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PurposeThis study adopts an institutional entrepreneurship perspective in the context of public–private partnerships (P3s) to highlight the role of social actors in enacting institutional change in a complex organizational setting. By studying the actions of two prominent social actors, the authors argue that successful institutional change is the result of dynamic managerial activity supported by political clout, organizational authority and the social positioning of actors.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a field-based case study in a complex institutional and organizational setting in Alberta, Canada. The authors employed an institutional entrepreneurship perspective to identify and analyze the activities of two allied actors motivated to transform the institutional environment for public infrastructure delivery.FindingsThe empirical study suggests that the implementation of institutional change is both individualistic and collaborative. Moreover, it is grounded in everyday organizational practices and activities and involves a coalition of allies invested in enacting lasting change in organizational practice(s), even when maintaining the status quo seems advantageous.Originality/valueThe authors critique the structural explanations that dominate the literature on public–private partnership implementation, which downplays the role of agency and minimizes its interplay with institutional logics in effecting institutional change. Rather, the authors demonstrate that, given the observed impact of social actors, public–private partnership adoption and implementation can be theorized as a social phenomenon.

Relations between China and African countries have blossomed in recent years. This paper uses the theory of respect and recognition in social and political philosophy to examine how China is engaging with African countries within the context of two specific instruments of China’s public diplomacy. While pursuing its self-interest, China has anchored its engagements with African countries on a peculiar brand of public diplomacy encapsulated in the rhetoric of non-intervention in Africa’s domestic affairs, as well as the symbolism of frequent and reciprocal official visits by the highest political leaders and bureaucrats from China and African states. These characteristics, which are perceived by Africans as China’s show of equality-based respect for African countries, have facilitated China–Africa relations. Using the emerging dynamic of China–Africa relations, this paper affirms the proposition that given asymmetric information on the real motivations of nations in adopting specific foreign policy, it is perception that determines how one party responds to signals from the other.

The quest for excellence in radiation protection calls for an integrated and holistic approach to education and training. Education and training are indispensable in ensuring that ICRP recommendations are applied, adopted and adhered to. In its program plan to the year 2000, the IAEA has attached considerable importance to the development of human resources for nuclear and radiation safety, in keeping with its ongoing emphasis on providing technical assistance to strengthen national infrastructures and promote the safe use of radiation. From the international perspective, the problem can be more readily tackled through an integrated and dogged approach to education in radiation protection, harmonization of the contents of courses, and assistance in training the trainers. Priority can be placed on better dissemination of experience and knowledge that is already available, and improved co-ordination of support mechanisms. Through its program over the coming years, the IAEA should help countries address these challenges. A system for credentialing RP training program should be established at national and regional level. This process should be undertaken by the Regulatory Authority, with the help of Academic Institutions and scientific or professional societies. A register of accredited bodies should be established with periodic reviews and policy on quality assurance and improvement in radiation protection education and training. Recommendations for radiation protection of the patient for individuals undergoing training programs in health centers, continuing education and training after qualification and on implementation of new techniques should be inculcated. There is a gap in education, awareness and training in radiation protection for developing countries with low resource settings, reaching out to the community, rural areas, mining sites, high radioactivity areas in the community setting. There is an urgent need to bridge the gap between theory and practical approach to addressing it. To make ICRP recommendations fit for purpose we need to bridge the gap and extend this radiation protection outreach programs, education and training to low resource settings. The existing national system on education and training on radiation protection of the medical professionals, proved to be very useful for improving the general situation in this field., License: Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 2.5 Generic Grants: I would like to leave it blank.

Political crises, underdevelopment, poverty, and diseases are often the narratives that dominate discourse on Africa. Consequently, Africa evokes a sense of misery and hopelessness, with every comm...

This paper examines the nature and origins of state–society relations in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It traces the region's predatory state–society relations to slavery and colonialism and the concomitant extractive institutions, which are not conducive to sustainable economic development. Consequently, attempts to achieve sustainable development have been largely futile. The paper proposes a strategy for transforming the region's economic and governance institutions for inclusive and enduring growth and development. This strategy includes the promulgation and enforcement of coherent international codes and guidelines for state–society relations.

