Development has remained elusive in Africa. Through theoretical contributions and case studies focusing on Southern Africa’s former white settler states, South Africa and Zimbabwe, this volume responds to the current need to rethink (and unthink) development in the region. The authors explore how Africa can adapt Western development models suited to its political, economic, social and cultural circumstances, while rejecting development practices and discourses based on exploitative capitalist and colonial tendencies. Beyond the legacies of colonialism, the volume also explores other factors impacting development, including regional politics, corruption, poor policies on empowerment and indigenization, and socio-economic and cultural barriers.

Our Continent, Our Future presents the emerging African perspective on this complex issue. The authors use as background their own extensive experience and a collection of 30 individual studies, 25 of which were from African economists, to summarize this African perspective and articulate a path for the future. They underscore the need to be sensitive to each country's unique history and current condition. They argue for a broader policy agenda and for a much more active role for the state within what is largely a market economy. Finally, they stress that Africa must, and can, compete in an increasingly globalized world and, perhaps most importantly, that Africans must assume the leading role in defining the continent's development agenda.

Why has Africa remained persistently poor over its recorded history? Has Africa always been poor? What has been the nature of Africa's poverty and how do we explain its origins? This volume takes a necessary interdisciplinary approach to these questions by bringing together perspectives from archaeology, linguistics, history, anthropology, political science, and economics. Several contributors note that Africa's development was at par with many areas of Europe in the first millennium of the Common Era. Why Africa fell behind is a key theme in this volume, with insights that should inform Africa's developmental strategies.

This issue of the African Development Perspectives Yearbook focusses on the relevance of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9 ("Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation") for Africa's development. Issues are analysed at the continental level and in country case studies. Unit 1 presents in four essays the African continental perspectives and achievements. Unit 2 presents six essays, which are focussing on aspects of the eight targets of SDG 9 in country cases. Unit 3 presents book reviews and book notes in the context of SDG 9.

Development in Modern Africa: Past and Present Perspectives contributes to our understanding of Africa’s experiences with the development process. It does so by adopting a historical and contemporary analysis of this experience. The book is set within the context of critiques on development in Africa that have yielded two general categories of analysis: skepticism and pessimism. While not overlooking the shortcomings of development, the themes in the book express an optimistic view of Africa’s development experiences, highlighting elements that can be tapped into to enhance the condition of African populations and their states. By using case studies from precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial Africa, contributors to the volume demonstrate that human instincts to improve material, social and spiritual words are universal. They are not limited to the Western world, which the term and process of development are typically associated with. Before and after contact with the West, Africans have actively created institutions and values that they have actively employed to improve individual and community lives. This innovative spirit has motivated Africans to integrate or experiment with new values and structures, challenges, and solutions to human welfare that resulted from contact with colonialism and the postcolonial global community. The book will be of interest to academics in the fields of history, African studies, and regional studies.