Statelessness in Africa: the scale of the challenge and the opportunities for leadership
Published: 28/Oct/2015
Source: European Network on Statelessness
by Bronwen Manby
How do the contours of statelessness vary from continent to continent? To what extent is the nature of statelessness directly tied to the nature of the state? Europe, after all, invented the “nation-state”, the idea that each “nation” should have a state to match; and some European countries still resist the grant of citizenship to those who are not members of that “nation”. How far can this experience relate to that of the African continent, whose states are struggling with the concept of nationhood itself in the aftermath of colonial conquest and random boundary-making by some of those same European powers? What impact does the difference in these histories have on nationality and statelessness?
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