Pub Date : 2022-02-09DOI: 10.1163/09744061-20220204
T. Ojo
Sustainable Development Goal 5 is seen as critical in achieving gender equality. Women and girls are still marginalised and disadvantaged in Africa, and proportionally few are financially and socially independent. Hence, there is a concern about the gender gap in digital financial inclusion on the continent. The paper draws on existing literature to examine the extent to which digital financial inclusion facilitates women’s economic empowerment in four African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Namibia and Lesotho. It further discusses the challenges women face in taking part in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Despite all the policies implemented by African states and the growing participation of these nations in 4IR, women still lag behind in digital financial inclusion. The paper concludes that enforcing gender equity in the digital environment is necessary to pave the way for the future. Technology is human-invented and follows the instructions that we dictate. Hence, we could use it to improve gender equality in the 4IR environment and move closer to achieving sustainable development.
{"title":"Digital Financial Inclusion for Women in the Fourth Industrial Revolution","authors":"T. Ojo","doi":"10.1163/09744061-20220204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/09744061-20220204","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Sustainable Development Goal 5 is seen as critical in achieving gender equality. Women and girls are still marginalised and disadvantaged in Africa, and proportionally few are financially and socially independent. Hence, there is a concern about the gender gap in digital financial inclusion on the continent. The paper draws on existing literature to examine the extent to which digital financial inclusion facilitates women’s economic empowerment in four African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Namibia and Lesotho. It further discusses the challenges women face in taking part in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Despite all the policies implemented by African states and the growing participation of these nations in 4IR, women still lag behind in digital financial inclusion. The paper concludes that enforcing gender equity in the digital environment is necessary to pave the way for the future. Technology is human-invented and follows the instructions that we dictate. Hence, we could use it to improve gender equality in the 4IR environment and move closer to achieving sustainable development.","PeriodicalId":41966,"journal":{"name":"Africa Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88521055","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-09DOI: 10.1163/09744061-20220126
M. Özkan, Serhat Orakçı
Over the last two decades, international summits have gained great importance for regional and global actors in terms of developing relations with African countries. China, India, Japan, the Unites States, European countries and Russia have conducted various summits and business forums to develop political, economic and military relations with Africa. In 2005, Turkey emerged as a new actor when its foreign policy opened up to Africa. It was a strategic partner to the African Union in 2008, has conducted two Turkey–Africa summits—in 2008 in Istanbul, and in 2014 in Malabo—and the third summit was held again in Istanbul in December 2021. This article analyses the Istanbul and Malabo declarations comprehensively to evaluate Turkey’s foreign policy discourse on Africa. Moreover, it examines Turkey’s Africa policy implementations and achievements in the continent through the lens of summits.
{"title":"Deciphering Turkey—Africa Summits","authors":"M. Özkan, Serhat Orakçı","doi":"10.1163/09744061-20220126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/09744061-20220126","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Over the last two decades, international summits have gained great importance for regional and global actors in terms of developing relations with African countries. China, India, Japan, the Unites States, European countries and Russia have conducted various summits and business forums to develop political, economic and military relations with Africa. In 2005, Turkey emerged as a new actor when its foreign policy opened up to Africa. It was a strategic partner to the African Union in 2008, has conducted two Turkey–Africa summits—in 2008 in Istanbul, and in 2014 in Malabo—and the third summit was held again in Istanbul in December 2021. This article analyses the Istanbul and Malabo declarations comprehensively to evaluate Turkey’s foreign policy discourse on Africa. Moreover, it examines Turkey’s Africa policy implementations and achievements in the continent through the lens of summits.","PeriodicalId":41966,"journal":{"name":"Africa Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85008927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-02DOI: 10.1163/09744061-20220127
Trymore Maganga, Catherine Conrad Suso
This paper examines the role played by human mobility as a climate change adaptation strategy in Zimbabwe’s small-scale farming areas. Livelihoods in Zimbabwe’s small-scale farming areas are mostly agriculture-based and have long suffered from low levels of production. This is largely due to poor agroecological conditions and lack of agricultural investment, including income diversification projects from the central government. Recently, extreme climatic events in these areas have exacerbated food insecurity challenges, prompting many households to relocate. The findings of this study indicate that most households in the small-scale farming regions are resorting to either short- or long-term migration to areas that offer them food security. In these areas, poor households are forced to work on large commercial farms where they are paid in maize grain or trade their products for food to support their families. This paper argues that, if properly used together with other climate change policies promoted in Zimbabwe, human mobility can be an effective climate change adaptation strategy in small-scale farming areas.
