Features
The future of aid
Yash Tandon (2008-08-26)
The following is an excerpt from the concluding chapter of Yash Tandon's new book, Ending Aid Dependence, published by Fahamu Books, September 2008. For more information please visit, http://www.fahamu.org/publications....
Aid: Rethinking old concepts
Benjamin W. Mkapa (2008-08-26)
The following is the foreword to Yash Tandon's new book, Ending Aid Dependence, published by Fahamu Books, September 2008. For more information please visit, http://www.fahamu.org/publications....
Vote for Pambazuka News
Pambazuka News Editors (2008-08-17)
For three years running, with your help, Pambazuka News was voted one of the top 10 who are changing the world of Internet and politics. Pambazuka News has once again been shortlisted amongst the top 25 – and once again the only Africa-related websit...
Third world prospects in an Obama presidency
Steve Sharra (2008-08-11)
The exclamatory commentary that has accompanied Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the presumed nomination of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate has excited, beneath it, the question of what the nomination itself, and a possible Obama presidency, might mean for the Pan-Africanist world as well as the Third World. While much of the commentary has been laudatory, there have also been cautionary tones, not to mention ambivalent ones. Beyond the excitement, caution and ambivalence of what a possible Obama presidency might entail for Pan-Africa and the Third World, what Obama himself has said in his writing, and has not said, might prove to be revelatory in attempting to explore the discussion that has exercised many minds around the world. We take this exploration by examining some of the issues that have been raised by editorialists and columnists, bloggers and other commentators in Africa and beyond. We also delve into what Obama himself has said in his two best-belling books, as we ponder how the significance of a possible Obama presidency may be realized more in the symbolic transformation of perceptions of race, racism and racial identity in the US and in the world, than in what the office of the US presidency itself is capable or incapable of achieving.
The destruction of African agriculture
Walden Bello (2008-08-05)
Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains....
Comment & analysis
Aid effectiveness: the question of mutual accountability
Charles Mutasa (2008-09-03)
The issue of development cooperation especially aid can be traced back to the United Nations resolution 2626 of 1970 on the international development strategy for the second United Nations development decade where rich countries pledged to give 0.7% ...
China and India in Africa: challenging the status quo?
Sanusha Naidu (2008-09-03)
‘Equality and mutual benefit’ are reflected today in Chinese leaders’ frequent emphasis on aid as a partnership, not a one way transfer of charity, -quoted in Deborah Brautigam’s, China’s African Aid: Transatlantic Challenges\...
Lost in a haystack: gender equality in aid effectiveness
Florence E. Etta (2008-08-26)
Early in September 2008 the world will hold another one of its mega gatherings in Accra Ghana - the third high level forum on aid effectiveness. World leaders will convene to append their priceless signatures to a document now popularly called the tr...
Mozambique experience on aid effectiveness
Marta Cumbi (2008-08-26)
African countries and donors share the belief that aid has the potential to contribute to economic growth, reduce poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, the way both donors and recipient countries are performing for del...
Post 9/11 aid, security agenda and the African state
Shastry Njeru (2008-08-26)
The nexus between aid, security and development is now beyond doubt. In fact, security is a precondition for development. The often cited ‘no development without security, no security without development’ captures this interconnectivity (Dochas 2007)...
European Development Fund: The illusion of assistance
Mouhamet Lamine Ndiaye (2008-09-03)
Equitable and sustainable structural transformation of African economies is a prerequisite for improving livelihoods across the continent. Despite decades of reform often led under structural adjustment programmes, and a very high level of openness, ...

Yash Tandon (2008) Ending Aid Dependence.
Dorothy-Grace Guerrero and Firoze Manji (ed) (2008) China’s New Role in Africa and the South: A search for a new perspective.