The
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the launching of its Child and Youth
Studies Institute and invites interested scholars to send applications
for consideration for selection as laureates, resource persons, and
director in the first institute scheduled for October 2002. The
Institute is an offshoot of the Council’s Child and Youth Studies
Programme and is designed to strengthen analytic capacity on all
questions affecting children and the youth in Africa and elsewhere in
the world. The impetus for the introduction of the Institute was
strengthened by the critique emanating from African researchers of the
content and context of the development crises facing the continent and
the link between these problems and what is now generally referred to as
the ‘Child and Youth Question’. The Institute is, therefore,
designed as annual multidisciplinary forum where participants can
reflect together on a specific aspect of the conditions of children and
the youth in Africa and, in so doing, contribute to the advancement of
the frontiers of knowledge and policy. Each session will be held over a
period of four weeks under the leadership of a designated director.
For
the 2002 inaugural session of the Institute, the theme that has been
selected is Children and Youth in African Conflicts and Post-Conflict
Reconstruction. Through this theme, participants in the Institute are
being invited to undertake a critical review of the relevant literature;
analyse the empirical evidence which is available both form their own
field work and other sources; construct conceptual, theoretical, and
methodological tools that could help to deepen the knowledge, as well as
advance debate; and consider the policy challenges which arise from
their scholarly interventions. For this purpose, the resources of the
CODESRIA documentation centre (CODICE) and the expertise of a team of
experienced resource persons will be made available to the participants
in the Institute.
