Using a variety of tools from various disciplines, Sustainable Development in Africa examines factors limiting sustainable development in Africa and recommends:

? a more holistic approach to our understanding of the development problems in Africa;

? legitimizing the African state and impowering the citizens as the main agents of sustainable development;

? replacing the exploitative postcolonial state structure with limited and non-opportunistic governments and economic systems in which individual rights are guaranteed based on public choice;

? using new principles of democratic constitution-making to build new foundations for governance;

? resolving the urban crises that is central to African economic recovery by bringing about changes needed to make the city healthier, more productive, equitable, and better able to meet people’s needs;

? repositioning regional economic groupings in Africa as a practical strategy for collective industrialization and intra-continental trade;

? developing a new security system that transcends the narrow military and trade-centric focus of security and instead focuses on meeting the basic political, economic, and social needs of the people;

? working cooperatively to overcome factors (such as drought, excessive rain, poor soil condition, poverty, corruption, bad policies, inefficient bureaucracies, civil wars, colonization legacy, unfavorable world trade and finance structures, and inadequate infrastructure) that limit agriculture;

? recognizing the centrality of public health to sustainable development, especially by mbarking on an aggressive program to radically reduce and ultimately eliminate the threat of HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa.

ABOUT THE EDITORS
OKECHUKWU UKAGA is the executive director of Northeast Minnesota Sustainable Development Partnership, University of Minnesota. An international scholar of sustainable development, Okechukwu Ukaga has lectured on sustainable development in Canada, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and USA.

OSITA AFOAKU is a professor of African Studies/Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. He is an active member of several professional organizations with substantive scholarly interest in Africa and Third World issues, including the Africa Research Forum, and IU Bloomington-based African Research Consortium.

CATEGORY
Development Studies/AFRICA