Engendering politics and parliamentary representation in Zimbabwe
December 2013
This paper discusses the trends and patterns regarding the participation of women and men in parliamentary politics in Zimbabwe from the first democratic elections in 1980 to the 2008 elections in the context of global and regional trends. The main objective of this paper is to review both quantitative and qualitative data concerning the progress made in the direction of promoting women’s participation in politics...
Exploring the Greek kindergarten teachers’ views about school programs
December 2013
School programs are well defined by the curriculum all over the world, so that they are implemented by teachers in all educational ranks. Our paper aims to identify and present the Greek kindergarten teachers’ views about school programs. Specifically, Greek kindergarten teachers are called to express their aspects on the different types of school programs, the teaching methods, aids and materials used in school...
Semiotic translation and the expression of African thoughts and cultural values in English
December 2013
This paper identifies different situations which give rise to translation from the indigenous African languages. The relationship between language and thought on one hand and between language and culture on the other is fully discussed. Also stressed in the paper is the role of language in promoting cultural understanding. Attempt is made in the paper to identify different types of translation. As many scholars have...
Forcing the dumb to sing? Rejuvenating farmer cooperatives in Uganda amidst waning social capital
December 2013
Neoliberal reforms had for long recommended large scale corporate agriculture as the way forward; small scale peasant agriculture was considered as a hindrance to the capitalist progress of developing countries. However, crises that have befallen countries like Uganda, especially poverty and food crises have heightened the pressure and questions about the whole philosophy of corporate agriculture and food production,...
Inclusion and the world of disability: A case study of Zaka Central Cluster, Masvingo, Zimbabwe
December 2013
This paper discusses research carried out to investigate the effects of inclusion on children with severe intellectual disability who are in the mainstream system or in six ordinary regular rural primary schools in Zaka Central Cluster, Zaka District, Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe. The study adopted the descriptive survey method. Three schools were randomly selected from the six which make up the cluster. The study...
The informal sector as a source of household income: The case of Alice town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa
December 2013
The role of entrepreneurship in economic development has been extensively studied in the richer Western (i.e. first world) countries, but it could be argued that entrepreneurship is even more vital in developing countries. The informal sector in developing countries not only makes a significant contribution towards gross domestic product, but is a major potential source of entrepreneurship, hence a source of income too...
Advancing the development agenda: Options
December 2013
Apparently, our schools and universities produce a lot of educated youths. However, there seems to be a mismatch of the content of the education and the stage at which we are in terms of economic modernisation, and the very content of our economy. Perhaps our schools’ curricula should be re-examined and redone to calibrate them accordingly and with prospects which are natural in the part of the globe in which we...
The feminist discourse and the development of a civic virtue in Zimbabwe: Case of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA)
December 2013
Recent literature on women and gender has sought to highlight the rising virtue against the violation of women’s rights on the backdrop of a dominantly patriarchal society. Given the increasing global recognition and efforts to uphold the status of women, international instruments and legislation have been incorporated into the arguments that support the recognition of women’s rights in every facet of...
Policy and institutional perspectives on local economic development in Africa: The Ghanaian perspective
November 2013
Local economic development involves identifying and using primarily local resources, ideas and skills to stimulate economic growth and development, with the aim of creating employment opportunities, reducing poverty, and redistributing resources and opportunities to the benefit of local residents. Growth and development cannot take place in an institutional and legal vacuum. Local development and growth...
An assessment of the organisation commitment of the Nigerian Port Authority workers
November 2013
This study examined the organisational commitment of the Nigerian Port Authority Workers using organisation commitment scale with (r = 0.71) as a measuring instrument. Five hundred workers were randomly selected from the various departments of the Nigerian Port Authority Lagos. They comprised male and female workers with their age ranges between 25 to 50 with a mean age of 32.5 years. Three hypotheses were...
The people the boundary could not divide: The Gyaman of Ghana and Côte D’ivoire in historical perspective
November 2013
This article aims at constructing the history of the Gyaman state before colonial rule. It is the first in a series of three papers to be published in the Journal of African Studies and Development. The current paper shall interrogate the pre-colonial political structures that culminated in the formation of the Gyaman state. It also discusses the socio-politico-economic activities of the Gyaman people before...
