International studies – Africa

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://digital.lib.washington.edu/handle/1773/34949

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The Logic of Regional Intervention in West Africa
(2025-08-01) Zhu, Danwei; Hoffman, Danny
Why do regional organizations intervene in some internal conflicts but not others? What is the underlying logic of multilateral intervention? Drawing on empirical evidence from regional interventions in Africa, this study proposes a conceptual framework that highlights the strategic considerations shaping regional organizations’ responses to various security challenges. I argue that two principal themes underlie the logic of international intervention: regime security and international norms. These factors interact in important ways: in some cases, concerns over regime security align with regional organizations’ commitments to certain norms, motivating the deployment of peace operations; in other cases, military intervention is not pursued because the meaning of the relevant norms is disputed in the context of multilateral intervention, or because regime security is not perceived as an urgent issue. The differences observed across cases are closely associated with the nature of each conflict or crisis. Variations in conflict types can lead to distinct intervention logics. However, current scholarship on multilateral intervention fails to seriously consider the typology of conflicts involving international intervention. To address this gap, I apply the regime security-norms framework to different conflict types, analyzing how their interaction influences international organizations’ decisions to deploy peace operations. Two empirical case studies are presented to illustrate this framework: the Casamance secessionist conflict and the 2016-2017 Gambian political crisis. The first Chapter conceptualizes the logic of regional multilateral intervention and contextualizes the intervention experience of West Africa. Chapter two explains the absence of ECOWAS intervention in the Casamance conflict by putting it in the context of the evolution of African secessionist conflicts. I argue that regime security and sovereignty principles are much more prominent in shaping regional organizations’ attitudes toward secessionist conflicts. Chapter three examines the controversial nature of ECOWAS intervention in Gambia’s political crisis and demonstrates the co-existence of the regime security motivation and normative commitment to democracy behind the multilateral intervention. By integrating conflict typology into the study of multilateral interventions, this dissertation offers a novel perspective on the conditions under which regional organizations choose to engage in peace operations.
Digital Technologies for Financial Inclusion: Three Papers on Innovative Mobile Money Regulation and Use in sub-Saharan Africa
(2023-01-21) Walcott, Rebecca; Gugerty, Mary Kay; Anderson, Leigh
Globally, about 24% of adults lack access to a basic account that can safely store and transfer money. The majority of these adults live in low and middle income countries; many are poor and many are women. Financial exclusion is especially widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly half of all adults do not have a bank account (Demirguc-Kunt et al., 2018). Advances in digital financial technology, especially through the proliferation of mobile money, offer a new way to extend financial services to populations who do not have access to the formal financial sector. Mobile money technology provides users with a convenient way to send and receive payments, such as domestic remittances, as well as a mechanism to safely and privately store money. Mobile money is accessible for anyone with a mobile phone and SMS network connectivity (smartphone and internet access are not required). Existing research reveals promising improvements in financial inclusion outcomes and welfare benefits (Jack & Suri, 2014; Nanda & Kaur, 2016; Bahia et al., 2020), but mobile money innovations currently outpace the academic literature. In Chapter 1, I examine one such innovation: a 2014 Bank of Tanzania policy mandating the distribution of interest to mobile wallet account balances. I exploit the differences in interest allocation methods of different mobile money providers in Tanzania to conduct a difference-in-differences analysis of the effect of a specific savings incentive on mobile savings behavior. I find a consistent and positive effect of the savings incentive; customers under this policy had an 11 percentage point increase in the probability of saving with their mobile wallet. I also show that the mobile savings incentive produced no negative repercussions for bank account ownership, directly addressing concerns from the banking sector that mobile interest is a threat to the formal financial sector. Such findings may be highly relevant to the current policy debates around leveraging mobile money interest provision to increase financial inclusion among the world’s poorest. In Chapter 2, I investigate another mobile money innovation: digital loan repayment for microfinance customers. Existing research is largely focused on the implications of digitization for loan repayment rates and operational efficiency, but this paper uniquely centers the overlooked perspectives of microfinance borrowers. I leverage a