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ANU Africa Network
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This website was established in 2013 by David Lucas, and renovated and relaunched in 2020 as part of a project to increase awareness of Africa and African studies in the ANU and the ACT, funded by the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Another outcome of that project was a major research report, published in August 2021, African Studies at the Australian National University and in the Australian Capital Territory, analyzing the past, present and future of the study of Africa at the Australian National University and the wider Australian University sector.
The major innovation on this updated website is the creation of the ACT Africa Expert Directory which lists experts on Africa from institutions around the ACT, primarily the ANU. We will continue to curate this list, offering a key resource for media, government and non-government organizations seeking expert facts and opinions on Africa. Individuals can request to be added to the list by contacting the website managers.
Another notable addition is the expanded directory of PhD theses on Africa produced in the territory’s universities, a solid measure of the vitality of the study of Africa in the city of Canberra.
Reviewing these directories, it is revealing to note that the vast majority of research on Africa is produced by disciplinary experts (environmental scientists, economists, demographers, etc.) rather than area studies experts. This means that the study of Africa is woven into the fabric of the research culture of the ANU and the ACT’s other universities in ways that are not necessarily apparent.
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Adolescent Health in Kenya
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Public Lecture
Presented by
School of Demography, ANU College of Arts & and Social Sciences and
National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health, ANU College of Medicine, Biology & EnvironmentAdolescent health and wellbeing in Africa: What do we know and what next? Reflections from a Kenyan perspective
Presenter
Dr Caroline Kabiru
Research scientist African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), Nairobi, Kenya and
Caldwell Population, Health and Development Visiting Fellow, ANUDate and time: Thursday 12 May, 4-5pm
Location: Theatrette 2.02, Sir Roland Wilson Building, 120 McCoy Circuit, ANUAdolescence—a period characterized by rapid physical, mental and social changes—is a life stage of immense opportunity if young people receive nurturing care and support. However, adolescents also have significant health and developmental needs that if left unaddressed not only negatively affect adolescents’ lives, but also impose a significant burden on future population health. The health and developmental challenges facing adolescents in Africa are most critical for those living in resource-poor contexts that are marked by limited educational and employment opportunities, poor access to health care, widespread violence, and pervasive poverty, among other challenges. This lecture will describe several research programs in Kenya that are underpinned by a recognition that meeting adolescents’ needs in such settings requires holistic, integrated programs that address the multiple determinants of adolescent health and wellbeing—the family context, where and if they go to school, the communities they live in, and the national policies around health, education, and many others. The lecture will also reflect on the lessons learnt from these programs as well as emerging areas for further research.
Caroline Kabiru is a research scientist in the Population Dynamics and Reproductive Health Research Program at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in Nairobi, Kenya. She is also the 2016 Caldwell Population, Health and Development Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University. Caroline holds a PhD in Health Promotion and Behavior and a Master’s degree in Public Health. Caroline is driven by her passion to contribute to efforts that support young people to live healthy and productive lives. Her research centers on issues related to adolescent and youth health, including resilience and positive youth development. Currently, she is involved in several adolescent- and youth-focused projects including the Global Early Adolescent Study, a fifteen-country study that aims to understand the factors in early adolescence that predispose young people to sexual health risks and that promote healthy sexuality. Caroline is also an investigator on the Population Council-led Adolescent Girls Initiative – Kenya (AGI-K), a 6-year program funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). AGI-K aims to reach girls aged 10–14 years in the northern arid lands and urban slums of Kenya with interventions focused on education, violence prevention, education and wealth creation.
Registration
Refreshments will be served following the lecture. Please register for catering purposes by 10 May.Further information
This lecture is free and open to the public.
W demography.anu.edu.au/public-lecture-kabiru
T(02) 6125 3629
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Law’s rule – Liberia and the rule of law
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PhD Seminar
Thursday 31 March 2016
12.30pm–1.30pmSeminar Room 1.13, Coombs Extension Building (8), Fellows Road, ANU
About the Speaker
Shane Chalmers studied law and international studies as an undergraduate at the University of Adelaide between 2004 and 2010. In 2011, Shane moved to Montreal to undertake a Master of Laws in comparative law and cross-cultural jurisprudence at McGill University, culminating in a critical theoretical reflection on the work of human rights internationally. Inspired by his time at McGill, Shane began his PhD at the ANU at RegNet’s Centre for International Governance and Justice in 2012.
By asking the question, what takes place in the rule of law?, and more specifically, what is taking place in the rule of law in Liberia?, that the thesis undertakes a study of the life of law’s rule in a country that is on the frontline of the global spread of powerful ideologies. With Theodor Adorno’s negative-dialectical philosophy as intellectual guide, and based on fieldwork carried out in Liberia and the United States, the thesis examines how these ideologies—above all capitalism—inform the rule of law, and how the rule of law provides a medium for them to take place.
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Comparing courts cross-regionally: Lessons and challenges
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Mariana Llanos
Thursday 10 March 2016, 12:00 – 2:00 pm
L.J. Hume Centre, Copland Building (24), 1st Floor, Room 1171, Australian National University
Lunch will be provided at the seminar after the Q&A session.
Abstract: This presentation summarizes the main results of the project “Judicial (In)dependence in New Democracies Courts, Presidents and Legislatures in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa” (SAW, 2011-2015). A starting point in our analysis was the unbalance of power between strong executives / elected power holders, and weak courts, a feature that is common to many new democracies in our regions. The project focused on three potential ways in which elected power holders can affect court independence. The first one concerns how insulated courts are in the constitutional design from political influence, and what their formal powers are. To assess this aspect we constructed an index of formal judicial independence, which was used in Stroh and Heyl (2015) to analyze the creation of West African Constitutional Courts. The second concerns the opposite extreme, that is, the purely informal invasions by power holders to which courts are exposed. The project developed a concept of informal interference and an empirical strategy for its study (Llanos et al, 2015). An “intermediate” path is represented by pseudo-legal actions or actions of transgression of the formal rules of judicial independence. In this respect, we studied the principle of judicial stability, that is, how often and why unlawful dismissals of judges occur in practice. This is the subject of analysis in Llanos et al (in progress). The presentation concludes with remarks on the challenges faced, and the lessons learnt, with this cross-regional research exercise.
Mariana Llanos is a Lead Research Fellow at the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg, Germany.
Enquiries
Marija Taflaga: marija.taflaga@anu.edu.au