Introduction

Five years after UN member states unanimously declared that they would bring an end to extreme poverty by 2015, it is time to take stock of progress so far. Efforts in Africa to tackle the problems of hunger, illiteracy, gender inequality and the spread of HIV/AIDS and malaria, to mention but a few examples of the so-called Millennium Development Goals, have yielded disappointing results.

Why does Africa lag so far behind? Why does its private sector not flourish like in many Asian countries? And why is the solid basis of a productive agricultural sector that could provide food and income for most of the African population sector so conspicuously absent? The limited progress that is being made is often wiped out by persistent armed conflict that destroys the human and physical capital that is indispensable for the eradication of poverty and economic progress.

Arena Africana

Peacebuilding, private entrepreneurship and agriculture are important issues in the African Studies Centre’s discussions about development in Africa. The ASC is organizing a series of public meetings to discuss these themes in relation to the realization of the Millennium Goals and future scenarios regarding the challenges confronting African countries and alliances. In three separate sessions, these issues and the ways in which they play a role in the dynamics of a developing society will be discussed by African and international experts from academia, government and business.

What does the ‘modernization of African agriculture’ really mean for smallholders in Africa? How will women entrepreneurs in Africa’s predominantly informal economies profit from private-sector development and an improvement in the investment climate? How can local and regional capacity be strengthened to assist and intervene in armed conflict and humanitarian emergency? What are the roles and the future of alliances like the African Union and local NGOs in securing the sustainability of post-conflict development and peace?

The central question in these discussions, however implicit, is not if Africa will experience vast economic growth within the next decades with the support of efforts by the international community but what a modern, more prosperous and competitive Africa will look like in the social and socio-economic sense. After all, change involves choices.