Debating the Year of Africa.

Abstract

Rarely can there have been so much media attention on Africa as there was in the twelve months leading up to the G8 summit in July 2005. The crescendo of media coverage which greeted the Commission for Africa's report and the following Live8, Make Poverty History and G8 gatherings came after a year which had seen the launch and subsequent deliberations of the Commission for Africa, Blair's and Brown's various high profile initiatives on aid and debt, the WTO's stalled 'development round' and NGO's ongoing campaigns around all of these. This focus on Africa, led by the UK which held EU and G8 presidencies in 2005, was reflected in a renewed academic focus on Africa and a restating, and some revitalisation, of debates about Africa's politics and development. Such attention spread beyond the normal confines of specialist 'Africanist' publications with a substantial amount of comment and analysis reaching more generalist readerships. Included among these a number of journal special...