The Bibliography of Africa: Proceedings and Papers of the International Conference...

The Bibliography of Africa: Proceedings and Papers of the International Conference... Review

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In and Out of Focus: Images from Central Africa, 1885-1960

In and Out of Focus: Images from Central Africa, 1885-1960 Review

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In and Out of Focus: Images from Central Africa, 1885-1960 Feature

This book accompanies an exhibition at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, on the role of photography in Central Africa. This is the first book to link two related themes: the role of photographic images in constructing and circulating fantasies, ideas, and sentiments in Europe and the US relating to the peoples of Central Africa; and the role of photography in enabling Africans to project images of themselves by becoming familiar with photographic technology. Broad in thematic and temporal scope, the book focuses on several time periods, especially on the years before and between the two world wars.

This is also the first publication devoted to the important holdings of the Eliot Elisofen Photographic Archives, a department of the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution and a unique repository with more than 200,000 historical and contemporary images from all over Africa.

This book raises important issues associated with photographic practice in Africa, the distribution of images, the circulation of ideas in Europe and the US, and African responses to photography through several poignant case studies. This book also advances the scholarly discourse on colonial/anthropological photography, and contributes to a better understanding of African responses to photography.

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Trade Policy Developments in the Middle East and North Africa

Trade Policy Developments in the Middle East and North Africa Review

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Trade Policy Developments in the Middle East and North Africa Feature

"While very diverse in many respects, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries nevertheless also share some common characteristics, including a number of important shared challenges for policymakers." The Middle East and North Africa region has great potential for economic growth and prosperity in the 21st century. Yet, this potential will not be realized unless governments and private sector leaders in the region forge partnerships for development. An indispensable resource for all those working within the international development community, especially within the Middle East and North Africa region, Trade Policy Developments in the Middle East and North Africa offers policy and institutional alternatives to help both parties achieve that goal. This volume describes and analyzes recent trade policy developments in the Middle East and North Africa. Contributors—almost all economists from the region—review recent trends in trade performance, assess current trade and investment regimes, and discuss some of the emerging microeconomic policy challenges that confront governments and firms seeking to export and trade. Topics addressed include the need and scope for using regional integration and economic free zones as a tool of development, mobilization of non-trade tax bases, efficient enforcement of product standards to ensure health and safety of citizens, and implementation of modern information technologies to facilitate customs clearance. This book is the second in a series from the Mediterranean Development Forum, a partnership of 10 Middle East and North Africa Region think tanks and the World Bank Institute. This volume will be of interest to development specialists, policymakers, and investors.

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King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Review

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King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Feature

In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million--all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian. Heroic efforts to expose these crimes eventually led to the first great human rights movement of the twentieth century, in which everyone from Mark Twain to the Archbishop of Canterbury participated. King Leopold's Ghost is the haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who fought Leopold: a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust. Adam Hochschild brings this largely untold story alive with the wit and skill of a Barbara Tuchman. Like her, he knows that history often provides a far richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent. Chief among them is Edmund Morel, a young British shipping agent who went on to lead the international crusade against Leopold. Another hero of this tale, the Irish patriot Roger Casement, ended his life on a London gallows. Two courageous black Americans, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard, risked much to bring evidence of the Congo atrocities to the outside world. Sailing into the middle of the story was a young Congo River steamboat officer named Joseph Conrad. And looming above them all, the duplicitous billionaire King Leopold II. With great power and compassion, King Leopold's Ghost will brand the tragedy of the Congo--too long forgotten--onto the conscience of the West.

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Strengthening China's and India's Trade and Investment Ties to the Middle East and North Africa (Orientations in Development) (English and English Edition)

Strengthening China's and India's Trade and Investment Ties to the Middle East and North Africa (Orientations in Development) (English and English Edition) Review

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Strengthening China's and India's Trade and Investment Ties to the Middle East and North Africa (Orientations in Development) (English and English Edition) Feature

China and India's spectacular economic rise over the last two decades has accelerated their trade and investment flows with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), particularly with the oil-producing countries. And while these flows are still small, China and India's presence in the region is on the rise. This report focuses on the following questions: • what have been evolution and the impact of MENA's trade and investment relations with China and India? • what actions can be taken to maximize the benefits from these relations and to enhance MENA's international integration? The main findings indicate that the region as a whole has benefited from the rise of China and India in terms of better terms of trade, significant increases in oil and gas exports, and cheaper imports. However, producers of industrial goods have been negatively—and in a few cases severely—affected by competition with the two Asian countries in both third and domestic markets. While China and India are investing more in MENA, they are contributing very little to job creation or to the transfer and diffusion of technology. Faster growth in the two Asian countries—and the associated higher demand for energy—will increase revenues from oil and the difficult choices associated with their management. For the labor-abundant, non oil-producing countries, competition with China and India will increase. But the lack of competitive manufacturing industries and services, the insufficient attention given in the past to building technological capabilities and promoting openness and entrepreneurship are constraining their ability to respond to competition. They need to accelerate productivity to tackle unemployment, especially among youth. This may require the broader institutional changes seen in China and India— suggesting the importance of a pragmatic reform agenda that can accelerate productivity, trade, and investment in the region.

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Growth And Poverty Reduction: Case Studies from West Africa (World Bank Working Papers)

Growth And Poverty Reduction: Case Studies from West Africa (World Bank Working Papers) Review

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Growth And Poverty Reduction: Case Studies from West Africa (World Bank Working Papers) Feature

This volume provides a set of six case studies from West Africa. These assess the benefits of growth (or the costs of a lack of growth) in terms of poverty reduction in those countries. The first part of this book describes the experience of two countries (Ghana and Senegal) that achieved high levels of growth in the 1990s, and that also experienced important reductions in poverty, even though growth was not strictly pro-poor. The second part describes the experience of two other countries (Burkina Faso and Cape Verde) that also achieved high levels of growth in the 1990s, but where there was an initial perception that growth did not lead to much poverty reduction. The more detailed analysis of poverty presented here suggests however that these two countries did witness a sharp reduction in their population share in poverty, as would have been expected given their growth record. Finally, in the third part, the authors argue that a lack of growth in the 1990s in Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria has been a key reason for their persistently high levels of poverty. Overall, the case studies make a strong case for the positive impact of growth on poverty reduction in West Africa. However, they also point to the need to pay close attention to changes in inequality, because such changes have limited the gains from growth for the poor in several of the countries considered here.

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