mixed-methods approach, including a quantitative discrete choice analysis and a qualitative content analysis of stated preferences, to explore the determinants of demand for a digital repayment option among a group of current microfinance clients in Uganda. I find that borrowers’ comfortability with mobile money, education level, and perceptions of the cost and convenience of digital repayment are important determinants of demand. However, qualitative data reveal heterogeneity in borrowers’ understanding of how digital repayment will impact the microfinance group structure and their future access to credit, which has substantial implications for the uptake of digital repayment. These findings can inform the design of digital microfinance innovations and also contribute to the broader literature around technology adoption by highlighting the importance of qualitative data and user-centered research. In Chapter 3, I focus on the diffusion of mobile money policies. Specifically, I examine the policy convergence around risk-based Know-Your-Customer (KYC) regulation over time in sub-Saharan Africa. Risk-based KYC policies lower barriers to both mobile money provision and access. I ask the research question: What are the internal determinants and external influences associated with the regulator’s decision to adopt internationally recommended KYC policies for mobile money? Using an event history approach, I investigate the relative importance of domestic banking concentration, foreign aid dependence, and participation in the international financial inclusion community on the time-to-implementation of risk-based KYC policies. While domestic pressures from highly concentrated banking sectors may marginally deter risk-based KYC adoption, I find the primary accelerator of risk-based KYC policy adoption to be regional diffusion. Insight into the mechanisms underlying mobile money policy convergence lays the groundwork for future research to facilitate the regulatory components of financial inclusion promotion.
Somaliland and Taiwan, Unrecognized Sovereignty and Patron-Client State Relations
(2022-01-26) Joy, Jennifer; Hoffman, Daniel J; Lin, James
N/A
Huduma Namba: Kenya’s Transformation into an Informational State
(2020-10-26) Nyakundi, Faith Nyaunga; Pekkanen, Saadia M.
In 2019, despite intense domestic public opposition, the Kenyan state established a country-wide digital registration database known as “Huduma Namba” in an effort to improve service provision, weed out fraudulent IDs, and fight against terrorism by Al-Shabaab, According to official government statements. Kenya is not alone in this data consolidation trend; several countries, including India and Turkey, have implemented centralized digital identity registries. Many scholars that have assessed the Huduma Namba implementation have highlighted the data security risks, potential exclusion of part of the population and increased surveillance. However, few have unpacked how the project empowers the state, particularly intelligence and defense apparatus, and ruling political elite. In this paper, I argue that Huduma Namba empowers these entities in the Kenyan government relative to domestic interests. This pursuit of informational power, coupled with aspects of technological determinism, inform Kenya’s transition to becoming an informational state. Using theoretical frameworks on state policy choices, I examine the Huduma Namba case study between 2012 to early 2020 through government and stake-holder publications and websites, news media, and social media. This case proves useful to understanding Kenya’s digital governance and transition into an informational state because it demonstrates how actors in the internal bureaucratic structure have aligned to support the move despite public opinion. Future research would expound on data privacy, security and exclusion.
Speak English: Assessing Tanzanian Rural Opinions of Success on National Exams and Language Comprehension
(2019-08-14) Smith, Dennis; Long, James
This study uses a mixed methods approach to assess the perception of rural students and teachers in order to explain the link between exam success rates and the English only policy. Data was first collected from the NECTA (National Examination Council of Tanzania) website to determine which secondary schools are not performing well on their exams. I used opinion surveys to gather data from rural secondary school students and teachers, matching similar approaches used by scholars who work on the impact on urban schools of government education policy. This research was collected from 4 rural secondary schools, 322 students, and 22 teachers in the Southern Highlands in September 2018. Most intriguingly, responses by subjects related to rural institutions of secondary education, located in the Southern Highlands, demonstrate little to no difference in their opinions about their own level of English language proficiency compared with their urban counterparts, notwithstanding the dramatic degree to which rural students are unsuccessful in their attempt to pass the national exams. This study claims that the apparent cognitive dissonance between subjects’ evaluation of their own abilities and the examination passage rates that call that into question are essential components for deepening our understanding of the difficulties rural Tanzanians face as a result of the government policy.