{"title":"Human Mobility and Climate Change Adaptation in Small-Scale Farming Areas in Eastern Zimbabwe","authors":"Trymore Maganga, Catherine Conrad Suso","doi":"10.1163/09744061-20220127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/09744061-20220127","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper examines the role played by human mobility as a climate change adaptation strategy in Zimbabwe’s small-scale farming areas. Livelihoods in Zimbabwe’s small-scale farming areas are mostly agriculture-based and have long suffered from low levels of production. This is largely due to poor agroecological conditions and lack of agricultural investment, including income diversification projects from the central government. Recently, extreme climatic events in these areas have exacerbated food insecurity challenges, prompting many households to relocate. The findings of this study indicate that most households in the small-scale farming regions are resorting to either short- or long-term migration to areas that offer them food security. In these areas, poor households are forced to work on large commercial farms where they are paid in maize grain or trade their products for food to support their families. This paper argues that, if properly used together with other climate change policies promoted in Zimbabwe, human mobility can be an effective climate change adaptation strategy in small-scale farming areas.","PeriodicalId":41966,"journal":{"name":"Africa Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84454064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-25DOI: 10.1163/09744061-20220121
Ernest Toochi Aniche
The 1979 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Protocol, or Article 59 of the 1993 ECOWAS Revised Treaty, encapsulates the terms and conditions for a visa-free and borderless economic community. It is geared towards decolonising the colonial borders and encouraging economic activity. But despite the ratification of the Protocol, documented and undocumented migrants continue to be expelled, blocked at borders and prevented from doing business, and suffer other xenophobic mistreatment, within the sub-region. The member states of ECOWAS have implemented anti-immigrant policies, from which Community citizens are rarely exempted. The article argues that the political class in the various states in the sub-region has nurtured and exploited a xenophobic consciousness, which has prevented the growth of class consciousness and protects their power base. The xenophobic policies of West African states have also created the necessary conditions to impede the implementation of the ECOWAS Protocol.
{"title":"Borders, Migration and Xenophobic Policies in West Africa","authors":"Ernest Toochi Aniche","doi":"10.1163/09744061-20220121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/09744061-20220121","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The 1979 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Protocol, or Article 59 of the 1993 ECOWAS Revised Treaty, encapsulates the terms and conditions for a visa-free and borderless economic community. It is geared towards decolonising the colonial borders and encouraging economic activity. But despite the ratification of the Protocol, documented and undocumented migrants continue to be expelled, blocked at borders and prevented from doing business, and suffer other xenophobic mistreatment, within the sub-region. The member states of ECOWAS have implemented anti-immigrant policies, from which Community citizens are rarely exempted. The article argues that the political class in the various states in the sub-region has nurtured and exploited a xenophobic consciousness, which has prevented the growth of class consciousness and protects their power base. The xenophobic policies of West African states have also created the necessary conditions to impede the implementation of the ECOWAS Protocol.","PeriodicalId":41966,"journal":{"name":"Africa Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73149287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-18DOI: 10.1163/09744061-20220001
E. Kyazike
This research at the Nsongezi open-air site examines the intergenerational artefacts at a site where the first Stone Age artefacts were identified in Uganda. The purpose was to examine the nature and cause of the mixed Later Stone Age (LSA) and Iron Age (IA) artefacts in the same stratigraphic context at Nsongezi. The specific objectives included examining the ceramic assemblage, discussing the nature of interactions between the Later Stone Age and Iron Age people and accounting for why and how the mixture of artefacts occurs at Nsongezi. Using a documentary review, archaeological survey, and excavation, the research re-examines the theories of displacement and coexistence concerning the LSA and IA material mixture, which has always been dismissed as a disturbance of stratigraphic contexts. Guided by the Law of superimposition, the association of archaeological material from different cultural periods such as the Later Stone Age and Iron Age artefacts at Nsongezi is attributed to four phenomena. First is the cultural interaction of distinct LSA and IA populations. Secondly, the LSA populations may have adopted Iron Age technology and pottery while continuing with some of the LSA technology and pottery. Thirdly, the Iron Age populations occupied the LSA sites previously abandoned, and some of the LSA peoples occupied the old Iron Age sites as the two groups crisscrossed the region in shifting agricultural and hunter-gatherer economies. Finally, the mixed LSA and Iron Age deposits might have resulted from post-abandonment taphonomic processes. Therefore, the social interactions between the LSA and IA at Nsongezi challenge the dominant narrative that the IA populations used their metal technology’s superiority to displace and absorb the LSA people.