The socio-emotional dilemmas of primary school teaching in Anglophone post-colonial Africa: Policy implications for developing countries
November 2013
This study investigated the underlying reasons for pre-service university student teachers’ negative responses toward an innovative faculty-based primary teacher education programme. The purpose of the study was to understand and explain post-Sixth form trainee teachers’ resistance to teach in primary schools. The data to address the problem was collected by means of the descriptive survey...
African nationalist transformational leaders: Opportunities, possibilities and pitfalls in African fiction and politics
October 2013
The paper studies selected African writers’ dreams and fears, the way four novelists have been diversely excited by the topical issue of African leadership and discerns that artists dig into past history and tradition to reconstruct epic leaders, while fictionalising contemporary history and behaviour to critique modern African political leadership. The paper examines how African leaders have been...
Leadership crisis in the parliament of Nigeria: The case of the senate in the Fourth Republic
October 2013
The article explores the political dynamics that explain the rapidity of the impeachment processes and resignation of Nigeria’s Senate Presidents in the Fourth Republic. By means of narrative analysis and utilising content-analysis of primary and secondary sources, gathered from fieldwork in Lagos and Abuja, the article seeks to capture the crisis-ridden character of the Nigerian Senate from 1999 to...
Peasants, land reform and property right in Ethiopia: The experience of Gojjam Province, 1974 to 1997
October 2013
In late 1960s and early 1970s, progressive Ethiopians and international agencies urged Haile-Selassie’s Imperial government to introduced land reform and rural change and in 1974 the emperor was deposed and the Derg took power. Soon, the new régime, the Derg, promulgated a revolutionary land reform program. The land reform proclamation abolished all private ownership making all land...
Problems and prospects of automobile workshops in Bangladesh
October 2013
These days have witnessed a rapid growth of automobile industries all over the world. Although Bangladesh is a poorer country and densely populated, a large number of people works abroad and earn a large amount of foreign exchange. Millions of remittances come into our economy every month, which helps boost our economy and as such, some people have resources to modernize their life-style through the use of...
The historical conjuncture of neo-colonialism and underdevelopment in Nigeria
September 2013
Neo-colonialism is widely viewed by many writers as the survival of the colonial system in an ex-colony. It is one of the issues that have blighted sustainable development in Nigeria. In Nigeria, it can be regarded as a specific phase of her development characterised by its social formation. This situation was carefully crafted during the decolonization process by the colonialists in collusion with Nigerian...
Democracy and institutionalization of poverty in Nigeria
September 2013
Nigerian leaders have severally appreciated the fact that pervasiveness of poverty is one of the major impediments to development. This ostensibly could be one of the reasons that led to the adoption of many poverty reduction policies and frameworks especially since 1999. This paper critically looks at democracy and poverty incidence in Nigeria. It argues that democracy has aggravated the poverty profile in...
China’s foreign aid on human resources for health: Experience and implications
September 2013
China’s foreign aid in terms of Human Resources for Health (HRH) is an important part of the country’s foreign assistance and reflects the basic philosophy and innovative mechanism of China’s foreign aid, as well as being a typical mode of South-South cooperation. This paper systematically reviews the three types of China’s HRH aid: Foreign-aid medical teams; Chinese government...
Voter registers and the question of inclusion and exclusion in Tanzania’s multiparty elections: Learning from observers’ revelations
September 2013
This essay is an inquest to voter registration process in a multiparty Tanzania. The main question that this essay attempts to answer is whether or not the introduction of permanent voter registers in Tanzania has resolved registration controversies. These registers were purposely created in order to address registration problems that were observed by elections stakeholders during the 1995 and 2000 general...
Public-private partnerships and urban sanitation: Do expectations meet realities in Madina-Ghana?
