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Begin New Search Topic Governance Political Geography Africa Content Type Working Paper Publication Year within 10 Years

11. Looking Ahead: Trends and Solutions for 2022

Author:
Sarah Cliffe
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
It would be good to write a very optimistic piece at the dawn of 2022—and indeed we do try to focus in this piece not just on trends but on solutions. Yet, overall, it is impossible to avoid “telling it as it is”—internationally and for multilateral action, the year has not had an auspicious start. Omicron is sweeping through communities worldwide, with many hospital systems warning of the risk of being overwhelmed. The political instability of which we and many others have long warned, driven by economic and governance links, is coming to pass. Kazakhstan is the most recent example, but this also covers the quintupling of coups in Africa in 2021, and heightened polarization in many Western, Asian, and Latin American electoral processes.
Topic:
Governance, Multilateralism, Humanitarian Crisis, Instability, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Africa, Kazakhstan, Latin America, and West Asia

12. How Inequality and Polarization Interact: America’s Challenges Through a South African Lens

Author:
Brian Levy
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Over the past decade, toxic interactions between persistent inequality, racial tensions, and political polarization have undercut the promise of South Africa’s so-called rainbow miracle transition from apartheid to democracy. South Africa’s recent history sheds light on the United States’ recent political travails. It illustrates how interactions between inclusion and inequality on the one hand and political ideas and entrepreneurship on the other can fuel positive spirals of hope, economic dynamism, and political legitimacy—but can also trigger vicious, downward spirals of disillusion, anger, and political polarization. South Africa was able to transition from a society structured around racial oppression into a nonracial democracy whose new government promised “a better life for all.” Especially remarkable was the speed with which one set of national ideas appeared to give way to its polar opposite. From a society marked by racial dominance and oppression, there emerged the aspiration to build an inclusive, cooperative social order, underpinned by the principles of equal dignity and shared citizenship. In the initial glow of transition, South Africa’s citizens could hope for a better life for themselves and their children. In time, though, the promise wore thin. It became increasingly evident that the economic deck would continue to be stacked, and that the possibility of upward mobility would remain quite limited. Fueled by massive continuing inequities in wealth, income, and opportunity, South Africans increasingly turned from hope to anger. In the United States, a steady and equitably growing economy and a vibrant civil rights movement had fostered the hope of social and economic inclusion. But that hope turned to anger as the benefits of growth became increasingly skewed from the 1980s onward. In 2019, the U.S. economy was more unequal than it had been since the 1920s. Younger generations could no longer expect that their lives would be better than those of their parents. Such economic adversity and associated status anxiety can trigger a heightened propensity for us-versus-them ways of engaging the world. In both South Africa and the United States, polarization was fueled by divisive political entrepreneurs, and in both countries, these entrepreneurs leveraged inequality in ways that added fuel to the fire. In the 2010s, South Africa went through a new ideational reckoning, in part to correct the view that the transition to democracy had washed the country’s apartheid history clean. But opportunistic political entrepreneurs also pushed an increasingly polarized and re-racialized political discourse and pressure on public institutions, with predictable economic consequences. South Africa’s economy slid into sustained stagnation. Paralleling South Africa, America’s divisive political entrepreneurs also cultivated an us-versus-them divisiveness. However, unlike in South Africa, political entrepreneurs and economic elites in the United States also used divisive rhetoric as a way to persuade voters to embrace inequality-increasing policies that might otherwise not have won support. By the late 2010s, the risks were palpable in both South Africa and the United States of an accelerating breakdown of the norms and institutions that sustain inclusive political settlements. For South Africa, the reversals were not wholly unexpected, given the country’s difficult inheritance—though a recent turn away from angry populism suggests that, paradoxically, the rawness and recency of the anti-apartheid struggle and triumph might perhaps offer some immunization against a further-accelerating a downward spiral. But for the United States, the converse may be true. Increases in inequality since the 1980s, and their attendant social and political consequences, have been largely self-inflicted wounds. Complacency bred of long stability may, for decades, have been lulling the country into political recklessness at the inequality-ethnicity intersection, a recklessness that risks plunging the country into disaster. But this paper’s analysis is not all gloom and doom. South Africa’s escape from the shackles of apartheid teaches that, even in the most unlikely settings, downward spirals of despair and anger can transmute into virtuous spirals of hope. The country’s first fifteen years of democracy also show that, once a commitment to change has taken hold, making the shift to an inclusion-supporting economy is less daunting than it might seem. Reforms that foster “good enough inclusion” can be enough to provide initial momentum, with the changes themselves unfolding over time—and an initial round of change can bring in its wake a variety of positive knock-on effects. But lessons can be overlearned. Mass political mobilization was pivotal to South Africa’s shaking loose the shackles of apartheid—and new calls to the barricades might seem to be the obvious response to current political and governmental dysfunction. However, different times and different challenges call for different responses. In both contemporary South Africa and contemporary America, the frontier challenge is not to overthrow an unjust political order but to renew preexisting formal commitments to the idea that citizenship implies some shared purpose. Renewal of this kind might best be realized not by confrontation but rather by a social movement centered around a vision of shared citizenship, a movement that views cooperation in pursuit of win-win possibilities not as weakness but as the key to the sustainability of thriving, open, and inclusive societies.
Topic:
Governance, Democracy, Inequality, Institutions, and Polarization
Political Geography:
Africa, South Africa, North America, and United States of America

