Africa Growth Renewed Hope Rekindled

This volume deals with crisis and renewal in African development policy and management. It digs deep into, takes stock of, and thoroughly analyzes the nature, impact, and future of development policy and management on the continent. It demonstrates the failure of post-independence policy and management in most of Africa, traces the emergence and results of reform measures, and advocates the lessons of success for the rest of Africa derived from Botswana’s approach to sustainable development and its achievement of economic prosperity and the maintenance of political stability and good governance. It concludes, rather optimistically, that the prospects for sustainable development are much better now than they have ever been before with the 21st century likely to be hailed as ‘The African Century’ – bringing with it a durable peace and sustainable growth.

Futurevision represents a new stage in the evolution of near term research and speculation into the world of tomorrow. This volume, which brings together twenty-five leading experts in a variety of social and scientific areas, attempts to foresee likely harmful or undesirable results of advances hi scientific and technological ingenuity. In developing an early-warning system designed to elicit prudent reflection and timely action, futurism has now entered the mainstream of social thought. The volume is divided into eight categories: the future of work, education, management, sustainability, projections about the future, decline or revitalization, medical ethics, and the global scene as such. Among the major issues taken up are the threat of persistent technological unemployment in high-tech societies, approaches to teaching about the future, new forms of specialization and speculation, virtual learning in simulated contexts, planning models in business and industry that permit rapid shifts, changes in the economy that result from a move from a product to a service-based economy, patterns of innovation in agriculture using less space to feed more people, and the general analysis of forecasting and predicting future events with present methodologies. Futurevision aims to recast the basic fault lines of current social, scientific, and technological analysis. The volume emphasizes long-term perspectives, future relevant research and thinking, weapons analysis and warfare, population and planetary exploration--examining what constitutes significant knowledge in this new environment--and the broad area of learning and caring hi meaningful contexts. There is a new seriousness in future research that will be appealing to students and teachers and researchers of sociology, psychology, and economics, especially those working with current data and qualitative research techniques.

Directly confronts myths of an exotic Africa, full of insoluble problems

Experts present proven methods and techniques for studying about or in Africa! Research, Reference Services, and Resources for the Study of Africa helps you steer clear of washouts, cave-ins, and dead ends on the road to successful research on—or in—Africa. This one-of-a-kind research guide presents practical solutions to frequently occurring problems in the study of Africa, including Internet accessibility problems, errors that will affect a “known item” search, the imposition of colonial legacy, and dealing with gender and class bias. Unlike most references on Africa that concentrate on collection development, this unique book focuses on the study of Africa, making it a must-have for academic librarians, Africanist scholars, and Africana librarians. Specialists, generalist librarians, and end users all depend on tools designed to provide access to information in libraries and on the web including OPACs databases, and search engines. In this book, these tools, research methods, and the accessibility of information on Africa are examined, offering students and professionals a thorough guide to the most successful researching route. Research, Reference Services, and Resources for the Study of Africa provides assistance in the research process according to a variety of categories including: evaluating OPACs and similar databases for known-item searching using keywords, subject headings, bias, indexing, full-text searching, terminology, cataloguing, user-centered information services, and other search strategies to find what you are looking for using Internet resources to your advantage using the partnerships between the U.S. and African libraries and scholarly institutions to help improve information access using techniques for reference librarians to act as a force increasing women’s roles in the study of Africa and much more! Research, Reference Services, and Resources for the Study of Africa offers all the information necessary to avoid research hang-ups that affect the study of Africa, and the necessary information to pass these skills on to students.