Picturebooks and the Grammar of Tanzanian National Identity: Sociolinguistic Policy, Collective Transformations and Cultural Production
(2018-07-31) Taylor, Carl Thomas; Porter, Deborah
This thesis uses psychoanalytic theory to decipher the popularity and cultural relevance of locally produced Tanzanian picturebooks. I suggest that picturebooks in Tanzania are intricately linked with Tanzania’s intimacy with Swahili linguistic culture, specifically Bantu Oral Folklore. Previous folklore scholarships argues that folklore performance aesthetics cannot be transmitted to the page. Such scholars have not considered picturebooks in their arguments. Picturebooks keenly utilize the relationship between text and image to produce an unique aesthetic experience. I propose that picturebook aesthetics can capture Bantu Oral folklore performance aesthetics in their text-image relationship. With the work of Christopher Bollas, who argues that aesthetic experience of an object is a function of unconscious existential memories of being transformed, the aesthetic moment of Tanzanian picturebooks can then be traced to a key socio-historical moment in Tanzania when Tanzania attempted to craft a new identity during Ujamaa with Swahili linguistic culture.
Training lay people as first responders to reduce road traffic mortalities and morbidities in Ethiopia: Challenges, barriers and feasible solutions.
(2015-09-29) Abdul-kadir, Mohammed; Curran, Sara
Road traffic accidents (RTAs) have become global public safety and development hindrances, especially in the low and middle income countries, where the rate is significantly higher compared to the industrialized nations. The WHO warns, unless action is taken to improve road safety systems, the number of people killed by car accidents will triple to about thirty six million per year, and "RTA will become the world's third leading cause of premature death by 2020"; overpassing cerebrovascular disease, COPD, diabetes mellitus, premature & low birth weight, neonatal infections, diarrheal disease and even HIV/AIDS and be out ranked only by depression and heart disease". Provided that, one would assume that road traffic accidents, especially in the developing world, would be among the important health burdens worthy of close attention by both international agencies and local governments. But, the effect of trauma and injury, in terms of mortality and long term disability, in the developing countries, is neglected and underfunded due to "emphasis put on malnutrition and communicable diseases". In the absence of outside help, poor countries, especially where the rate is high, need to come up with innovative and cost-effective ways to deal with this rapidly growing burden. In 2004, the WHO published a guideline for interventions designed to train lay people as first responders in trauma situations. The goal of the program is to decrease the likelihood of unnecessary death and injury by minimizing the time elapsed from the onset of the accident to trauma care facility. This program entails contacting and notifying the emergency service and providing facilities about the nature and magnitude of the accident, taking action to secure the scene in order prevent the injured and other onlookers from harm that may be caused by other crashes, organizing people and resources" i.e. divide tasks and delegate people who, manage the crowed (disperse if necessary), confront and console relatives of victims, and those who would apply first aid to the victims and physically transport them to the nearest facility in the absence of ambulance. The initiative has been implemented in some countries such as Ghana, Uganda, Madagascar, Iraq, and India and has proven to be effective. Despite having low vehicle per population density, RTA rates in Ethiopia are rising. Ethiopia is periodically ranked among the countries with the highest per accident death and injury rates. A number of factors contribute to the high number of road traffic accidents in Ethiopia. These factors that can be categorized into 3 main groups: human factors (e.g. disobeying traffic rules), vehicle factors (e.g. driving old and uninspected cars) and environment factors (poor road and other infrastructure conditions, climate and topography etc.). While these are the determinant factors for car accidents in Ethiopia, the factors that lead to high per vehicle cars death and injury in Ethiopia are undeveloped health and emergency care system i.e. inefficient delivery of primary and emergency care, lack of facilities and resources, over loading, lack of adherence to using in vehicle safety equipment, urbanization and high population density. Although the government is working hard to attenuate the problem, it is clear that there is still more that needs to be done. Among the actions the government can take is applying this intervention and train lay people such as onlookers, bystanders, civil servants, police and other traffic coordinators, and taxi, mini- bus and commercial truck drivers. Successful implementation of the process will, however, require removing socio-cultural, economic and political barriers. The barriers identified in this paper are, socio-cultural factors (religion, literacy, lack of confidence by trainees, fear of contracting HIV/AIDS, economic factors (tendency by trainees to charge for their services and thus only help those who can pay), political factors (lack of political commitment by regional and federal government). With these barriers removed, the intervention can contribute to the reduction of per accident mortality and morbidity rate in Ethiopia.