13. Mapping climate adaptation finance in Kenya's devolved governance system: a case of Makueni County

Author:
Judith Mulwa and Marie Ladekjær Gravesen
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
These years, countries are coming up with policies, laws and regulations aimed at mobilising finances to fund response measures for climate change adaptation. It is, therefore, imperative that these finances, among others, are mapped out so that we can track the measures that are financed, the types of financing that are used, and ultimately look at whether the available funds are meeting their objectives in the ways that they are being spent. Kenya is among the first countries to develop policies, strategies and institutional frameworks for climate action, creating a policy and legal environment to advance an effective climate change response. And specifically, Kenya’s Makueni County has enacted county-level climate change regulation as part of the implementation of the national agenda on climate change. The Makueni county government and its partners have made significant efforts to build the capacity to integrate climate information into CIDPs and apply it to resilience planning and budgeting processes. Doing so, Makueni County has been able to attract climate finance in the recent past. The integration of climate financing in the budgetary processes and allocation is an important example that other counties and governance institutions could embrace to attract climate financing and to ensure that impact of the financing is felt at community level. This DIIS Working Paper is a first step at exploring these dynamics, looking at the main types of devolved public funds from the Kenyan ministries and at how Makueni has adapted local institutions and policies to meet local needs of financing for adaptation activities.
Topic:
Climate Change, Governance, Finance, and Adaptation
Political Geography:
Kenya and Africa

14. Devolution of donor funded climate change adaptation finance

Author:
Per Tidemand, Andrew Hattle, Esbern Friis-Hansen, Beatrice Sumari, Peter Rogers, Judith Mulwa, and Millicent Omala
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
From 2013-2019 Tanzania received USD 2.0 billion as adaptation-related development finance, whereas Kenya received USD 3.3 billion. Based on the OECD database, this DIIS Working Paper analysis projects based on their financial value, measured as ‘adaptation-related development finance’. This is combined with an analysis of the project documents to measure degree of devolution was developed with three main parameters: the extent to which finance was managed through local government accounts; the extent to which the projects in the respective national budgets were considered devolved; and the use of participatory planning arrangements for management of the funds. Given Kenya’s greater emphasis on devolution, its fiscal strengths, and the autonomy of its counties, when compared to Tanzanian local governments, it was assumed that adaptation-related development finance would be relatively more devolved in Kenya than Tanzania. However, preliminary analysis suggests otherwise. The analysis also suggests that projects classified by development partners as ‘adaptation-related development finance’ in several cases exaggerate levels of funding and only contribute marginally to improved local governance of climate adaption activities.
Topic:
Climate Change, Governance, Finance, and Adaptation
Political Geography:
Kenya, Africa, and Tanzania

15. Rumble in the DR Congo: President Tshisekedi is Taking Control

Author:
Hans Hoebeke
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
Two years after the peaceful transition that ended the presidency of Joseph Kabila, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is experiencing another decisive turn. After a long-drawn-out fight, President Felix Tshisekedi has skilfully turned the tables on his predecessor, whose position had seemed impregnable. In a series of reversals, former President Kabila’s political platform, the Common Front for the Congo (FCC) lost control over the judiciary, the two chambers of parliament and the government. On 15 February 2021, President Tshisekedi appointed his prime minister, Sama Lukonde Kyenge, who will head a government of the new Union Sacrée de la Nation (USN) coalition. These are undoubtedly major steps forward. But while breaking the Kabila-system’s hold on the Congolese state is a necessary condition for change, it is only the beginning. President Tshisekedi, the incoming government and other forces for change are now in a unique position to renew governance practices and govern in the interest of the Congolese people. This Egmont Paper analyses the recent polit- ical developments in the DRC and identifies the main priorities and challenges facing President Tshisekedi and the country.
Topic:
Governance, Leadership, State Building, and Transition
Political Geography:
Africa and Democratic Republic of Congo

