Joseph Onjala

Exit the State: Decentralization and the Need for Local Social, Political, and Economic Considerations in Water Resource Allocation in Madagascar and Kenya1

This paper focuses on the iconoclasticism of water as a plentiful resource and the near universalization of decentralizing institutions to manage it. The authors explore two agro‐pastoral regions — Ambovombe District (Madagascar) and Tana River District (Kenya) — and consider institutional change, particularly the disengaging state, the lack of fiscal and administrative support throughout decentralization, community responses, and informal private markets. This paper concludes that decentralization holds the potential to increase accountability of the resource management process, improve governance and leadership accountability, and maximize the resource in a sustainable fashion. However, what we are seeing instead through the process of decentralization are the states exiting from the water governance process too rapidly and without concern for the culturally embedded social and economic norms, and the growing gap between new institutions and the needs, desires, and capacity of participants in the new systems.

Relational patterns of urbanisation and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT Scholars of economic development have always hinted that the urbanisation process in the developing world does not follow the historical patterns discerned in the developed world where a strong relationship between a countrys gross domestic product and urbanisation had been observed. To confirm or refute this thesis, this study considers the pattern of relationships between the national economic growth rate and urbanisation rates in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. Comparison is made between SSA countries and emerging and developed economies. Results indicate that whereas the traditional thesis still holds for SSA countries (i.e. they urbanise without economic growth), new antithetical trends are also discernible where urbanisation takes place with economic growth, thereby revealing a whole new dimension of urbanisation and economic growth relational patterns in Africa.

Chinese Direct Investments in Africa: Motivations and Environmental Implications

China’s foreign direct investment in Africa is poised to continue to expand rapidly in the coming years. However, investment has not come without costs, especially to the precious African environment. It is more important than ever that governments reevaluate their policies regarding investment practice that may undermine sustainable development goals.