This book focuses on the democratic turmoil of African countries. It is arranged in four parts with the first part on the different types of democracy, the second on the international community and African governments, the third on human rights violations in Africa and the fourth on the painful truth of African democracy.

As part of its 25th year anniversary celebration, Studies in Political Economy: A Socialist Review has launched a major effort to make the journal a forum for discussion and debate internationally. New linkages to international scholars have been established through the creation of an International Advisory board that includes among others the noted South African scholar Patrick Bond. The journal is also attempting to become more accessible to readers in the South. To this end it is offering a special 50% discount on its regular subscription prices to Africa-based individuals and institutions.

Against the background of demands for accountability with respect to the work of NGOs, this 30-page publication addresses the vexed question how best to measure performance in a variety of contexts.

Discussion is ordered within a clear and logical structure. In introducing the climate of need and demand for evaluation, a useful distinction is drawn between the purposes of evaluation in terms of (a) accountability, and (b) facilitating learning so as to improve practice. The potential tension between these two functions is usefully pointed out. We then move to a brief historical overview of the origins and evolution of performance management before specific consideration is given to developments in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. The historical perspective here is interesting and relevant, and the distinctions between the three sectors important in the light of their distinctiveness. An account of attempts to create alternative frameworks is then offered, with discussion grouped around the major methodological approaches. Assumptions underpinning these approaches are usefully identified. Operational challenges are then considered with suitable sensitivity to factors of context and culture in addition to the more inherent features of systems of performance measurement. Discussion concludes with the identification of trends in the development sector.

How successful, then, is the publication? In my view, it succeeds admirably. It has condensed and made accessible recent experiences in a convincing, lucid account. A wealth of current literature from a number of fields is cited in a way that inspires confidence in the analysis. At the end of the day, it makes accessible an understanding of the field in a way that makes the key issues clear. With this as a basis for judgement, practitioners are well placed to make informed judgements. This publication represents a very pleasant balance between being useful and practical, on the one hand, and thoroughly academically respectable on the other. One hopes it will be read by performance management practitioners as well as by corporate management and donor organisations.

* Reviewed by Professor Ken Harley

UNESCO's WSIS Action Directory, an online platform providing access to information on UNESCO's contribution to the implementation of the Plan of Action adopted by the World Summit on the Information Society in December 2003 has now been launched.

Banning music strangles the very soul of a culture. Shoot the Singer! surveys contemporary cases of music censorship worldwide for the first time. It also examines the causes, methods and logic behind contemporary attempts to prevent people from hearing certain kinds of music by governments, commercial corporations and religious authorities.

These ten short stories, of varying length, intensity and focus, are the first by Ojaide, published in the genre. The title story concerns the spiritual and sexual illusions, confusions and realities to which a young Nigerian girl, the daughter of a pastor, and the people in her milieu, are subjected. Tanure Ojaide is one of Nigeria's most acclaimed contemporary writers.

As the twenty first century unfolds, African universities are undergoing change and confronting challenges which are unprecedented. The effects of globalisation, and political and economic pressures of liberalisation and privatisation, both internal and external, are reconfiguring all aspects of university life: teaching, research, and their public service functions; such as the need to redefine the roles of the African universities, and to defend their importance have become paramount. This two-volume work provides in-depth analysis of the issues.

The new African writer is in many ways better placed to understand and represent Africa than his predecessor. The new African writer is part of the new, powerless middle class; he has no privileges; often the best job he can hope for is as a teacher or a journalist. He is also luckier than his predecessors because he has an emerging indigenous educated audience to address. Ben Okri's novels are good examples of this emerging African novel. The work of the Ugandan, Moses Isegewa, is another. His Abyssinian Chronicles (2000) is not a beautiful novel, but it is an honest one, about being young in a country that has been destroyed by politicians and western hypocrisy and senseless tribal violence and disease and poverty.

This book focuses on eight UK-based international NGOs (INGOs) engaged in rural development interventions in Ethiopia. The author investigates their attempts to employ participatory monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems as a means of assessing and thereby strengthening local participation. The findings suggest that perceptions of participation vary considerably between different hierarchical levels. The story that unfolds offers valuable insights into the current myths and realities of M&E within INGOs and shows how standard models of practice play out in particular cultural contexts. Published by INTRAC, June 2004, 236 pages, ISBN 1-897748-82-5. Please contact [email][email protected] if you would like to order copies.

