My thesis explores the issue of coexistence and reconciliation after mass violence. For my fieldwork, I chose the specific case of Sierra Leone focusing on the status of integration of former Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels into civilian life. The overarching research question guiding my fieldwork was: In what ways do notions of reconciliation, forgiveness, justice, revenge and punishment intersect with the integration process at the community level? I broke this broad question down into the following four research dimensions: (1) What are the perceptions of the community vis-à-vis the ex-combatants? And vice-versa?; (2) What are the expectations of the community vis-à-vis the ex-combatants? And vice-versa?; (3) How does the community interact with the ex-combatants? And vice-versa?; and (4) What does reconciliation mean in post- conflict Sierra Leone? What conciliatory needs do people have today? Which paths are chosen to achieve reconciliation?
To explore this issue, I conducted interviews using three sets of interview questions: one directed at so-called gatekeepers (donors/NGOs, traditional leaders, the police, clergy, the army and youth organizations); one directed at community members (defined as those who were not an active part of any fighting force during the war); and one directed at former combatants (mainly former RUF rebels but I also recorded a few fighters from the other factions).
I conducted a total of 72 interviews during my 9-week stay; 57 as individual interviews; 6 as tandem interviews where I questioned 2 respondents; and 9 as group interviews. The smallest group comprised of 3 people, the largest of 12. I recorded the answers of a total of 120 respondents.
The interviews were held in three different locations, the capital Freetown, two Southeastern towns (Kenema and Tongofields) and two Northern towns (Makeni and Magburaka) to reflect three different stages and intensity levels of the war. At the majority of interviews my research assistant, Lansana Juana, was present, translating from Krio, Mende or Temne into English. I spent a large amount of the OReNGA stipend to cover the salary of Mr. Juana. I used the remainder of the OReNGA funds to cover costs for accommodation in Freetown and Makeni.
Daring a very preliminary interpretation of my data, my findings suggest that the overwhelming majority of former RUF rebels live peacefully within their community of residence. This remarkable integration success was enabled by a population thoroughly fed-up with the 10-year civil war and desperately longing for “normality”. A common answer I recorded was that “coexistence is the price we pay for peace”. Peaceful coexistence, therefore, seems to rest on a rational decision rather than an emotional one. However, latent discontent with ex-combatant neighbors remains and surfaces during fights between men and gossip between women.
My fieldwork was conducted during the presidential and parliamentary elections, which were surrounded by considerable tensions and sporadic outbreaks of violence. While overall a hindrance to my fieldwork, the tense atmosphere lead to increased worries about the abuse of former combatants as bodyguards to all major political candidates and a heightened awareness of the pool of currently largely unemployed former combatants who can be recruited as trouble makers, showing me more clearly the deficits still surrounding reintegration.
With the full analysis of my data, I hope to support OReNGA’s research program by shedding light on which factors have led to the amazing success of peacebuilding and reintegration of former combatants into civilian life, while examining closely which conciliatory needs Sierra Leoneans still have. A thorough understanding of these issues will allow a better understanding of the prospects for recovery and peace as well as for stable economic and democratic development of post-conflict countries more generally.
Johanna Boersch-Supan
St Cross College
From 26 to 28 November 2007, I participated in the conference on ‘Pursuing
Security in Africa: The State of Research and Practice on Arms Control
and Armed Violence Reduction in Africa’, organised by the Arms Management
Programme of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), in Cape Town, South
Africa. The conference sought to bring together a diverse group of international
and local scholars and practitioners to examine the state of research on
arms control and armed violence reduction in Africa, as well as to evaluate
the effectiveness of practical measures implemented on the ground. Over
30 papers were presented at panels that examined the state of research
and research methods, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration and
post-conflict peacebuilding, arms transfer controls at the international
and national levels, and weapons of mass destruction in Africa.
I presented a paper on ‘The Dilemmas of Control: Assessing Small Arms and Light Weapons Control Initiatives in West Africa’, which evaluates whether the process of implementation of the provisions of the control agreements contributed to desirable outcomes in altering attitudes, shifting national priorities, deepening commitments or changing the behaviour of actors (state and non-state actors) in West Africa. This paper was drawn from parts of a chapter I have been developing for my dissertation. The feedback was encouraging, particularly from policy-makers who worked directly on small arms issues in West Africa with access to up-to date information on the ground. Attending this conference also provided me with the opportunity to discuss, refine and clarify other aspects of my paper with scholars working on similar issues in Africa.
