Sub-Saharan Africa

Emerging trends in reforms of education-sector plans indicate a shift not only in how foreign aid is disbursed, but also in how civil-society actors engage in new policy and advocacy roles. This contribution examines these changing civil-society roles in four countries: Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali, and Tanzania. While sector-wide approaches have created new opportunities for civil-society participation at the national level, this research suggests that sector reforms have also presented significant challenges for engagement with government and donors.

The term 'partnership' can be considered something of a Trojan Horse, disguising the reality of the complex relationships in imbalances of power and inequality, often expressed through the control of one 'partner' over the other. With particular reference to the experience of a small, UK-based NGO working in Uganda (Hives Save Lives - Africa), this article highlights how power is manifest within donor-NGO partnerships through the control and flow of money; and illustrates that NGOs pursuing funding from donors face many challenges that reinforce this imbalance of power.

Over-exploitation of medicinal plants for traditional healing practices endangers pristine conservation areas. In South Africa, the Mpumalanga Parks Board (MPB) attempted through a medicinal-plants project to promote nature conservation and benefit traditional healers. The project was well planned and implemented, infrastructure was created, and a model farm was established to propagate medicinal plants. Yet, although the project was aimed at community development, very little materialised.

Native species of trees and shrubs contribute significantly to farmers' livelihoods by supplying food, medicinal products, fodder, and wood. In the case study reported in this article, this contribution to farmers' annual revenue varied from 26 per cent to 73 per cent, and was as high as US$ 650 a year for households for which agroforestry products were the primary source of revenue.

Food shortages have become a chronic feature of many sub-Saharan countries, not just because of bad weather but also because of increasing poverty levels. In economies that do not have government social-security programmes, humanitarian relief and safety-net initiatives are imperative to prevent mass starvation.

Africa Rice Center (WARDA) facilitated the development and translation of 11 rice videos. From 2005 to 2009, WARDA partners translated them into more than 30 African languages. Open-air video presentations enhanced learning, experimentation, confidence, trust, and group cohesion among rural people. The videos strengthened capacities of more than 500 organisations and hundreds of thousands of farmers. WARDA's integrated rural learning approach also helped women to access new markets and credit.

This Viewpoint argues that international development aid agencies have failed adequately to address the rights and needs of genocide survivors in Rwanda. It illustrates that genocide survivors remain impoverished and marginalised, and that development aid agencies only tangentially, if at all, acknowledge their vulnerability and take steps to empower them to realise their rights. It provides examples of aid programmes that are reaching genocide survivors and urges development aid agencies in Rwanda to design and implement programmes explicitly for genocide survivors.

Relations between the Ugandan government and NGOs engaged in gender-focused NGO advocacy tend to keep NGOs visibly engaged but do not necessarily alter the status of poor women. These relations manifest themselves in government advising NGO advocacy work; sympathising with the NGOs; co-opting NGOs and individuals; publicising gender issues; and de-legitimising gender-focused NGO activities. The article links these phenomena to the government's wish to appear receptive to the concerns of civil-society organisations, of which NGOs are a major component.

The need for eco-regional or landscape-scale conservation and development has been widely recognised in Madagascar, yet implementation remains problematic. The approach was initially driven by biodiversity-conservation concerns, without enough emphasis on sustainable development, especially agriculture. Current challenges include consensus building for eco-regional visions, strengthening partnerships with government institutions, and negotiating land-use trade-offs within focal landscapes.