This book, by an acknowledged expert on human rights in Africa, discusses the hundreds of thousands living as non-persons in the only African state they have ever known. Not recognized as citizens, they have no access to education, state health services, travel documents, or employment without a work permit. Most of all, they cannot vote, stand for office, or work for state institutions. Ultimately such policies can lead to disaster or war. The conflicts in Cote d'Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo are at heart conflicts over the rights of divided populations to share fully the...

Chocolate - the very word conjures up a hint of the forbidden and a taste of the decadent. Yet the story behind the chocolate bar is rarely one of luxury...
From the thousands of children who work on plantations to the smallholders who harvest the beans, Chocolate Nations reveals the hard economic realities of our favourite sweet. This vivid and gripping exploration of the reasons behind farmer poverty includes the human stories of the producers and traders at the heart of the West African industry. Orla Ryan shows that only a tiny fraction of the cash we pay for a chocolate bar actually...

In Africa's Odious Debts, Boyce and Ndikumana reveal the shocking fact that, contrary to the popular perception of Africa being a drain on the financial resources of the West, the continent is actually a net creditor to the rest of the world. The extent of capital flight from sub-Saharan Africa is remarkable: more than $700 billion in the past four decades. But Africa s foreign assets remain private and hidden, while its foreign debts are public, owed by the people of Africa through their governments.
Leonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce reveal the intimate links between foreign loans and...

Congo has the natural resources the world needs. Its forests count in the fight against global climate change and its mining sector helps satisfy our addiction to the latest high tech gadgets. Congo's farmers could feed all of Africa's population of over a billion people. The Inga hydroelectric site has the potential to light up the entire continent. These realities are redefining the country's strategic place in a globalized world. Telling a different story about power and nature, Congo's Environmental Paradox examines the dynamics of this huge country's forest, mining, land, water...

Congo has the natural resources the world needs. Its forests count in the fight against global climate change and its mining sector helps satisfy our addiction to the latest high tech gadgets. Congo's farmers could feed all of Africa's population of over a billion people. The Inga hydroelectric site has the potential to light up the entire continent. These realities are redefining the country's strategic place in a globalized world. Telling a different story about power and nature, Congo's Environmental Paradox examines the dynamics of this huge country's forest, mining, land, water...

Somalia is a comprehensively failed state, representing a threat to itself, its neighbors, and the wider world. In recent years, it has become notorious for the piracy off its coast and the rise of Islamic extremism, opening it up as a new "southern front" in the war on terror. At least that is how it is inevitably presented by politicians and in the media. In Getting Somalia Wrong?, Mary Harper presents the first comprehensive account of the chaos into which the country has descended and the United States' renewed involvement there. In doing so, Harper argues that viewing Somalia through the...

Nigerian drug lords in UK prisons, khat-chewing Somali pirates hijacking Western ships, crystal meth-smoking gangs controlling South Africa's streets, and narco-traffickers corrupting the state in Guinea-Bissau: these are some of the vivid images surrounding drugs in Africa which have alarmed policymakers, academics and the general public in recent years. In this revealing and original book, the authors weave these aspects into a provocative argument about Africa's role in the global trade and control of drugs. In doing so, they show how foreign-inspired policies have failed to help African...

Based on pioneering research on the history of homosexualities and engagement with current lgbti and HIV/AIDS activism, Marc Epprecht provides a sympathetic overview of the issues at play, and a hopeful outlook on the potential of sexual rights for all.

In recent years, large-scale land acquisitions in Africa have stoked controversy, making headlines across the world. Dubbed 'land grabs' in the media, large-scale land acquisitions have become one of the most talked about and contentious topics amongst those studying, working in or writing about Africa. Some commentators have welcomed this corporate and government action in response to security and food shortage fears, others have countered by pointing to its negative impacts.Lorenzo Cotula, one of the leading experts in the field, casts a critical eye over the most reliable available...

The uprising in Tunisia in late 2010 and early 2011 has come to be seen as the first true revolution of the 21st Century, one that kick-started the series of upheavals across the region now known as the Arab Spring. Alcinda Honwana goes beyond superficial accounts of what occurred to explore the defining role of the country's youth, and in particular the cyberactivist. Drawing on fresh, first-person testimony from those who shaped events, the book describes in detail the experiences of young activists through the 29 days of the revolution and the challenges they encountered after the fall of...