This conference contributes to the overall research focus of OReNGA, since the proliferation and diffusion of small arms and light weapons (SALW) has dire consequences for the process of democratization and fostering secure livelihoods in Africa. Both high-intensity and low-intensity armed conflicts in Africa placed weapons in the hands of non-state and state, legitimate and illegitimate, democratic and non-democratic forces. Moreover, the deregulation of financial transactions since the post-Cold War has rendered the financing of war and the flow of SALW practically exempt from national or international governance. Globalization has contributed to a reduction of restrictions on the international movement of virtually all goods and services. Accordingly, arms brokers and transport agents have been able to take advantage of poorly developed national and international legal regulations on arms sales and transport, as well as weak enforcement of existing rules governing such transactions, to locate cheap SALW and arrange shipments through circuitous international routes that virtually ensure unhindered delivery and unimpeded profit-making. In floundering democracies, the accumulation and diffusion of SALW pose a major threat to the transition to representative governance, as well as to sustainable security. Civilians have been also vulnerable to both a predatory state and ruthless non-state actors, and pushed into the middle of a battle for power and, ultimately more weapons. All in all, there has been a definite need to examine the state of arms control in Africa and to evaluate whether the control mechanisms put in place have been effective. As long as the SALW pipelines remain open, the prospects for peaceful conflict management, reigning in crime and promoting human rights will continue to be undermined.
The convenors of this conference intend to produce a final report summarizing the proceeding of the conference in early 2008, as well as a special edited publication of the papers submitted.
Finally, I would like to take the opportunity thank OReNGA and the Finance Committee for their generous support and assistance for making this trip to the conference possible.
Patty Chang
St Antony's College
Funding for research in the private archives of a family of Indian origin in Nairobi and participation in the conference 'Celebrating Memories and Visual Cultures' in Zanzibar, 25 June to 10 July 2007. The funds granted by OReNGA were used for accommodation costs and a daily allowance during the field and conference trip. Travel costs were financed by another funding body.
The private family archives in Nairobi contain fascinating material dealing with social, political and cultural aspects of Goan community life in Nairobi and surroundings in the 1950s to the 1980s. The material shows that the community faced a number of issues connected with citizenship, work permits, voting rights etc during the nationalist movement in Kenya. The question of citizenship proved to be a crucial matter. Goans had to decide whether to apply for a Kenyan or a British protected passport, but since Goa became part of the Indian Union in late 1961, some Goans opted for an Indian passport.
The programme of the conference 'Celebrating Memories and Visual Cultures' in Zanzibar concerned the following topics: Zanzibari citizenship, memories of the revolution, youth and nostalgia. Participating in the conference proved to be a highly rewarding experience. Due to time constraints I was not able to present my paper on Goan photography, but the paper itself is scheduled to appear in a later volume of the Zanzibar International Film Festival Journal.
Margret Frenz
St Cross College
OReNGA aims to encourage research into citizenship, identity and democracy in Africa. The Second European Conference on African Studies, which I attended thanks to OReNGA support, featured over ninety panel presentations on an expansive variety of African subjects. I attended panels which ranged in focus from post-Apartheid ethnographies of the South African transition, to theological responses to HIV/AIDS, and mobility and technology in Africa. My own panel: ‘Visualising Africa: from there to here, between now and then’, included papers on the illuminating ‘old African’ picture collection of the Frobenius Institute in Germany, the works of Cameroonian portrait photographers, and the Western European media’s visualisation and appropriation of the Suri people of Ethiopia. My presentation on the connections between the anti-Apartheid movement and HIV-treatment access movement in South Africa, with a primary focus on the colourful and galvanizing strategies of the television programme ‘Beat It’, ceded numerous questions and suggestions regarding my wider research project. The rest of the time at the conference allowed me to talk to other graduate students from Africa and Europe, and to some of South Africa’s most prolific academics, whose writings have greatly influenced and informed by work. I would like to thank OReNGA for this enriching opportunity.
