Lesotho beyond the elections
Abstract This article examines the mammoth political challenge facing the Basutoland Congress Party‐led government in Lesotho, assessing in particular the regime's capacity to deliver on its key election promises. Thus the main argument is that Lesotho's newly won democracy will mean little or nothing to the people of Lesotho unless it can address their future as a nation within a politically transformed South Africa and their country's seething economic, political and social problems, namely the deepening joblessness, falling agricultural production coupled with malnutrition, stagnant industrial growth, declining living standards, especially among the poorer sections of the population, recurrent political instability and the increasingly inadequate health and education facilities.
A chief by the people: nation versus state in Lesotho
The article explores the conflictual relationship among the Basotho chieftaincy, state, and nation in historical perspective. That history includes consideration of the recent and still unresolved political crisis in Lesotho. The current meaning of Sesotho, the ‘whole life process’ of the Basotho people, is examined in the context of the divergence between state and nation, between chiefs and people, between region and locality, and between modern and customary institutions and forms of organisation. Lesotho is unusual in Africa as a state attempting to emerge from an existing, monocultural nation rather than to build a not yet existing nation out of cultural plurality. It is this very peculiarity, and the state of seemingly endless political turmoil despite the absence of any ‘ethnic factor’ which provides the most telling commentary on more general relations between cultural and historical forms of political organisation in Africa. Résumé Cet article explore les relations discordantes parmi les chefs du Basotho, l'Etat, et la nation, d'une perspective historique. Cet histoire comprend la considération de la crise politique récente et toujours irrésolue au Lésotho. Le sens actuel de Sesotho, le ‘processus entire de vie’ du peuple Basotho, est examiné dans le contexte de la divergence entre l'Etat et la nation, entre les chefs et le peuple, entre la région et la localité, et entre les institutions et les formes d'organisation modernes et coutumières. Le Lésotho est inhabituel en Afrique en tant qu'Etat essayant d'émerger d'une nation jusqu'à présent monoculturelle au lieu de construire une nation, jusqu'à présent inexistante, à partir d'une pluralité culturelle. C'est cette particularité même et l'apparence d'être dans un conflit politique perpétuel malgré l'absence de ‘facteurs ethniques’, qui fournit le commentaire le plus révélateur sur les relations plus générales entre les formes culturelles et historiques d'organisation politique en Afrique.
Food Aid and the Developing World: Four African Case Studies
Part I: Introduction 1. Whys and Wherefores 2. The Donors 3. The Recipients Part II: The Uses of Food Aid 4. Food for Cash 5. Food for Nutrition 6. Food for Wages Part III: The Impact of Food Aid 7. The Impact of Food Aid on Nutrition 8. Consumer Prices 9. Food Aid and Agricultural Production 10: Food Aid: A Curate's Egg