Abstract Amid the incapacitation of state agricultural extension services in Zimbabwe’s Post Fast-Track Farms ( PFTF s), women farmers have turned to Indigenous knowledge systems ( IKS ) as a resource for climate adaptation. This paper documents and theorises women’s responses to climate change across three farms in Zvimba East District, Mashonaland West, from 2020 to 2022, drawing on a mixed-methods study of interviews, focus groups and ethnography. It spans ethnoveterinary herbal medicine, traditional seed selection, well-deepening, seasonal ecological reading and rain-making ceremonies, arguing that IKS in PFTF s is a sophisticated, grounded adaptive knowledge architecture that mainstream climate policy ignores. The paper examines the limits of IKS as ecological baselines shift beyond inherited knowledge and traditional indicators lose predictive validity. Deploying a decolonial feminist epistemology, it advocates for co-productive frameworks integrating IKS with scientific climate data and gender-responsive extension, positioning rural women as knowledge-holders and co-designers of climate adaptation in post land-reform Africa.
Abstract The Economic Community of West African States ( ECOWAS ) has been widely studied for its institutional architecture, peacekeeping record and democratic norms. However, comparatively little scholarship treats member-state withdrawal from the organisation as evidence of deeper structural and legitimacy deficits. This paper examines the Alliance of Sahel States ( AES ), formed by Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger following their withdrawal from ECOWAS , as a critical test of the organisation’s integration model. Drawing on neofunctionalist, intergovernmentalist and post-neofunctionalist theories, the paper argues that the AES is not a geopolitical anomaly but a symptom of long-standing deficits in ECOWAS ’s enforcement capacity, legitimacy and responsiveness to member-state political realities. Using a qualitative, interpretive research design that triangulates academic literature, policy documents and expert reports, the analysis traces the structural, political and legitimacy factors behind the AES ’s formation, examines how it challenges ECOWAS ’s mechanisms for integration and governance, and derives theoretical and practical insights for more context-aware regional integration strategies. The paper reframes state withdrawal as a diagnostic of institutional legitimacy rather than a peripheral disruption.
Abstract This article examines China–Africa economic relations as embodied in technology transfer, using African imports of Chinese high-technology products as a proxy. It argues that technology trade is heterogeneous and distinguishes two streams of manufactured products: electronics and electrical ( MTCE ), and other high-tech products ( MTCO ). Using a gravity model estimated with Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood ( PPML ) on a panel of 53 African economies across five UN regions from 2016 to 2021, it relates imports to partner size, trade frictions and structural conditions (labour supply, productivity, resource rents and the development gap vis-à-vis China). Gravity drivers remain important, but their significance and magnitude differ sharply by stream and region: distance is negative for MTCO yet positive for MTCE , while GDP and structural controls display stream-specific and region-specific effects. The results imply that aggregate high-tech import measures only partially capture technology transfer dynamics and that “technology” enters African economies through distinct trade channels with different implications for upgrading and dependency.
Abstract Since the 1960s, West African leaders have viewed regional integration as a vehicle for economic growth and subcontinental development. However, more than six decades later, integration has yielded marginal returns. Democratic governance and regional integration have been examined as separate contributors to security outcomes, but how the two interact to shape a specific country’s security exposure has rarely been tested. As West Africa’s most populous country and largest economy, Nigeria’s national security is directly threatened by the region’s institutional fragmentation. Drawing on expert interviews and a survey, and grounded in assemblage theory and general systems theory, this study shows that perceived democratic governance quality and regional integration effectiveness are significantly correlated with Nigeria’s perceived security exposure, with regional integration indicating the stronger association. It argues that governance and integration are interacting subsystems and that Nigeria’s security depends jointly on the durability of its own democratic institutions and ECOWAS ’s capacity to consistently enforce governance norms across the subregion.
Abstract Soldiers’ mutinies have undermined Nigeria’s counterterrorism efforts in the Northeast Region, despite repeated military denials of this. Although research on Nigeria’s counterterrorism operations is extensive, studies on the causes (poor welfare, inadequate weapons, sabotage) and effects (low morale, loss of territory, breakdown of command) of these mutinies remain limited. In particular, the implications of mutinies for national security, especially at the operational and tactical levels, have received little scholarly attention. By adopting a state-centric view of national security and drawing on secondary sources and key informant interviews, this study shows that frequent soldiers’ mutinies in the theatre of war have broad implications for Nigeria’s counterterrorism efforts and pose serious threats to national security. The study recommends genuine and concerted efforts in addressing soldiers’ grievances and complaints.
