’ towards Pretoria, the all-white South African National Olympic Committee aspired to cease its two-decade-long sporting isolation in the southern California metropolis. Drawing upon archival materials from the International Olympic Studies Center and public debates in the leading national and sporting newspapers and periodicals of the time, this paper will detail and analyse how International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch was forced to navigate a tight political tightrope over the South African issue. Any concession towards Pretoria would have likely agitated the African-bloc nations – a powerful constituency on the IOC with a proclivity for boycotting Olympic Games – as well as the global-nexus of anti-apartheid groups that vehemently opposed South Africa's participation in Los Angeles.

Community and research staff collaboration for development of materials to inform microbicide study participants in Africa.

IntroductionClinical trials of new vaginal products require careful communication with participants about trial requirements. Most microbicide trials have been multi-site studies conducted among women in sub-Saharan Africa, where literacy levels and understanding of scientific methods differ from those designing and conducting the trials. Microbicide trials require women to insert objects in their vagina and ensure they are present in the vagina during sex. For many women, this is a novel behaviour. These behaviours take place within the context of clinical trial participation, which is an additional novelty. Research teams must develop informational materials to help participants understand the clinical trial and input from local research staff and community members can improve the content and format of these materials.MethodsThis paper discusses the development of illustrated materials developed for microbicide trial participants, presenting examples from two studies. In both studies, research staff and community advisory groups collaborated to review and revise materials.ResultsCollaborative efforts revealed insights about how to convey information about clinical trial participation and microbicide use. These insights highlighted realities of the local context, details that might be misunderstood, illustrations of a sensitive nature and concerns about blood testing. In particular, information about blood testing and product use instructions required careful consideration. Although the research team anticipated needing advice on how best to convey information on these topics to participants, some aspects of potential participant concerns about these topics were also new to the research team. Community advisors and local research staff suggested better ways to convey this information, and provided guidance on how to use the materials.ConclusionsThe collaboration served to develop informational materials for microbicide trial participants. Furthermore, staff gained a better understanding of issues and concerns that could influence trial participation. A collaborative engagement process can provide important insights into local culture and knowledge beyond what is needed for development of clinical trial participant information materials. Research teams should be sensitive to this possibility, avail themselves of information and take appropriate action.

Student representation and multiparty politics in African higher education

The transition from one-party rule and other forms of authoritarianism to multiparty democracy in the 1990s has had a profound impact on the organisation and role of student politics in Africa. Against the background of student involvement in African politics in the twentieth century, leading up to student participation in Africa's ‘second liberation’ in the early 1990s, the paper analyses the organisation of student governments, student representation in institutional and national governance, student unionism and the emergence of political parties in student politics in the 2000s. Proceeding from Munene's argument regarding a shift in oppositional politics in Africa away from students to multiparty politics, this paper finds that party politics is also increasingly implicated in African student politics with varied results. The paper concludes by proposing a tentative framework for understanding the impact of high levels of resource exchange between student leaders and political parties on student representation.

The margins of export competition: A new approach to evaluating the impact of China on South African exports to Sub-Saharan Africa

Chinese manufacturing exports to Sub-Saharan Africa challenge South Africa's economic influence in the region. To evaluate this, the paper develops and applies a conceptual framework that distinguishes between the intensive and extensive margins of Chinese export competition. South African exports of new and existing manufactured products to Sub-Saharan Africa are found to have been negatively affected by Chinese competition relative to exports from other countries. Consequently, South Africa's exports to the region in 2010 were 20% lower than they would have been if they had been affected to the same degree as other countries. The crowding-out effects are found to be strongest in medium- and low-technology products. Overall, the data suggest that Chinese exports of manufactures have diminished South Africa's participation and economic influence in the region.

Political participation in Africa: The role of individual resources

This paper aims to examine the role of individual resources in explaining African political participation. If political participation is costly and requires inputs in terms of individual resources, and citizens in young developing country democracies face comparatively high participation costs and have more limited individual resource endowments than citizens in more established democracies, a resource approach to political participation should be particularly relevant in the African setting. On the contrary, however, empirical findings drawing on recent data for more than 27,000 respondents in 20 emerging African democracies suggest weak explanatory power of the resource perspective. Often, the relatively resource poor actually participate to a greater extent than the more resource rich. The results are encouraging in that they suggest fairly broad-based political participation, but also call attention to the need to evaluate the motivational forces behind the decision to take part.

