Globalization And Development In Sub Saharan Africa

The first comprehensive work on globalization within the context of sustainable development initiatives in Africa.

This publication critically reviews the effects of globalisation on sub-Saharan Africa over the last three decades. The large gains expected from opening up to international economic forces have, to date, been limited, while there have been significant adverse consequences. Foreign direct investment in the region has been largely confined to resource - especially mineral - extraction, even as continuing capital flight has reduced financial resources available for productive investments. Premature trade liberalisation has undermined prospects for the economic development of productive capacities in many sectors - including manufacturing and agriculture -- are not sufficiently competitive to take advantage of improvements in market access.

African economies are the most dependent and the most marginalized within the global system. The prevailing policies that are designed to overcome the African crisis and to reverse their marginalization by integrating African economies more closely with the global economy through openness, have generally exacerbated their problems by deepening their internal fragmentation. This book is an attempt to contribute to the ongoing effort to develop more appropriate alternative strategies. It proposes an ingenious balance between autocentric and globalist approaches to transcend the African paradox.

This is a collection of bold and visionary scholarship that reveals an insightful exposition of re-visioning African development from African perspectives. It provides an interdisciplinary conceptual base that can effectively guide the planning and implementing of programs for socio-economic development in Africa. The book provides up-to-date scholarly research on continental trends on various subjects and concerns of paramount importance to globalisation and development in Africa (politics, democracy, education, gender, technology, global relationships and the role of non-governmental organisations).

"What are the benefits and risks for Africa’s participation in the globalisation nexus? Remapping Africa in the Global Space is a visionary and interdisciplinary volume that restores Africa’s image using a multidisciplinary lens. It incorporates disciplines such as sociology, education, global studies, economics, development studies, political science and philosophy to explore and theorise Africa’s reality in the global space and to deconstruct the misperceptions and narratives that often infantilise Africa’s internal and international relations. The contributions to this volume are a hybrid of both ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’ perspectives that create a balanced critical discourse that can provide ‘standard’ paradigms that can adequately explain, predict, or prevent Africa’s current misperceptions and myths about the African ‘crisis’ and ‘failure’ status. The authors provide a holistic, and perhaps, anticolonial and anti-hegemonic perspective that can benefit a wide spectrum of academics, scholars, students, development agents, policy makers in both governmental and non-governmental organisations and engage some alternative analyses and possibilities for socio-politico and economic advancement in Africa. The book provides up-to-date scholarly research on continental trends on various subjects and concerns of paramount importance to globalisation and development in Africa. “The book is brilliant! Remapping Africa in the Global Space: Propositions for Change explores Africa from the perspective of academics specialised in subject matters pertaining to the continent. In this age of globalisation, I find this book invaluable. It is a good read as it dissects analyses and presents issues affecting the continent in an articulate and cogent way. I highly recommend its use in academic institutions!” – Magnus Mfoafo-M’Carthy, Assistant Professor, Lyle S. Hallman Faculty of Social Work; Fellow of Tshepo Institute for the Study of Contemporary Africa, Wilfrid Laurier University, Kitchener, Canada “More than anything else, Remapping Africa in the Global Space: Propositions for Change speaks to the complex, multifaceted, and interfused character of the development challenges and prospects of Africa. Indeed, few books have examined contemporary Africa as comprehensively and insightfully as this edited volume; it is widely welcomed in the African academic, scholarly and research arena.” – Joseph Mensah, Professor of Geography, York University, Toronto "