Dr Jaiteh,

Thanks for re-subscribing me to Gambia-L.

Our friend and brother, Professor Ebrima Sall, one of The Gambia’s most respected scholars, was recently appointed by the Executive Committee of CODESRIA to take over from Professor Adebayo Olukoshi as the new Executive Secretary of CODESRIA (when Professor Olukoshi's term comes to an end at the end of March 2009). Dr Ebrima Sall's appointment was made public during the General Assembly of CODESRIA held in Cameroon two months ago (7-11 December 2009).

Please find below his acceptance speech. It is very moving.

CODESRIA, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, is headquartered in Dakar, Senegal. It was established in 1973 as an independent Pan-African research organisation with a primary focus on the social sciences, broadly defined. It is recognised not only as the pioneer African social research organisation but also as the apex non-governmental centre of social knowledge production on the continent (Culled from the CODESRIA webpage)

Ebrima Sall was, until recently, Head of Research at CODESRIA. He was previously a senior Programme Coordinator at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden. Dr Sall, who is a sociologist by training, received his Doctorat D’état or PhD from the prestigious French university - University of Paris I– Sorbonne in 1992.

He did spend a year at Yale University as a Post-doctoral fellow at Yale’s Programme in Agrarian Studies. He has worked and published on issues of governmentality in small states, cross-border networks in the Senegambian part of West Africa, academic freedom, human rights, higher education in Africa, agrarian issues, democratization and conflicts. He has since 2004 worked as Research Director at CODESRIA. He first joined CODESRIA in 1994 as Programme officer for academic freedom.

He speaks impeccable French, English, Pulaar, Mandinka and Wolof. We wish good luck in his new post.

Regards,

Ebrima

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Statement by Ebrima Sall, incoming Executive Secretary of CODESRIA

At the 12^th General Assembly of CODESRIA

Yaounde, Cameroon, 11^th December 2008

Alhamdoulillah!

It is clear from this morning’s session, and from this one, that CODESRIA is a great institution, a great community, and a great project that many people have worked extremely hard to establish, and nurture. So I feel particularly honoured and privileged to have been chosen by our community and the Executive Committee to lead the CODESRIA Secretariat.

I would therefore like to thank Executive Committee and the elders of our community who have chosen to entrust me with the huge responsibility of leading the CODESRIA Secretariat.

President of CODESRIA, Professor Cruz e Silva

President-Elect, Professor Sam Moyo

Elders of CODESRIA

Distinguished Guests

Colleagues and Friends,

Yesterday evening, as I was reflecting on what to include in this statement, I asked some of the elders of our community who are present here what they see as the main challenges facing the Council, and what they believe a new Executive Secretary ought to prioritize. One of them, Mahmood Mamdani, after a few words, stopped and looked around, and then said to me: “What is a Thandika doing here, if it was not out of a commitment to our continent and a concern for the reproduction and further strengthening of our scholarly community?” I looked at him and asked: “Actually, what are you doing here yourself.” And I asked myself: What are people like Samir Amin, Zene Tadesse, Shahida El-Baz, Issa Shivji, Abdoulaye Bathily, Helmi Sharawy, Georges Nzongola Ntalaja, Charles Bowao, Tsitsi Dangarembga and Ali El-Kenz and many others doing here, and what was an Ama Ata Aiddo coming to do at a CODESRIA GA, if it was not out of a strong commitment to Africa, and a desire to see us excel in scholarship, in the ways we organise and run our institutions, our countries and our continent?

I have seen Archie Mafeje cry in public, and I have seen Jimi Adesina cry at a CODESRIA General Assembly; the former because he was worried about what was going on at CODESRIA, and the latter out of happiness at the realization that CODESRIA had overcome its troubles. Such demonstrations of commitment are extremely inspiring, and are worth all the sacrifices that one can make as executive secretary.

Many other great African scholars who worked hard towards making CODESRIA what it has become would have loved to be at this GA. I believe this is a moment to remember Claude Ake, Archie Mafeje, Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Chachage, Memel Fote, Guy Mhone, Aron Gana and many other giants of our community who have contributed enormously towards making CODESRIA what it has become. I would therefore like to pay tribute to them.

