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Despite its vast resources, Africa is at a crossroads and has slowly assumed the position of various development concerns, prompting many on the continent, including politicians, scholars, women, and other important stakeholders, to advocate for Africa's development in the global system. Africa has been branded the most underdeveloped region for far too long because the continent has been recirculated by people with little or no vision to transform the continent from its beldam state. The continent's current generation of leaders lacks the renaissance spirits needed to usher in a new and developed Africa. Africa requires a rebirth or a new generation of leaders with reviving spirits to face a variety of challenges, including region fragmentation, history and knowledge deficits, re-emergence of military takeovers, economic downturns, poverty, Covid-19 fallouts, relaying the foundations of the post-colonial state, undemocratic practices and human rights abuses, and the implementation of new conditions for peace and freedom, the gauge of sustainable development. The manner in which these underlying issues are addressed will have a significant impact on Africa's relevance and influence in global politics.
Except for a handful, African leaders, whether military or civilian, have failed in their aim to make Africa great and developed as Africa is still categorized as the world's least developed continent. Even after the arrival of democracy, Africa has not fared any better, because the combination of civilian and military leaders during the democratic period did not allow democracy to be a true success, as some of them were involved in electoral malpractices, electoral violence, human rights abuses, sit-tight-in-power, and sudden changes in the constitution for the elongation of tenure in some African countries. In most African countries, there is a problem of recycling old people as leaders, in addition to the issue of term lengthening. It has ramifications for mediocrity in power and, by extension, poor governance, which could have a long-term impact on public service delivery, citizen welfare, human security, and the formulation and execution of public policy. Because only a few rare leaders continue to advocate for a new strategy to development based on an African renaissance, these issues repeat in Africa. The dynamics of Africa's growth are primarily dependent on the resuscitation and regeneration of African leaders committed to grassroots development. The political responsibility of new generations of leaders in the twenty-first century should be built on the power and freedom relationship, particularly the freedom of citizens. Citizens will be able to govern these powers with renewed thinking rooted in the African renaissance, enhancing the fundamental rights of African people to life, education, and health, as well as spiritual and material satisfaction in dignity. Africa must take cognizance of these attributes in order to make meaningful changes and development. To begin, African leaders must stop clinging to power indefinitely, and Africa must understand the importance of remaining strongly "connected" to the rest of the world in order to advance. In today's world, the focus should be on re-birthing Africa so that it can look forward to the future.
Indeed, the African Renaissance provides the foundation for the achievement of this renewed African thinking or re-birth through the consideration of well-researched articles. The array of articles in this issue adequately provides solutions to some of the African challenges and their findings advanced new knowledge and understanding on how Africa can be liberated from its recurrent challenges in the contemporary world. Importantly, specific emphasis was made on development that will be rooted in African renaissance by some of the articles, which examines contemporary African issues such as the role of local government in a sustainable developmental renaissance, intergovernmental relations and service delivery in Africa, politicians-bureaucrats corruption, impact analysis of climatic variations on food security, human displacement through natural disasters, Covid-19 and fourth industrial revolution, Covid-19 and the struggle for clean water and public health issues, elections, imposition, and national integration question, Africa-China relation, and social cohesion, inherent problems of social cohesion in post-apartheid Africa, African perspective on associative problems of gay, lesbianism, and gender. These articles offer pragmatic solutions to the re-awakening of Africa’s mind and soul towards sustainable development, strongly rooted in the spirits motivated by the African renaissance.