|
Publications
Documents
- Mapinduzi Journal 2
125 years after the Berlin Conference: time to invent a new cooperation
- 125 years after the Berlin Conference
- Christiane Kayser
Some lessons from the Berlin workshop debates
- Kä Mana
African-Western cooperation:
profound change is unavoidable
- Andrea Böhm
The “Nord”, the “South” and the politics of memory
- Jeanot Minla Mfou’ou
A different kind of cooperation between Germany and
Cameroon is both desirable and possible
- Karin Doehne
The understanding of partnership
- Bonnie Campbell, Jean-Jacques Gabas
and Denis Pesche
Background to the setting up of an international research
network on development assistance
- Andreas Mehler
Research and partnership, issues in south-north cooperation
- Flaubert Djateng
Youth - hope for our society: some lessons from the Youth,
Culture and Citizenship Project (Cameroon)
- Elvis Tangwa Sa’a Nkem
Traditional african chiefdoms: what role do they play after
the Berlin Conference?
- Shecku Kawusu Mansaray
Humanitarian aid seems to have exclusively an occidental face:
how to avoid paternalising and infantilizing – lessons learnt
from Sierra Leone
- Lancedell Matthews
Waiting for development: occidental hegemony and
humanitarianism in Liberia during the past generation
- Cosmas Cheka
The relevance of privatisation as a governance “model”
for sub saharan african countries after
the recent global economic downturn
- Marie José Mavinga
Small and medium-sized businesses in Africa -
a threatened potential.
The example of the Democratic Republic of Congo
125 years after the Berlin Conference:
time to invent a new form of cooperation
in the globalised world
Mapinduzi Unit is a group of women and men, Africans and Europeans,
who have been working for years with and for initiatives, organisations
and movements in Africa. We are creating a forum for rethinking and
creating around change in Africa. The forum promotes cross-culturalism
(métissage), critical thinking, productivity, intellectual courage and
openness towards new ideas. It also wants to draw lessons from its
members’ experiences and make them available to others.
We want to contribute in our own modest way to African people becoming
change agents in today’s rapidly and dramatically changing
world instead of being shut out in the role of powerless victims. It is
time to put a stop to Africa being used as a “black hole” and an empty
surface for all kinds of myths, prejudices, tests and generalities. We
want to help render visible, reinforce and understand its strengths, its
energy, its creativity and its human potential.
The aim is to contribute to the current debates on international development
cooperation and the North-South relationships by focusing
on the experiences, points of view and suggestions of people living and
working in different African contexts. We see this as a step in advocacy
and the launching of a dialogue.
Some of our points of debate:
- The question is not whether to cooperate, but rather how to combine efforts.
- Which stakeholders for which cooperation?
- Demolishing the myth of dirt poor war-torn Africa
- Economically Africa has more to offer than war economies and pilfered
resources
- The future belongs to cross-culturalism (métissage)
- Developmental thinking is no longer useful: one half of the world is
not developing the other! We all try to adapt in a changing world
- The “experts” are not always to be found where we suppose them
to be
- Drawing lessons from past errors and creating a system of learning
from each other
- How can we be useful in sustaining positive change?
- How can we promote and support inter-culturality?
- The paradigm of state and governance
- What kind of statehood and what governance is needed?
- Privatised state systems: are they legitimate partners in governance?
- Which kind of citizenship for the twenty-first century?
- Decentralisation: a missed opportunity?
- Who represents the population?
- Traditional chiefs: often legitimate but on the fringes of statehood,
sometimes beggars or puppets
- Omnipresent Churches: but they are fragmented and losing representativeness
- Youth in Africa: an ignored and underused resource
- Small and middle-level private enterprises: a huge neglected potential
- At national level: collapsing under the tax-load and without any
support
- At international level: suffocated by the multinationals and unfair
international trade agreements
- Money makes the world go around…: for new strategies in using material
and human resources
- Humanitarian Aid seems to have an exclusively occidental face: how
to avoid paternalising and infantilising?
- Blue Helmets and other international troops: Africa’s saviours?
- Peacemakers or warmongers?
- The security of civilian populations: a shared responsibility.
125 years after the Berlin Conference:
time to invent a new form of cooperation
in the globalised world
back
|
