English

Translated by Patrick CAMILLER

Also available in Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish and French.

This English co-publication now accompanies the French-language (12 publishers), Portuguese-language (5
publishers), Arabic-language (5 publishers)and Spanish-language (1 publisher) versions.

Rapid population growth, climate change and pollution have combined to make it the resource over which wars may be fought in years to come. But does water have a price? Is it a right or a need?
Increasingly, water is viewed as a commodity whose function is to generate profits. In this book, Larbi Bouguerra argues that instead we should view it as a common good of humanity. Water has an exceptional cross-cultural symbolic value and its use raises enormous questions about our lifestyle, our ethics and our relationship with nature. Bouguerra makes a powerful case for a society that is more economical with water and manages it openly and democratically, as a global resource.

Year of publication: 2006,
208 pages

How can we ensure the survival of the planet and provide for everybody on it? How can we achieve the Millennium objectives that aim to reduce poverty and malnutrition by half by 2015? Governmental diplomacy, as necessary as it is, needs citizen action to be more efficient, as NGO intervention in the world public sphere proves. For fifteen years, non governmental diplomacy has made significant advances: affecting opinion on the defense of human rights, of economic and social rights, of children’s rights, of actions in favor of small farmers and for food sovereignty, mobilizing opinion on environmental protection, the ban of land mines, the production of generic medicine, debt cancellation for poor countries and the establishment of international taxes.

This book, which is based on a long experience in international negotiations, examines the diplomatic process over the last fifteen years and proposes analytical arguments for those interested in establishing an international world order. It also gives ideas for paths of action to those at the head of organizations and to citizens involved in the construction of a type of globalization that is respectful of social and environmental rights. In describing the surprising influence of NGOs, given their modest means, Henri Rouillé d’Orfeuil provides bases for a more active participation of citizens in world governance.

Year of publication: 2006

This poetical text, writing by Béatrice LALINON GBADO, is a real homage for Woman, a wonderfull poem illustrated by several senegalese artists working with the technic of “under-glass”.

Year of publication : 2006,
48 pages,
24 X 24 cm

Chronicles of a family and a court, Festins de la détresse, plunges us into a portrait of lives that fall victim to changes in economic and social conditions, often too rapid for one human life to adapt to. Drawing from the complex tradition of African song, Aminata Sow Fall wants “to change the belief according to which food and material goods are the only things necessary to survival, and to highlight the importance of creativity and spiritual needs. These needs are even more important than material goods, which are not a sufficient basis for the dignity of a human being”.

Year of publication: 2005,
160 pages,
14,5 X 22 cm

Fernand Braudel, who died in 1985, revolutionized the way we conceive and write history. Using data from such fields as geography, political economics and sociology, he gave the history of humankind a broader perspective. Can Braudel’s work challenge the doctrine of today’s economists and technocrats? By highlighting the relative autonomy of the various levels in the economy as well as the links between them, his analysis sheds light on the current processes of domination. This work updates F-X Verschave’s first book, well-known for its criticism of various digressions in international cooperation.

Year of publication: 2005,
246 pages,
14 X 22 cm

Water has become a major political and geostrategic issue that is discussed in global summits and alternative forums. In fact, this vital resource controls the development of human societies. For some people, it is an ordinary good that should generate profits. For others, it is a common good of humanity with an exceptional symbolic weight in all cultures and all religions. Does water have a price? Is water a right or a need? Is there enough water for everyone despite demographic growth? Is there a water crisis? Will there be water wars tomorrow? Will technical solutions be enough to keep water pollution in check? This work shows that the management and uses of water pose essential questions to people on their way of living, their ethics and their relationship with nature and with the biosphere. It pleads for a water-efficient society and for global, united water management.

Year of publication: 2003,
240 pages

In the North as in the South, we like big cities, but we don’t like their violence. A common tendency is to blame the poorest inhabitants for this violence, and then, in order to fight against its spread, to adopt strategies based on strong security measures: our societies are quickly becoming societies of fear. Town planning, already, divides space into fortresses and ghettos. One cannot continue to conceptualize urbanization in police stations: an alternative analysis of the phenomena of urban violence and insecurity is necessary. This can only be done by putting this question in perspective, in the context of the violence of urbanization and globalisation, while also taking into account, the point of view of the poor and particularly among these poor, the “malicious ones”, outsiders, illegal immigrants, criminals, members of gangs.
When everything seems blocked, the “vision of the poor” opens the way to a pacification of urban territories. Against the current obsession with security, a creative dialogue is essential with those that the ruling power blames or distrusts.