September 2013
Efficient and effective provision of public services is problematic in developing countries. Since the 1980s, there has been an increasing realisation that the state lacks capacity and resources to deliver public goods and services solely. Thus, the private sector has been drawn upon through myriad means to provide these services by injecting capital, expertise, technology, flexibility, and among others. The...
Testing the PPP hypothesis in the Sub-saharan countries
August 2013
This paper examines the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) hypothesis in a number of Sub-Saharan countries by testing the order of integration in the log of their real exchange rates vis-à-vis the US dollar. I(d) estimation techniques based on both asymptotic and finite sample results are used. The test results led to the rejection of PPP in all cases: orders of integration below 1 are found in...
Gender equity in education: An analysis of perceptions of Masvingo urban female students, parents and teachers towards the maternity leave policy for high school girls in Zimbabwe
August 2013
The study examined the perceptions of Masvingo urban female students, parents and teachers towards the maternity leave policy for high school girls in Zimbabwe. A qualitative paradigm and the descriptive survey method were adopted. The qualitative paradigm was selected because the issue under study yields soft data. A descriptive survey was suitable for a relatively large sample. The paradigm lends itself to...
The challenges of ethnonationalism for the Nigerian State
July 2013
Whereas present day socio-economic realities tend to favour globalization and universalism, what is happening in Nigeria is rather a rise in ethnonationalism (Obi 2001). In fact, since the present democratic dispensation in Nigeria in 1999, ethnonationalist sentiments have become so trenchant and divisive that the country’s political, social and economic bear nay future is largely threatened....
Who will foot the bill? Water services infrastructure backlog in Sub-Saharan Africa
July 2013
Investment in the water services infrastructure remains one of the major challenges that many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are facing. Current levels of investment in the sector, from both private and public sources, are only a quarter of the expenditure needed to meet the growing demand from the rapidly growing urban population as well as the positive economic growth experienced in the last decade....
The modelled solar radiation pattern of Ghana: Its prospects for alternative energy source
March 2013
Solar radiation has many values as it is a driving energy for weather and climate, enhances Ghana’s socio-economic landscape and can be used to generate electricity. In order for solar radiation to be used to generate electricity, we need to know its intensity on daily and monthly basis. To make this data possible would require erecting a sufficiently dense network of sophisticated radiometric stations...
Crises of leadership and the ethical grounds of revolution in Africa
March 2013
Leadership is conceived as a vocation to service backed by authority to exercise administrative powers not for any personal gains but for the good and development of the people and the state. The leadership in Africa seems to derail from this rather noble understanding of leadership while tilting towards the egocentric idea of leadership where there is a shift from the people centered leadership to the person...
Utilizing the participatory social learning theory as a new paradigm to evaluate the International Labour Organization (ILO) assessment of support for growth-oriented women entrepreneurs in Uganda
March 2013
This manuscript highlights the participatory social learning theory (PSLT), an underutilized yet viable theory for assessing development initiatives. The PSLT is presented in this article as a means of analyzing the initiatives proposed and implemented for women’s economic growth in Uganda. It specifically analyzes the International Labour Organizations (ILO) report on support for women entrepreneurs in...
Provision of secondary education in Nigeria: Challenges and way forward
January 2013
Secondary education is critical to the education of a child, being the bridge between primary and tertiary education. In this paper, the challenges militating against the achievement of the objectives of secondary education in Nigeria were examined. They include: inadequate fund; inadequate and decay infrastructural facilities; inadequate and low quality teachers; negative attitudes of teacher; indiscipline...
Curbing witchcraft persecutions in South Africa: A search for alternative solution
January 2013
Witchcraft accusations and the resulting violence have become phenomenal of South Africa’s Limpopo Province (Prof S T Kgatla teaches in Missiology and Science of religion at the University of Pretoria South Africa). In the years 1996-2009, more than six hundred people have lost their lives because of witchcraft-related violence (For the statistics of the people killed and displaced from their homes, see...
Representations of the land reform programme in selected Zimbabwean short stories and Mutasa’s Sekai, Minda Tave Nayo (Sekai, We Now Have the Land): A fait accompli?
