East African Scenarios Project


Book Description

The East African Scenarios Project aims to generate and sustain dialogue amongst key stakeholders on alternative possible futures that the East African region might have to confront in the coming decades. The project was launched in February 2005 and will run for a four-year period. Within the context of the East African regional integration process, the scenarios will be a tool that citizens, policy makers, technocrats, development partners and others working at the regional level can use to discuss core issues and ideas that will affect regional integration in the coming years. Since 1998, SID (Society for International Development), working with local partners and through its chapters in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, has pioneered the large-scale use of civic scenarios as a means to engage leadership to focus on alternative possible futures. Having completed the three in-country scenarios exercises, the next step is that of seeking to understand how their lessons ans key messages could be useful at a regional level. Scenarios exercises and outputs, mainly in the form of stories, explore alternative possible futures and are used by individuals, executive and leadership groups to improve their decisions. They are based on solid research and seek to combine an understanding of current trends and patterns with informed anticipation of likely events to explore possible future outcomes. The scenarios are set in the East Africa of 2030 and have been produced in an accessible format, easily readable by a wide and diverse audience.




What Do We Want?


Book Description




AIDS in Africa


Book Description

This report presents three hypothetical case studies for how the AIDS epidemic in Africa could evolve over the next 20 years based on policy decisions taken today by African leaders and the rest of the world; and considers the factors likely to drive the future responses of African countries and the international community. The scenarios draw on the age-old tradition of story-telling, rather than using data projections, to explore the wider context of the AIDS epidemic, reflecting the complexity of the subject matter.




West African Agriculture and Climate Change


Book Description

The first of three books in IFPRI's climate change in Africa series, West African Agriculture and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Analysis examines the food security threats facing 11 of the countries that make up West Africa -- Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo -- and explores how climate change will increase the efforts needed to achieve sustainable food security throughout the region. West Africa's population is expected to grow at least through mid-century. The region will also see income growth. Both will put increased pressure on the natural resources needed to produce food, and climate change makes the challenges greater. West Africa is already experiencing rising temperatures, shifting precipitation patterns, and increasing extreme events. Without attention to adaptation, the poor will suffer. Through the use of hundreds of scenario maps, models, figures, and detailed analysis, the editors and contributors of West African Agriculture and Climate Change present plausible future scenarios that combine economic and biophysical characteristics to explore the possible consequences for agriculture, food security, and resources management to 2050. They also offer recommendations to national governments and regional economic agencies already dealing with the vulnerabilities of climate change and deviations in environment. Decisionmakers and researchers will find West African Agriculture and Climate Change a vital tool for shaping policy and studying the various and likely consequences of climate change.







The East African Community


Book Description

The East African Community (EAC) has been among the fastest growing regions in sub-Saharan Africa in the past decade or so. Nonetheless, the recent growth path will not be enough to achieve middle-income status and substantial poverty reduction by the end of the decade—the ambition of most countries in the region. This paper builds on methodologies established in the growth literature to identify a group of countries that achieved growth accelerations and sustained growth to use as benchmarks to evaluate the prospects, and potential constraints, for EAC countries to translate their recent growth upturn into sustained high growth. We find that EAC countries compare favorably to the group of sustained growth countries—macroeconomic and government stability, favorable business climate, and strong institutions—but important differences remain. EAC countries have a smaller share of exports, lower degree of financial deepening, lower levels of domestic savings, higher reliance on donor aid, and limited physical infrastructure and human capital. Policy choices to address some of these shortcomings could make a difference in whether the EAC follows the path of sustained growth or follows other countries where growth upturns later fizzled out.




Region-Building in Africa


Book Description

This landmark book is the first of its kind to assess the challenges of African region-building and regional integration across all five African sub-regions and more than five decades of experience, considering both political and economic aspects. Leading scholars and practitioners come together to analyze a range of entwined topics, including: the theoretical underpinnings that have informed Africa's regional integration trajectory; the political economy of integration, including the sources of different 'waves' of integration in pan-Africanism and the reaction to neo-liberal economic pressures; the complexities of integration in a context of weak states and the informal regionalization that often occurs in 'borderlands'; the increasing salience of Africa's relationships with rising extra-regional economic powers, including China and India; and comparative lessons from non-African regional blocs, including the EU, ASEAN, and the Southern Common Market. A core argument of this book, running through all chapters, is that region-building must be recognized as a political project as much as if not more than an economic one; successful region-building in Africa will need to include the complex political tasks of strengthening state capacity (including states' capacity as 'developmental states' that can actively engage in economic planning), resolving long-standing conflicts over resources and political dominance, improving democratic governance, and developing trans-national political structures that are legitimate and inclusive.




Innovative Approach for the Development of Sustainable Settlements in East Africa


Book Description

This book deals with sustainable affordable housing in developing countries, providing the main results of the BECOMe research project of the Politecnico di Milano. Sustainable, affordable housing in developing countries is increasingly important for African and international stakeholders, with massive urbanization processes involving many countries consuming large territories and natural resources minus any strategy of sustainability and social equality and without consideration of the long-term effects on the environment and subsequent generations. While the issue of affordable housing requires approaches adapted to the many specific African contexts, the case of Somalia seems representative of a fragile context characterized by the uncertainty of the social, political, and economic situations and the lack of common shared legislative references and strategies. The book aims to provide knowledge and propose a methodological framework developed from this particular situation that can serve as a template. On the basis of this main objective, the book deals with approaches and problems related to the creation of sustainable housing ecosystems, activating and boosting local enterprises and stimulating foreign investors to revamp the national AEC sector and related manufacturing industries, models for modular settlements, and business models and assessment methodologies useful for evaluating a set of appropriate technological solutions. Chapters 03 and 07 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.




An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural Mechanization Development


Book Description

Agricultural mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara - especially for small farms and businesses - requires a new paradigm to meet the needs of the continent's evolving farming systems. Can Asia, with its recent success in adopting mechanization, offer a model for Africa? An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural Mechanization Development analyzes the experiences of eight Asian and five African countries. The authors explore crucial government roles in boosting and supporting mechanization, from import policies to promotion policies to public good policies. Potential approaches presented to facilitating mechanization in Africa include prioritizing market-led hiring services, eliminating distortions, and developing appropriate technologies for the African context. The role of agricultural mechanization within overall agricultural and rural transformation strategies in Africa is also discussed. The book's recommendations and insights should be useful to national policymakers and the development community, who can adapt this knowledge to local contexts and use it as a foundation for further research.




Renewables for Energy Access and Sustainable Development in East Africa


Book Description

This short open access book investigates the role of renewable energy in East Africa to provide policy-relevant inputs for the achievement of a cost-effective electrification process in the region. For each country, the authors review the current situation in the domestic power sector, adopt a GIS-based approach to plot renewable energy resources potential, and review currently planned projects and projects under development, as well as the key domestic renewables regulations. Based on such information, least-cost 100% electrification scenarios by 2030 are then modelled and comparative results over the required capacity additions and investment are reported and discussed. The authors also inquire into some of the key technological, economic, policy, cooperation, and financing challenges to the development of a portfolio of renewables to promote energy access in a sustainable way, including a discussion of the challenges and opportunities that might stem from the interaction between local RE potential and natural gas resources currently under development in the region. To conclude, policy recommendations based on the book’s results and targeted at international cooperation and development institutions, local policymakers, and private stakeholders in the region are elaborated.