News & Events

The fourth and latest report in the series Agricultural Dynamics and Food Security Trends has just been published: the one about Kenya. As part of the Developmental Regimes in Africa (DRA) project, four case studies were done about the most promising agricultural sectors in Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. The DRA project is a collaborative venture between the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in the UK and the ASC in Leiden, and is funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Nigerian scholar Chibuike Uche started as a senior researcher at the African Studies Centre as of 1 January 2014. Prior to joining the ASC, he was Professor of Banking and Financial Institutions at the University of Nigeria and a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Chibuike has a PhD in accounting and finance from the London School of Economics. His current research focus is on the political economy of foreign business operations in Africa.

January 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the so-called Zanzibar Revolution on Sunday 12 January 1964. In the week following the toppling of the newly elected government, the Sultan of Oman fled the island and thousands of people were killed. While a lot of African citizens of Zanzibar will celebrate these events and see them as marking the beginning of the real era of independence, the January Revolution and its aftermath will be mourned by many others. Among them is the Omani writer Nasser Abdulla Al-Riyami, author of Zanzibar: Personalities & Events (1828-1972), subject of our latest Acquisition Highlight. 

You are cordially invited to the opening of the ASC's new exhibition 'Look at you' on Tuesday 11 February. The exhibition is a duo-expo of works by visual artist Frouwkje Smit and documentary photographer Karine Versluis. How do we look at the African continent, and how do they look at us? How is our perception of the other formed? There will be lectures and a discussion with Professor Felix Kaputu from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who for the last seven years worked in the USA, Japan and Europe.

The prestigious American journal Foreign Affairs has listed 'External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960-1990' by ASC researcher Stephen Ellis as one of the three best books of 2013 on Africa. The selection was done by Nicolas van de Walle, Professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Ellis' book about the ANC was awarded the Recht Malan Prize for non-fiction by the Media24 group in South Africa in June 2013. This is one of South Africa's top two literary prizes.