When the intellectual history of our Council is being written, many other names will have to be mentioned, such as: Jacques Kazadi, Amady Aly Dieng, Taladidia Thiombiano, Akilagpa Sawyerr, Bernard Founou, Maktarr Diouf, Sulayman Bachir Diagne, Peter Anyang’ Nyongo’, Amina Mama, Ayesha Imam, Fatou Sow, Carlos Lopez, Marema Toure, Iba der Thiam, Momar Coumba Diop, Boubacarr Barry, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Kwesi Prah, Bernard Magubane, and Eboe Hutchful.

As the Sixth Executive Secretary of CODESRIA, I am privileged to come at a time when a solid foundation has already been established. I would like to pay tribute to my predecessors, all of them, but particularly to Samir Amin, Abdallah Bujra, Thandika Mkandawire, and Adebayo Olukoshi.

I would like to say to them: “I know about the sacrifices that you have had to make, the broken families and the suspended personal intellectual pursuits being foremost among them. But I can assure you that the high moral and intellectual standards you have set will be maintained.”

Bayo deserves a special tribute for his very able leadership. You found the Council in a very difficult situation. Together with the Executive Committees under the presidency of Mahmood Mamdani, Zene Tadesse and, more recently, Teresa Cruz e Silva, you managed to turn the situation around, restored confidence in the Council, re-united the community, brought back and expanded the pool of donors, and re-launched the research, training and publications programmes of the Council. I am proud to have been a member of the team, comprising of great scholars and administrators of the calibre of Professor Jean-Bernard Ouedraogo, Professor Francis Nyamnjoh, Carlos Cardoso, Olivier Sagna, Pinkie Mekgwe, Cherif Diarra, Olivier Sagna, Ravayi Marindo, Takayi Chibanda, Awa Ndao, and a pool of excellent and extremely dedicated programme managers, managing editors, programme assistants, and many other professionals who, under your leadership, walked the Council out of the crisis it was in.

I would also like to acknowledge the key role that CODESRIA’s many friends have played in the recent history of the Council. The names of some of these friends must be mentioned, and they are: Berit Olsson, Lennart Wohlgemuth, Bjorn Beckman, Reydon Sandvold, Akwasi Aidoo, Joyce Moock, Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Leo de Haan, Geerti Hessling, Carin Norberg, Katri Pohjolainen Yap, Tekalign Godana, Carl Gustav Gutberg, Nana Tanko, Hari Singh, Atilio Boron, Richard Joseph, and Emir Sader.

Finally, I would like to thank you all, participants in the 12^th GA and all the other members of CODESRIA. You are CODESRIA. We are CODERSIA. The Secretariat that I will be heading in Dakar is and will continue to be at your service, and at the service of our continent and its peoples.

Colleagues and friends, the key words of my tenure as Executive Secretary will be: ‘Continuity’, and ‘Change’. i.e., to borrow the terminology used in the CODESRIA Secretariat and EC documents of the past year and half, ‘Consolidation’ and ‘Renewal’.

A number of things will continue:

• The promotion of basic and other kinds of high quality scientific research, the defence of academic freedom, the publication and dissemination of the results of research, and participation in the search for solutions to the major challenges facing Africa, will continue.

• CODESRIA will continue to seek to work in harmony with, and complement the work of African universities.

• The openness, transparency, accountability, and integrity of the Council in administrative and programme management matters, will be maintained, and the professionalism of staff will be enhanced.

• Existing programmes will be improved and new programmes will be designed in order to continue to address the challenges and concerns of the 3rd, 4th, 5^th, 6^thh and 7^tth and subsequent generations of scholars, as was suggested by one colleague yesterday.

• We must admit that our communications are poor. Our website is particularly poor. We will therefore strive to improve communications with the community of scholars and beyond, and device ways of disseminating CODESRIA publications more effectively. We will make sure that the CODESRIA web site is fully revamped.