December 2012
The issue of the Land Redistribution Programme in the Zimbabwean literary geography is vexed and moot. This is because, like the politics which energised it, it is embedded in different ideological, social, economic, racial, gender and ethnic standpoints. It is this that makes some writers see it as a grand act of final decolonisation whose intention was to empower landless black natives. On the other hand,...
Gender and perception on climate change in Bahi and Kondoa Districts, Dodoma Region, Tanzania
December 2012
Perception precedes measures to adapt to climate change effects. However, little is known on how men and women dealing with agriculture in rural Tanzania perceive climate change. The study to analyze perception on climate change by gender was done in Bahi and Kondoa Districts Dodoma Region, Tanzania. Meteorological data were also used. Primary data obtained from 78 key informants, 12 focus groups and a sample of 360...
The macroeconomic impact of monetization on the Nigerian economy
October 2012
An important question is asked about the relationship between output and monetization of public servants wages and salaries structure: are variations in public servants wage and salaries plus monetization of fringe benefits transmitted to increase output, and do these variations in output constitute an important component of variations in monetization? Total recurrent expenditure is regressed on wages and...
War legacy: A reflection on the effects of the Rhodesian Security Forces (RSF) in south eastern Zimbabwe during Zimbabwe’s war of liberation 1976 - 1980
October 2012
As its central thesis, this paper discusses the effects of the Rhodesian Security Forces (RSF) operations during Zimbabwe’s liberation war on the Hlengwe/Shangaan (a minority group in the south eastern Zimbabwe) from 1976 to 1980. Their homeland was a deeply contested terrain (part of what was dubbed the Gaza province by ZANLA) between the RSF and the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA)....
The dilemma of adopting ethnic federal system in Africa in light of the perspectives from Ethiopian experience
September 2012
This article aims to analyse the major challenges of adopting ethnic federal system in Africa with special focus on the context of Ethiopia’s ethnic federal system. It is argued that though the adoption of ethnic federal system in Ethiopia has created the opportunity for minority groups to exercise their cultural and linguistic rights, the ethnic federal experiment has faced enormous challenges. The...
Curriculum governance and contestation in teacher education: The Zimbabwean experience
September 2012
This study investigated factors which underlie controversies in the assessment of student teachers in teacher training colleges in Zimbabwe. A case study methodology was adopted. The results of the study indicate that student assessment activities in teacher education reflect ideological contests between external and internal assessors than professional judgments on students’ performance. Firstly, it...
Tradition versus Modernity: A study on Emecheta’s The Bride Price
August 2012
Buchi Emecheta’s (1976) in ‘The Bride Price’ shows the confrontation of tradition and modernity in African society, where the traditional tribes are looking for their own power and custom; but a young heroine- Aku-nna- decides to go beyond all those totalities and make a free play of the structure. She tends to create a new discourse that rejects the fundamental immobility of African...
Exogenous shocks and financial stability in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU)
August 2012
The search for financial stability remains a priority in every country today, mainly because of high costs incurred by financial crises and induced effects of financial stability on economic growth. The economies of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries are characterized by a strong dependence on the outside, especially with regard to the value of their currency, the CFA franc, and...
Ascending or descending the ladder? A View of Great Zimbabwe University students on higher education as a vehicle for vertical social mobility
July 2012
The article was an attempt to unravel the assorted sentiments of Great Zimbabwe University students regarding higher education as a vehicle for upward social mobility. The researchers became enthusiastic to undertake this study after detecting a steady increase in the number of students enrolling for higher education amid a diversity of militating variables. A sample of 50 students comprising 20 males and 30...
Impact of foreign trade and investment on Nigeria’s textile industry: The case of China
July 2012
The textile industry in Nigeria is the third largest in Africa after Egypt and South Africa. It is the largest employer of labour in the manufacturing sector. The industry is mainly controlled by large private-sector firms, often with substantial foreign participation. Low productivity levels limit Nigeria’s export possibilities. Nevertheless, the substantially liberated economic environment and the...
