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West Africa

Ebola: accurate information prevents rumours and panic : educating leaders is one measure - along with distributing soap

Upphovsperson: Crentsil, Perpetual
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Agrarian Change, Property and Resources | Uppsala
År: 2015
Ämnesord: Ebola virus, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, West Africa, Epidemics, Disease control, Health personnel, Health policy, Health system, Infectious diseases, medical care, Traditional medicine, Funeral
The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is unprecedented in its scope. This Policy Note stresses the importance of knowledge of social factors in preventing the spread of the fatal disease. There are similarities with the previous HIV/AIDS epidemic. Traditional healers and heads of households are key players for health experts to target in protecting people against infection. Normal funeral services are one source of infection. A very basic preventive measure is providing families with soap.

Diaspora at Home? : Wartime Mobilities in the Burkina Faso-Côte d'Ivoire Transnational Space

Upphovsperson: Bjarnesen, Jesper
Utgivare: Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för kulturantropologi och etnologi | Uppsala : Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis
År: 2013
Ämnesord: Wartime mobilities, home, transnational space, diaspora, urban anthropology, West Africa, conflict, return, Migration, youth, Intergenerational relations
In the period 1999-2007, more than half a million Burkinabe returned to Burkina Faso due to the persecution of immigrant labourers in neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire. Ultranationalist debates about the criteria for Ivorian citizenship had intensified during the 1990s and led to the scapegoating of immigrants in a political rhetoric centred on notions of autochthony and xenophobia. Having been actively encouraged to immigrate by the Ivorian state for generations, Burkinabe migrant labourers were now forced to leave their homes and livelihoods behind and return to a country they had left in their youth or, as second-generation immigrants in Côte d’Ivoire, had never seen. Based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire, the thesis explores the narratives and everyday practices of returning labour migrants in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second-largest city, in order to understand the subjective experiences of displacement that the forced return to Burkina Faso engendered. The analysis questions the appropriateness of the very notion of “return” in this context and suggests that people’s senses of home are multiplex and tend to rely more on the ability to pursue active processes of emplacement in everyday life than on abstract notions of belonging, e.g. relating to citizenship or ethnicity. The study analyses intergenerational interactions within and across migrant families in the city and on transformations of intra-familial relations in the context of forced displace-ment. A particular emphasis is placed on the experiences of young adults who were born and raised in Côte d’Ivoire and arrived in Burkina Faso for the first time during the Ivorian crisis. These young men and women were received with scepticism in Burkina Faso because of their perceived “Ivorian” upbringing, language, and behaviour and were forced to face new forms of stigmatisation and exclusion. At the same time, young migrants were able to exploit their labelling as outsiders and turn their difference into an advantage in the competition for scarce employment opportunities and social connections.

Child Migration in Africa

Upphovspersoner: Thorsen, Dorte | Hashim, Iman
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | London, Uppsala : Zed Books, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2011
Ämnesord: Rural-urban migration, Labour migration, Labour mobility, Migrants, youth, children, Childhood, Living conditions, Social environment, cultural identity, Livelihood, Interviews, West Africa, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ethnography, Etnografi
Child Migration in Africa explores the mobility of children without their parents within West Africa. Drawing on the experiences of children from rural Burkina Faso and Ghana, the book provides rich material on the circumstances of children's voluntary migration and their experiences of it. Their accounts challenge the normative ideals of what a 'good' childhood is, which often underlie public debates about children's migration, education and work in developing countries. The comparative study of Burkina Faso and Ghana highlights that social networks operate in ways that can be both enabling and constraining for young migrants, as can cultural views on age- and gender-appropriate behaviour. The book questions easily made assumptions regarding children's experiences when migrating independently of their parents and, by drawing parallels with children's migration in Latin America and Asia, contributes to analytical and cross-cultural understandings of childhood. Part of the groundbreaking Africa Now series, Child Migration in Africa is an important and timely contribution to an under-researched area.

The Challenge of Sub-Regional Security in West Africa : The case of the 2006 ECOWAS convention on small arms and light weapons

Upphovsperson: Darkwa, Linda
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Conflict, Displacement and Transformation | Uppsala
År: 2011
Ämnesord: West Africa, Weapons, Small arms, Armament, Disarmament, Arms transfers, Cross-border trade, Informal sector, Organized crime, Regional security, Regional cooperation, Post-conflict reconstruction, Political science, Statsvetenskap
This Discussion Paper provides insights into the challenges posed by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in West Africa, paying particular attention to the ECOWAS convention on small arms and light weapons as a collective sub-regional response to a potent threat to peace, security and development. It connects global and regional discourses on illicit arms control and provides a balanced, empirical xamination of the performance of the convention. It is a useful contribution to debates on arms-proliferation control in Africa and provides well-informed recommendations of interest to scholars, peace activists, policy practitioners and strategists working on peace and security in Africa.

