African Pens 2011


Book Description

"Original short stories by young writers of the SADC region, selected by the South African Centre of International PEN."




Pierre the Penguin


Book Description

When Pierre, an African penguin living at the California Academy of Sciences, begins to lose his feathers, the zoo staff is at a loss as to what to do. The lack of feathers causes Pierre to lose warmth, making him afraid to swim in the zoo pool. And the other penguins start to shy away, giving Pierre the "cold" shoulder. Unfortunately, heaters and medications fail to correct the situation. But one rainy day, inspiration strikes a biologist named Pam. While walking her dog in the rain, Pam notes that her pet wears a raincoat. Could a "raincoat," or wet suit, help Pierre? A tiny neoprene wet suit is designed especially for Pierre. But will it work? Told in rhyme by noted I SPY author Jean Marzollo, this true story of veterinary ingenuity charmingly comes to life. Jean Marzollo has written more than 100 children's books, including the award-winning I SPY series. With a graduate degree from Harvard, she has taught school, written books about teaching and parenting, and was the editor of Scholastic's Let's Find Out kindergarten magazine for 20 years. Jean lives in upstate New York. Nationally known for her many award-winning children's books that feature exotic flora and fauna, Laura Regan's artwork has been used to raise funds for many wildlife organizations. She is the illustrator of A is for Anaconda: A Rainforest Alphabet. Laura lives in the Bay Area in California.




King's African Rifles


Book Description

Whatever one may think about the rights and wrongs of colonial rule, it is hard to deny that during the first half of the this century those African countries, which then came under British administration enjoyed a period of stability which most now look back upon with a profound sense of loss. Paradoxical though it may seem, one of the bulwarks of that stability was each country’s indigenous army. Trained and officered by the British, these force became a source of both pride and cohesion in their own country, none more so than the King’s African Rifles. founded in 1902 and probably the best known of the East African forces. In this, the first complete history of the East African forces, Malcolm Page, who himself served in the Somaliland Scouts for a number of years, has had access to much new material while researching the history of each unit from it’s foundation to the time of independence. Historians in several fields will be grateful to him for having put on record this very important period in the annals of both Great Britain and East Africa while the memories of many who served there were still fresh, and they themselves will perhaps be most grateful of all for this lasting tribute to the men they served and who served them, for in that shared sense of duty lay the true spirit of East African Forces.




Queer Africa


Book Description

Queer Africa is a collection of unapologetic, tangled, tender, funny, bruising and brilliant stories about the many ways in which we love each other on the continent In these unafraid stories of intimacy, sweat, betrayal and restless confidences, we accompany characters into cafs, tattoo salons, the barest of bedrooms, coldly gleaming spaces into which the rich withdraw, unlit streets, and their own deepest interiors.




At the Intersection of Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge and Technology Design


Book Description

There is intensified interest in designing information and communication technologies (ICTs) that respond to ways of doing, knowing, and saying that differ from those that dominate in producing ICTs and, in particular, to ‘traditional’ or ‘indigenous’ knowledges. ICT endeavours for indigenous or traditional knowledges (ITK) vary. Some aim to extend ITK digitally and others use ICTs to improve the economic and/or political situation of marginalised groups. This book presents themes that arise in designing to respond to ITK in different cultural, social, physical, and historical contexts.




African Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation


Book Description

This open access book discusses current thinking and presents the main issues and challenges associated with climate change in Africa. It introduces evidences from studies and projects which show how climate change adaptation is being - and may continue to be successfully implemented in African countries. Thanks to its scope and wide range of themes surrounding climate change, the ambition is that this book will be a lead publication on the topic, which may be regularly updated and hence capture further works. Climate change is a major global challenge. However, some geographical regions are more severly affected than others. One of these regions is the African continent. Due to a combination of unfavourable socio-economic and meteorological conditions, African countries are particularly vulnerable to climate change and its impacts. The recently released IPCC special report "Global Warming of 1.5o C" outlines the fact that keeping global warming by the level of 1.5o C is possible, but also suggested that an increase by 2o C could lead to crises with crops (agriculture fed by rain could drop by 50% in some African countries by 2020) and livestock production, could damage water supplies and pose an additonal threat to coastal areas. The 5th Assessment Report produced by IPCC predicts that wheat may disappear from Africa by 2080, and that maize— a staple—will fall significantly in southern Africa. Also, arid and semi-arid lands are likely to increase by up to 8%, with severe ramifications for livelihoods, poverty eradication and meeting the SDGs. Pursuing appropriate adaptation strategies is thus vital, in order to address the current and future challenges posed by a changing climate. It is against this background that the "African Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation" is being published. It contains papers prepared by scholars, representatives from social movements, practitioners and members of governmental agencies, undertaking research and/or executing climate change projects in Africa, and working with communities across the African continent. Encompassing over 100 contribtions from across Africa, it is the most comprehensive publication on climate change adaptation in Africa ever produced.




Jihad of the Pen


Book Description

Outsiders have long observed the contours of the flourishing scholarly traditions of African Muslim societies, but the most renowned voices of West African Sufism have rarely been heard outside of their respective constituencies. This volume brings together writings by Uthman b. Fudi (d. 1817, Nigeria), Umar Tal (d. 1864, Mali), Ahmad Bamba (d. 1927, Senegal), and Ibrahim Niasse (d. 1975, Senegal), who, between them, founded the largest Muslim communities in African history. Jihad of the Pen offers translations of Arabic source material that proved formative to the constitution of a veritable Islamic revival sweeping West Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Recurring themes shared by these scholars—etiquette on the spiritual path, love for the Prophet Muhammad, and divine knowledge—demonstrate a shared, vibrant scholarly heritage in West Africa that drew on the classics of global Islamic learning, but also made its own contributions to Islamic intellectual history. The authors have selected enduringly relevant primary sources and richly contextualized them within broader currents of Islamic scholarship on the African continent. Students of Islam or Africa, especially those interesting in learning more of the profound contributions of African Muslim scholars, will find this work an essential reference for the university classroom or personal library.




Public Procurement Reform and Governance in Africa


Book Description

This book presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the governance of public procurement reform in Africa. Through a bottom-up approach to case studies and comparative analyses, scholars, practitioners, and social activists write about the organizational mechanisms and implementation gaps in public procurement governance in light of the general premises of national reform. Reforming the ways in which government purchases works, goods, and services from the private sector is one of the most sweeping policy reform undertaken in Africa in the past decade. Despite the transnational scope of policy change, very little is known about the mechanisms of public procurement governance at the subnational level. The argument in this volume is that policy reforms that mitigate contractual hazards along the three-dimensional “law-politics-business matrix” are more likely to bring about meaningful institutional transformation and broader social accountability. Key to substantive transformation of public procurement is the revitalization and professionalization of the public sector to meet the opportunities and challenges of development by contract.




The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Middle-Eastern and North African History


Book Description

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.




Africa and the World


Book Description

This book probes key issues pertaining to Africa’s relations with global actors. It provides a comprehensive trajectory of Africa’s relations with key bilateral and major multilateral actors, assessing how the Cold War affected the African state systems’ political policies, its economies, and its security. Taken together, the essays in this volume provide a collective understanding of Africa’s drive to improve the capacity of its state of global affairs, and assess whether it is in fact able to do so.