The practice of polygamy under the scheme of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa: a critical appraisal
July 2012
Today the assertion that polygamy is a human rights issue admits of no demur. Polygamy and other cultural practices are as legitimately subject to criticism within the context and setting of human rights as is any other structural aspect of society. There is a movement that is rapidly gaining momentum to contest the legality and legitimacy of polygamy in a human rights context. In several parts of Africa,...
The enduring impact of the 1804 Fulani Jihad on Igbomina society
May 2012
The Islamic revolution that swept through Western Sudan in the 19th century brought into existence the estwhile Sokoto Caliphate that dominated the political landscape of a considerable proportion of the area that later became Nigeria. While British Colonial intervention brought to an end the exercise of political power by this empire at the beginning of the 20th century, the socio-cultural and religious...
An evaluation of demonstration and industrial attachment as strategies in implementing clothing curriculum: A case of a Masvingo Polytechnic in Zimbabwe
May 2012
This study examined demonstration and industrial attachment as strategies in implementing national certificate in clothing design and construction curriculum. A qualitative approach utilizing a case study of Masvingo Polytechnic in Zimbabwe was used. The population comprised of national certificate second year students, production managers in industry and clothing lecturers. The participants were drawn using...
Does dependency rate really impede savings? Some Sub-Saharan African evidence
April 2012
This study examines whether the age dependency ratio exerts a negative effect on the domestic savings rates. We test this issue for 16 African countries using annual data. The empirical analysis was conducted using the bounds test of cointegration of Pesaran et al. (2001) and the modified Granger causality test due to Toda and Yamamoto (1995). The advantage of using these two approaches is that they both avoid the...
Impact of poverty on housing condition in Nigeria: A case study of Mushin Local Government Area of Lagos State
April 2012
The poor in most developing countries are found among four identifiable economic groups, the rural landless, the small farmers, the urban underemployed and the unemployed. Generally, the poor are dis-proportionately located in rural areas and slums in urban areas. The urban poor in Sub-Saharan Africa especially the West Africa region experience difficult time. This research work examined the impact of poverty...
A qualitative study of Chieftaincy and Local Government in Ghana
April 2012
It is widely argued that chiefs do not play any meaningful role in local government in Ghana as they used to; since there is an existing structure which is responsible for local governance in Ghana. In recent times, this debate has been raging on ferociously to the extent that people want the chieftaincy institution to be abolished. This qualitative study uses the institutional framework to assess the role of...
Is participatory forest management (PFM) an asset or liability to local community households adjacent to Arabuko Sokoke Forest, Kenya?
April 2012
The study examined the impact of participatory forest management (PFM) on the wealth of households living adjacent to Arabuko–Sokoke Forest (ASF). The study question was “is PFM an asset or liability to local communities living adjacent to ASF”. The study hypothesized that PFM areas have higher household wealth than non-PFM zones. Between 2008 and 2009, questionnaires were used to collect...
Gender income inequality and development in Africa: Analysis based on Kuznets’ inverted U curve
March 2012
Africa is a continent which faces important inequalities between men and women. In this connection, this article aims to analyze the evolution process of gender income inequality, in the light of Kuznets’ theory of the inverted U curve. The analysis is undertaken from a panel data with the estimation of a reduced model first and then an extended model afterwards. The results suggest that income...
Effects of agricultural reforms on the agricultural sector in Nigeria
March 2012
The various economic reform strategies undertaken by governments over a period of about three decades on the agricultural sector in Nigeria were the exploitative strategy, agricultural project strategy, direct production strategy and integrated rural development strategy. Overall, these economic reform strategies were geared toward the achievement of food self-sufficiency and food security, generation of...
Impact of fiscal policies aimed at increasing aggregate investments on employment and household incomes in Senegal
March 2012
This study explores the impact of budgetary policies, aimed at an increase in aggregate investments in Senegal on employment and household incomes. The analysis is based on a computable general equilibrium framework, which allows us to capture the multi-faceted microeconomic implications of the chosen macroeconomic policies and uses very interesting recent macro and micro-level data sources. Our results...
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