• Decentralisation Reforms in Ghana: The Experiences of the Fifth and Sixth Governments of the Fourth Republic

    What were the decentralisation reforms? What did they consist of? What were their origins? Who authorised them? What were their outcomes? What Impact have they had on the local governance and decentralisation landscape In Ghana?

    The answer to the first question is that they were new initiatives and innovations designed to accelerate the pace of and improve upon decentralisation implementation in Ghana.

    The answer to the second question is that they consisted of a National Decentralisation Policy Framework and a National Decentralisation Action Plan I (2010-2014) and II (2015-2019), an Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee on Decentralisation (IMCC), an expansion in the number of districts, a consolidated Local Governance Act, a re-branding of the Office of the Head of Local Government Service, the operationalisation of the Local Government Service and the introduction of a system of Inter-Service/Inter-Sectoral Collaboration and Cooperation. It also covered the enactment of National Development Planning (System) Regulations and a Land Use and Spatial Planning Act, the introduction of a Regional Integrated Budget System (RIBS) and blueprints for an Inter-Governmental Fiscal Framework (IGFF) and an Inter-Governmental Fiscal Transfer (IGFT) system.

    The answer to the third question is that the reforms were traceable to the 2008 manifesto of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the party which won the Presidential and Parliamentary elections of 2008 and 2012 and therefore formed the Fifth and Sixth Governments of the Fourth Republic.

    The answer to the fourth question is that the reforms were authorised by Presidents John Evans Atta Mills and John Dramani Mahama who successively were Presidents of the Fifth and Sixth Governments of the Fourth Republic.

    The answer to the fifth question about outcomes is the new structures, procedures and processes for decentralisation implementation, the improved quality of human resources in the local government sector, and the more efficient systems of checks and balances in the sector.

    The answer to the sixth question lies in the District Assemblies (MMDAs), the better service delivery by the Metropolitan, Municipal and of service delivery, the renewed interest in local governance by the citizenry and the claro Si rate reforms such as the elections of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDC Wand making the MMDAs partisan.

    These and answers to other questions posed by the reforms are answered in this book by the two people who should know, namely, the authors Professor Kwamena Ahwoi and Dr Callistus Mahama.

    Professor Kwamena Ahwoi is the longest-serving Minister of Local Government and Rural Development in Ghana (1988-2000). He was the Chairman of the High Level Strategic Task Force that produced the Decentralisation Policy Frameworks and Action Plans, He chaired the Legislative Review Task Force that resulted in the enactment of the Local Governance Act, 2016, Act 936 and was consultant to both the Ministry of Local Government and the IMCC during the period.

    Dr. Callistus Mahama was a member of the High Level Strategic Task Force, a member of the Legislative Review Task Force, the Executive Coordinator of the IMCC and the Head of the Local Government Service during the period.

    The two authors therefore write from a position of knowledge and experience and this is reflected in the contents of the book.

  • Women’s Leadership in Post-Conflict Liberia: My Journey (Hardcover)

    The realities of trying to institutionalize reform in Liberia after 14 years of civil war comes alive in this book, particularly given the capacity constraints the author had to work with – what she describes as the “no money syndrome” coupled with the human and institutional capacity challenges she faced after a prolonged absence of almost 25 years working and living in the Diaspora.

    This book is a must-read for all women (and men) who need guidance and mentoring on the challenges, consequences and sacrifices required to stand up for one’s convictions.

  • Pilgrims of the Night: Development Challenges and Opportunities in Africa (Hardcover)

    Africa’s development process has and continues to be like walking through a thick forest made obscure by institutional weakness, social challenges and capacity gaps. Sustainable development should be in the hands of Africans and outside support as a critical compliment. Getting the navigation right is paramount in the face of emerging challenges so well covered in this undoubtedly important and highly recommended book. The authors argue that Africa must control its own precious natural resources, reform its government institutions, modify its trade and economic relations and form new relationships with emerging economies in order to improve conditions on the continent.

  • Frantz Fanon (Panaf Great Lives)

    Required reading for all interested in the Algerian Revolution, and in Fanon’s brief but highly productive contribution. A close study is made of the relationship between Fanon’s ideological development and the content and impact of his political philosophy.