16. Role of Native Administration in Integrated Natural Resource Management and Conflict Resolution in Central Darfur State, Sudan

Author:
Musa Adam Ismail, Siddig A. Mohamed, Mohamed A. Teabin, Elsadig A. Zakaria, Adam A. Bahar, Elamin M. Osman, Aziza A. Ali, Maria A. Osman, and Malik A. Sabei
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Feinstein International Center, Tufts University
Abstract:
The Native Administration (NA) in Sudan is still commonly known by the term ‘traditional leadership,’ the name given to the formal system in the early 1930s during the British colonial period (1916-1956). Among the powers and responsibilities of the NA system were the manage­ment and conservation of the environment and natural resources, and resolution of conflict over land and natural resources. Researchers from the University of Zalingei in Central Darfur, Sudan, conducted this study to improve the understanding of the role played by the NA and local traditions in integrated natural resource management in Central Darfur over the last twenty years, and to understand the conflicts and disputes associated with land access. The study focused on communities targeted by the Taadoud project that employ a range of different livelihood strategies, e.g., farming and herding. Data were collected from 12 villages in Zalingei and Wadi Salih localities in Central Darfur State. These villages were selected to represent different livelihood groups (farmers and pastoralists). The study was conducted in collaboration with the Taadoud II Project’s inter-university partnership between the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University; the University of Al Fashir in North Darfur, Sudan; and the University of Zalingei in Central Darfur, Sudan.
Topic:
Governance, Leadership, Local, and Traditional Leaders
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

17. Fiscal Policy Letter No5: Improving Financial Inclusion To Broaden The Tax Base In Cameroon

Author:
Jean-Cedric Kouam and L.B. Bongbinsin
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Nkafu Policy Institute
Abstract:
For several months, Cameroon has been facing the ravages of the pandemic caused by the coronavirus. To stop the spread of the virus, the Cameroonian authorities in April 2020 announced a series of fiscal easing measures to help companies and households in difficulty. Estimated at more than 114 billion CFA francs according to the Director-General of Taxation, the decisions taken have profoundly impacted public finances. Indeed, well before the pandemic, the country was already facing a high risk of external debt overhang (IMF, 2018) and immense security challenges in the North and the Anglophone regions. Despite this constraining socioeconomic and political context, the state must find the necessary and sufficient resources to ensure its proper functioning and territorial integrity. This fiscal policy letter proposes through analyzes a way for the government of Cameroon to increase its tax revenues in the coming years without penalizing growth: improving financial inclusion. The goal is to eliminate all constraints that exclude the most disadvantaged from full participation in the financial sector. The letter is structured around six key points. First, we provide an overview of Cameroon’s financial inclusion situation. Second, we analyze the factors that explain economic agents’ access to financial services, the transmission mechanisms between the financial and formal sectors, and the barriers to financial inclusion in Cameroon. Our results show that a deepening of the financial system would likely positively affect tax mobilization in Cameroon. Estimates show that a 10% increase in financial assets would lead to a 1.87% increase in tax revenue, equivalent to CFAF 49.70 billion – based on the level of tax revenue projected in the 2021 budget law. Similarly, a 10% increase in the number of secure servers – better access to the internet – would lead to a 1.1% increase in tax revenue, equivalent to CFAF 30.62 billion. This improvement in access to financial services for all economic agents – households, businesses – requires the public authorities to make the current regulations more flexible and increase the banking network’s density. This includes the development of payment systems, the construction of quality infrastructures, the definition of mechanisms to limit massive illicit capital flight, and the multiplication of consumer/investor protection guarantees.
Topic:
Development, Infrastructure, Governance, Finance, and Tax Systems
Political Geography:
Africa and Cameroon