{"title":"Later Stone and Iron Age Cohabitation at the Nsongezi Open-Air Site, Western Uganda","authors":"E. Kyazike","doi":"10.1163/09744061-20220001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/09744061-20220001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This research at the Nsongezi open-air site examines the intergenerational artefacts at a site where the first Stone Age artefacts were identified in Uganda. The purpose was to examine the nature and cause of the mixed Later Stone Age (LSA) and Iron Age (IA) artefacts in the same stratigraphic context at Nsongezi. The specific objectives included examining the ceramic assemblage, discussing the nature of interactions between the Later Stone Age and Iron Age people and accounting for why and how the mixture of artefacts occurs at Nsongezi. Using a documentary review, archaeological survey, and excavation, the research re-examines the theories of displacement and coexistence concerning the LSA and IA material mixture, which has always been dismissed as a disturbance of stratigraphic contexts. Guided by the Law of superimposition, the association of archaeological material from different cultural periods such as the Later Stone Age and Iron Age artefacts at Nsongezi is attributed to four phenomena. First is the cultural interaction of distinct LSA and IA populations. Secondly, the LSA populations may have adopted Iron Age technology and pottery while continuing with some of the LSA technology and pottery. Thirdly, the Iron Age populations occupied the LSA sites previously abandoned, and some of the LSA peoples occupied the old Iron Age sites as the two groups crisscrossed the region in shifting agricultural and hunter-gatherer economies. Finally, the mixed LSA and Iron Age deposits might have resulted from post-abandonment taphonomic processes. Therefore, the social interactions between the LSA and IA at Nsongezi challenge the dominant narrative that the IA populations used their metal technology’s superiority to displace and absorb the LSA people.","PeriodicalId":41966,"journal":{"name":"Africa Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87007442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/09744053.2021.1943146
F. Attoh, E. Ishola
ABSTRACT The phenomenon of migration involves the movement of people from one milieu to another. Different reasons underscore this movement by people such as escape from conflict, quest for greener pasture, search for employment, and coercion from criminal syndicates. This paper focuses on the dynamics of intra-regional migration in West Africa. The importance of migration within West Africa is emphasized in the region’s development agenda, Vision 2020, which places importance on regional resource development. Ease of migration is central to harnessing the region’s human resource potential for development ends. At inception, migration within West Africa was governed by the ECOWAS protocol on free movement of persons, residence, and establishment adopted in 1979. Within this framework, migration is considered as an integral element in the economic integration of the region. Hence, the protocol provides the right of entry for 90 days, residence and establishment for citizens of ECOWAS member countries. The ECOWAS Common Approach on Migration adopted in 2008 currently governs the migration process in the region. In interrogating migration governance in West Africa, this paper identifies challenges, such as, defective state capacities and continued underdevelopment, protectionist policies, language, colonial vestiges, such as, currency, among others, as factors militating against the successful exploitation of the region’s productive population for development ends.