Source Affiliation and Framing of the GMO Debate by East Africa's Nation Media Group
(2014-10-20) Randall, Rebecca; Gardner, Ben
A content analysis of the East African Nation Media Group newspapers' framing of the GMO debate from 2010-2013 adds to the global studies literature on the transatlantic debate on GMOs. The GMO debate has been described as polarized between European and U.S. political approaches and further as influencing the way that Africans respond to this inherited debate. However, newspapers in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have unique approaches to reporting on GMO adoption and regulation that do not ignore transnational influences but does not necessarily correspond with characterizations of an "inherited" debate. In journalists' reporting on GMOs in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, they encounter transnational networks of donors, foundations, governments, researchers, farmers and others spanning from the Global North to East Africa. Each approach is described as benevolent--a panacea for hunger and malnutrition or a preservation of Africa's biodiversity and traditional indigenous agricultural practices. This misses the skewed power balance in these transnational networks, which privilege experiences in the Global North and outline the socioeconomic conditions that have led to poverty in sub-Saharan Africa in the first place. This work describes how journalists at the Nation, the Monitor and the Citizen frame this debate and contributes to understanding how East African journalists deal with transnational forces in their reporting.
The ICC and the Situation in Kenya: Impact and Analysis of the Kenyatta and Ruto/Sang Trials
(2014-10-13) Block, Natalie M.; Lorenz, Frederick M
The ICC and the Situation in Kenya is an in-depth analysis of the patterns and predictions revolving around the criminal cases of President Uhuru Kenyatta, Deputy President William Ruto, and Joshua Arap Sang at the International Criminal Court. Written as a Master's Thesis for the Jackson School of International Studies and the Evans School of Public Affairs, the paper utilizes a combination of policy analysis, program evaluation, and statistical and financial analysis to provide a comprehensive understanding of the Situation. The Kenya Cases represent a critical turning point in the history of international justice. The Situation is a critical turning point because it is the first time that power has been prosecuted by the ICC in which the cases were initiated by the ICC prosecutor, and the first time that such cases have occurred in a country that is considered `stable' and a leader in the region. Two sitting heads of state, whose power has increased instead of waned, are being tried for crimes against humanity in opposition to the wishes of many Security Council members and most in the African Union.
