News & Events

Brazil is hosting the FIFA 2014 World Cup from 12 June to 13 July. Thirty-two teams are taking part in the tournament, including five from Africa: Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria. To mark this event, the Library of the African Studies Centre has compiled a web dossier on football in Africa. It contains titles from the library's collection published since 2004 including monographs, articles, films and web resources.

In Op de vleugels van de draak: Reizen tussen Afrika en China, Belgian author Lieve Joris travels between Africa and China, which is In keeping with the way in which she herself has increasingly worked over the years. She has submerged herself in the worlds of both Africans and Chinese who have ventured onto each other’s territory in the slipstream of big business contracts. On the occasion of the presentation she gave on Thursday 5 june at the ASC about this book, Op de vleugels van de draak is the subject of our latest Acquisition Highlight.

This thematic map gives insight into Africa's population dynamics between 1960 and 2010. Africa's population has grown rapidly over the last fifty years: from 289 million inhabitants in 1961 to more than 1 billion today. The number of urban residents has increased even more quickly: from 65 million in 1960 to 460 million today. The average life expectancy, literacy rates and primary-school attendance figures have also all increased spectacularly. Changes in the structure of Africa's population are evident in the continent's population pyramid. A 'youth bulge' can be seen in Southern Africa's population statistics. The expectation is that there will be a relatively high number of 10-30 year olds across the continent over the next few decades.