This year’s Africa Day 25 May is the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). It was replaced in 2002 by the African Union (AU).

The OAU was best known for its long and finally victorious decolonization struggle and the often problematic defence of African sovereignty and support for liberation struggle leaders.

The OAU was also important in achieving consensus around a set of core principles and norms governing a pan-African political order favouring sovereign equality and non-interference.

For the AU, improving the record on governance and human rights will become more important, as will policy action on youth unemployment, economic development, food security, and other areas.

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How much aid does China give Africa? Does it complement or undermine the aid from the United States and other Western donors? China releases little information and outside estimates vary widely.

A novel approach to studying Chinese aid flows relies on a database drawing upon thousands of news reports on Chinese-backed projects in Africa from 2000 to 2011.

We, the co-authors, are not claiming that the database is fully comprehensive. We understand that some projects may not get picked up by the media.

Further analysis of the media reports of Chinese-backed projects may eventually yield insights into the extent Chinese assistance to the region is focused on natural resource extraction, and whether Chinese activities complement or compete with assistance from other donors.

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For this academic and activist, no political issue has caused as much sustained frustration, anger, and emotional upheaval as the crisis of sexual violence and rape in Nigeria.

Anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification. And there are many reasons to be angry.

Until all women in Nigeria are granted the human right to determine their sexual and bodily autonomy, I remain angry and committed to the eradication of this social plague.

Our government’s silence and failures on this issue, despite many reports about its existence, speak to the state’s complicity in the continued sexual oppression of women.

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The recollections of a young MSF doctor provide a refreshing take on the humanitarian aid worker experience. Brown is a candid author who unpicks the fragile emotions surrounding his work in Africa.

This searingly honest and funny personal account of his work in Angola, Mozambique and Sudan charts the emotional highs and lows of helping those in need in isolated and under-equipped conditions.

Although he suffers a painful breakdown and ends his work with MSF, Brown emerges from his experiences surprisingly optimistic, and there is a positive tone throughout the book.

By working on a medical frontline, Brown is engaging in ‘a bed for the night’ humanitarianism – immediate interventions that can save lives but the patients may remain as vulnerable as before.

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The government has signalled reconciliatory tones towards the opposition, calling for national political dialogue. If this is a genuine wish to open the public sphere, or political rhetoric intended to prolong the lifespan of the government remains to be seen.

Some political prisoners were released. The government invited the opposition to take active part in the on-going constitution drafting process, which is mired in conflicts over the role of religion.

The new policy to engage armed groups in dialogue could open the possibility for the umbrella coalition of opposition, the National Consensus Forces, to face the government in unison.

The move of the government is perceived by the opposition as political rhetoric. Observers however detect a genuine will from the government to open the political space for the opposition.

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The assumptions and ideas that drive development policy are never static, but the rise of non-traditional donors and non-Western economic powers has accelerated the pace of change in recent years.

Many of the current trends in African development stem from East Asia. Dams, highways and other works of civil engineering are being built on a large scale and at a fast clip across the continent.

Some of this is due to the rapid influx of Chinese money and labour into these countries’ construction sectors but China’s own experience has had at least as much of an impact.

High-tech and technological solutions are making their way into every policy sector, but their influence is particularly noticeable in three areas: education, agriculture and political leaderships.

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Northern Mali has been in the hands of armed Salafist forces for a year, but it has not yet become another ‘Afghanistan’. These ‘al-Qaeda’ forces are of a different origin and nature.

The danger is, however, that if the international response to Mali is too heavy-handed, it may create a dynamic that pushes the conflict into a similar pattern like the one in Afghanistan.

With African countries leading the international intervention the ‘war on terror’ rhetoric may be avoided, but the composition of the ECOWAS troops has certain drawbacks.

There is a risk that this international intervention may repeat several of the early mistakes made in Afghanistan as well as in West African countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone.

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Africa has robust growth, and the region’s economic prospects remain good. GDP per capita has expanded at 2.4 percent per year, good for an average increase in GDP per capita of 50 percent since 1996.

But the averages also hide a substantial degree of variation. For example, GDP per capita in resource-rich countries grew 2.2 times faster during 1996-2011 than in resource-poor countries.

Despite the better growth performance, poverty declined substantially less in resource-rich countries. Fast growth has also been recorded in resource-poor countries such as Rwanda, Ethiopia and Mozambique.

Most importantly, the youth bulge will need to be absorbed in productive jobs. Migration out of agriculture into the rural nonfarm economy and secondary towns appears more conducive to faster poverty reduction.

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Recent years have seen a growing interest on taxation in developing countries among aid agencies. This reflects a concern for raising domestic revenues to finance public goods and services.

It also represents a recognition of the centrality of taxation for growth and redistribution. However, efforts to broaden the tax base are intimately connected to the quality of government expenditure.

Aid to taxation can be grouped into three broad working areas: (1) strengthen tax policy and design; (2) build more effective tax administrations; and (3) encourage constructive state-society engagement around taxes.

This article discusses experiences with donor support to strengthen tax systems in developing countries and challenges in scaling up donor efforts, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

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Does organizing groups of rural women producers contribute to empowerment as well as increasing their incomes? Yes, it can be a step towards increased empowerment under the right conditions.

Women rarely have equal say in or leadership of mixed groups, while women-only groups may face challenges with business viability. Empowerment was greater when women participate in informal as well as formal groups.

Learning from experience, development actors need to adopt flexible approaches to supporting collective action, taking the wider context into account, and supporting women’s own initiatives.

We also need to pay more attention to the policy environment, setting explicit targets to address women’s participation and leadership, and protecting the space for informal association.

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