Civil Society And Peacebuilding In Sub Saharan Africa In The Anthropocene

This book examines civil society's peacebuilding role in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of climate change and the pursuit of environmental peace and justice in the Anthropocene. Five main research themes emerge from its 20 chapters: · The roles of environmental peacemaking, environmental justice, ecological education and eco-ethics in helping to mitigate the impacts of climate change · Peacebuilding by CSOs after violent conflicts, with particular reference to accountability, reconciliation and healing · CSO involvement in democratic processes and political transition after violent conflicts · Relationships between local CSOs and their foreign funders and the interactions between CSOs and the African Union's peace and security architecture. · The particular role of faith-based CSOs The book underlines the centrality of dialogue to African peacebuilding and the indigenous wisdom and philosophies on which it is based. Such wisdom will be a key resource in confronting the existential challenges of the Anthropocene. The book will be a significant resource for researchers, academics and policymakers concerned with the challenge of climate change, its interactions with armed conflict and the peacebuilding role of CSOs. · This pathbreaking book shows why peacebuilding analysis and efforts need to be urgently re-oriented towards the existential challenges of environmental peace and justice. · It explains the emerging conceptual frameworks which are needed for this new role. · It explains the critical role that CSOs - local and international - will play in implementing this new peacebuilding approach, with particular reference to sub- Saharan Africa.

This volume brings together the most up to date analyses of civil society in Africa from the best scholars and researchers working on the subject. Being the first of its kind, it casts a panoramic look at the African continent, drawing out persisting, if often under-communicated, variations in regional discourses. In a majority of notionally ‘global’ studies, Africa has received marginal attention, a marginality often highlighted by the usual token chapter. Filling a critical hiatus, theHandbook of Civil Society in Africa takes Africa, African developments, and African perspectives very seriously and worthy of academic interrogation in their own right. It offers a critical, clear-sighted perspective on civil society in Africa, and positions African discourses within the framework of important regional and global debates. It promises to be an invaluable reference work for researchers and practitioners working in the fields of civil society, nonprofit studies, development studies, volunteerism, civic service, and African studies. Endorsements: "This volume signposts a critical turning point in the renewed engagement with the theory and practice of civil society in Africa. Moving from traditional concerns with disquisitions on the appropriateness and possibility of the existence and vibrancy of the idea of civil society on the continent, the volume approaches the forms, contents, and features of the actually existing civil society in Africa from thematic, regional, and national angles. It demonstrates clearly the extent to which core intellectual work on civil society in Africa has largely moved from concerns with cultural reductionism to a nuanced examination of the complexities of (formal, non-formal, organizational, non-organizational, traditional, newer, usual, unusual) engagements, detailing the extent to which, over time, civil society as a concept has been indigenized, appropriated and adapted in the terrains of politics, society, economy, culture and new technologies on the continent. In all this, the book accomplishes the near-impossible. Without sacrificing the vigour, rigor and freshness of the often unpredictable fruits of up-to-date research into regional and national differences that crop up in the documentation of Africa's multiple realities and discourses, the volume weaves together a rich tapestry of the historical, theoretical and practical dimensions of an expanding civil society sector, and accompanying growth in popular discourse, advocacy, and academic literature, in such a diverse continent as Africa, into a meaningful whole of insightful themes. Written and edited by a very distinguished cross-continental and multi-disciplinary collection of researchers, research students, practitioners and activists, the volume provides cutting-edge evidence and makes a definitive case for a new lease of life for civil society research in Africa." -Adigun Agbaje, Professor of Political Science, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. "Throughout Africa, forms of civic engagement and political participation have seen dynamic change in recent decades, yet conceptions of civil society have rarely accounted for this evolution. This volume is an essential source of new thinking about political association and collective action in Africa. The authors offer a wealth of analysis on changing organizations and social movements, new forms of interaction and communication, emerging strategies and issues, diverse social foundations, and the theoretical implications of a shifting associational landscape. The contributors provide an invaluable addition to the comparative literature on political change, democratic development, and social movements in Africa." Peter Lewis, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced international Studies

This text examines the potential value of the concept of civil society for enhancing the current understanding of state-society relations in Africa. The authors review the meanings of civil society in political philosophy, as well as alternative approaches to employing the concept in African settings. Considering both the patterns of emerging civil society in Africa and issues relating to its further development, they give particular emphasis to the cases of Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire.

Civil society is one of several Western political and social concepts that have not traveled successfully to Africa. Revived in response to the search for democracy in Eastern Europe during the late Soviet era, Western donors promoted and funded new civil society organizations in sub-Saharan Africa, regarding them as an essential grounding for African democratization. Most of these new civil society organizations had little in common with African associational activity. Focusing on the characteristics and behavior of longstand-ing African organizations would appear a better starting point for developing a useful concept of an African civil society. One candidate worth serious investigation is the Buganda Kingdom Government. This organization violates most distinctions central to Western notions of civil society. Yet it continues to behave like a civil society organization. Its political and conceptual collisions offer guidance toward a useful notion of African civil society and understanding Ugandan politics.

Cultures of violence are characteristic of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and attempts to move towards cultures of peace have often proved difficult and ineffectual. And yet, the wide variations in levels of violence within and between countries show that it is not inevitable; rather, it is the result of choices made at individual, community and societal levels. This book examines the potential of peace infrastructures as vehicles to strengthen and spread progress towards cultures of peace. Peace infrastructures vary hugely in sophistication and level. The examples examined in this book range from tiny structures which help resolve conflicts between individuals and within community organisations, peace committees which serve local communities, peace education and peace club programmes in schools, mediation mechanisms to prevent election violence and to ministries of peace to coordinate government and non-government efforts in peacemaking and peacebuilding. The overall finding is that the development of peace infrastructures at all levels has great potential to build cultures of peace. 1. It is the only book available which documents the experience and potential of nonviolence in post-independence sub-Saharan Africa. 2. It makes a persuasive case for the development of various peace infrastructures in order to make peace sustainable. 3. It explains how strategic planning can be utilised, both to bring about change and to institutionalise it.

This work critically reviews the conventional uses of the concept of civil society in promoting democratization in Africa and suggests omissions and modifications are needed for more accurate analyses.

This book describes how NGOs' efforts to promote sustainable development are affected by their funding, management strategies, and relationships with government, communities, and other NGOs. The authors explore implications for theory and offer suggestions for increasing NGO effectiveness.

Monga sheds light on Africa's long tradition of an indigenous form of political activism.