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Reforms and Development Initiatives in Africa
-- Joshua Olusegun Bolarinwa
Compared to other developing regions, Africa faces a unique developmental challenge, especially in the early stages of economic development. The average size of the economy, as measured by the Gross National Product (GNP), is quite small; average household incomes in Africa are far below those in other less-developed countries; and a majority of the countries classified by the United Nations (UN) as ‘least developed’ are in Africa. To make matters even more unsettling, domestic savings in Africa remain at a low level. This means that Africa relies heavily on foreign capital to sustain investment, coupled with stagnant or declining household incomes. The lack of domestic investment as a reliable source of capital formation means that African economies depend a great deal on exporting primary agricultural products to the external market. To reverse the secular decline, African countries were urged to embrace market, political, and institutional reforms. They were reminded that the western world was able to achieve spectacular levels of economic affluence and material prosperity because the countries concerned were guided by free-market principles and pursued unalloyed market policies. To potentially achieve the same, a stricken Africa was told, adherence to those lofty principles of market orientation would be indispensable. Hence, this paper tends to assess the level of reforms in relation to development initiatives in Africa and the impact on African economies. © 2014 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Beyond Human Rights: International Organizations
and the Challenge of Health Development in Africa
--Benjamin Uchenna Anaemene
Poverty, malnutrition, high fertility, and poor health underpin many challenges facing African countries today. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that Africa’s health indicators are worse than that of other regions of the world. Despite the recognition of these important health challenges, an understanding about what must be done to improve the health and wellbeing of Africans remains a largely unfinished agenda in today’s development process. This paper argues that international organizations as moral actors have an obligation to redress underdevelopment and favor human wellbeing and flourishing. The paper further asserts that the human rights framework, although helpful and potentially transformative of the health development thinking, is insufficient. It concludes that the challenges can also be tackled from an ethical dimension by adopting the principles of beneficence and justice, which should be the primary principles guiding international organizations in the field of health in designing and implementing health development policies and programs. This ethically-based deliberative space expands the policy horizon of the existing decision-making arrangements which are predominantly technical and political. Thus, an ethically grounded approach brings values to the surface and enables decision makers to access empirical evidence and bring about what people hold as being important to them, that is, the attainment of wellbeing. © 2014 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Activism with Chinese Characteristics: Navigating the
Sloping, Uncertain Terrain of Civil Society in China
-- Walter Hatch
This paper examines the behavior of NGO activists in China who work on HIV-AIDS and the environment. It finds one major difference: AIDS activists sometimes use a rights-based discourse that upsets the party-state, while environmentalists focus on advancing the agenda of the central government. But the paper notes that activists in both camps tend to police their behavior. They operate in a civil society characterized by political hierarchy and legal uncertainty. They try to gain the benefits that flow from the top of the pyramidal structure in which they operate and avoid the unpredictable punishment heaped upon those who step out of line. © 2014 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
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