  • The Putin Mystique: Inside Russia’s Power Cult (Pre-Order)

    Getting to grips with Russia’s 21st century Tsar.

    Vladimir V. Putin has confounded world leaders and defied their assumptions as they tried to figure him out, only to misjudge him time and again. The Putin Mystique takes the reader on a journey through the Russia of Vladimir Putin, named by Forbes magazine in 2013 as the most powerful man in the world. It is a neo-feudal world where iPads, WTO membership, and Brioni business suits conceal a power structure straight out of the Middle Ages, where the Sovereign is perceived as both divine and demonic, where a man’s riches are determined by his proximity to the Kremlin, and where large swathes of the populace live in precarious complacency interrupted by bouts of revolt.

    Where does that kind of power come from? The answer lies not in the leader, but in the people: from the impoverished worker who appeals directly to Putin for aid, to the businessmen, security officers and officials in Putin’s often dysfunctional government who look to their leader for instruction and protection.

    In her writing career, Anna Arutunyan has travelled throughout Russia to report on modern Russian politics. She has interviewed oligarchs and policemen, bishops and politicians, and many ordinary Russians. Her book is a vivid and revealing exploration of the way in which myth, power, and even religion interact to produce the love-hate relationship between the Russian people and Vladimir Putin.

  • Not My Will

    One of the earlier memoirs of General Olusegun Obasanjo, distinguished Nigerian statesman and leader.

    Not My Will

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  • Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now (Hardcover)

    A concise, brilliant, and trenchant examination of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s successful lifelong quest for the presidency by National Book Award winner Evan Osnos.

    President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been called both the luckiest man and the unluckiest—fortunate to have sustained a fifty-year political career that reached the White House, but also marked by deep personal losses and disappointments that he has suffered.

    Yet even as Biden’s life has been shaped by drama, it has also been powered by a willingness, rare at the top ranks of politics, to confront his shortcomings, errors, and reversals of fortune. As he says, “Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.” His trials have forged in him a deep empathy for others in hardship—an essential quality as he leads America toward recovery and renewal.

    Blending up-close journalism and broader context, Evan Osnos, who won the National Book Award in 2014, draws on nearly a decade of reporting for The New Yorker to capture the characters and meaning of 2020’s extraordinary presidential election. It is based on lengthy interviews with Biden and on revealing conversations with more than a hundred others, including President Barack Obama, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, and a range of activists, advisers, opponents, and Biden family members.

    This portrayal illuminates Biden’s long and eventful career in the Senate, his eight years as Obama’s vice president, his sojourn in the political wilderness after being passed over for Hillary Clinton in 2016, his decision to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency, and his choice of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate.

    Osnos ponders the difficulties Biden faces as his presidency begins and weighs how a changing country, a deep well of experiences, and a rigorous approach to the issues, have altered his positions. In this nuanced portrait, Biden emerges as flawed, yet resolute, and tempered by the flame of tragedy—a man who just may be uncannily suited for his moment in history.

  • Two Views from Christiansborg Castle Vol I: A Brief and Truthful Description of a Journey to and from Guinea

    Selena Axelrod Winsnes has been engaged, since 1982, in the translation into English, and editing of Danish language sources to West African history, sources published from 1697 to 1822, the period during which Denmark-Norway was an actor in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It comprises five major books written for the Scandinavian public. They describe all aspects of life on the Gold Coast [Ghana], the Middle Passage and the Danish Caribbean islands [US Virgin Islands], as seen by five different men. Each had his own agenda and mind-set, and the books, both singly and combined, hold a wealth of information – of interest both to scholars and lay readers. They provide important insights into the cultural baggage the enslaved Africans carried with them to the America’s.

    One of the books, L.F. Rømer’s A Reliable Account of the Coast of Guinea was runner-up for the prestigious International Texts Prize awarded by the U.S. African Studies Association.

  • Kwame Nkrumah: Contributions to the African Revolution

    Drawing on the published works, correspondence and speeches of Kwame Nkrumah, as well as on contemporary press reportage during Nkrumah’s final months in Ghana, Doreatha Mbalia offers a view of the theory and practice of the visionary proponent of a united African continent.

