In the past decades the involvement of local experts in the planning and evaluation of development programs has steadily increased. Ownership of development planning is propagated as major aim of bilateral and international development co-operation. Yet, the quality and performance of many local...

One of the outstanding aims of most liberation movements has been to increase the economic well-being of their people, Guinea-Bissau being no exception in this respect. How far has the new Nation State succeeded in fulfilling this aim? A comparative analysis of the implementation of land...

The study attempts to highlight the interrelation between three central points in the ongoing debate on the political economy of development: viability, surplus, and class-formation. A case study of the development of rural labour systems in Northern Nigeria is meant to provide both a better...

The knowledge of social stratification within the peasantry is a decisive precondition of sustainable economic and political measures for an effective support of agricultural production in least developed countries. This is one of the reasons why also in Nigeria social scientist focus on the...

In the last decades the number of refugees from conflict regions in Africa increased dramatically. West Africa is the cradle of migration from Sub-Saharan Africa to Europe, were most African migrants with overseas destinations live. The European Union shares dual responsibility for the...

The analysis of African occult belief systems provides a unique example for demonstrating that seemingly outdated and exotic African modes of thought, such as the belief in magic and witchcraft, are modern and have significant impact on social, economic and political structures. Official...

The remarkable influx of Chinese migrant entrepreneurs in West Africa has been met with growing resistance from established African entrepreneurs. Whether the Chinese have a competitive edge over Africans because of distinctive sociocultural traits or whether the Chineseʹs supposed...

Despite a long-standing controversy about aid-effectiveness in general and the impact of aid-dependency on governance in particular, little is known on the effect of donors policies on civic agency for democratization in aid dependent autocratic regimes. In this study it is argued that the...

Much has been written on the relationship of China and Africa in the past decade. However, the subject of Chinese migrant entrepreneurs in Africa and their articulation with African counterparts was little explored up to the early 2010s. Apparently, this research gap has been closed, as shown by...

The presidential elections of 25 April 2015 resulted in a victory for the incumbent, Faure Gnassingbé. Thus, he secured his third five-year term, consolidating the autocratic grip of the Gnassingbé-clan and his followers, who had been in power since 1967. In view of the absolute majority of...