This article draws attention to the course of the different dynamics invested in the social protection system, as a fundamental and internationally recognized right: life, health, education, work, housing, healthy environment, among others, with a view to sustainable development in nations. Through an exploratory and descriptive research, the article aims to bring a critical approach to the Mozambican social protection system, where, initially, we perceive social protection as a model based on the mutual recognition of the other as a social being and endowed with rights, where neighbourhood networks, kinship and/or even small social groups, share the philosophy of sharing and/or mutual help (exchange of goods and services). This social protection system, although informal, ensured in Mozambique, over several years, some social and economic stability for families, particularly those in need. In another aspect, we will approach social protection as an inalienable right, in which the governance, in its mission, has the entire responsibility of guaranteeing the full enjoyment of the resources and opportunities that will allow the individual to develop capacities and skills in view of social well-being. In conclusion, we will have an overview of the efforts that the Mozambican State, within the scope of international agreements, undertakes for a more effective and understanding social protection.

This article, which is based on qualitative research carried out in Cape Verde, aims to analyze whether there is a possible contradiction in the Cape Verdean labor market, between the legal and institutional conditions that facilitate the exercise of freedom of union and some social and political practices that limit them and are imposed on unions and workers by successive governments and companies. The situations that limit the exercise of freedom of association contribute to the reduction of the socioeconomic security of Cape Verdean workers, who face, in many moments and contexts work, situations of precariousness and informality, combined with the possibility of losing their jobs, in a context in which the unemployment level, especially in youth, is high.

Land is a common cause of conflict in Africa. It is at the root of much social unrest and violence among family members, groups and communities. Although the state judicial system has been a major adjudicator in these instances, their case pronouncements have brought little or no recourse to peaceful co-existence among the conflicted parties. This article seeks to advance the potential of the traditional peacebuilding system as a ‘community friendly’ option especially for constructive land dispute resolution. Traditional peacebuilding is devoid of long judicial proceedings, ‘preconceived’ justice and high costs. This article argues that, unlike the state judicial system, traditional peacebuilding is not only about making resolutions through rational choice, custom knowledge, community history and social cohesion but also about enhancing restorative justice, inclusiveness and peace promotion, and developing the trust and safety that is so badly needed across African communities. It, therefore, concludes that the traditional peacebuilding system has an organisational propensity to resolve land disputes within an institutionalised structure across African communities.

Prelim

Independent since 1975 and democratic since 1991, Cabo Verde has not escaped the waves of urban protests that plagued African capitals in the second half of the 2000s. Rap, perceived as the new expression of protest by urban youth, consolidates itself in the 2000s as one of the main actors in the Cape Verdean political scene and becomes an important vehicle for mobilizing and building an urban culture of resistance, amplifying these issues. This article, based on an ethnographic research in the cities of Praia (Santiago Island) and Mindelo (São Vicente Island), seeks to answer three questions: on how rap has shown the identity, social and urban contradictions; how it has articulated with other types of social movements; 3) what is the place of women in rap and street politics?

Special Issue on Covid-19 Pandemic and African Economies (Including a Revised Text of the Second Thandika Mkandawire Annual Memorial Lecture)

This article attempts to apply a localisation methodology previously devel- oped by the authors to analyse the current status of the implementation and monitoring apparatuses for SDGs 6 (water and sanitation) and 11.2 (mobil- ity) in the case study cities – Cairo and Dar es Salaam. It uses comparative, top-down and grounded bottom-up analyses to identify gaps in the existing SDG framework and ultimately proposes a set of evaluation criteria to replace the global indicators with new localised and quantifiable indicators in the two cities. In doing so, it responds to prevalent critiques of SDGs specific to their application in the global South, including difficulties in measuring and monitoring urban conditions, misrepresentation due to the reduction of complex local conditions to abstracted data, and the inadequate capacity of the agenda to consider and assess informal activity. The proposed revisions to targets and indicators for SDG 6.1, 6.2 and 6.b, and SDG 11.2, were later discussed with community organisers and residents to bolster their validity, and represent a stepping stone towards negotiating better sustainable-development paradigms with Egyptian and Tanzanian policy-makers. More generally, these revisions invite further inquiries into other African cities or other geographies with a prominent urban informality in order to update the general SDG framework across its seventeen goals and develop locally embedded standards for different kinds of service provision and outcomes.

The original Pan-African ideal had, as its programmatic agenda, the struggle to free Africans in the diaspora from slave bondage and to liberate the African continent from the despicable occupation by European imperial powers. This article revisits this agenda for liberation, placing it in the current crisis of globalisation and examining the continued marginal place of Africa in the global capitalist political economy. The article sketches out the genealogy and contours of the liberation agenda that looped the African diaspora to developments on the African continent, dating back to the antislavery struggles at the end of the eighteenth century through to the era of independent Africa. I argue that the highest point of the liberation agenda, the final defeat of apartheid in South Africa, ironically coincided with the deepening of Africa’s place on the lowest rungs of the global capitalist system. Today, globalisation has fastened rather than loosened Africa’s position on the ladder of the global political economy. To push back against Africa’s continued marginal position perforce requires returning to the original motivation of the Pan-African agenda and ideal: the unity of purpose and collective action of Africans on the continent and in the diaspora for radical liberation.