In the time period 2012–2013, over 20 national elections and two constitutional referendums are scheduled in Africa. In several of these elections, violence is anticipated to play a prominent role. There is great urgency to support the establishment of effective and legitimate electoral institutions and electoral frameworks; institute reforms aimed at lowering the stakes of elections; encourage the devolution of powers; improve the socio-economic standing of the populace; and devise strategies to prevent and manage electoral violence.
African cities have long been perceived as emblematic of the vibrancy and contradictions that characterize public spheres in an African context – from breathtaking monuments of wealth and oppression to overwhelming destitution and despair; from vibrant market places and artistic expression to dilapidated infrastructures and rampant criminality. Through depictions of the hectic pace of different forms of movement – from the inner-city traffic that seems to be buzzing even in the midst of a complete standstill to public protests and food riots – African cities become lenses through which social and political life is assessed and synthesized; a canvas on which national politics and global inequalities are laid bare, for all to see. Indeed, the visual has long been the preferred prism for documenting and evoking the dynamism and decay of urban Africa. Many of these dualities hold some truths but have also contained the enduring simplifications of prejudice and exoticization. The ‘urban jungle’ is easily seen as the continent’s true Heart of Darkness; a pre-conceptualized dystopia (Robinson 2010); a micro-cosmos of the most frightening and fascinating facets of primitive humanity. This special issue challenges such simplifications by emphasizing everyday sociality, and by giving priority to the narratives and practices of urban residents themselves.
As a policy field largely characterised by handbooks and manuals, gender and Security Sector Reform (SSR) has been insufficiently studied and analysed. Analytical discussion of what gendering SSR means is quite rare, as is the study of the already gendered nature of the security institutions that are the subject of intervention. This policy dialogue unpacks aspects of the discourses and practices regarding gender and SSR. It highlights limitations and problems both in the conceptualisation of gender and its incorporation into practical SSR work. The publication also demonstrates how researchers and policymakers often have divergent views of what gendering SSR means. Finally, it calls for closer and more constructive dialogue between researchers and practitioners, a dialogue which acknowledges the conditions and constraints in these two spheres of work.
There is currently a lack of knowledge about how elites rule post-civil war societies without strong state institutions. This paper argues that elites oftentimes overcome such institutional deficiencies by engaging in governance through brokerage. According to this perspective, elites outsource central state functions to influential broker figures. This is particularly true when dealing with war-affected groups that possess much violent agency. By functioning as social membranes, brokers can help elites and war-affected groups to redefine a new social contract. Liberia is employed as an example to illustrate the paper’s central arguments.
Through a variety of indepth case studies – from DRC to Somalia to Liberia amongst others – this book shows how important informal political and economic networks are in many of the continent’s conflict areas.
On August 11 Sierra Leone will vote democratically for the second timesince the end of the decade long civil war that raged between 1991 and 2002. Many international observers believe that this election is an important testfor democracy in Sierra Leone. Many Sierra Leoneans call democracy Demare-Crazy and politics politrix.
In its efforts to assist post-conflict societies in africa the international aid community has acitvely promoted projects of psycho-social healing among people traumatized during wars and violent conflict. To a large degree these projects have been established in the tradtion of Western psychology. More recently, however, it has been realized in order to help survivors of war effectivley it is necessary to adapt projects and enhance “local” psycho-social healing. This policy report locates the structures – with local legitimacy – that are available to young people who experienced sexual abuse during the Sierra Leone civil war (1991–2002). To this end, this booklet discusses a healing complex that comprises a number of overlapping actors, including herbalists, Zoe Mammies (heads of the female secret societies), Mori-men (Muslim healers); Karamokos (Muslim teachers) and Christian pastors.
Short documentary film about masquerade societies in Freetown Sierra Leone
Short documentary film about young excombatants in the streets of Freetown, Sierra Leone
Youth in urban areas of post-war African countries lead lives that are not very different from non-post-war societies. In fact it is often hard to separate battle-hardened ex-combatants from street-hardened urban youth in general. In this context, youth is a social category of people living in volatile and dire life conditions rather than a group defined by age. It is people who are no longer children, but who have yet to become social adults, people who have been marginalized into what they see as a chronic state of youthhood. It is the number of social youth, not the number of an age-categorized “youth bulge”, that poses a danger for stability in many African countries. This way of defining youth demands special efforts and raises special concerns when international donor communities create and implement youth-specific projects in post-conflict areas. Related to that, this policy note reflects on number of issues that will help improve the results of such projects through knowing and using existing social structures, including gender relations, the problems of social elites and the advantages of utilizing already existing systems of labor training.