Concerned Africa Scholars
Engaged Analysis of the Theories and Policies Shaping Africa Today

Thursday, November 17 at 9:00 pm is the scheduled time for the 2011 ACAS annual meeting, in the Jefferson Room at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel (2660 Woodley Road, NW) in Washington, D.C. in , at the African Studies Association annual meeting. All interested scholars are welcome. [Note change of meeting time from Friday night.] [...]

We the undersigned are responding to a call for international solidarity sent out by the executive committee of a coalition of education organizations in Haiti after the police killing of a protesting teacher, and signed on Oct. 11, 2010, by the coordinators of the coalition François Mario, CNEH (teachers’ union), Eugène Jean, UPEPH (parents’ organization), and Josué Mérilien, UNNOH (teachers’ union). We stand in solidarity with teachers, students, and parents in Port-au-Prince who are organizing for schooling for Haitian children abandoned by the education system, and for decent living and working conditions for teachers and students. We demand an end to the systematic violence against them.

While foreign land acquisitions in Africa are no recent phenomenon, the last several decades have witnessed an unprecedented level of large-scale land acquisitions all over the continent; millions of hectares of land in Africa are increasingly claimed by and leased out to transnational entities, government businesses, multinational corporations, and international organisations. Sometimes referred to as “neo-colonialism” due to their resemblance to colonial land exploits, these acquisitions have been largely driven by a global “scramble” for food security and access to natural resources.

The “Global Food Security” bill is back. After its introduction in the Senate a year ago, Bill Gates and Bill Clinton have been quietly pressing for this piece of legislation that aims to fight global hunger with one hand while orchestrating a giant taxpayer subsidy to pesticide and ag biotech companies with the other. The bill, also known as the Lugar-Casey Act — for Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Robert Casey (D-PA) — would refocus aid programs on agricultural development, with a caveat: public funding of genetically engineered (GE) seeds is what this bill means by “agricultural development.”

The conference takes place at a time when there are major debates regarding U.S. policy towards Zimbabwe in light of the formation of the Inclusive Government. A key question of contention is whether the U.S. should continue with the Zimbabwe Economic and Democracy Recovery Act (of 2001) and the Executive Order of 2003, both of which impose targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe, or move to a new policy of support and engagement with the Inclusive Government. In the last few months there have been congressional initiatives to review current U.S. legislation on Zimbabwe and explore opportunities for a new U.S. policy with both the House and Senate holding hearings on Zimbabwe. As a sign of an already changing U.S. policy, there have been two high-level bi-partisan Congressional delegations to Zimbabwe in the last six months – a major policy shift given the fact that the U.S. had practically cut ties with Zimbabwe prior to the formation of the Inclusive Government.