Browsing by Author "Akokpari, John Kwabena"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Feasting on foreign aid : a political economic examination of foreign aid's potential role in perpetuating chronic hunger and starvation in Malawi
    (2015) Knoetze, Christopher; Akokpari, John Kwabena
    Foreign aid to Malawi has the ability to perpetuate the country's fifteen-year long hunger crisis. For millions of Malawians, chronic starvation is attributable to their inability to access food available on internationalised markets. Bilateral foreign aid to the Southern African state is aimed at stimulating development which, if successful, should also lift the country beyond threat of chronic, long-term malnourishment for the poorest of its citizens. Donor's, however, measure developmental aid's success along a narrow set of indicators - such as economic growth - dictating the direction of policy for recipient nations wishing to maintain the inflow of aid. For Malawi, this is all but inevitable as foreign aid accounts for 40% of government revenue. As a result of this dependency on external income, Malawi's government has targeted economic growth in order to maintain its aid support. Economic growth in Malawi has been fuelled by public spending and is unsustainable in the long term. The rapid growth was accompanied by high levels of inflation and the further entrenchment of a perennial trade accounts deficit, leaving the national currency weak. In addition, the majority of public spending reinforces the country's economic identity of an agricultural state, ensuring that 90% of Malawians who rely on agriculture for an income will remain poor due to the imbalance of trade. The indirect perpetuation of an agricultural economy, alongside unsustainable and unstable growth, has led to a situation where most Malawians cannot afford to buy food.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Protectionism and national migration policy in South Africa
    (2015) Boynton, Elspeth Whitney; Akokpari, John Kwabena
    In the past two decades, South Africa has become the "new migration hub" in Africa. The country has witnessed the dramatic rise of people flowing into its borders post-apartheid from the continent and beyond. However, in response to the large influx of migrants (legal and illegal), South Africa has adopted protectionist and nationalistic migration policies, emphasizing border control, rather than migration facilitation or migrant protection. Despite South Africa's post-apartheid commitments to human rights, democracy, and Pan-Africanism, the restrictive nature of these laws has led to the mistreatment and neglect of refugee and asylum seekers, the unlawful detention and deportation of legal in-migrants, and the failure to address societal xenophobia. These policies have also contributed to a severe skills shortage in South Africa, impeding the growth of the South African economy, while also thwarting SADC's ability to govern migration cooperatively in the region. In light of the most recent migration reforms implemented in 2014, instigating more protectionism, this thesis examines and seeks to explain why South Africa has adopted and continues to maintain these policies post-apartheid despite their negative implications and lack of congruence with South Africa's new national identity. The international relations theories of constructivism and neoclassical realism (NCR) are used to understand and explain South Africa's decision to maintain a protectionist migration agenda. Ultimately, the thesis argues that South Africa's reasons for adopting a protectionist migration agenda are numerous and exist at all levels of analysis. These reasons include (1) South Africa's formation of an exclusionary national identity post-apartheid, (2) the persistence of mass legal and illegal in-migration to the country, (3) the institutionalized perception of migration as a threat to national and social security by South African policy-makers/media/community leaders, and (4) the failure of the state to provide adequate social service delivery, impacting the implementation of more liberal policies in the new millennium.