Africa: Exploitation and resistance

This was a conference organised by the World Development Movement and Pambazuka News. It was held in Oxford on 11 June 2011.

Listen to sound recordings from the day below.

Africa from exploitation to resistance

The perception of Africa that many people in the UK have is dominated by starvation, corruption and tribalism. But while Africa is at the sharp end of corporate exploitation, the story of ordinary Africans organising against injustice remains largely untold. This session will explore the African social movements who are writing their own history across the continent.

• Njoki Njoroge Njehu, Africa Jubilee South
• Firoze Manji, editor in chief, Pambazuka News
• Horace Campbell, director of the Africa Initiative, Syracuse University 

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Africa beyond aid

Most African countries receive more than 10 per cent of their GDP in aid. This creates huge problems, including making governments more accountable to donors than to voters. Would cutting aid make things worse or better? Some big charities are currently campaigning to defend aid spending. This session will consider whether that’s the right priority, and what else we should be doing.

• Yash Tandon, Ugandan author of Ending Aid Dependence
• Jonathan Glennie, author of The Trouble with Aid

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From food crisis to food sovereignty

Bankers are speculating on food in global markets, causing price spikes and real hardship for millions. ‘Land grabs’ in Africa are seeing more farmland transferred into corporate hands. Over one billion people in the world are hungry despite decades of ‘development’. Our food system is in crisis, but a global movement of small producers is fighting for an alternative – food sovereignty. This session will explore the problems of, and possible solutions to, the global food crisis.

• Njoki Njoroge Njehu, director of Daughters of Mumbi Global Resource Centre, Kenya
• Colin Tudge, author of Good food for everyone, forever

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