‘African Policy Goals and Strategies: Implications of the Obama Presidency’
A lot has happened since the 44th and first African American US President was sworn in. Some scholars, like Prof. Issa Shivji at the University of Dar es Salaam, argue that the issue now is not Obama’s presidency and what it portends to Africa, but rather the emergence of new ‘hegemonic’ powers in global political and economic governance.
1. Conference Theme:
We hope you will take due note of the second part of the theme (‘Implications of the Obama Presidency’) and make effort to cover this in your respective papers.
Further, had this conference taken place earlier this year, it could have been a good opportunity to discuss the implications of the Obama presidency on African Development Strategies and Goals at the early stages. But a lot has happened since the 44th and first African American US President was sworn in. Some scholars, like Prof. Issa Shivji at the University of Dar es Salaam, argue that the issue now is not Obama’s presidency and what it portends to Africa, but rather the emergence of new ‘hegemonic’ powers in global political and economic governance. The implications of the much talked about rise of China and India as economic powers with immense interests in natural resource exploration, energy, commodity markets and investment and aid to Africa, deserve scholarly attention. At the same time, sustained military activities in the Indian Ocean and other parts of Africa and the world now point to unsettling security elements of the foreign policy of the US in particular that needs to be unbundled. An inquiry into the implications of the Obama presidency on Africa’s development strategies and goals has to be conducted in this broader context of international political economy.
We do not expect that all these issues will be sufficiently addressed in your papers – as it may in many cases amount to the development of new papers altogether – but we urge you to incorporate these perspectives to the extent possible to broaden the discussions and optimize on the outputs of the conference.
We, the organizers, will also find ways of including in the conference programme, a session or an activity, to remember recently departed African scholarly giants, Prof. Haroub Othman and Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem.
2. Confirmed Dates: Two days Conference – Monday 8th and Tuesday 9th February 2010. You will be expected to arrive in Dar es Salaam on Sunday 7th February and depart either Tuesday evening or Wednesday. These are the final dates and supersede all other communication in this regard.
3. Where?: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
4. Transport and Accommodation: ARRF will provide an economy class return air ticket to the conference. We will also book you for a 3 nights stay at the conference venue and arrange for all airport transfers.
5. Publication: Papers presented at this conference will be published in an edited book to be released later in the year. The volume editors will be nominated at the conference.
6. Honorarium: ARRF will pay a modest honorarium of US $ 1,000 for the papers. This will be paid upon presentation of a soft copy of the paper as revised after deliberations at the conference. We will pay this honorarium immediately after the conference if the revised papers are made available to us.
7. Your Final confirmation: To enable us plan effectively, we request you to send us your final confirmation of participation to: [email][email protected] copied [email][email protected] by 28th December 2009.
8. Submission of Papers: We would like to reproduce all papers ahead of the conference and make these available to participants during proceedings. Please send us your full papers by 23rd January 2010
IMPORTANT DATES ONCE AGAIN:
Conference Dates: Monday 8th and Tuesday 9th February 2010
Final Confirmation of Paper Presentation: 28th December 2009
Full Paper Submission: 23rd January 2010