18. Without a Birth Certificate, We Do Not Exist! (Re)Thinking the Civil Status System in Cameroon

Author:
Pierre-Claver Kamgaing
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Nkafu Policy Institute
Abstract:
Curious as it may seem in the 21st century, UNICEF estimates that three out of four children in the world have never been officially registered. . In Cameroon, 66.1 percent of children remain in hiding. . In other words, they live without existing, without being recognised by the country whose citizenship they claim. This situation, which is deplorable to say the least, has consequences for both the State and the individual concerned. For the state, the civil status file is essential for the implementation of public policies, because without a mastery of demography, it is impossible to make socio-economic projections. For the child, who has the right to register his or her birth, the absence of such a document excludes him or her from the education system and from the services necessary for his or her growth, thus exposing him or her to exploitation and violence. However, it should be noted that the Cameroon civil status system is not new. It was “designed” and its foundations laid at the beginning of the 20th century by the German coloniser, whose work was continued by the French and English administrations. However, this system was designed more for the European population established on Cameroon soil than for the “natives”. Moreover, the various texts adopted by the Cameroon legislator after independence are more like a simple assembly of old provisions. Moreover, on the sidelines of the ordinary session of the National Assembly in November 2020, the problem of establishing birth certificates was not missed by the deputies. The result is the need to rethink the civil status system in order to better adapt it to the socio-political evolution of the country. But how can this be done? This necessarily involves some profound and substantial reforms. However, before devoting any substantial development to this, it would be wise to first identify the causes of the failure of the civil status system in Cameroon.
Topic:
Civil Society, Governance, Citizenship, Social Order, and Identity
Political Geography:
Africa and Cameroon

19. Urban Governance in Cameroon: Between Laissez-Faire And Faire-Laisser

Author:
Joseph MagloirenOlinga Olinga
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Nkafu Policy Institute
Abstract:
From a geohistorical point of view, Cameroonian cities are characterised by what B. TAMRU (2001) describes as a “process of vulnerability“. This concept is in line with the phenomenological approach, which studies the impact of human actions on risk and its aggravation, based on the study of damage (P. PIGEON, 1994). However, urban dynamics are still poorly taken into account in the diagnosis of environmental risks. In this case, the flood risk is rarely studied in all its spatio-temporal depth: “The risk of flooding is thus most often analysed at a time “t”, according to a given hazard, on channels considered as stable”. From this point of view, starting from a diachronic analysis, the geohistorical context of Cameroon cities, particularly urban centres such as Douala (economic capital) and Yaoundé (political capital), constitutes an important key to reading the current urbanistic, social, economic and environmental challenges. Based on recent news, in particular the images of the Yaoundé VII Town Hall flooded after the downpour of 8 June 2021, this paper analyses the vulnerabilities of Cameroon cities through the prism of two variables: firstly, the socio-spatial processes that produce them and, secondly, the mechanisms that determine the capacity of cities to adapt to environmental risks. It brings to the fore the thorny issue of urban governance lato sensu. The case of the Commune of Yaoundé VII is symptomatic of urban governance in Cameroon and raises the question of whether municipal executives are definitively caught in the dilemma of “laissez-faire” and “faire laisser”.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, Governance, and Urban
Political Geography:
Africa and Cameroon

20. Optimizing the Governance and Performance of Public Enterprises In Cameroon

Author:
Steve Tametong
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Nkafu Policy Institute
Abstract:
Defined as economic units with legal and financial autonomy carrying out industrial and commercial activities and whose share capital is wholly or mainly held by a legal person under public law, public enterprises occupy a major place in the economic development policy of the State in Cameroon. The many reforms that have taken place in this key sector have, for the most part, been directed towards the search for performance and the promotion of sound corporate governance. However, this double objective remained a real challenge under the empire of law n°99/016 of December 22, 1999 on the general status of public establishments and public and semi-public sector companies, which had repealed order n°95/003 of August 17, 1995 governing public and semi-public sector companies. To echo this, the Technical Commission for the Rehabilitation (CTR) of public and parapublic sector companies revealed in its 2019 Report that the 50 public entities whose performance was analysed showed a 15.7% drop in turnover compared to the 2018 financial year, and an overall net result of CFAF -59.5 billion, down by -6.4% compared to 2018. Also, the biggest losses were recorded in the combined sectors of “hydrocarbons, water and electricity” and “industry and commerce“. Moreover, out of a target of 53 billion in 2019 for contributions from public enterprises to the state budget, only 12 billion had been paid out by the end of the year, i.e. an achievement rate of 21.94%. These under-performances are the result of an extraverted governance whose causes are not exclusively managerial. According to Professor Henri Modi Koko Bebey, “political and administrative burdens also explain, at least in part, the poor results obtained so far”.. Therefore, the link between governance and the performance of public enterprises is inseparable. This policy brief is intended to be a plea for strengthening the performance-oriented governance of public enterprises. To achieve this, it first outlines the renovated legal framework and highlights the classification of public enterprises (I); then, it questions, based on a few illustrative cases, the governance of public enterprises and its impact on their performance (II); finally, it makes recommendations for better governance to improve the performance of public enterprises in Cameroon (III).
Topic:
Governance, Public Sector, Public Spending, and Efficiency
Political Geography:
Africa and Cameroon