Rebecca Hodes
Balliol College
Background to the Case Studies
i. Case Study One: The Northern Region,
Ghana
In the period between 1980
and 1995 the Northern Region of Ghana experienced a little-known
series of inter-ethnic conflicts, culminating in the devastating
1994-1995 conflict often referred to as the Guinea Fowl War, in which
at least two thousand people lost their lives. Simultaneously with
the wars
NGOs active in the area, including the Red Cross, Oxfam, Action Aid,
the Catholic Relief Service and World Vision, launched their relief
efforts. During the largest conflict, in April 1994, the NGOs decided
to co-ordinate
and formed an umbrella organisation, the Inter-NGO Consortium. This
organisation
gradually shifted from providing immediate relief to reconciliatory
rehabilitation projects and eventually organised an alternative peace
process. The Inter-NGO Consortium requested the assistance of a conflict
resolution NGO, the Nairobi Peace Initiative (NPI). The NPI built on the
trust
of the warring factions gained through the relief effort to arranged
a series
of workshops bringing together ‘voices of reason’, people of
high standing with links with the other groups, to discuss the issues
in a calm environment. The workshops were gradually expanded to include
a
wide range of influential ethnic leaders, including chiefs and youth
association representatives, and culminated in the signing of the 1996
Kumasi Peace
Accord.
ii. Case Study Two: Sierra Leone
During the same period Sierra Leone was
experiencing the first phases of its brutal civil war, initiated
by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
in 1991. The London-based NGO International Alert (IA) sought to
assist a rapid negotiated settlement by bringing the RUF to the table
through the use of the personal contacts of its staff and a number
of dedicated
missions. Though these efforts the RUF was shown to be a political
organisation
with which it was possible to negotiate, in a climate of rumours
and fears. However, when the 1996 peace process at which IA assisted
broke down recriminations
abounded and the IA withdrew.
Public debate was heated as to whether the NGO had improved or
worsened the situation, playing into the debate about the role of
NGOs in conflict-resolution more widely – whether this was a suitable
field for NGOs to engage in. My research focuses on this debate from the
perspective of development studies – should development practitioners
leave conflict-resolution to the military, diplomats and politicians
or should they engage? When they engage what are the consequences, and
how
are the political dynamics that they intervene in altered by actors
motivated by a development ethos?
Fieldwork
Building on fieldwork conducted in 2005 and 2006, my two fieldwork
trips this summer sought to gather a large amount of robust data on the
dynamics
of NGO mediated conflict-resolution and on the perceptions of a wide
range of stake-holders of their appropriate role in situations of conflict.
In
cooperation with a partner NGO, the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding
and through seed funding obtained from G-RAP (the Ghana Research
and Advocacy Planning), technical assistance from CRISE (the Centre for
Research on
Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity) as well as OReNGA funding
I arranged a two-day review consultation on the Ghanaian peace process,
inviting all
the past participants as well as current community leaders.
Having assembled and trained a team of experienced interviewers from the local area we then collected and transcribed 35 high quality semi-structured interviews on the dynamics of the conflict and the peace process, as well as perceptions of NGOs and other key actors, and of the individuals and initiatives most effective in building peace. This was done in parallel with the review consultation, where individuals and delegations were able to deliberate on security development and propose future directions.
A Renewed Commitment to the Peace Accord of 1996 was worked out through an interactive participatory process and was seen by the delegates as a positive development in its own right. Following my three weeks in Ghana preparing and implementing the review consultation and gathering additional documents and material, I returned to England to prepare for my second fieldwork stint, this time in Sierra Leone.
The Sierra Leone fieldwork had to be meticulously planned as it coincided with the postponed national elections, which brought to the surface many of the tensions that had motived the civil war and that still remained unsolved. I had arranged meetings with a number of politicians, academics, NGO workers and other key actors whose perspectives were a vital supplement to the opinions of the international organisation and NGO employees that I had previously interviewed in the UK.
Despite the tense atmosphere I was able to interview the former military Presidents of the early 1990s, Valentine Strasser and Maada Bio, as well as former combattants and civilians now engaged in peacebuilding projects in Bo and Kenema. I was also able to interview Deen-Jalloh, the former RUF intellectual who authored their manifesto and partook in the peace negotiations, and collect the perceptions of current civil society leaders and government and UN officials. In total I conducted 24 formal interviews as well as collecting a number of documents. I also had a chance to experience Sierra Leonean culture and society and I was warmed by the friendliness and openness of its people.
Summary
Through the collection of in-depth interviews with key actors as
well as primary documents this fieldwork has provided a broad empirical
base
for research on the role of conflict-resolution NGOs in West African
peace processes, as well as the wider implications of these organisations
for
local and international politics and the discipline of development
studies.
