Development has remained elusive in Africa. Through theoretical contributions and case studies focusing on Southern Africa’s former white settler states, South Africa and Zimbabwe, this volume responds to the current need to rethink (and unthink) development in the region. The authors explore how Africa can adapt Western development models suited to its political, economic, social and cultural circumstances, while rejecting development practices and discourses based on exploitative capitalist and colonial tendencies. Beyond the legacies of colonialism, the volume also explores other factors impacting development, including regional politics, corruption, poor policies on empowerment and indigenization, and socio-economic and cultural barriers.

Covers topical issues for Africa's development, economics and politics of climate change, water management, public service delivery, and delivering aid. The authors argue that these issues should be included in the post-MDG paradigm and add an important voice to recent moves by academics and practitioners to engage with each other.

This book is a research on development theories, practices, approaches, and strategies that bring some alternatives to the mainstream discourse on development in Africa. Africa, being the sole continent that is still draining behind all the other continents, has been a place where different strategies and theories of development were applied or tried. The apparent failure of moving ahead brings to critical minds a sense of questioning whether it is time to rethink these strategies. Knowing that Africa is a continent with various countries, with wide-ranging challenges, with different needs, with numerous potentials ranging from its abundant natural resources to the untapped human resources, it has been my quest to understand this complex continent and to give opportunity to the reader a grasp of whole array of possibilities in rethinking strategies of development for this continent. This entails broadening the development discourse and practices from economic approaches to all other areas such as human development, cultural situations, and sustainable development. It also involves blending scholarly works with local creative solutions. From the wide range of examples in the book, from all corners of the earth, one will discover how it presents a holistic understanding of development discourse and practice. This is where theories and local realities come together as an alternative contribution to the development field. I emphasize on the importance of combining academic theories to the local African incentives - such as creativity, sense of innovation, and problem-solving attitudes that some Africans hold -; the desirability of strengthening South-South cooperation (including the role of China) -, the huge impulse potential of civil society that can make to development, especially given the much needed growth of middle classes; the urgency of improving the poor and battered infrastructure, and special attention to global warming, to which Africa is particularly sensitive ; and improve the institutions in place to continue betting on individual leadership, among other valuable suggestions. Research in development is a continuous commitment to discover different possibilities and creative innovation. It is with that approach that I seek a deeper understanding. The book still goes along with the improvement of economic, political and social issues related to Africa. By advocating for a holistic approach, I emphasize on the need to foster/boost the local creative people, to understand their issues, and to empower local entrepreneurs in order to address questions of particular contexts. At the same time, these local people need to collaborate and gain some other knowledge from development experts. I am fervently encouraging African leaders, academics, and the international community, to blend academia and creativity of the local people on the ground in order to deepen the sustainability of Africa's future. My recommendations are applicable not only in the development arena, but also in other spheres of human life. They are also relevant to both academics and laymen in the development field. I look forward to integrating my research in the daily life of Africans and the academic world.

Rethinking Ownership of Development in Africa demonstrates how instead of empowering the communities they work with, the jargon of development ownership often actually serves to perpetuate the centrality of multilateral organizations and international donors in African development, awarding a fairly minimal role to local partners. In the context of today’s development scheme for Africa, ownership is often considered to be the panacea for all of the aid-dependent continent’s development woes. Reinforced through the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action, ownership is now the preeminent procedure for achieving aid effectiveness and a range of development outcomes. Throughout this book, the author illustrates how the ownership paradigm dictates who can produce development knowledge and who is responsible for carrying it out, with a specific focus on the health sectors in Burkina Faso and Kenya. Under this paradigm, despite the ownership narrative, national stakeholders in both countries are not producers of development knowledge; they are merely responsible for its implementation. This book challenges the preponderance of conventional international development policies that call for more ownership from African stakeholders without questioning the implications of donor demands and historical legacies of colonialism in Africa. Ultimately, the findings from this book make an important contribution to critical development debates that question international development as an enterprise capable of empowering developing nations. This lively and engaging book challenges readers to think differently about the ownership, and as such will be of interest to researchers of development studies and African studies, as well as for development practitioners within Africa.

Millennium development goals (MDGs) and sustainable development goals (SDGs) have significant implications for global development, in particular for African countries. This book seeks to assist Africa’s policy makers and political leaders, MNCs and NGOs, plus its increasingly heterogeneous media landscape, to understand and better respond or negotiate the evolving development environment of the 21st century. In this collection of nuanced essays, the contributors interrogate the relationship between the MDGs and SDGs in key areas of African development to enhance our understanding and knowledge of the evolving nature of development. They address issues of governance, agriculture, south-south cooperation in a context of foreign aid, natural resource governance and sustainable development, export diversification and economic growth as well as emerging topics such as the internet of things or the sharing economy, climate change, conflict and non-traditional security. The varied, yet interlinked foci present a holistic overview of Africa’s development aspirations, and ability to transform the SDGs’ universal aspirations into local realities. This book will be of use to academics and students in Development Studies, Contemporary African Studies, Political Science, Policy Studies and Geography, and should also appeal to policy makers and development practitioners.