{"title":"Migration and regional cooperation for development: ECOWAS in perspective","authors":"F. Attoh, E. Ishola","doi":"10.1080/09744053.2021.1943146","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09744053.2021.1943146","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The phenomenon of migration involves the movement of people from one milieu to another. Different reasons underscore this movement by people such as escape from conflict, quest for greener pasture, search for employment, and coercion from criminal syndicates. This paper focuses on the dynamics of intra-regional migration in West Africa. The importance of migration within West Africa is emphasized in the region’s development agenda, Vision 2020, which places importance on regional resource development. Ease of migration is central to harnessing the region’s human resource potential for development ends. At inception, migration within West Africa was governed by the ECOWAS protocol on free movement of persons, residence, and establishment adopted in 1979. Within this framework, migration is considered as an integral element in the economic integration of the region. Hence, the protocol provides the right of entry for 90 days, residence and establishment for citizens of ECOWAS member countries. The ECOWAS Common Approach on Migration adopted in 2008 currently governs the migration process in the region. In interrogating migration governance in West Africa, this paper identifies challenges, such as, defective state capacities and continued underdevelopment, protectionist policies, language, colonial vestiges, such as, currency, among others, as factors militating against the successful exploitation of the region’s productive population for development ends.","PeriodicalId":41966,"journal":{"name":"Africa Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75087656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/09744053.2021.1937466
M. Zoppi
{"title":"Militarizing marriage: West African soldiers’ conjugal traditions in modern French empire","authors":"M. Zoppi","doi":"10.1080/09744053.2021.1937466","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09744053.2021.1937466","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41966,"journal":{"name":"Africa Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89338691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/09744053.2021.1936998
Alexander Makulilo, M. Bakari
ABSTRACT Tanzania has, over the past two decades, made remarkable progress in terms of women’s representation in the parliament. In the women in parliament rankings, Tanzania comes 23rd in the world and the 8th in Africa with 36.6% Members of Parliament. This achievement is largely a result of struggles by the women’s movement in which a transformative feminist organization namely the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP-Mtandao) is clearly singled out to have played a leading role. This paper provides a critical assessment of the contribution of TGNP-Mtandao in promoting women’s representation and participation in decision-making processes in Tanzania. Specifically, it focuses to understand how TGNP’s leadership style contributed change in the rules of the game towards the achievement of gender equality and women’s political empowerment. In order to accomplish this endeavour, this work employed qualitative research so as to gain an in-depth understanding of gender issues in Tanzania’s context. Data were collected mainly through interviews with key stakeholders from parliamentarians and non-governmental organizations. Moreover, election reports, evaluation reports, gender reports, and legislations were reviewed to provide secondary data.
{"title":"Building a transformative feminist movement for women empowerment in Tanzania: the role of the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP-Mtandao)","authors":"Alexander Makulilo, M. Bakari","doi":"10.1080/09744053.2021.1936998","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09744053.2021.1936998","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Tanzania has, over the past two decades, made remarkable progress in terms of women’s representation in the parliament. In the women in parliament rankings, Tanzania comes 23rd in the world and the 8th in Africa with 36.6% Members of Parliament. This achievement is largely a result of struggles by the women’s movement in which a transformative feminist organization namely the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP-Mtandao) is clearly singled out to have played a leading role. This paper provides a critical assessment of the contribution of TGNP-Mtandao in promoting women’s representation and participation in decision-making processes in Tanzania. Specifically, it focuses to understand how TGNP’s leadership style contributed change in the rules of the game towards the achievement of gender equality and women’s political empowerment. In order to accomplish this endeavour, this work employed qualitative research so as to gain an in-depth understanding of gender issues in Tanzania’s context. Data were collected mainly through interviews with key stakeholders from parliamentarians and non-governmental organizations. Moreover, election reports, evaluation reports, gender reports, and legislations were reviewed to provide secondary data.","PeriodicalId":41966,"journal":{"name":"Africa Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88062456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/09744053.2021.1943149
Christopher Appiah-Thompson
ABSTRACT This paper explores the contentions surrounding the legal reasoning in the judicial review of Ghana’s 2012 presidential election petition and its electoral and legal implications. Due to the political nature of the electoral petition, the judiciary is dragged into the ‘live wire’ of electoral politics, which brings their credibility and legitimacy into question. This study argues that the adversarial nature of judicial review makes it more likely for defeated political actors to impugn political bias in the administration of electoral justice, instead of adhering to the higher constitutional principles of popular sovereignty and natural justice. Based on content analyses of the different principles and interpretive methods underpinning the adjudication of the election petition, it distils some implications for the direction of judicial reforms and the emerging electoral jurisprudence. The paper demonstrates that the excessive executive powers in the appointment of procedures of judges’ revealed major cracks in the practice of judicial review. In sum, this study makes an important theoretical and empirical contribution to the current debates on the role of constitutional courts in the consolidation of democratic governance in African states.