Ghanaian Voices: Examining the Causal Relationship between Entrepreneurship and Women's Empowerment in Ghana
(2014-04-30) Fulp, Colleen F.; Curran, Sara
Ghanaian Voices: Examining the Causal Relationship between Entrepreneurship and Women's Empowerment in Ghana Background: The field of Gender and Development (GAD) has been debating women's empowerment programs for several decades; specifically, are these programs effective, culturally appropriate, sustainable? Global Mamas (GM), an NGO in Ghana, aims to achieve women's empowerment and financial independence by giving small business owners in the textile industry of batik and sewing access to increased income generation or employment opportunities. In June 2012 I traveled to Ghana to investigate how seamstresses and batikers working with Global Mamas experience empowerment, specifically autonomous decision-making and financial independence, and secondly, how effectively the two different types of employment models within Global Mamas programs meet the organization's mission of empowering women. Goals of this project were twofold. First, to elaborate how the term `empowerment' is operationalized in the literature and meaningfully understood in practice and in the field, as academics have not yet agreed on a definition of the term. To do so I drew upon previous work by scholars and practitioners and framed a definition of empowerment with clear empirical counterparts: autonomous decision-making and financial independence. Second, to unpack the causal mechanism between business ownership and empowerment, as defined by drawing on wider literature. Much of the scholarly work and practical programs assume that ownership leads to empowerment, few have questioned this causal direction, but it is not without question that it is possible there is a selectivity bias amongst those who might take the initiative to become `owners.' That is these program participants are already empowered to some extent. This possibility is rarely included in studies and my research design specifically sought to ensure that the full range of causal directions was allowed for. Methods: Twenty qualitative, one-on-one, open-ended interviews were conducted, transcribed, and entered into ATLAS.ti. Individuals represented two types of people: business owners that contract with GM and women that are employed directly with GM through the two different business models of Global Mamas and represent all spectrums of age, education level, work experience level, marital status, and time working with Global Mamas demographics. Three rounds of inductive coding were conducted utilizing ATLAS.ti software. To separate analyses were designed based on the data, the first examined data on the two empirical counterparts of empowerment: autonomous decision -making and financial independence and the second compared the two business models within Global Mamas. Results: I found that owning a small business in Ghana does not lead to empowerment, rather, empowered women decide to open small businesses. In analysis 1, this is exposed through the data in both empirical counterparts of my empowerment definition: autonomous decision-making and financial independence. The first counterpart demonstrated strong data on the goal setting and decision-making capability of the women interviewed in this study, specifically on the ways that women autonomously plan for their businesses, make choices about how and when to work, as well as the ways they set and achieve personal, family and career based goals. The second counterpart, financial independence, is demonstrated in the way that women keep their own bank accounts separate from husbands or family members, choose when and how much to spend or put money into savings. The data on financial choices that women make for their businesses is extremely robust, with nearly all decisions being made independently, despite marital status, education level, or time spent working with Global Mamas. In analysis 2 regarding the NGO Global Mamas, my findings show data that compares the two business models. Business model 1, contracting directly with women business owners, allows women to greatly increase their income thus allowing women the capital to begin a savings account and work toward personal, family and career goals. These women also report happiness at their success with the NGO and plan to utilize their savings to further grow their businesses independently in the future. The women in this business model treat the NGO as a tool to reach their professional goals. However, women in business model 2 have not experienced an increase in wealth generation to date, which is reported as a negative effect of their work with the NGO. They do not see many alternate options for income generation in their area, which has led them to becoming employees of Global Mamas, but the high majority of women stated that they would prefer to be part of business model 1 or working in their own shops. One benefit the women do list from business model 2 is that they receive trade training on site, which will allow them to produce higher quality products in their personal businesses in the future. Conclusion: Global Mamas ought to continue to contract with women small business owners, but should also expand this opportunity to women in the regions where they currently only offer business model 2. If women were able to self select into the business model that best fits their needs, whether flexibility and possibility for increased income (business model 1) or stable income and trade training (business model 2), this NGO would be better achieving their mission of empowering women. As it stands now, Global Mamas is rather offering employment than empowerment activities in the regions where they exclusively offer business model 2. If this is the direction the NGO wishes to continue, it would be best to rework their marketing, recognizing the pre-exisiting empowered decision making status of women in Ghana in the productive work sector and framing their work as employment rather than empowerment. This could be achieved through more rigorous monitoring and evaluation. However, if a re-focus back to women's empowerment programs is the priority of the NGO, this could be achieved by implementing a GAD feminist theoretical model to assess their impact as well as outcomes of business model 2 and design new ways of framing their work.

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