The Future of Africa - Third World, First Hand

Simplistic media headlines have often presented Africa as a ‘hopeless continent’, crippled by problems and failures. The current French President Nicolas Sarkozy even announced that Africa had not fully entered into history and thus had no idea of progress. Its legacy of colonialism, its poor economic policies, its debt burden and its many civil wars have been highlighted as the reasons why the continent has failed to move forward in the past four decades.

But a new and more hopeful picture has begun to emerge. With African economies growing at record speed in the past few years, and the Business World and China seeing Africa as a new investment frontier, people are now promoting the image of booming Africa. What is the boom and what are the realities on the ground? This evening, Sudanese Professor of Politics of Development Mohamed Salih will discuss Africa’s prospects. Our second speaker is Dirk Bezemer, Associate Professor of Development Economics at the University of Groningen. Tonight’s chairman is Pieter Boele van Hensbroek, Research Coordinator and Deputy Director of Globalisation Studies Groningen and Lecturer in Political Philosophy at the University of Groningen.

Mohamed Salih is a Professor of Politics of Development at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, and at the Department of Political Science, University of Leiden. He has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Copenhagen for his approach to African politics, and was co-Laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize 2007 for his contribution as a review editor to the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Third World, First Hand consists of a series of public lectures by international speakers in which the audience is challenged by refreshing perspectives on several major global issues. The public lectures will go beyond the reporting in newspapers and television bulletins. The audience will be presented with innovative insights, and that is exactly what these tumultuous times demand of us: a reassessment of our old, stubbornly persistent ideas.

This public lecture series has been organized in co-operation with Globalisation Studies Groningen and is financed by NCDO.