Swedish PEN has decided to grant the Tucholsky award of 2004 to the Zimbabwean writer Yvonne Vera, who is presently living in Canada. Yvonne Vera (born 1964) grew up in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and never wanted to leave her country. Nonetheless, she has lived for many years in Toronto, Canada. It was while living there that she wrote her doctoral thesis on African writers like Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Soyinka, Ruth First and Breytenbach. She recently decided to leave Zimbabwe again. The Tucholsky award (150.000 SEK or ca 15.000 Euro) is every year given by Swedish PEN to a writer or a publisher who is being persecuted, threatened or in exile from his or her country.

Velma Maia Thomas, the developer of the Black Holocaust Exhibit, has written a passionate yet brief account of slavery in America. Lest We Forget is packaged to mimic a multimedia exhibit: pages fold out, pop up, and often contain three-dimensional objects, such as an envelope that opens to reveal a facsimile of a receipt for a slave named Francis. The production techniques may make Lest We Forget look like a children's book, but the text offers a serious, moving depiction of how slaves lived before emancipation.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has defined improvement of basic education programmes as a priority in order to give access to education for all in Africa. This pronouncement was made on Tuesday, the last day of a meeting of the UNESCO general director for Africa with the continent's National Commissions for UNESCO, that gathered about 200 participants in Maputo. UNESCO is also pledging to assist in assuring water supply, the promotion of human rights, of cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue, and promoting communications at community level.

The volume brings together papers by African and Nordic/Scandinavian gender scholars and anthropologists, in attempts to investigate and critically discuss existing lines of thinking about sexuality in Africa, while at the same time creating space for alternative approaches. Issues of colonial and contemporary discourses on 'African sexuality' and on 'female genital mutilation' are being discussed, as well as issues of female agency and of feminists' engagement with HIV/AIDS. The volume contributes to contemporary efforts of re-thinking sexualities in the light of feminist, queer and postcolonial theory.

This publication is a compilation of summaries of reports of research surveys conducted under the auspices of the HelpAge International Africa regional nutrition programme, in partnership with academic and training institutions in a number of African countries. The publication of the surveys will provide information and evidence of the nutritional needs of older people in general and those in emergencies and bring about a change in attitudes and practice for their benefit. As of now, older people remain a sidelined lot. For orders write to [email protected].

May 1st was a first for William Owusu, the promising young film director from Kenya who recently attended the Berlinale Film Talent Campus in Berlin. His entry, "The Epilogue", 15 minutes long, has been chosen as the only African film featuring at one of the most renowned short film festivals, the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival. "The Epilogue" joins a host of innovative and original short films which have a tradition in Oberhausen. Most films entered there come from the numerous film academies like Munich, Berlin, Potsdam, Ludwigsburg and other art and media schools in Germany and the rest of the world. Today, about 800 short films are made in Germany alone. Others films have come from as far as Asia and the Americas.

Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of independent Kenya, wrote this book as a graduate anthropology student in London. As a primary source, this book is invaluable. It gives detailed analysis of many aspects of pre-Mau Mau Gikuyu cultural ceremonies. However, as it is a product of the structuralist school of anthropology, many of its conclusions and findings are problematic, most notably in its opinion of culture as a fixed entity which determines human behaviour. For students of colonial Africa, this piece will inevitably be of use.

In 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa', Walter Rodney convincingly argues that much of the "Third World" is a product of European Imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Several points are made in his argument. Among them are the arbitrary borders established by the colonial powers.

Mpho, the dramatist, says the play is driven by ambition, cultural ethics, tradition, need and revenge. He says the play also attempts to portray the family politics in a dynamic way. “ It goes beyond that,” he added. He highlighted that it talks of integral issues in marriage situations, and creatively it encourages communication between marriages and family institutions.

Five African writers have been shortlisted for this year's Caine Prize for African Writing. The winner of the US$ 15,000 prize will be announced on 19 July, in Oxford, England.
The 2004 shortlist comprises:
· Doreen Baingana (Uganda) for 'Hunger', from the Sun Magazine, March 2003;
· Brian Chikwava (Zimbabwe) for 'Seventh Street Alchemy' from Writing Still, Weaver Press, Harare 2003;
· Parselelelo Kantai (Kenya) for 'The Story of Comrade Lemma and the Black Jerusalem Boys Band' from Kwani?, Nairobi 2003;
· Monica Arac de Nyeko (Uganda) for 'Strange Fruit' from Cook Communication, online magazine AuthorMe;
· Chika Unigwe (Nigeria) for 'The Secret' from online literature magazine Open Wide.

With this sensational first collection, SDP has established himself as a poet of repute. Refusing to patronisingly romanticise the Kenyan landscape and people in the way that many expatriate writers have done, he focuses primarily on personal and social issues that affect us all in the region - subtly, intelligently and uncompromisingly. Youthful, muscular, well-crafted and often critical of a blind status-quo, these new generation poems are sure to stimulate all readers. Er, and some of 'em are funny!