Julia Jönsson
St Antony's College
The last two decades have witnessed substantial change in the formal institutions established for water governance in southern Africa. As democratization and desecuritization give way to new strategic priorities in the region, efforts to decentralize water management upwards to the regional level and downwards to the community level are underway. To date, the existence of institutions for joint management of internationally shared water resources has been widely documented as positive. However, the extent to which existing treaties, international commissions or joint projects in the region actually produce the range of potential benefits has been largely overlooked. As a result, the mere existence of cooperative arrangements in southern Africa is celebrated as a sign of progress, with little or no interrogation of the historical context of regime formation or the process and impact of implementation.
My research aims to address this gap by extending the scope of analysis beyond the text of water treaties to the dynamic political processes of negotiation, implementation and reception which precede and follow the articulation of formal and informal agreements. The interdisciplinary research explores the power asymmetries and political processes underpinning trans-boundary water cooperation in Southern Africa and examines the different actors, rules and routines which work together to define priorities, establish norms, and create and transform institutions for joint water governance. Drawing on cross-country comparisons between Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, the aim is to develop a deeper understanding of the distribution of benefits and burdens derived from transboundary water cooperation in the Orange-Senqu River basin, to illuminate the factors which facilitate and hinder effective collaboration.
This analysis of institutional evolution and effectiveness in the basin requires extensive fieldwork in the four basin States to conduct in-depth interviews, access data, analyze archived documents and observe joint meetings and basin summits. OReNGA funds were used to support travel from London to South Africa in order to conduct during the second phase of fieldwork in the basin. Since returning to the region in September, I have conducted interviews with government officials, academics, NGO representatives and international donors in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. I have also made use of documentation centres and archive repositories in Gaborone, Windhoek and Pretoria and was able to attend a three-day workshop for basin commissioners and international donors. The interviews, archives and participant observations obtained during this period of field research have provided critical information for understanding the historical context and political processes which shaped the emergence, evolution and impacts of international institutions for water management in the region.
The fieldwork has also provided me with opportunities to build valuable research networks with institutions and individuals in southern Africa. Throughout the fieldwork period I have been housed as a ‘Visiting Scientist’ at the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria. This has provided opportunities for rich collaboration with colleagues in the division of natural resources and environment as well as with the directors of the African Centre for Water Research (ACWR) in Cape Town. Additionally, in October I presented some preliminary findings from my research at a regional water conference in Lusaka, Zambia and received valuable feedback from policy makers, academics, and NGO representatives based throughout the continent.
I will remain in the region until early March and plan to return to Lesotho in February for additional interviews.
Elizabeth Kistin
St John's College
I attended the AEGIS Conference in Leiden from 11-14 July 2007. Due to all accommodation being fully booked in Leiden I stayed in Amsterdam and caught the train through each day.
I found many of the papers at the conference worthwhile, although it was unfortunate that in the finalised programme many of the papers on South Africa clashed with my own presentation at 9:30 am on the Saturday morning. An especially interesting southern Africa panel that I was able to attend aimed to reassess some aspects of liberation in Southern Africa, and included interesting papers on Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola-Cuba relations. Another South African panel focused on post-apartheid ethnographies of various kinds. Other papers of interest to me which I attended dealt more generally with popular culture and media in research, education in Africa (with a paper looking at South Africa) and boundaries. In general I found the conference interesting and a good chance to make some new connections with academics in similar fields.
My own presentation on the final day went well and I received some useful feedback. The panel was very interesting but the clash with other South Africa papers at the same time did unfortunately lead to lower attendance than was hoped. This limited the discussion and number of questions.
Genevieve Klein
St Antony’s College and History Faculty
I travelled to New York on November 18th and returned on November 21 in time for tutorials on Monday.
On Friday, I presented my paper at 8am on contemporary politics in Mozambique on a panel entitled “Economic Reform, Political Pitfalls, and Democratization” (panel V- L61). The panel was chaired by Richard Sandbrook from the University of Toronto. The panel was excellent, diverse, with a high and critical audience (37 persons at its highest).
Overall, aside my own presentation, I attended another three panels: on Nationalism, on Lusophone Africa, and on Medicine and Colonialism. On the Friday evening, I attended the Oxford African Studies cocktail where OReNGA was represented and OReNGA pamphlets were circulated.
At the level of organisation, I attended the Lusophone African Association
(LASO) meeting on Saturday night (of which I am a member) and
intended to attend the founding meeting of the Central African Association
(CASA), but I could not make the latter though I shall be a member
all the same.
During my two days in New York, I also met with Brill Publisher (Leiden) and Karthala (Paris, France) with whom I discussed journals and book publishing. I was meant to also have a meeting with Palgrave Macmillan, but the lady with whom I had an appointment did not turn up.
