Central Africa: Crises, Reform and Reconstruction

This book contains insightful and well-articulated analyses of key factors and issues for nation building in Cameroon and the Central African sub region in terms of the socio-economico-political variables for the enterprise of natural development’. Professor Beban Sammy Chumbow, Rector University of Yaounde 1, Cameroon. ‘This comprehensive work covers a wide range of issues affecting the Central African sub-region and argues that though most of the problems affecting African states are traceable to colonial and the Cold-War eras, authoritarian leaderships, despotism, consolidated through ethnic hegemony, politics of exclusion, corruption and unhealthy romance with forces of neo-colonialism are equally to be blamed. ... This is no doubt a timely publication and a must read for any one interested in the politics of Africa’. This timely book addresses development problems and prospects in Central Africa. Drawing from individual case studies, global debates and experiences, the contributors provide a rich repertoire of reflections and insights on economic integration and activities, and on the internal and external politics of the different states in the subregion. Strikingly, all the studies point to the fact that Central African states, although possessing tremendous natural and human resources and peopled by communities thirsty for development, have for a long time remained under the spell and chaos of bad governments and bad economic policies and practices. A consequence has been endemic poverty and misery for all but an elite few. Informed both by their empirical findings and experiences as social actors, the authors of this important volume highlight not only the failure of democracy to take root in the subregion, but also how corruption, lack of transparency and accountability in governance and business have detrimentally become fashionable, making the prospects of reform an ever more extravagant dream.