“After All, Africa is Largely a Nonliterate Continent”: The Reception of Vatican II in Africa

The article examines critical factors that determined the impact, reception, and implementation of Vatican II in Africa. Drawing on historical accounts, the author identifies and analyzes personalities, contexts, and issues that conditioned and shaped Africa's participation in the council. Looking back 50 years, he argues that while the continent's participation was negligible, shaped by a combination of events and attitudes that either facilitated or hampered reception, concrete examples abound of how the council generated impetus for growth, renewal, and reform in inculturation, interreligious dialogue, theological reflection, and ecclesial collaboration in Africa.

Supporting the reform process: the role of politics in South Africa's participation at the 1992 World Cup

There is an extensive literature analysing the relationship between sport and the social world. This article adds to this by making a study of the association between politics and cricket in South Africa. It takes as a case study the role of South Africa's participation in the 1992 World Cup and the political processes that first allowed it and then sought to exploit the event to further strengthen deeply-held positions. A whites-only referendum on continuing the reform process was held during the World Cup and this article contemplates the impact that readmission to international cricket had on voting intentions.

Opening the black box of donor influence on Digital Earth in Africa

Africa's participation in Digital Earth is uneven. There is a tendency to ascribe this state to prevailing governance and cultural challenges in Africa. However, foreign actors such as donors have an apparent role in shaping geospatial policies and outcomes. Thus far, the complex linkages between external aid and improved social and environmental monitoring and decision-making have been handled as a kind of ‘black box’. To better understand the situation, we open the box and focus on the interaction between donors and policy-makers. We use a heuristic from political science, as well as empirical evidence, to describe the policy-influencing tools that donors employ based on four basic resources donors possess: organization, authority, treasure, and nodality. We show an evolution of tool usage as donors shift from ‘old aid’ to ‘new aid’ modalities. The new tools include: technical assistance for geospatial curriculum development, inscription of standards and data access requirements in contracts and grants, cross-agency project design, best-practice analysis, portfolio management, and the use of language to promote participation and accountability. Though these tools reflect donor intent to partner in the realization of Digital Earth, the tools stem from a persisting asymmetric power dynamic between donors and policy-makers.

Territorial Threat, Mobilization, and Political Participation in Africa

The link between territorial issues and incidents of militarized conflict is one of the most consistent patterns found in the empirical study of international relations. Consequently, disputes over territory are generally perceived to be more salient to state decision-makers than other types of issues. Given this relative issue salience, state elites are thought to be more likely to engage in domestic mobilization efforts when territory is externally threatened. The political participation literature observes wide cross-national differences in participatory behavior and contends that the level and timing of participation is partially a function of elite-led strategic mobilization. I propose that these phenomena are connected and that territorial threats are associated with overall patterns in non-voting political participation across countries. I assess this relationship with cross-national, multilevel models using 27 Afrobarometer surveys collected in 16 different countries from 1999 to 2003. As expected, if salient external threats are triggering domestic mobilization efforts, I find that territorial threats are positively associated with most forms of non-voting political participation. However, I also observe lower levels of protest behavior in states that recently experienced a territorial threat—a finding that corresponds with previous research linking salient external threats to increased societal cohesion.

Popular Participation and Africa's Development Agenda: Projecting a Citizen-Based United States of Africa

The discourse on the formation of a Continental union government and subsequently, the United States of Africa (USA) is the most contemporary regional agenda in Africa. This is rooted in the Pan-African idea, which sought to promote the unity, solidarity and integration of African states as a basis of facilitating their development and gaining voice and power in the international arena. However, a major obstacle in the consummation of any union government agenda or United States of Africa is the active involvement of the people in the continental initiative and their ownership of it, without which the project cannot be enduring, sustainable and people-driven. If people are the means and the end of development, they should be in the foreground of Africa's regional economic and political integration project. The paper takes both a retrospective and a prospective view on the issue of popular participation in Africa's development agenda especially regarding the current discourse on a union government and the United States of Africa. The paper argues that while popular participation and citizen involvement was a major cliché and rallying point in the anti-colonial struggle, this has not been a reality in postcolonial governance. In fact, the continent is witnessing disengagement between state and society in national as well as regional development projects. For meaningful regional economic and political integration to take place in Africa, people must be made the focus of the debate, institutions, processes and policy agenda of the evolving regional integration architecture. This needs to extend beyond the current superficial engagement through the advisory organ of the Social, Economic and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) of the African Union.

