Paper long abstract:

The HIV / AIDS pandemic remains one of the most serious threats to the future of South Africa. Focussing on the Eastern Cape, one of the poorest provinces with a striking apartheid legacy, this paper seeks to examine responses to HIV/AIDS in the province by two key stakeholders. The PSAM (Public Service Accountability Monitor) and the TAC (Treatment Action Campaign) are CSOs (Civil Society Organisations) who use different mechanisms to hold elected government officials accountable and challenge government responses to HIV/AIDS.

While the PSAM predominantly makes use of existing legislation and the media to try and hold the Eastern Cape government accountable for its use of public funds, including those specifically budgeted for HIV AIDS, the TAC promotes grass roots organisation, and collective action to pressurise the provincial and national governments into addressing the specific needs of people with HIV/AIDS. In addressing HIV/AIDS in the province, the organisations have made use of both individual action and targeted collaboration.

This paper provides a comparative insight into the structure of the organisations, examines their individual and collective means of engagement, and illustrates some of the challenges they have identified. These challenges include issues of democratic accountability, freedom of information, the use of provincial resources, and the state of public services within the province.

Their methods of tackling the 'new struggle', and individual aspects of the component parts of this struggle, are considered in the context of certain local, national and international aspects of the fight against HIV/AIDS - including Mbeki's denialism and the global neo-liberal capitalist agenda. Finally, the paper makes suggestions for a way forward in this struggle and proposes actions that activists, academics, and academic activists could consider.

Paper long abstract:

Mapanje (1989, 1995) and Mphande (1996) make a persuasive case for the significant role of written poetry in challenging Dr Banda's one-party hegemony. The contested terrain, as Mphande notes, was orality. Orality is a dominant medium where literacy levels are low. I argue that far from being silent, the popular musicians and dramatists (as orature) - were much braver than the literary poets. While written poetry was often presented in coded and dense texts, the musicians' and actors' lyrics and texts were usually much more explicit. Writers used folk tales and other appropriations from traditional culture as templates to critique Dr Banda's autocratic regime. The oral practitioners went further, critiquing Dr Banda's regime using the same templates while also pointing out the socio-economic suffering of the peasantry.

Since 1994, as written critiques of governments have become muted, musicians have become louder and forceful 'voices on behalf of the poor'. Thus orature has been a continuous tool whereas written poetry is an intermittent response to political and social events. This response to social and political events has been, over the 1958 to 2006 period, been affected by economic, social and political factors. Further, while written literature tends to be concerned with human rights and democracy issues, orature is concerned with these as well as socio-economic rights; a distinction reflective of class issues and education in Malawi. I posit that assessments of Malawi's social, political and economic culture excluding oral critiques miss significant and critical factors impacting on developmental changes in Malawi.

Paper long abstract:

The post-independence period (c.1960-80) saw a transition from economic growth to crisis in much of Sub-Saharan Africa. Conventional wisdom maintains that this shift was in large part a product of poor policies and state failure. The overall conclusions that have emerged from the African policy debate have led to the characterisation of the African state as institutionally deficient. The perception of the state as a 'rent-seeker' or as the instrument of 'self-interested coalition', have reinforced the perceived incapacity of the African state to engage in effective development policy. Through a comparison of Ghana and Kenya, this paper provides an alternative perspective on the post-independence state. Specifically, by exploring the role of the technocracy - often marginalised within this debate - my paper questions the pessimism that too often overshadows the discourse on state policy.

The relative influence of the technocracy had a profound impact upon the effectiveness of post-independence policies. In Kenya, the dominance of technocratic logic throughout this period resulted in impressive growth and rapid industrial development. However in Ghana, the prevalence of technocratic influence was chequered, translating into a far more turbulent economic history. Nevertheless, the paper argues that what is striking in both countries is the dynamism and responsiveness of development policies. Policy makers were often conscious of the shortcomings of their development strategy and sought to devise counter policies to resolve these. Although mistakes were made - an unavoidable aspect of policy making in any country - there was a greater level of self-consciousness within these African states than has hitherto been acknowledged.