The Alternative Report on Africa (AROA): Call for Application
DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING PROPOSALS OF PAPERS: 30 April 2023
TO BE SENT TO: cheikh@endatiersmonde.org, c.gueye9@gmail.com, abdendiaye@gmail.com
FOR MORE INFORMATION: The AROA is launching a +221 78 639 17 80
The Alternative Report on Africa (AROA) is an essential initiative of prominent African and international institutions (Enda Tiers Monde, Third World Forum, TRUSTAFRICA, Rosa Luxembourg Foundation, the African Futures Institute (AFI), CODESRIA, Initiative Prospective Agricole et Rurale (IPAR), PANAFRICARE, AAWORD/AFARD (Association of African Women for Research and Development), LEGS AFRICA, the Alliance for Rebuilding Governance in Africa (ARGA), West Africa Think tank (WATHI), OXFAM, whose vocation is to strive for the intellectual sovereignty of the continent and to restore to African institutions and citizens the forward-looking capacity they need to work towards the future according to their own imagination and interests.
In view of the large number of reports on Africa classifying the countries of the continent according to exogenous and neoliberal criteria and indicators (Doing Business, GDP, austerity indicators, reduction of public expenditure, external debt service, etc.), AROA sets out to reverse the ideological and epistemological analyses on the continent, deepen and diversify the issues and areas addressed as well as the indicators for measuring the progress and sovereignty of Africans. Also supported by high-level African citizens, politicians and scientists, this initiative draws up Reports that truly reflect the sensitivity and experience of Africans in the different environments in which they find themselves.
Its objective is to contribute, in a decisive way, to the consolidation of the transformations at work in African societies and institutions towards autonomy and sovereignty. The aim is to make visible the dynamics and changes at work on the continent, in particular those which are carried by Africans in their majority and their diversity. In so doing AROA seeks to reinforce the real societal transformations which are informed by an uninhibited spirit and capacities for innovation and conquest of their autonomy too little of which is contained in the reports on Africa and their instruments.
Thus, the debates in the spaces for defining strategies and/or policies will be informed and enriched by endogenous knowledge that makes sense for Africans and any other relevant and conclusive data. These will be produced on a credible basis that promotes African-specific innovations and strengthens their empowerment.
AROA is also intended to be a response to the shortcomings of the prospective capacities of African institutions and actors who are the engines of the continent’s dynamics. It will inform African projections on the future in the context of a return to long-term planning at national and continental scales.
After the first two issues (Zero and One) which positioned the Report in its vision and its scientific and strategic objectives as well as on the thematic orientations by which the Africa of alternatives and disruptions must be analyzed in the light of shifts in the international and continental context. This is what issue number Two is aiming for in this call for contributions. Its publication is scheduled for 2023. It will constitute a framework for the consolidation, refinement, inculturation and ownership of prospective reflections on the desirable future of African societies and States at a time when the continent and its youth are burning with a new, impatient and ambitious requirement regarding its sovereignty. While other peoples are experiencing the negative effects of the neoliberalism crisis (inflation, stockouts, extremism and self- isolation, unemployment, climate change, etc.) in a context of war in Ukraine which impacts their daily lives, Africa has the opportunity to consolidate its mechanisms of resistance and resilience and above all to finally forge a destiny of economic and political emancipation on the basis of its material and immaterial resources.
In a context where the “capitalocene” is more than ever before showing signs of a dramatic shift (global environmental changes, destruction of natural environments, appearance of pandemics, loss of biodiversity, melting glaciers, acidification of the oceans, etc.), Africa must constantly rethink itself in relation to its internal future, in conjunction with the world.
From this point of view, the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic with its substantial health, economic and social impacts, as well as the war in Ukraine, are indicators of the continent’s real state of dependence and a marker of any sincere and objective analysis. Africa’s internal political and security crises and their consequences for real economies and cross-border supply solidarity demonstrate the strength of the bonds between countries on the continent as well as their submission to the international market in which they suffer the consequences of the economic warfare and the resurgence of protectionism. The African continent is once again becoming a leading geopolitical issue where influence games and the race for natural resources are expressed.
Sovereignty becomes more than ever the priority at all levels (individual, community, local, national and continental). It will involve a gradual disconnection, highlighting the emergence of its own consumer market, the autonomy of arbitration and decision- making, the identification of social forces that can contribute to the implementation of the reversal of external factors, change the status of the law of value by phasing it out, and by joining a long global transition. But the disconnection must be combined with a reconnection to the realities of the bottom, a better understanding of ourselves, of the needs of our continent, of its interests and those of the majority of its inhabitants.
AROA should provide new lenses such as sovereignties (philosophical, cultural, economic, monetary, political, security, environmental), to measure the autonomy, disconnection, frugal innovations, local loops, pan-Africanism, real challenges, gains and deviations of African societies in the face of the hegemonism and exclusivism of the neoliberal capitalist system.