{"title":"The politics of judicial review of elections in Ghana: Implications for judicial reforms and emerging electoral jurisprudence","authors":"Christopher Appiah-Thompson","doi":"10.1080/09744053.2021.1943149","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09744053.2021.1943149","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper explores the contentions surrounding the legal reasoning in the judicial review of Ghana’s 2012 presidential election petition and its electoral and legal implications. Due to the political nature of the electoral petition, the judiciary is dragged into the ‘live wire’ of electoral politics, which brings their credibility and legitimacy into question. This study argues that the adversarial nature of judicial review makes it more likely for defeated political actors to impugn political bias in the administration of electoral justice, instead of adhering to the higher constitutional principles of popular sovereignty and natural justice. Based on content analyses of the different principles and interpretive methods underpinning the adjudication of the election petition, it distils some implications for the direction of judicial reforms and the emerging electoral jurisprudence. The paper demonstrates that the excessive executive powers in the appointment of procedures of judges’ revealed major cracks in the practice of judicial review. In sum, this study makes an important theoretical and empirical contribution to the current debates on the role of constitutional courts in the consolidation of democratic governance in African states.","PeriodicalId":41966,"journal":{"name":"Africa Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78904013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/09744053.2021.1943265
H. Kayuni, Dan Banik, J. Chunga
ABSTRACT The landlocked geo-political situation has been a dominating theme that has influenced Malawi's foreign policy since independence in 1964. Mozambique shares a long border line with Malawi surrounding it from south-east to south-west and offers the closest port city for its trade and commerce. For purposes of trade, Malawi uses four so-called corridors, three of which pass through Mozambique. Malawi's quest to deal with its geo-political disadvantage of being landlocked often appears to collide with Mozambique's national interests. This article critically discusses a recent and highly controversial effort undertaken by Malawi to improve its geo-political position under the umbrella of the Shire-Zambezi Waterway project. The main goal of the project was to provide Malawi with access to the Indian ocean through Mozambique's port city of Chinde. The article draws on a range of methodological approaches including extensive literature review as well as over fifty interviews with key informants. It argues that despite the project's economic benefits, the ‘megaphone diplomacy’ strategy that the former Malawian president adopted in relation to Mozambique resulted in the failure of the project. In spite of the popularity of concepts such as ‘globalization’, ‘regional integration’ and ‘partnerships’, we demonstrate how the national interest continues to reign supreme in diplomacy. The article concludes that the waterway project may work out in the future on two possible grounds: when Malawi changes its diplomatic approach and when the national interests of both countries are harmonized.
{"title":"The perils of megaphone diplomacy on Malawi’s ambitious Shire- Zambezi Waterway project","authors":"H. Kayuni, Dan Banik, J. Chunga","doi":"10.1080/09744053.2021.1943265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09744053.2021.1943265","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The landlocked geo-political situation has been a dominating theme that has influenced Malawi's foreign policy since independence in 1964. Mozambique shares a long border line with Malawi surrounding it from south-east to south-west and offers the closest port city for its trade and commerce. For purposes of trade, Malawi uses four so-called corridors, three of which pass through Mozambique. Malawi's quest to deal with its geo-political disadvantage of being landlocked often appears to collide with Mozambique's national interests. This article critically discusses a recent and highly controversial effort undertaken by Malawi to improve its geo-political position under the umbrella of the Shire-Zambezi Waterway project. The main goal of the project was to provide Malawi with access to the Indian ocean through Mozambique's port city of Chinde. The article draws on a range of methodological approaches including extensive literature review as well as over fifty interviews with key informants. It argues that despite the project's economic benefits, the ‘megaphone diplomacy’ strategy that the former Malawian president adopted in relation to Mozambique resulted in the failure of the project. In spite of the popularity of concepts such as ‘globalization’, ‘regional integration’ and ‘partnerships’, we demonstrate how the national interest continues to reign supreme in diplomacy. The article concludes that the waterway project may work out in the future on two possible grounds: when Malawi changes its diplomatic approach and when the national interests of both countries are harmonized.","PeriodicalId":41966,"journal":{"name":"Africa Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86216866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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