Increasing Africa’s Participation in Global Trade: The Role of Market Access and Domestic Infrastructure Afrikas Beteiligung am Welthandel stärken: Die Rolle des Marktzugangs und der inländischen Infrastruktur Augmenter la participation de l’Afrique au co

For many years, African countries have experienced slow economic growth. A major policy tool used to address this issue has been preferential market access whereby, certain developed countries have lowered and sometimes eliminated tariffs on imports from Africa. Despite this special treatment, however, there has been a sharp decline in Africa's global trade participation in the last few decades. There are many factors that may explain this phenomenon. First, while on average Africa has relatively good access to foreign markets, individual countries within the continent continue to face high tariff barriers. Second, preferential market access conceded to Africa has often been accompanied by numerous non-tariff barriers inhibiting African exports. Third, most African countries lack adequate trade facilitating infrastructure. All these factors suggest that the problem with Africa's low global trade participation cannot be addressed entirely using one policy approach. Along with increased market access, improving trade-related infrastructure and promoting aid for trade initiatives are crucial measures toward helping poor countries overcome supply-side constraints and integrate into the global economy. In fact, although preferential schemes have a large and positive impact on Africa, at times they are not sufficient and may even cause harm due to the narrow base of export diversity among African economies.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained? A case study of Africa's participation in WTO dispute settlement

The thrust of this research centres on the inadequate participation of African countries in the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. Using the US upland cotton dispute initiated by Brazil as a case study, the author investigates four leading West African cotton exporters – Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali – the 'Cotton 4'. While Benin and Chad participated in the dispute as third parties, Burkina Faso and Mali were noticeably absent, despite their joint criticism of cotton subsidies in the sectoral initiatives on cotton delivered by the group at two WTO ministerial meetings. The author attempts to ascertain the rationale for African countries' decisions to participate in disputes or to 'free ride' within the international trade arena, arguing that the incentives or disincentives affecting these decisions stem from the inability to retaliate against developed countries under the WTO dispute settlement understanding (DSU); financial and technical limitations in accessing the DSU; disproportionately heavy reliance on principal trading relationships; and other socio-political and economic considerations.

Challenges to State Legitimacy and Institutional Channels of Political Participation in Africa

This article engages the debate on state legitimacy and fragility in Africa. It analyses the historical and empirical challenges to state legitimacy and how they relate to constructions of institutional channels of political participation on the continent. The study challenges mainstream westerncentric explanations that sweepingly attribute fragility and legitimacy defi cits to virtually all African states (with the possible exception of post-apartheid South Africa). The author argues that within the analytical framework of the fragile state paradigm, problems and challenges of state legitimacy in Africa tend to essentially and variedly affect three different categories of states; (i) confl ict-prone, (ii) war-torn, and (ii) post-confl ict societies. The paper concludes by critically examining dominant strategies mostly canvassed and pursued by the international community on how to (re-)build state legitimacy in Africa.. Africa Insight Vol. 37 (4) 2008 pp. 183-191

Gemstone mining in Madagascar: transnational networks, criminalisation and global integration

This article examines the ways in which illicit gem mining in Madagascar indicates the highly variable impacts of globalisation in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that distinct categories such as global/local, legal/illegal and traditional/modern have lost much of their explanatory power. Far from being distinct categories, they are indivisible and constitute a single, complex whole which produces enormous wealth, coupled with high degrees of poverty and marginalisation in precisely the same locations. It is clear that Africa's participation in globalisation has not been just about ‘joining’ the world economy; instead it has been characterised by highly selective forms of global connection which have been combined with highly visible and very real forms of disconnection.

How Africa can benefit from knowledge

Africa's poverty partly stems from the lack of strong scientific, technological and knowledge bases. The abundance of natural resources on the continent has been of limited value to the African people because they do not have the tools with which to turn their resources into consumable wealth. To rectify this situation, African policy makers would have to undertake various measures. First, they need to define the type of knowledge their countries require. Second, they ought to establish conditions for nurturing strategic leaders who will, in turn, seek the right forms of knowledge to tackle Africa's problems. Third, policy makers need to build the political and legal frameworks that encourage the absorption and application of scientific innovations. Fourth, African leaders ought to revamp the universities, establish regional research centres, and take capacity building more seriously. It is these measures that will facilitate Africa's meaningful participation in global knowledge flows. Above all, knowledge creation should aim at attaining human welfare, participatory democracy, peace building and socio-economic justice.