To conclude this report, I would like to thank OReNGA and all those involved in the management of this grant for this unique opportunity to go to New York at the African Studies Meeting.
Eric Morier-Genoud
Thomas L Hodgkin Research Fellow, Department of Politics and
International Relations
(1) Research Summary
Coalitions have become the main instrument by
which developing countries have sought to engage in multilateral trade
negotiations. African countries
though face certain difficulties in creating and sustaining cohesive
forms of collective action due to their particular vulnerabilities
and structural weaknesses. Yet in the late 1990s African countries
formed a coalition in the WTO, the African Group, which has been
active in negotiations for over a decade. Critical academic analysis
of coalition
building and of African participation in the WTO is limited.
My main research questions are thus concerned with examining the phenomenon
that is the African Group: why was the Group formed; why has
it been
able to sustain cooperation in trade negotiations; how, and to
what extent, has it overcome problems of collective action?
(2) Grant used for Fieldwork
Travel and fieldwork to conduct interviews
in Geneva (4 June – 10
October 2007)
The grant was used to help fund my fieldwork in Geneva, the site of the WTO Secretariat and ongoing multilateral trade negotiations. While Geneva I conducted over 150 interviews with trade delegates from African countries, members of the WTO Secretariat and other inter-governmental organisations, including UNCTAD, the South Centre and the UNDP. These interviews provided crucial primary material on the perceptions and assumptions on which the African Group operates, and the extent to which international institutions facilitate or obstruct these efforts at collective action.
During my stay in Geneva, I was also given access to the WTO Secretariat archives. For the first time, I was able to analyse primary documents on the frequency of coalition meetings, leaders of coalition groupings and technical assistance programmes devoted to support regional groupings. These materials helped illustrate the evolution and gradual institutionalisation of coalitions formed by African countries.
I also conducted extensive interviews with representatives from transnational NGOs and civil society movements, including Oxfam, the Third World Network, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and MSF. These discussions provided important insights on the role external actors play in framing, sustaining and shaping African participation in negotiations through the provision of analytical support, research and public advocacy. While I had originally intended to be in Geneva until the 3 August, the WTO Secretariat kindly allowed me to use their library and archives for longer. Hence, I decided to stay in Geneva until the middle of October to make use of this opportunity.
(3) Contribution to OReNGA’s Research Programme
My fieldwork
has provided me with the primary evidence required to understand the
collective basis on which African countries engage in
the WTO. One of OReNGA’s core objectives is to support innovative
research on the politics and modern history of Africa. The information
I have gathered will allow me to document the distinctive experiences
African countries face in the governance of the global trading system,
a largely neglected area in the scholarship on international institutions
and trade. The variety of research methods I have used and my attempts
to draw on politics, history and international relations, will also
provide an important contribution to OReNGA’s aim of advancing
the use of different disciplines in the scholarship on African
politics.
Mayur Patel
New College
On September 19, 2007 I participated in the conference on ‘Challenges of Social and Economic Research in Today’s Mozambique’, organized by a new research institution called Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Economicos (Institute for Social and Economic Studies), recently founded by a group of academics, with the aim to promote rigorous and policy-relevant research on a number of issues crucial for Mozambique’s development. During the full-day conference there were more than 50 papers presented, on panels dealing with macroeconomic issues, rural development and poverty, regional topics and governance and participation, along with plenary discussions on present challenges for research in Mozambique.
I presented a paper on ‘Budget reforms in Mozambique: Towards a political economy approach’, which contained new data on the evolution of budget systems and reforms in Mozambique since 2001, and some ideas on how to promote a political economy analysis of reform processes, which I would like to develop as part of my fieldwork during 2008. The paper was well received, with some encouraging comments and a few requests for clarification.
Overall, the event was very successful and well attended. It was very
encouraging to see many young Mozambicans presenting good quality work
using a range of different approaches and methodologies.
IESE is an interesting institution that OReNGA should consider
developing strategic partnerships with.
I am very grateful for the support provided.
Paolo de Renzio
University College
Having attended the previous conference (but not presented) I found this a much richer experience. The panel I presented at was entitled Political Economies of Displacement in Southern Africa, and the presenters provided different perspectives and case studies on the topic, as well as proposals for theoretical approaches. I found it extremely useful. The feedback and questions I got after my own presentations made me think of a number of important issues, and redirect some aspects of my paper. As I was about to go for a shorter stint of fieldwork during the summer, this was also an opportunity to discuss it and refine what I needed and wanted from my time in Mozambique. Being able to present my work always allows me to think about it in different ways, and the feedback is very important in this respect.
