AfriFuture Research Bulletin – Vol 1, Issue 1/2021

The inaugural AfriFuture Research Bulletin (Vol 1, Issue 1, 2021) edited by Dr. Tom Tom and Dr. Clement Chipenda. The Bulletin is a quarterly journal of the AfriFuture Research and Development Trust. It is aimed at providing a platform for emerging and established scholars, activists, students, policy makers, civil society organisation workers, private and public sector workers (and any other interested persons) to provide engaging and interrogative articles which provide contemporary perspectives on the socio-economic and political questions in the Global South. In this inaugural edition, we have eight interesting articles which engage in a wide range of issues ranging from social disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic to the socio-economic, legal and political exclusion of ethnic minorities.

Individual articles in the Bulletin show how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted in different ways on children in urban areas, while another perspective reflects that in 2020, Covid-19 was used for political manoeuvring and authoritarian consolidation in Zimbabwe (the effects of this are being seen today). Agriculture, in the context of the women and environmental degradation nexus, its pivotal role in sustainable urban livelihoods and the devastating impact of theileriosis (commonly called the January disease) in rural communities is looked at with case studies being drawn from Nigeria and Zimbabwe. The contentious and controversial Gukurahundi atrocities which are presented as a ‘genocide’ exemplifying human rights abuse and the ill-treatment of ethnic minorities are touched on in the Bulletin. They are presented as being an example of the worst forms of human rights abuse, marking a negative trajectory that has continued to exist in Zimbabwe to date, requiring reconciliation and closure for the affected communities and individuals.

Contemporary insight on the nexus between politics, security and international relations is presented in the Bulletin, with the persistent challenges of gender-based violence, natural disasters, pandemics, weak health systems seen as presenting challenges for countries in the Global South. The importance of guidance and counselling which is an important but often undervalued aspect of child wellbeing and education interventions is critically looked at in the Bulletin. An argument is advanced that child wellbeing through guidance and counselling is consistent with national, regional and international frameworks for good governance and sustainable development.

You can read the bulletin in full here(2MB PDF)

Source: AfriFuture