Globalization and Social Policy in Africa

Edited by Tade Akin Aina, Chachage Seithy L. Chachage and Elizabeth Annan-Yao

Dakar, CODESRIA, viii+339 p., ISBN 2-86978-130-X

Globalization and Social Policy in Africa examines the different areas of significant contact between globalization and the lives of ordinary people in Africa.

Through contributions that rely mainly on empirical and historical studies, the 17 authors from all parts of Africa and across a variety of social science disciplines attempt to provide answers as to how Africans understand, confront and relate to the forces of globalization. The authors also address how contemporary and historical dynamics have shaped the way globalization has interacted with and defined the often neglected area of social policy.

The studies engage and question current dominant orthodoxies on the importance of social policy for development and social transformation, showing in particular how dominant economic thinking, particularly those emanating from important multilateral institutions, has contributed to undermining the importance of social policy to relevant economic development and social change. With the increasing shift towards a greater understanding of how conventional economic orthodoxies have undermined the development process in Africa in recent decades, this book is a welcome addition to the debate that provides the much needed evidence that is absent in many other contributions.

Tade Akin Aina is Professor of Sociology and formerly Deputy Executive Secretary (Publications) at CODESRIA. He taught at the University of Lagos, Nigeria, and he is currently the Regional Representative, the Ford Foundation, Office for Eastern Africa. His publications include Health, Habitat and Development (London: IIED, 1986), The Challenge of Sustainable Development in Nigeria, co-edited with Ademola Salau (Ibadan: NEST, 1990), Child Development and Nutrition in Nigeria, co-edited with M.F. Zeitlin and F.E. Etta (Lagos: UNICEF, 1992), The Experience of Migration in Africa, co-edited with Jonathan Baker (Uppsala: NAI), Globalization and Social Policy in Africa: Issues and Research Directions (Dakar: CODESRIA, 1997).

Chachage S.L. Chachage is currently Professor and head of department of Sociology at the University of Dar es Salaam, where he has served as Associate Dean (Research and Publications). Professor Chachage has also taught at the University of Cape Town, held many positions of distinction and served on the editorial boards of several journals. He has published extensively on Sociology, and is a well renowned Swahili language novelist.

Elizabeth Annan-Yao is currently Professor of Sociology at the University of Cocody-Abidjan, Deputy Director of Research at the Institute of Ethno-Sociology of the same university, and co-edits the African Sociological Review. She is specialized in Population and Development with emphasis on Migrations, Reproductive Health and Education.