As for ‘change’, it will largely come from all and each one of us. I will welcome ideas and suggestions from you all. I do believe, however, that apart from what is already in the CODESRIA Strategic Plan for 2007-2011, under the umbrella theme: “Re-thinking development and Reviving Development Thinking in Africa”, whatever we collectively choose to prioritise, in our research we need to do a little bit more of the following:

• The major challenge that Africa has been faced with is the challenge of autonomy. Autonomy is also the key challenge for CODESRIA, and for the social sciences in Africa. We need to preserve the space for critical thinking. African scholarship is, in many respects, as good as any other scholarship, and we are proud to have a growing number of global scholars emanating from our community, but we need to do more and better; we must create the conditions for more Samir Amins, and Mahmood Mamdanis, and Ali El-Kenzs, and Thandika Mkandawires, and Fatou Sows, and Amina Mamas, to emerge;

• We need to pursue what I would call the ‘Abuja Agenda’; three years ago, in Abuja, CODESRIA brought together a group of eminent scholars, activists and policy makers to reflect on the crisis and violence in Africa (Darfur, Cote d’Ivoire, the DRC…), and explore ways of re-inventing social bonds, and building an Africa of emancipated citizens whose every material and spiritual aspirations will be fulfilled, and whose dignity will be respected within and outside of the continent. This means researching issues such as those discussed during this GA—the public sphere and its structural transformation, citizenship, etc. but also researching regional integration issues, more than we currently do;

• The study of other regions of the world, and the experiences of other countries and peoples outside of Africa should be an imperative for us; we know very little about Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the industrialized countries; we ought to know the Scandinavian experience as well; for that we must develop research programmes, and encourage the opening of research centres specializing in the study of the other regions of the world; in the globalised world we live in, we shouldn’t expect others to tell us what we need to know in order to promote the interest and welfare of Africa.

• African scholars need to engage in some kind of prospective thinking.

• We must strive to be the true collective organic intellectual of our continent, who can address the concerns of policy makers, but also the social movements, civil society more generally, and our communities;

• We should encourage both the conduct of extensive field work and longitudinal studies, and theory building;

• We need to know the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7^th generations of scholars, and the other generations to come; we talk about them, but we must admit that our knowledge of them is fragmented and limited; we should therefore develop research programmes that will enable us to know these generations better; that, I believe, is a precondition for addressing the concerns of these generations;

• We should seek to enhance not only the visibility, but also the legitimacy of African scholarly voices: we often say that we were right about SAP, the importance of politics and governance, and other issues, but the problem was that nobody bothered to listen to what African scholars had to say about those issues, or read our works. I think we ought to work towards changing that.

• Finally, we need to increase the membership of CODESRIA; there is room for both the institutional and the individual membership of CODESRIA to expand, and we will use the Conference of Deans and other vehicles to get the word across and encourage more institutions and people to join the Council.

Colleagues and friends, as we celebrate the 35^th anniversary of CODESRIA, we should also remember that the times ahead are full of challenges. We are yet to understand the full implications of the recent global financial crisis for Africa, and for research funding in Africa. There are also many changes in the world of donors. How to raise money for programmes and secure the funding base of CODESRIA will therefore be something I will give much attention to.

We also still have a lot of challenges to face within our continent, the challenges of academic freedom and social responsibility being some of them. CODESRIA has strived to become the collective organic intellectual of Africa, but often found itself, like most African scholars, being asked to choose between being intellectual and being organic.

As for our social responsibility as scholars, as Thandika told me while I was working on a publication on the social sciences in Africa, “social science is not for monkeys”; it is for human beings. We therefore must continue exploring ways of making creative interpretations of our mandate as a Council. Science has been practiced and the results of research put to different kinds of uses—domination and exploitation, but also liberation. Social science, in particular, deals with public issues; its findings can therefore be put to various kinds of uses. The theme of this GA is a good illustration of the possibilities for social science to serve public purposes.

Elders of CODESRIA, Colleagues and friends, I grew up in the best of CODESRIA traditions of scholarship and service to our continent. I will strive to keep that tradition alive and well.

I look forward to working with the new EC and its president and vice-president, and with all of you on these and other issues.

Our ambition is to make African scholarship one of the best in the world, and to make CODESRIA the absolutely best of its kind in the world. And we can do so.

God Bless CODESRIA! God Bless Africa!

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