Benin

This paper critically examines policy in Benin against child trafficking. Drawing on interviews and participant observation with adolescent labour migrants and their communities, it problematises both the assumptions underpinning anti-trafficking policy and the appropriateness of the initiatives that comprise it. It suggests that, in order truly to protect the young labour migrants defined as trafficked, […]

Can agricultural research help to enlist smallholders and their resources for global food security? The Convergence of Sciences (CoS) research programme in Benin and Ghana (2002-2006) tested the impact of technology development, using a pathway for impact which featured ‘technographies’, diagnostic studies, and farmer-experimenter groups to ensure appropriateness. Within the existing small windows of opportunity […]

This article identifies some key factors shaping the micro-enterprise sector in urban French West Africa. Drawing on interviews with micro-entrepreneurs and micro-finance practitioners in Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Togo, the study explores the needs, characteristics, motivations, and success factors for micro-entrepreneurship in the region, together with some of the impediments to the growth and […]

Trafficking of children between various African countries shot to prominence in April 2001 as a result of media reports that a ship carrying ‘slave children’, the Etireno, had gone missing after being refused permission to land at Libreville in Gabon. When the ship eventually docked in Cotonou in Benin, the port it had first sailed […]

The author describes the work of PIRATTES, a project jointly directed by the Co-operative of Salt Producers in Guande (France), the Scientific And Technological Centre (Benin), and the French Volunteer Association (AFVP). The project, linking communities involved in salt-production in the North and the South, introduced new processes to Benin to avoid the major ecological […]