This book is addressed to all those who seek to understand the logic of the city, those for whom the city inspires fear and love, who don’t want to give up it, but also to the inhabitants of the extreme districts, even if they are poor and “malicious”, even if the city destroys them more than it protects them. To rebuild cities we can live in, we must disobey the models.

Year of publication: 2004

Year of publication: 2004,
154 pages,
12,5 X 19 cm

Year of publication: 2004,
140 pages,
12,5 X 19 cm

Part 2: Raphaël Thierry: “Book donations, but at what price, and in exchange for what? An overview on book donation practice in francophone Africa (in French)”

Pre-print version to appear in African Research & Documentation. Journal of SCOLMA (the UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa), no.127 (2015) [Release 2017]

Read the article on EditAfrica website!

Part 1: Hans M. Zell: “Book Donation Programmes in English-speaking Africa”

Pre-print version to appear in African Research & Documentation. Journal of SCOLMA (the UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa), no.127 (2015) [Release 2017]

Extract from the editorial note of the print issue:
«Welcome to this bumper issue of ARD. Scolma is grateful to Hans Zell and Raphaël Thierry for choosing to publish their full length study of Book Donation Programmes in Africa in our pages.
It is as they say “time for a reappraisal” and it is our hope that the ensuing debate will take place in the pages of ARD as well as online. I would therefore invite responses and feedback to this important and provocative study. Feedback from receiving libraries in Africa is particularly welcome.»
Terry Barringer, Editor, African Research & Documentation

Read the article on EditAfrica website!

In partnership with the Tunis Book Fair and the Union of Tunisian Publishers, and thanks to the support of the Fondation de France and the French Institutes of Tunisia and Lebanon, the Alliance organised a day focusing on public book policies in the Arab world on Thursday 30 March 2017.

Publishers from Algeria, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia presented a panorama of book public policies in their respective countries: Chilean and French publishers spoke on what is being implemented in their countries – a dialogue and exchange between professionals and public authorities, between continents, between cultures.

This day was initiated in the context of the Bibliodiversity Observatory and the mapping of public book policies in Latin America and the Arab world, on-going at the Observatory.

Call for proposal – looking for an author

The Alliance aims to produce an unprecedented study about freedom of publishing, listening to independent publishers about the following questions:
• What are the different infringements of freedom of publishing that independent publishers confront in their countries?
• How do they face these threats in their daily professional life?
• How do the publishers resist, preserve, and defend their freedom of publishing? How do they circumvent censorship?
• Are publishers more vulnerable today than they used to be? Have there been some significant changes in recent years?
• From the point of view of the publishers, is there a limit to freedom of publishing (and freedom of expression)?
The study will be written in French. If you are interested in conducting this study, please send your proposal to the Alliance team before 13 March 2017.}

The sixth ordinary session of the Conference of Parties->https://en.unesco.org/creativity/convention/governing-bodies/conferences/6th-ordinary-session] to the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (Paris, UNESCO 12 - 15 June 2017) has approved the Operational Guidelines on the Implementation of the Convention in the Digital Environment.

Read the operational guidelines in English here.

Read the text of the Convention.
Read the Operational Guidelines of the Convention here.

The International Alliance of independent publishers demands that Turkish authorities immediately release publishers, authors and journalists currently detained. It is necessary to guarantee freedom of speech and publishing in Turkey. The Alliance joins the Turkish Publishers Association’s condemnation of the summary closure of publishing houses and media as a clear human rights violation, and urges the Turkish authorities to rescind those summary closures.

Read issue 4 of the journal Bibliodiversity.

Organised by Afrilivres Association, through the support of its partners and the support of OMEL (Malian book publishers organisation), the first edition of the African Languages Book Fair will convene professionals, academics, institutions, NGOs, and the general public for 3 days of discussions, sharing, exhibition, and sale of books in African languages. An unprecedented and unique event, not to be missed!

Extract from the Communiqué by the Alliance for a call for freedom of speech and publishing in Bangladesh, 10 November 2015:

For several months, authors, bloggers, publishers and booksellers have been the victims of violent and deadly attacks in Bangladesh.

The International Alliance of independent publishers, representing 400 independent publishers from 45 countries in the world, condemns these murderous attacks and assault on freedom of speech and publishing. The Alliance also reaffirms the essential role needing to be played by public authorities, in Bangladesh and throughout the world to enable the emancipation of its citizens, and to guarantee a public space conducive to dialogue and peace. Plurality and diversity of ideas constitute the foundation of democracy. It is urgent that the Bangladeshi government protects and supports actors in the book industry, thus safeguarding the foundations necessary for their work and freedom of speech.