The challenge for Africa

Review by Choice Review

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Maathai offers a sweeping diagnosis of and prescription for a continent of 53 countries, beset by the legacy of colonialism, problematic contemporary global trade practices, and too many corrupt national leaders. Kenyan by birth, or more specifically of the Kikuyu micronation, she earned a PhD, founded the Green Belt Movement, and serves as a tireless activist for environmentally sustainable development. Maathai sets forth her vision for Africa's future--one that empowers people at the grassroots, values women, and inspires broad-based leadership that develops Africa-specific solutions for self-sufficiency, rather than depending on external money and ideas. She analogizes her work and philosophy to the "traditional African stool"--a seat and three legs--"the first leg represents democratic space . . . the second leg symbolizes the sustainable and accountable management of natural resources [that is fair and just] . . . and the third leg . . . 'cultures of peace.'" Although the book embraces the entire continent, there is heavy focus on Kenya. A special chapter is devoted to saving the Congo Basin rain forest ecosystem, perhaps comparable to the Amazon rain forest in its natural resources and biodiversity. The Challenge for Africa is the sort of inspiring post-memoir that a great leader like Nelson Mandela might write. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels. K. Staudt University of Texas at El Paso

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by Booklist Review

Unbowed (2006) recounted Maathai's courageous campaigns against environmental degradation in Kenya, an effort recognized by the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. This work elaborates her diagnoses of socioeconomic ailments and presents her prescriptions for ameliorating Africans' lives. As do many analysts, she indicts misgovernment for, if not causing, assuredly aggravating woes that she roots in the legacies of colonialism. But while she exhorts the leaderships of African countries to adhere to standards of transparency and honesty, she characteristically not only argues for grassroots action to create a democratic space but also describes local development programs she promoted as a recent member of Kenya's parliament and government. Defeated in the 2007 election, Maathai, referring to the communal violence that ensued from Kenya's disputed presidential election that year, elaborates how she believes the ethnic allegiances of Africans ought to be embraced by their national governments. Dubious of top-down and foreign-aid approaches to development, Maathai's confidence in locally oriented paradigms of progress to meet Africa's health, agricultural, and environmental problems well may energize readers as well as advocates.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2009 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Africa's moral and cultural dysfunctions loom as large as its material problems in this wide-ranging jeremiad. Maathai (Unbowed), a Kenyan biologist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for organizing the tree-planting Green Belt Movement, surveys Africa's struggle with poverty and disease, political violence, climate change, the legacy of colonialism and a global economy that's stacked against it. But the deeper problem she sees is the selfishness, opportunism and shortsightedness of Africans themselves, from leaders who exploit their countrymen and loot their nations' resources to poor farmers who ruin the land for short-term gain. Maathai means this as an empowering message aimed at a mindset of dependency that would rather "wait for someone to magically make development happen"; she urges Africans to recover indigenous traditions of community solidarity and self-help, along with the virtues of honesty, fairness and hard work. Maathai shrewdly analyzes the links between environmental degradation and underdevelopment, and floats intriguing proposals, like banning plastic bags as a malaria-abatement measure. But the challenges she addresses are vast and intractable-and sadly, many of the development and environmental initiatives she extols seem to have already fizzled. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Nobel Peace Prize winner Maathai (Unbowed), formerly Kenya's assistant minister for environment and natural resources, provides a thought-provoking look at the myriad of social, economic, political, cultural, and leadership dilemmas that have plagued the African continent. Maathai delves into the destruction of African culture and the African family, deforestation, AIDS, continuing colonialism, inadequate African leadership, government corruption, the loss of tribal heritage, African disempowerment, and African dependency and indebtedness to the West. Verdict Highly recommended to anyone interested in the welfare of Africa and who believes that there is hope for future peace and prosperity amongst Africa's peoples despite the many challenges they face.-Gloria Creed-Dikeogu, Ottawa Univ. Lib., Ottawa, KS (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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One The Farmer of Yaoundé THE CHALLENGES Africa faces today are real and vast. Just as I began work on this book, my own country of Kenya was plunged into a pointless and violent postelection political conflict and humanitarian crisis that claimed more than a thousand lives and left hundreds of thousands homeless. As I write, internecine fighting still wracks the Darfur region of Sudan, Chad, southern Somalia, the Niger Delta, and eastern Congo. Zimbabwe's most recent election was marred by violence and a failure to tally the vote properly and reach a negotiated political settlement. Meanwhile, a series of violent attacks in South Africa against immigrants from other African countries left more than forty dead and forced tens of thousands to flee from their homes. South Africa, a political and economic beacon in the region, appeared in peril of facing the conflicts many other African nations have experienced. Drought and floods affect many countries in both western and eastern Africa. Natural resources are still being coveted and extracted by powers outside the region with little regard for the long-term health of the environment or poverty reduction; desertification and deforestation, through logging and slash-and-burn agriculture, are decimating species, water supplies, grazing grounds, and farmland, and contributing to recurring food emergencies. Shifting rainfall patterns, partly as a result of global climate change, directly threaten the livelihoods of the majority of Africans who still rely on the land for their basic needs. At the same time, sub-Saharan African countries are falling short of the benchmarks for health, education, gender equality, and environmental sustainability, which are among the eight Millennium Development Goals agreed on by the United Nations in 2000. Although poverty rates in Africa have declined over the past decade, they remain stubbornly high. HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis--all preventable diseases--still take too many lives. In sub-Saharan Africa, one in six children dies before his fifth birthday, comprising fully half of the world's child deaths. Conflicts ravage too many communities as rival groups vie for political and economic power. And the importance of Africans' cultural heritage to their own sense of themselves still isn't sufficiently recognized. Nevertheless, in the half century since most African countries achieved independence and in the nearly two decades since the end of the Cold War, the continent has moved forward in some critical areas of governance and economic development. More African countries have democratic forms of governance, and more Africans are being educated. Debt relief has been granted to a number of African states, and international trade policies are now subject to greater scrutiny to assess their fairness, or lack of it. South Africa has made a successful, and peaceful, transition to full democracy from the time of apartheid. In 2002, Kenya held its first genuinely representative elections in a generation. Decades-long civil wars in Angola and Mozambique have ended. Liberia has emerged from a devastating series of internal and regional conflicts. In 2005, it elected to the presidency Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first woman to head a modern African state, and the process of reconciliation and reconstruction is under way. Rwanda, a decade and a half after the 1994 genocide, has a growing economy, and Rwandan women constitute almost half of its parliament, the highest percentage in the world. After decades of dictatorship, instability, and extreme poverty, and a conflict that has claimed upward of five million lives, in 2006 the Democratic Republic of the Congo held elections overseen by the United Nations that were judged largely free and fair. A fragile peace holds between northern and southern Sudan, and efforts continue to bring an end to the civil war in northern Uganda. Since th Excerpted from The Challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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