Contexts of migration

Upphovspersoner: Thorsen, Dorte | Hashim, Iman
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | London; Uppsala : Zed Books; Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2011
Ämnesord: Rural-urban migration, Labour migration, Labour mobility, Migrants, youth, children, Childhood, Living conditions, Social environment, cultural identity, Livelihood, Interviews, West Africa, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ethnography, Etnografi
Child Migration in Africa explores the mobility of children without their parents within West Africa. Drawing on the experiences of children from rural Burkina Faso and Ghana, the book provides rich material on the circumstances of children's voluntary migration and their experiences of it. Their accounts challenge the normative ideals of what a 'good' childhood is, which often underlie public debates about children's migration, education and work in developing countries. The comparative study of Burkina Faso and Ghana highlights that social networks operate in ways that can be both enabling and constraining for young migrants, as can cultural views on age- and gender-appropriate behaviour. The book questions easily made assumptions regarding children's experiences when migrating independently of their parents and, by drawing parallels with children's migration in Latin America and Asia, contributes to analytical and cross-cultural understandings of childhood. Part of the groundbreaking Africa Now series, Child Migration in Africa is an important and timely contribution to an under-researched area.

Towards More Informed Responses to Gender Violence and HIV/AIDS in Post-Conflict West African Settings

Upphovsperson: Ahonsi, Babatunde A.
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Conflict, Displacement and Transformation | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2010
Ämnesord: Violence against women, sexual abuse, Sexually transmitted diseases, Hiv, aids prevention, Women’s health, gender relations, Post-conflict reconstruction, West Africa, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Peace and conflict research, Freds- och konfliktforskning
The evidence is incontrovertible that Liberia (with its two civil wars, 1989-97 and 2000-03) and Sierra Leone (with its 1991-2001 war) have emerged from two of the most inhuman, ferocious and cruel conflicts in the post-Cold war era. The scale of destruction, rape, mayhem, arson and torture perpetrated during these wars was among the greatest in Africa’s postcolonial history. Women, especially adolescents and young adults, were exposed to extreme sexual brutality at a time when a growing heterosexually-driven HIV pandemic was occurring in the West African sub-region. Both countries also experienced an economic and social collapse that resulted in human development indicators on employment, income, health, education, women’s status and child well-being that are among the lowest in the world. Protracted armed conflicts, as witnessed in Liberia and Sierra Leone and beyond, expose women and girls to unprecedented levels and forms of sexual violence. Moreover, the expectation that the transition from war to peace will lead to significantly reduced sexual violence against women (SVAW) is often disappointed. Instead, post-conflict transitions tend to produce a change in the predominant forms of sexual violence and the profile of its perpetrators. The extended and interlinked conflicts in these neighbouring countries relate at a fundamental level to the persistent denial of citizenship rights to particular population sub-groups over several decades. Within such landscapes of severe social, economic and political marginalization and deprivation, women and girls were bound to suffer more than men and boys during and after the wars as a result of long-established and deeply entrenched patriarchal structures and ideologies in both countries. The persistence of SVAW during post-conflict transitions tends to increase the risk of HIV infection among younger women relative to the phase of armed conflict. A key causal factor is men’s highly exploitative, transactional and cross-generational multiple sexual activities. Thus far, the dominant responses to this complex of issues in post-conflict West Africa have lacked a nuanced understanding of the underlying drivers of sexual violence and its intersections with women’s higher risk of HIV infection.The policy responses to the challenges of post-conflict reconstruction and peace-building in West Africa have generally focused more on traditional security, physical infrastructurere building and economic revitalization issues than on such highly gendered human security concerns as sexual violence and violations of reproductive rights. Left unaddressed, these persisting or worsening human security challenges, affecting at least half their populations, make sustainable peace and development in post-conflict Liberia and Sierra Leone nearly impossible.

Dynamics of post-conflict reconstruction and peace building in West Africa : between change and stability

Upphovsperson: Ismail, Olawale
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2009
Ämnesord: conflicts, Peacebuilding, Peacekeeping, Post-conflict reconstruction, Peace agreements, Regional organizations, Economic Community of West African States ECOMOG, West Africa, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Peace and conflict research, Freds- och konfliktforskning
This NAI Discussion Paper critically explores the concepts, norms and practices of reconstruction and peace building in post-conflict West Africa, drawing largely on the case of Liberia and Sierra Leone. It provides an up-to-date analysis and critique of the impact of the UN-led praxis and practice of peace building in the post-conflict states in the region. The material in this study covers the context of post-conflict reconstruction and peace building in West Africa; the evolution and analysis of the global peace building regime; the architecture of peace building in West Africa; the ‘un-making’ of peace building in Sierra Leone. It also interrogates the basic assumtions that underpin international peace building in Africa, noting that at best, it is designed to promote stability and security rather than a deeper and more sustainable popular and socially rooted peace.

Mano river basin area : formal and informal security providers in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone

Upphovspersoner: Jörgel, Magnus | Utas, Mats
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Conflict, Displacement and Transformation | Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Urban Dynamics | Stockholm : Defence analysis, Swedish defence research agency (FOI)
År: 2007
Ämnesord: West Africa, Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Mano River, ECOWAS, African Union, Security sector reform, Informal sector, Regional security, Peacekeeping, Development strategy, Peace and conflict research, Freds- och konfliktforskning

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