Spring 2006, Volume 1
Harvard continues to confirm its commitment to African development through the work of its scholars. The University and its scholars are constantly advancing discourse and practice through innovative research and responsible analysis. With over 30 professors across numerous disciplines doing research relevant to Africa, the academic environment is an exciting place for ideas to develop. Expert scholars are supported by the many centers and institutes across the school. Research hubs at the University supporting African research range broadly and include: The Committee on African Studies, The Center for International Development, The School of Public Health, The Dubois Institute and The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. 2005-2006 has been an exciting year for the Continent and Harvard researchers have continued to lead cutting edge analysis and promote new approaches and initiatives.
To showcase African Policy research being done throughout the University,
three publications with disparate focuses are highlighted in this edition
of The African Policy Journal. Professor of African Studies, Caroline Elkins’s
deep knowledge of colonial history in Africa coupled with her dogged quest
to expose a deep institutional cover-up, won her a Pulitzer Prize for her
first book, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya.
Of the many important articles published this year by Kenyan Harvard Professor
Calestous Juma’s “Forging New Technology Alliances: The Role
of South-South Cooperation” particularly illuminates the intersection
of African development and global gains in science and technology. Robert
Rotberg, Kennedy School Professor and Director of the Program on Intrastate
Conflict and Conflict Resolution alerts the international community to a
dangerous new dynamic of terrorism in Battling Terrorism in the Horn of
Africa. These three pieces are just a few of the many important scholarly
works on Africa by members of the Harvard community.
After extensive research and investigation, Professor Caroline Elkins exposes
the covert British detainment and brutalization of 1.5 million Kikuyu in
Kenya during British colonial rule of the country in her recent work, Imperial
Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt 2005).
She details how from 1952 to 1960, the Kikuyu, Kenya’s largest ethnic
group, suffered as victims of violence and cruelty perpetrated by the British
colonists. Although the British ordered all record of the brutal occupation
destroyed, Elkins, in pursuit of the real story, persisted with her thorough
investigation, and interviewed hundreds of detention camp survivors probing
deeper into the colonial cover-up. Her ground breaking expose has important
implications for advancing research of colonial violence.
The urgent global challenge of the North-South divide in science and technology
is elucidated in Kennedy School Professor Calestous Juma’s “Forging
New Technology Alliances: The Role of South-South Cooperation” published
in The Cooperation South Journal: Eliminating Extreme Poverty (2005). Developing
countries are facing real threats to stability as the divide weakens economic
growth, political power and the ability to protect their natural resources.
Juma and his co-authors explore the relationship between South-South cooperation
and developing countries collaborative efforts to halt the imminent implications
of a growing technological divide. The authors suggest going beyond transfers
of science and technology from developed countries, and promoting South-South
cooperation as a way to leverage gains from new technological communities
and global resources.
Kennedy School Professor, Robert Rotberg explores a new, often overlooked
source of terrorist group activity: the Greater Horn of Africa region, Djibouti,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, the Sudan, and Yemen, in his recent work,
Battling Terrorism in the Horn of Africa (Brookings Institution and the
World Peace Foundation, 2005). An analysis on the interplay between the
region’s history, weak economic and political structures, resistance
to Western occupation, and strategic location illuminates how the region
is amenable to dangerous terrorist organization. While the world is focusing
on Iraq and Afghanistan, Al Qaeda has begun activity in the region and Rotberg’s
extensive analysis shows the potential for increased activities.
Academic publications such as these are a small part of Harvard scholars’
contribution to African development. To name but a few examples, several
Harvard professors offer cutting-edge expertise to African leaders, the
Harvard Initiative for Global Health works on important African issues such
as AIDS and infectious disease, and several Harvard economics professors
conduct research in African countries for example to find the most cost-effective
ways to raise educational outcomes in Africa, or to improve access to water
in African countries. Harvard’s intellectual and practical engagement
with Africa’s development challenges is innovative, responsible and
significant.