Rethinking African Development : Beyond Impasse, Towards Alternatives

CODESRIA http://www.codesria.org

11th General Assembly

A Call for Abstracts and Panel Proposals

Theme : Rethinking African Development : Beyond Impasse, Towards Alternatives

Date : 06 to 10 December, 2005

Venue : Maputo, Mozambique

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA)
announces its 11th General Assembly which is scheduled to hold in Maputo,
Mozambique, from 06 - 10 December, 2005. The theme that has been selected for the
Assembly is: Rethinking African Development: Beyond Impasse, Towards Alternatives.
The Assembly is expected to attract the
participation of up to 500 researchers drawn from different disciplinary
backgrounds, coming from across Africa and the Diaspora, and actively engaged in
reflections on the development alternatives that could enable the
African continent both to overcome its underdevelopment and transcend the current
impasse associated with the continued application of problematic developmental
models. The proceedings of the Assembly will be conducted in
English, French and Portuguese.

CODESRIA was established in 1973 as an initiative of the African social research
community. It was given a specific mandate to extend the frontiers
of knowledge production on and about the African continent. The specific
goals for which the Council was set up and which are stated in its Charter
arose directly from the aspiration of the peoples of Africa to achieve
all-round socio-economic and political development that would qualitatively
uplift the human condition in Africa. The CODESRIA General Assembly is the
supreme organ of the Council; its triennial meetings have also become the
most significant gathering of intellectuals on the African continent. Every
General Assembly of the Council is organized around an intellectual theme to
which the African social research community is invited to respond and from
which an intellectual agenda is fashioned out for the next three years. The
11th General Assembly is conceived to break new grounds by concentrating the
attention of the research community on the developmental alternatives
available to Africa at a time of a widely acknowledge impasse in development
thinking and in the face of the equally widely recognized inefficacies of
the dominant neo-liberal paradigms that have informed policy-making on the
continent for at least two decades.

The theme of development is one which has been central to African social
research in the period since the end of the Second World War; indeed, it was
also integral to the birth of pan-Africanism, the national liberation
project, and the post-independence social contract which the nationalists
attempted to construct. The body of work which has been generated on the
theme has spanned virtually all spheres of human endeavour, with insights
drawn from various disciplines and in most cases mirroring different aspects
of the international scholarly and policy discussions of the day. The issues
that have been covered have been as varied as the kinds of debates that have
taken place. By and large, they are issues which have remained an abiding
part of the quest for African development and which will be revisited
extensively by participants in the 11th General Assembly at the different
plenary and parallel sessions that will be held. The pertinence and urgency
of the theme of the Assembly is underscored not only by the crises in
development thinking today but also by the huge costs which over two decades
of neo-liberal maladjustment has exacted, the many discontents associated
with the current phase of globalization, and the necessity for Africa to
regain the policy initiative in the shaping of its destiny. The African
academy has historically been in the forefront of the contestation of much
of the received wisdom that has underpinned the dominant development
policies implemented by governments in the period since the end of the
Second World War. No where has this been more evident than in the critique

that was offered of the dependency of post-independence African countries
in the 1960s and 1970s, the structural adjustment policies of the 1980s and
1990s, and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers(PRSPs) on the basis of
which current policies are being constructed. The continuing failure of
thinkers and practitioners to historicize African development, the
inappropriateness of the dominant paradigms to the African cultural milieu,
the persistent resort to unilinear models, and the glorification of
technicist notions of development bereft of power relations constitute
challenges to which responses need to be forged.

In Maputo, the research community will be called upon to carry its critique
of post-independence Africa development and the mode of insertion of Africa
into the global system one step further by presenting alternatives that are
both detailed in content and holistic in approach and relevance. Among some
of the subjects that the research community is invited to address are:

* New Perspectives on the Concept of Development;

* Alternative Models of Accumulation for African Development;

* Reinventing the African State and Redefining its Role in
Development;

* Interfacing the State and the Market for African Development;

* Mobilising Citizen Participation in the Development Process;

* Non-State Actors in the Development Process;

* Engendering African Development;

* A New Social Contract between State and Society in Africa;

* Political Regimes and Socio-Economic Development in Africa;

* Culture, Tradition and Custom in African Development;

* Indigenous Languages in the Development Process;

* Social Policies for Sustained African Economic Development;

* Trade and Industrial Policies for Sustained Development in Africa;

* Agricultural Sector Strategies for African Development;

* Sustainable uses of African Natural Resources for Development;

* New Approaches to the Mobilisation of Savings and Investments;

* The Diaspora Factor in African Development;

* Science and Technology Policies for African Development;

* A Conducive Intellectual Property Rights Regime for African
Development;

* Achieving Environmental Sustainability in the Development Process;

* Law in the Political Economy of African Development;

* Alternative Legal-Constitutional Frames for African Development;

* The Media in the Development Process;

* Strategies of Regional Cooperation and Integration for African
Development;

* Transport and Transportation Systems for the Integrated
Development of Africa;

* Forging Self-Reliance in the Age of Globalisation;

* New Global Partnerships for African Development;

* An International Financial Architecture for African Development;

* Higher Education in African Development;

* A New Philosophical Ethos for an African Renaissance.

Scholars interested in being part of the Assembly are invited to send in
abstracts of papers that they would like to present for consideration by
the CODESRIA Scientific Committee which is vested with the responsibility of
peer-reviewing them. Those interested in constituting panels to address
specific issues are also invited to do so. All abstracts and panel proposals
should be received by the Council by Tuesday 31 May, 2005. The results of
the evaluation of the abstracts will be announced by Thursday 30 June, 2005.
Full papers from authors of selected abstracts must be received by Friday 02
September, 2005. The Assembly will open on Tuesday 06 December, 2005 with a
keynote address to be delivered by the Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka. Other
distinguished addresses to be delivered during the course of the Assembly
include the Cheikh Anta Diop Lecture to be presented by Carlos Lopes, the
Ake Lecture by Zenebeworke Tadesse, the Senghor Lecture by Adame Ba Konare,
and an endnote address to be delivered by Jomo Kwame Sundaram. Abstracts,
panel proposals and queries should be sent to:

The Secretary,

CODESRIA 11th General Assembly,

CODESRIA Secretariat,

BP 3304, CP 18524,

Dakar, Senegal.

Tel.: +221- 825 9822;

Fax: +221-824 1289.

E-mail: [email protected]