    This work traces the development Mbalia sees in Nkrumah’s theory and practice, from the early formation of his unique ideology that emphasises the crucial role of socialism in the progress towards a united African continent, to the coup that ended his Presidency of Ghana and his subsequent belief that the people of Africa must, when diplomatic and political means had failed, raise arms against neo-colonialism. Mbalia urges that Nkrumah’s vision still points the way to Pan-African unity.

  • Ghana: A Concise History from Pre-Colonial Times to the 20th Century

    This is a comprehensive survey of the history of Ghana from the earliest times to 1992. It discusses the evolution of the different ethnic groups and the social, economic and political institutions and systems they created. It also examines the development of state systems , their contact with the outside world and the economic , social and political consequences of that contact. It discusses the loss of political independence, the recovery of sovereignty and the emergence of the modern state of Ghana.

    The study ends with an examination of the attempt by various rulers after independence to make one nation out of the people of Ghana and promote their economic and social well-being. The book has grown out of lectures the author has delivered to University students over the years. The material has, however, been written in a language that can be understood by all Senior High School students and the general public.

  • Judgement Day: The Story of Ghana’s 2020 Election Petition from the Diary of a Journalist

    Throughout the 2020 Election Petition hearing in Ghana, the evidence, facts and theories were played out in a kind of ‘theatre’, with its own characters, costumes and settings.

    The judges, the lawyers, the witnesses and the political party supporters all strove to play their parts in the quest to establish the validity or otherwise of the petition. Judgement Day is a book that also presents the behind-the-scenes and out-of-courtroom events that had some bearing on the substantive matter in court.

    This book reproduces the story of the 2020 Presidential Election Petition in an ‘as it happened’ manner. The author also perceptibly recounts portions of the story of the 2012 Presidential Election Petition that were relevant to the 2020 Presidential Election Petition in a language that is straightforward, easy to read and easy to understand.

  • Swimming Upstream: The Story of Southern Cross

    Kwame Donkoh Fordwor’s dream was realized due to the precision planning which was utilized to develop Southern Cross Mining Limited (SCML), as the company established itself as the first active gold mining operation to be brought to Ghana Since 1937. This came to pass by way of chance associations and the joint efforts of collaborators who possessed different backgrounds and motivations.
    Even with the assistance of numerous people along the way, the inception of Southern Cross was not easy. It required aggressive action and time to fend or larger corporations and fight government officials for the rights and freedoms they felt they deserved.
    Fordwor titles this book Swimming Upstream: The Story of Southern Cross because of the comparisons he draws between himself and the struggles of salmon attempting to reach their spawning grounds. Much like a salmon battling currents, fishermen, and other predators to reach its final destination, Fordwor had to struggle to make his own path and place in history, using keen instincts and good fortune to maintain the competitiveness and success of SCML.
    Swimming Upstream vividly details the rich history of Southern Cross and other gold mining venturers who strived to achieve historical recognition. It is an illuminating work-powerfully written and inspirational to all who are still seeking to make a lifetime dream come true.

  • Too Much and Never Enough How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man (Hardcover)

    In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric.

    Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her grandparents’ large, imposing house in the heart of Queens, New York, where Donald and his four siblings grew up. She describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse. She explains how specific events and general family patterns created the damaged man who currently occupies the Oval Office, including the strange and harmful relationship between Fred Trump and his two oldest sons, Fred Jr. and Donald.

    A firsthand witness to countless holiday meals and interactions, Mary brings an incisive wit and unexpected humor to sometimes grim, often confounding family events. She recounts in unsparing detail everything from her uncle Donald’s place in the family spotlight and Ivana’s penchant for regifting to her grandmother’s frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald, Fred Trump’s favorite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimer’s.

    Numerous pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have sought to parse Donald J. Trump’s lethal flaws. Mary L. Trump has the education, insight, and intimate familiarity needed to reveal what makes Donald, and the rest of her clan, tick. She alone can recount this fascinating, unnerving saga, not just because of her insider’s perspective but also because she is the only Trump willing to tell the truth about one of the world’s most powerful and dysfunctional families.

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