English

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

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

When is Africa’s turn? Here is a question that we would prefer to avoid, given Africa’s apparent hopelessness. But Joseph Ki-Zerbo, historian and man of action from Burkina Faso, cannot and will not gloss over this question. For him, Africa must conquer its identity, proud of its contribution to the human adventure, in order to regain its role in the world.
A fascinating book, nourished by an Africa lived and studied for decades, rich in the profound reflections of a historian on the role of his profession for concrete action by people. This political book was published simultaneously in Europe and Africa.

Year of publication: 2004, 202 pages

This deliberately provocative book refrains from idealising a mythical Africa or denying the black continent’s oft-dramatic situation, yet it claims that the so-called “backwardness” of Africa is actually the expression of a tremendous cultural resistance to a devastating economic model. By delocalising our viewpoint to Africa, the author urges us to examine our lifestyles and the values of liberal globalisation with a radically critical eye.

Year of publication: 2004, 160 pages, 15 x 21 cm

This book, designed by Indian, Brazilian and European authors and editors, presents diversified views of communication and democracy. Based upon many examples from these three continents, it proposes a reflexion on the logics of popular and citizen communication as well as on the social relevance of the communication revolution.

Year of publication: 2004

Globalization is accelerating, and we can observe today that the economic and financial mechanisms have left entire populations behind. Government development assistance does not appear to have fulfilled its missions and has not reduced North / South imbalances.
Based on an in-depth analysis of numbers and of existing government development assistance efforts, Guillaume Olivier presents a sometimes worrisome – but never pessimistic – assessment of the situation.

Year of publication: 2004, 178 pages

Publishers & Books, a monthly specialized magazine, produced and published by the African Observatory of Professional Publishers (OAPE). Articles are in French and/or in English.

See here the first issue (June 2018);

And below the second issue (July 2018) and the third issue (August 2018).

Consult here the training material produced by Denis Jacquerye, typographer (Dalton Maag Ltd), as part of the workshop on digital publishing and African languages, held in Conakry (Guinea Conakry) from 20-23 November 2017.

STATEMENT
August 8, 2018

The International Alliance of Independent Publishers (IAIP), a network of 553 publishers worldwide, expresses its shock and dismay at the late-night abduction and detention of acclaimed photographer and human rights activist, Shahidul Alam, in Dhaka. Shahidul Alam has been a partner-colleague of the IAIP, in which context we have interacted with him on many occasions.

We believe that the charges against him under Section 57 of the ICT are an attempt to intimidate him by using a draconian law to stifle his right to free speech. He has been held without due legal process, and we have received disturbing reports of brutal treatment meted out to him in detention.

The right of peaceful protest, and the defence of that right, are fundamental to democracy and to upholding the rule of law. The IAIP extends its support to, and expresses solidarity with, Shahidul Alam, and reiterates its commitment to the freedom of expression in Bangladesh as well as in the rest of the world.

See here the film make by New Internationalist (UK) in support with Shahidul Alam.

Authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians and readers form what is commonly known as a “book ecosystem”, an expression that reflects the interdependence between actors in the book field. However, over the past few years, the discussions, both globally and in Europe, about re-defining the intellectual property rights, and the evolution of practices in the digital era, led to division that gradually distanced these stakeholders, with the risk of weakening the solidarity that unites them.
Fortunately, new conversations have started, more specifically about the cultural rights, opening a space where this topic can be debated and addressed from a new angle with focus on issues related to the balance of rights. Starting from the idea that fundamental rights are inseparable, it seems possible to understand author rights, cultural rights and social rights as a coherent whole. The challenge is to find an approach that would stop opposing the book professionals, to re-establish coalitions towards the conquest for new rights.
Due to their specific position, independent publishers could play an important role in framing this collective discussion in the book sector.

Lionel Maurel
A Law Degree holder, Lionel Maurel is currently a librarian at the University Paris Lumières Library. Author of the S.I.Lex blog, he specialises in Intellectual Property, Digital Law, and Cultural Law. Involved in the Commons movement, he co-founded the collective SavoirsCom1 (“Common Knowledges”) and is a member of the Strategic Orientation College of La Quadrature du Net.
Picture: thesupermath. CC-BY-SA. Source: Wikimedia Commons, remix by Guénaël Boutouillet

Read the full text!

“Publishing in African Languages: A Review of the Literature”, by Hans M. Zell, to read here !

This literature survey is an attempt to bring together some of the literature on an important and challenging, and one could well say neglected aspect of the African book sector, that of publishing in African languages, an area that greatly impacts literary production in many ways. It aims to make a small contribution to the ongoing debate about publishing of indigenous language materials, how the profile of indigenous language publishing might be enhanced – and how publishing in African languages could be conducted as a societally beneficial, sustainable, and profitable commercial activity.

Following an introductory overview of current publishing in African languages – and a discussion of its many barriers to success – it lists a total of 170 records, covering the literature (in English) published since the 1970s and through to early 2018. Fully annotated and/or with abstracts, it includes books, chapters in books and edited collections, reports, journal articles, Internet documents, theses and dissertations, as well as a number of blog postings.

To be published in African Research & Documentation. Journal of SCOLMA -The UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa, no. 132, 2018.

© Hans Zell Publishing Consultants 2018

An unprecedented study to be published in July 2020, initiated and coordinated by the Alliance!

A sociological survey conducted by Anne-Marie Voisard, Quebec researcher (MA on strategic lawsuits against public participation and legal repression of freedom of speech from the University of Montréal) and written by Philippe Chibani-Jacquot; a historical introduction by Jean-Yves Mollier, French historian.

Since the creation of the Alliance, publishers – custodians of freedom of speech alongside journalists, authors, bloggers, booksellers, artists… – have been the whistleblowers on instances of censorship occurring in some countries. Over the past few years, we have noticed some new forms of attack on freedom of speech. In several contexts, pressures and limitations exercised on public speech are increasing. After the wave of freedom expected during the revolutions in the Arab world, the series of attacks in Africa, Europe, and in the Arab world, destabilised freedom of speech: a loss of sense, of bearings that brings us to question spaces of freedom, the reach of words and the power of the medium.

The freedom of publishing is a “category” of freedom of speech that can take different forms through various supports. The freedom of publishing pertains to the liberty to choose an author, to select or commission manuscripts, publish them, disseminate and distribute them, and put them on the market – all these activities are at the heart of publishers’ work. The threats to the freedom of publishing are precisely what the Alliance seeks to examine in this study.

In different geopolitical contexts, threatened by different forms of censorship, the Alliance’s independent publishers are committed to circulate texts and ideas, to amplify voices, even if sometimes they are in minority, to participate in building critical thinking and emancipation. It is their responsibility, both professional and civic.

Read here the presentation of the study, of the authors, the methodology...

Read here the report of the workshop on “African Book Industry”, organized by the Global Book Alliance (USAID) and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) in January 2018.
The workshop brought together 79 key stakeholders in the African Book Publishing Industry from 22 African countries.
More information here.

Publishers from the Alliance condemn the banning of the book El desarme, la vía vasca d’Iñaki Egaña (copublished by Txalaparta, Gara journal, and Mediabask media), during its promotion on Basque radio-television.

Read here the proceedings of the colloquium on “Children’s Literature in Africa” (in French), organised by Ganndal, Conakry, November 2017.

Read the “Conclusions of the Symposium on the Challenges of the Promotion and Distribution of Books in African Languages”, organized by Ganndal publishing in Conakry (Guinea Conakry), 27-28 November 2017.