The aim is to take stock of the continent over 2 years with statistics, specific research, monographic and/or biographical studies, country studies, positions related to current events in order to share an African analysis of the progress of Africa in relation to the trajectory that our institutions and our societies have sovereignly drawn.
AROA number 2 will focus on several questions:
WHAT PROSPECTIVE VISION OF AFRICA IN THE NEW GLOBAL GEOPOLITICS?
- Faced with a revenge of Nations, the futility of global governance and the questioning of the concept of poles, what winning position for Africa?
- From what retrospective and prospective vision can we define a more offensive approach for Africa?
- How should alliances be recomposed in a context of a race for “dispossession” or “partnership” in regions such as the Sahel, and the advance of Russia and other
- partners?
ARE THE AFRICAN UNION AND ITS STRATEGIES UP TO THE CHALLENGE?
- To what extent do the African Union and its orientations and programs (Agenda 2063, AfCFTA, NEPAD, African Mining Vision, food sovereignty, PIDA, African Passport, etc.) contribute to breaking the hegemony of the dominant countries and influencing the trends towards the political sovereignty of the continent?
- How are political, institutional and societal reforms implemented in Africa to fight against foreign domination and acquire forward-looking capacities and sovereign economic reforms?
- What meaning do we give to the fading of postcolonial democracy and the recurrent political crises which contribute to the destabilization of States and nations?
- How to invent new societal projects and rebuild legitimate and viable states for the Africa of the future?
RETHINKING AFRICA’S “DISCONNECTION” IN A CONTEXT OF INTERNATIONAL UPHEAVAL
- What content should be given to “disconnection” in this new context of questioning (by GAFAMs and emerging countries) and dispersion of power?
- What cultural, economic, social and ecological “reconnection” is intrinsic to Africa in terms of its resilience to crises? How to articulate the climatic disasters suffered by Africa with environmental justice to better claim reparations and compensation for the overexploitation and irresponsibility of northern countries?
- What shifts or disruptions towards food and nutritional sovereignty and transformative industrialization?
- What are the modalities of energy and ecological emancipation against imperialism and extractivism?
- What analysis can be about the drying up of financial resources for the States, the maintenance of economic balances, social safety nets against the increase in the cost of basic necessities in connection with the war in Ukraine, the mobilization of domestic resources, in particular levers such as taxes, illicit financial flows, etc.
WOMEN AND YOUNG PEOPLE, LEVERS OF ENDOGENOUS TRANSFORMATIONS
- What is the meaning of the transformations at work within African societies with young people who are both a demographic majority and a sociological and political minority, developing increasingly anomic and non- standard behaviors? Differentialist disruption or transition towards democratic transformations in societies?
- How is the resilience to crises practised by women developed? How to draw from them replicable models and best practices?
- Questioning the impact of safety nets on women, particularly in the event of the weakening or failure of their businesses, which can be destructuring for African societies.
- What are the dynamics of social movements on the continent in relation to the renewal of social struggles and the capacity for adaptation, innovation and resistance of African young people and women?
BETWEEN “WHAT COUNTS” AND “WHAT WE COUNT”: AFRICA IN SEARCH OF MEASUREMENT INDICATORS SPECIFIC TO ITS SOCIETIES
- Analysis of the inadequacy of instruments and indicators for measuring traditional individual and collective progress in relation to African societies?
- What are the terms of sovereignty indicators to measure gains in autonomy based on social, economic, cultural, technical, etc. innovations?
- How do AROA researchers and contributors redefine alternative methodologies to GDP and to the orthodox neoliberal orientations of international institutions?
- How can Africa re-examine gender equality through a new valuation of “unpaid work”, which is currently neither valued nor counted in GDP?
- How to account and analyze GDP in relation to global warming – in particular greenhouse gas emissions which harm the global climate with the worst consequences for Africa – and the conservation of natural resources?
We are calling for contributions from researchers, thinkers, research institutions, think tanks, actors, development professionals, etc. on the questions set out above. Contributions may relate to countries, regions or the entire continent and report quantitatively and qualitatively on the changes and transformations at work in Africa. They must promote emancipatory innovations, strategies and policies of resilience or resistance to neoliberal logics and reflect African specificities.
Contributions must not exceed 12 single-spaced pages in font size 12 Times new Roman. Contribution proposals must specify: the format of the proposed contribution (theoretical modelling, case study, critical reflection, sharing of experiences, participation in a round table, monograph, biography); the subject dealt with and the contribution in empirical or scientific knowledge.
For scientifically oriented contributions, include methodology and bibliography. Contributions may include diagrams, figures, maps.
The deadline for submitting contribution proposals is 3O April, 2023. Afterwards, the scientific committee and the permanent secretariat of AROA will send you their assessments and validations. The deadline for submitting contributions will be 30 June, 2023.
Pan-African solidarity!
