In 1992, world leaders adopted Agenda 21, the work program of the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development. This landmark event provided a political foundation and action items to facilitate the global transition toward sustainable development. The international community marked the tenth anniversary of this conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August 2002. Down to Earth, a component of the U.S. State Department's "Geographic Information for Sustainable Development" project for the World Summit, focuses on sub-Saharan Africa with examples drawn from case-study regions where the U.S. Agency for International Development and other agencies have broad experience. Although African countries are the geographic focus of the study, the report has broader applicability. Down to Earth summarizes the importance and applicability of geographic data for sustainable development and draws on experiences in African countries to examine how future sources and applications of geographic data could provide reliable support to decision-makers as they work towards sustainable development. The committee emphasizes the potential of new technologies, such as satellite remote-sensing systems and geographic information systems, that have revolutionized data collection and analysis over the last decade.

HIV/AIDS is a catastrophe globally but nowhere more so than in sub-Saharan Africa, which in 2008 accounted for 67 percent of cases worldwide and 91 percent of new infections. The Institute of Medicine recommends that the United States and African nations move toward a strategy of shared responsibility such that these nations are empowered to take ownership of their HIV/AIDS problem and work to solve it.

Africa is fast becoming an investment destination for firms operating outside the continent, and effective management is central to the realization of organizational goals. This volume evaluates the need for management philosophies and theories that reflect the peculiarities of the African continent.

In Africa, where poor roads, ports, and railways often constrain efficient transportation, air transport holds great potential as a lever for economic growth and development. Yet Africa has suffered several decades of inefficient air services. Uncompetitive flag carriers, set up by newly independent African states, offered primarily intercontinental flights, while the domestic air service market remained underdeveloped and underserved. The 1999 pan-African treaty on liberalization of access to air transport markets, the Yamoussoukro Decision, attempted to address these shortcomings. Yet a decade later, only partial liberalization has been achieved. 'Open Skies for Africa: Implementing the Yamoussoukro Decision' reviews progress made in carrying out the treaty and suggests ways in which the liberalization process can be encouraged. The book analyzes the completed and still-pending steps toward implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision, both on a pan-African level and within various regions. Special focus is given to the challenges posed by the poor aviation safety and security standards that exist in most African countries. Finally, the book measures the impact that certain policy steps of the Yamoussoukro Decision have had and evaluates the economic significance of air transportation and its full liberalization in Africa. The book concludes that the process of liberalizing African air services must continue, and provides policy recommendations for the way forward.

In this groundbreaking book, Sandra E. Greene explores the lives of three prominent West African slave owners during the age of abolition. These first-published biographies reveal personal and political accomplishments and concerns, economic interests, religious beliefs, and responses to colonial rule in an attempt to understand why the subjects reacted to the demise of slavery as they did. Greene emphasizes the notion that the decisions made by these individuals were deeply influenced by their personalities, desires to protect their economic and social status, and their insecurities and sympathies for wives, friends, and other associates. Knowing why these individuals and so many others in West Africa made the decisions they did, Greene contends, is critical to understanding how and why the institution of indigenous slavery continues to influence social relations in West Africa to this day.

Questions surrounding democracy, governance, and development especially in the view of Africa have provoked acrimonious debates in the past few years. It remains a perennial question why some decades after political independence in Africa the continent continues experiencing bad governance, lagging behind socioeconomically, and its democracy questionable. We admit that a plethora of theories and reasons, including iniquitous and malicious ones, have been conjured in an attempt to explain and answer the questions as to why Africa seems to be lagging behind other continents in issues pertaining to good governance, democracy and socio-economic development. Yet, none of the theories and reasons proffered so far seems to have provided enduring solutions to Africa’s diverse complex problems and predicaments. This book dissects and critically examines the matrix of Africa’s multifaceted problems on governance, democracy and development in an attempt to proffer enduring solutions to the continent’s long-standing political and socio-economic dilemmas and setbacks.