China-Africa economic relation has expanded significantly since the 1990s. In recent years, China's activities in African countries have attracted criticisms bothering on fears that financial flows from China could exacerbate poor governance and human rights abuses in these countries. However, our assessment of the dynamics of China's engagements with Africa shows that the biggest potential negative impact of these engagements is not necessarily on governance and human rights, as portrayed by Western politicians and commentators, but largely on economic factors. Specifically, China's activities in Africa could delay the emergence of a vibrant manufacturing sector in Africa, if African countries continue to import cheap manufactured products from China while relying on the export of minerals as the mainstay of their economies. Consequently, this paper recommends that African countries should focus on directing China's investment in the continent strategically towards stimulating domestic manufacturing in the respective countries.

This chapter provides an introduction to the volume and summarizes the arguments advanced by the contributors. The central argument is that the lot of the average African citizen has, in several respects, followed the same path from colonial exploitation to postcolonial misrule. What has changed over the years has been the beneficiaries of Africa’s exploitation. Political independence has so far not produced stable polities and balanced development in most African states. While changes have happened on several fronts, these changes have not been sufficient to transform key governance institutions that have facilitated rabid exploitation of the common wealth in favor of the ruling elite. The recommended way forward for African states is conscious efforts by domestic actors and the continent’s external development partners to transform the institutions that have fostered exploitation and bad governance over the years.

The state has a principal role to play in the economic development of any society. The central place of the state in development remains the same irrespective of the economic model being practiced. Whether it is based on free market principles or anchored on state interventionism, one cannot wish away the state. Under free market economies, the state must provide an enabling environment, including the soft and hard infrastructures necessary for businesses to thrive. With state interventionism, the state bureaucracy must be made up of highly qualified and motivated staff who have the authority to devise and implement industrial policies effectively. In a society where the state exists primarily to serve the selfish desires of incumbent political leaders, growth and development would be impossible irrespective of the economic model in practice.

This chapter reviews the nature and evolution of the postcolonial African state. Continuing from its colonial progenitor, the postcolonial African state has been an instrument of exploitation and predation. During the colonial era, European officials designed all of the institutions of the colonial government to facilitate the extraction and transfer of Africa’s resources for the benefit of Europe. At independence, these institutions remained in place, and African leaders stepped in and inherited the perverse institutions that treated the citizens as subjects. Given this background, the postcolonial African state has not been an agent of development, but has merely facilitated exploitation, corruption and bad leadership by successive African leaders.

This chapter provides a succinct review of the role of the major Cold War actors (the USA with its European allies and the USSR) on Africa’s decolonization process. Based on the actions of these major actors, Kalu argues that the intrigues of the Cold War shaped Africa’s decolonization process in very significant ways, and led to the evolution of extractive and utterly predatory political and economic institutions in postcolonial Africa. Drawing from several cases of foreign interventions in Africa during the Cold War, Kalu contends that the activities of the USA and its allies were not always focused on advancing the interests of Africans, but were more concerned with ensuring that African countries did not imbibe communist ideas.

Given that poverty has remained endemic despite over fifty years of foreign aid to Africa, it is important for donors and Africa’s development partners to review the instruments which have so far been applied as ways of fighting poverty in the continent. This chapter draws from case studies of six African countries that have at various times received huge revenues from natural resources, yet majority of the citizens remain impoverished. Drawing from the experiences of Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria, this chapter argues that additional financial resources in the form of foreign aid cannot eradicate poverty and procure prosperity in African countries. If Africa’s resource-rich countries have consistently failed to utilize receipts from commodity sales to implement people-focused development programs, it is highly unlikely that cash transfers from benevolent donors in foreign lands would generate the transformation necessary to fight poverty in the continent. The chapter concludes that development assistance to Africa should target the root causes of poverty in the continent, which are predatory states that have promoted corruption and bad leadership, and inhibited growth and development in the region.

The assumption that political independence will bring economic independence and improve the quality of life of Africans has largely been a mirage. After political independence, many African states experienced massive political and economic crises. Military rule was rampant across the continent, beginning in the 1960s, and a number of countries experienced civil wars. Although every new military dictator promised to rescue the state from the exploitation and bad choices of politicians, in reality, military rule did not produce the transformation needed to bring development and prosperity to African states. As poverty persisted across the region, the rest of the world responded to the continent through various forms of grants and aids. Despite the promises of globalization, such as enhanced access to global markets, Africa has been unable to effectively domesticate globalization to its advantage, largely because there is little production in the continent. Consequently, Africa has largely been a recipient of aid from the rest of the world, and a supplier of primary commodities to the world.