Being present at this type of conference also makes it easier to meet others working on related fields, and in my case, this means meeting a larger number of people working on Portuguese-speaking Africa. It always makes for a very interesting exchange, and provides a good perspective on what is being done in the field. Also relevant is the fact that due to the multidisciplinary character of the event the perspectives one gathers are very different and thought-provoking, leading to new ideas, and this is very important for the stage I am in at the moment: the writing-up phase.
I attended a number of panels - although not as many as I would have liked because some were held at the same time - on topics that were either closely related to my work such as the panel convened by Paul Nugent (Borderland identities and bureaucratic practices: emerging cross-disciplinary perspectives), but also others on the state (Theorizing African state trajectories), and other issues, as I find it important to go out of our own field and see different ways of approaching research and the diverse topics being addressed.
It was a very useful and enriching experience, thought-provoking and the contacts made and conversations that I had during those few days were important and helped me think about my own work in different ways.
Ana Margarida Santos
St Antony's College
My eight-week fieldtrip to Tanzania was part of my MPhil thesis on ‘Agricultural Policy Reforms and Grain Markets in Tanzania’. The field trip was required for data collection and interview with official for studying the grain markets and related policy on ground. The framework for study was derived from political analysis of market and applied using fairly rapid fieldwork methods. The secondary data collection and conducting interviews was very significant part of my research as it also formed the basis for analysis of institutional change under liberalisation in agriculture and marketing sector in Tanzania. During field trip, I surveyed grain markets in two cities, Dar-es-Salaam, a large city in the big deficit area for maize and rice, and Mwanza, a smaller town in large rice surplus area but deficit area for maize.
I. Fieldworks’ Contribution to the OReNGA’s Research Programme.
My
study focused on how liberalisation policy and reforms processes in
late 1980s have impacted the market institutions and grain trading
pattern in Tanzania at local level. There was major gap in research
on grain markets as most of the studies in recent times in crop sector
of Tanzania concentrated on issues related to export crops such as
coffee, cotton and cashew nut. I am sure that if I can come up with
a paper out of my MPhil thesis, it will reduce the gap. The fieldworks’ contribution
is very significant in the analysis of political economy of grain markets
of a food-deficit country in Sub-Sahara Africa, the central theme of
my fieldwork. It clearly fits with the OReNGA’s research programmes’ broader
objective of co-ordinating and facilitating research on the politics
and modern history of government in Africa as it looked at the role
of state i.e. market regulation and direct participation in food sector
from historical perspectives, especially last two decades. Besides
this, the supply and demand complexes of grains in local markets and
how it relates to politics of association and social embededness also
formed part of my fieldwork.
It was very useful field trip as I was able to interview 13 wholesale traders, 5 retailers and 5 grain millers in three different grain markets of Dar-es-salaam and Mwanza along with officials from ministries of agriculture, food security, trade and marketing; chamber of commerce, industry and agriculture; traders and market association; district agricultural office and city council office etc. I was also successful in collecting the latest documents such as ‘agriculture marketing policy draft-2007’, ‘national sample census of agriculture’, and ‘agriculture sector development strategy’ among few major ones. The wholesale price data for grains in last three years and time-series data for crop production and yield in two case-study regions were also collected. As initial data analysis hints, this data set will generate lots of interesting conclusions about grain sector, food and marketing policy and associated politics in Tanzania. The resulting paper will surely add value to the ongoing OReNGA’s agenda of facilitating research on the politics and government in Africa.
II. Funds Utilisation
The fund were utilised for travel, accommodation and interpretation
in very efficient manner during the fieldwork. The most significant
amount were spent towards travel, visa, and local travel
within Tanzania. I stayed in paying guest
accommodation at
both places, Dar-es-salaam and Mwanza, where another big portion
of funds were utilised. Besides this, funds were also spent
towards language interpreter’s fee as I was not familiar
with Kiswahili language. The OReNGA’s research grants (GBP
500) contributed maximum in bearing fieldtrip expenditure (approximately
GBP 1200). The field trip was also assisted partially by QEH Travel
fund (GBP 150) and Wolfson College Travel Grants (GBP 200) and the
remainder was self-funded.
Kaushal Vidyarthee
Wolfson College