News & Events

In 1994, Rwanda experienced the worst genocide in Africa in modern times. The UN General Assembly has designated 7 April, the day the genocide started, as International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda to commemorate the terrible events that took place twenty years ago. The Embassy of Rwanda, the International Institute of Social Studies and the ASC are organizing a Kwibuka 20 conference on Friday 4 April to mark the tragedy. To coincide with this and other commemorative events, the ASC Library has compiled a web dossier that contains recently published titles on the Rwandan genocide that are available in the Library.

The African Studies Centre is in the process of creating an overview of PhD students working on an Africa related dissertation at universities in the Netherlands. The ASC itself does not offer PhD programmes for prospective students, but PhD students with a grant can look for a supervisor among our research staff and have a possibility to reside at the ASC. If you would like your details to be added to the overview of PhD students working on an Africa related dissertation, please contact us. Read more on our PhD research page!

South Africans will go to the polls on 7 May in what promises to be the country’s most interesting election since 1994. There is no doubt that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) will win again, but the polls suggest a much reduced majority. What is the balance sheet of 20 years of democracy? Keynote speaker at this ASC Community Country Meeting on 22 April in The Hague is Prof Susan Booysen of the Witwatersrand University. After her introduction Dutch politicians will enter into a debate.

After an academic career of 27 years at the African Studies Centre, senior researcher Dick Foeken is retiring. Next to his research in the field of urban poverty, urban water supply and urban agriculture, Dick was a member of the management team and deputy director of the ASC. In the nineties he started to coordinate the publications department, thus arranging over 300 publications. Dick started working at the ASC in 1987, when he became part of the Food and Nutrition Studies Programme.

De Nederlandse anti-apartheidsbeweging was een van de sterkste sociale bewegingen van Nederland. Toch heeft de beweging slechts beperkte invloed gehad op het Nederlandse overheidsbeleid ten aanzien van Zuid-Afrika. De achtereenvolgende kabinetten hebben steeds gekozen voor de handelsbelangen van Nederland. Tijdens dit seminar op 1 mei zal onderzoeksjournalist en auteur Roeland Muskens de anti-apartheidsbeweging analyseren. Please note that this seminar will be held in Dutch.