It is doubtful that underdevelopment and poverty in Africa is caused by a shortage of financial, human, material or natural resources. Several countries in other regions with little or no natural resources, and with lower population than Africa has achieved tremendous successes during the past few years. On the other hand, despite Africa’s huge natural resources, large and youthful population and various episodes of community booms, most of the continent remain poor. It is no coincidence that Africa also has had the largest number of dictators during the past fifty years, with bad governance and state corruption almost a permanent narrative of the continent’s political economy. Unfortunately, it would seem that donors find it convenient to wish away the obvious predatory nature of the African state when such donors and other development partners suggest that more cash given to African countries could help to cut poverty in half. Because poverty in Africa has been caused by rapacious political leadership supported by predatory governance institutions, cash transfers can only help to assuage the pains of poverty, but cannot procure development.

African states have received various forms of foreign aid throughout most of the postcolonial period. From the 1960s, when African states formulated and implemented various development plans, to the 1980s, when neoliberalism became the orthodox development thinking, African states have been inundated with various bilateral and multilateral supports. Foreign aid during each era have expectedly focused on helping Africa to converge or to implement recommended development policies and programs. During the era of national development planning, donors focused primarily on providing financial and technical assistance to enable African states to design and implement national development plans. Similarly, during the wave of market reforms and economic liberalization, the focus of most multilateral donors was to “assist” or force African states to implement neoliberal reforms. As African nations struggled with market reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, several multilateral donors introduced “conditionalities” attached to aid funds. In recent years, donors have focused on providing direct support to implement social programs, especially in the areas of basic education and public health. This chapter concludes that despite the various designs of foreign aid so far used by donors to assist African states, poverty has remained pervasive in the continent.

In the introductory chapter, Kalu and Falola recount Africa’s weak position in global political and economic spheres. They acknowledge that globalization has created enormous opportunities in the global market and created new winners, especially in the newly industrializing countries of Southeast Asia. However, Africa has been unable to reap much benefit from the expansion in global trade. This inability, so far, to play an important role in the global economy is attributed, at least in part, to weak institutions, poor governance records and lack of productive capacities in most of Africa’s states. Kalu and Falola want African leaders and policymakers to look inward and take steps towards transforming the state and its institutions to allow sustainable and inclusive growth.

Drawing from the literature on aid effectiveness and using case studies of donor-funded public health programs in Nigeria, this chapter notes that foreign aid can indeed weaken national institutions and compound the problem of poverty and bad governance. This does not mean that aid has no positive impact on society. In many cases, donor interventions in social services, especially in the public health arena, have been hugely beneficial to the receiving communities. Foreign aid that is effectively delivered can ameliorate some of the harsh effects of poverty. However, through various mechanisms, donor projects can also produce negative externalities on national institutions. For examples, donor projects have often pulled competent staff away from government departments, thereby worsening capacity challenges within the government bureaucracy. In addition, huge external interventions in the public health sector of some African countries have led to distortions and confusions within the national system.

This chapter proposes another form of development assistance for Africa. It argues that the structure of the average African state is incapable of producing sustained and broad-based development for the benefits of the citizens. Continuing from its colonial roots, the African state has been predatory, and state officials have consistently exploited state resources for self-aggrandizement. The state is systematically detached from its citizens, and state institutions support the corruption and exploitation that have made the state an inhibitor, rather than a promoter of development. Because no society can achieve real development and shared prosperity without a responsible state supported by efficient and inclusive institutions, development assistance to Africa should focus on ways to restructure the African state to make the states developmental.

The chapter articulates the central arguments of the book, which states that foreign aid, defined as the gift of cash and material resources to African states, does not have the capacity to eradicate poverty in the continent. By providing financial and material resources, foreign aid can only help to ameliorate some of the pains of poverty. Poverty in African states is caused by the constellation of perverse governance and economic institutions that make the state systematically detached from its citizens. In these predatory states, political leaders and their cronies are in the business of exploiting state resources for selfish ends. Consequently, the citizens are left with little or no opportunities for meaningful participation in the political and economic affairs of the states. In order to curb poverty, the state must be transformed to live up to its responsibilities to its citizens.