The United Nations peacekeepers have officially begun their mission in Congo Kinshasa (DRC), as the first UN contingent arrived and started deploying in the country. The deployment comes after foreign troops on Congolese soil had completed the "disengagement process" (pullback) that began two weeks ago.

We will try to cover the breadth and length of the subject of both VOLUNTEERING in Africa, and finding PAID WORK in Africa.

DATE: May 8th and 9th, 2001
LOCATION: San Jose, California

A group of 10 prominent figures from various walks of life have written an open letter to President George W Bush urging him to review his stance on the environment. The letter, in Monday's issue of Time magazine, follows signals that the Bush administration had abandoned the 1997 Kyoto treaty aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for global warming.

The UK has aligned itself firmly on the side of the pharmaceutical industry in the battle over cheap drugs for developing countries, declaring that patents on medicines must be upheld even in poor countries where millions are dying of diseases such as tuberculosis and Aids.

Guinea-Bissau's main opposition parties said on Monday they would not cooperate with the new government because it was unrepresentative of all political forces in the country. Their statement came few hours after the newly appointed prime minister, Faustino Imbali, announced his new team of 14 ministers and eight state secretaries. Imbali was appointed on Wednesday to replace Caetano Intchama and promised to concentrate on resolving the instability in the country.

A new memingitis epidemic is developing in large parts of Africa. In Burkina Faso the epidemic has already claimed 600 lives this year and the government appealed for International Aid.

International Center and Liberia Institute of Journalism WEST AFRICA NEWSLETTER
Reporting on Human Rights, Democracy & Development Vol. 1 No. 14 March 30, 2001.

Ethiopia's post-socialist track record shows that the country has made a decisive break with its command economy in many, but not all, respects. Price controls have been largely dismantled, tax and tariff rates reduced, and the inflation rate kept low. The EPRDF Government has a strong sense of ownership of the reforms, and it is committed to several measures that go beyond stabilization and liberalization.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) wishes to facilitate information-sharing and to assist countries in the development of national plans of action for human rights education.

The Global Forum for Health Research will hold its fifth annual meet-
ing in Geneva this October.
DATE: 9-12 October 2001
LOCATION: Forum 5: Geneva, Switzerland

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 66 covering the period 24 - 30 March

A group of NGOs including Amnesty have called on the international community to "turn principles into practice", as Mary Robinson highlighted in her opening statement to the UN Commission on Human Rights. The case of Togo, which has systematically violated international human rights standards, will be a test case for whether the Commission on Human Rights can put effective action before
political interests.

The purpose of the paper is to understand the causes of policy reform in Tanzania. It covers the time period from the beginning of the severe economic crisis in Tanzania in 1979 up to the present, but to put this in perspective it also briefly outlines the policies pursued before that. The study investigates how aid has encouraged, generated, influenced, supported or even retarded reforms.

ASFC Africa Iniative is holding a brainstorming meeting on April 20-21, Harare Zimbabwe. AI aims to complement and deepen the work of local, national and regional communities as well as those who work with them in re-thinking the links between the various issues that challenge African lives on a daily basis and to explore newer avenues for collaboration and cooperation in meeting these challenges.

Sends books and periodicals from UK to partner distributors in developing countries.

An international conference Bonn, Germany, September 4-6, 2001. With 800 million people lacking enough food to lead healthy, productive
lives, food insecurity remains a global threat and a humanitarian tragedy.
This conference will focus on why hunger persists, what emerging forces are
influencing the prospects for food security in the next two decades, and how
we need to realign priorities to eliminate hunger once and for all.

The leader of one of the Congolese rebel movements has refused to give an assurance that his troops will pull back from the front-line in compliance with a peace treaty.

Rwanda has begun a week of mourning for the victims of the 1994 genocide in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.

Guinean President Lansana Conte has refused to meet Liberian counterpart Charles Taylor over rebel attacks on Guinea which Conte says are backed by Liberia.

The U.N. Security Council demanded on Friday that Sierra Leone's rebels allow U.N. peacekeepers into diamond mine areas they control and authorized an increase of U.N. troops to 17,500 from 10,350.

Three million people face disaster in Sudan unless food assistance reaches them, the World Food Programme (WFP) has warned. As war- and drought-induced hunger sweeps across the country, WFP will run out of food by mid-April unless immediate action is taken, WFP said on 29 March. More than 600,000 people are affected by drought in the north and south of the country, and another 2.4 million people are affected by the ongoing civil war.

The European Union will send a high level delegation to Washington next week in a bid to "clarify" the USA's position on the Kyoto climate protocol. The move was announced by Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom as European condemnations of the Bush administration's apparent rejection of the Kyoto Protocol multiplied.

A journalist with Malawi's state-run news agency is under police protection after reporting critically on an opposition party visit to flood victims, prompting a string a threats against him.

The Group of 77, a coalition of 133 developing nations, is reiterating its demand for a new investigation into charges of racial discrimination in the recruitment and promotion of staffers in the 13,000-strong UN Secretariat.

The congress is organized around the main theme "Gendered Worlds: Gains and Challenges". This theme provides an opportunity for a broad reflection on the state of women and gender issues from a gendered perspective within the context of change. It enables discussions focused on both differences and similarities and offers positive pointers for future action for gender equity and equality. The Women's Worlds 2002 special focus areas will be the African perspective, young voices, gendering women and men, celebrating multiculturality and diversity and North - South perspectives. These focus areas will be reflected in the congress program themes.

At a conference held in Paris this week, several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and UN agencies appealed for the "total abolition" of the female genital mutilation (FGM) practice, of which an estimated 130 million African women are victims. Experiences show that anti-FGM legislation is a necessary basis for campaigning against the practice.

Please keep me in touch with this letter you intend sending to the Bank re GDG and open information.

I have been doing some work on "knowledge-based aid" and one dimension of this must be to look critically at the Gateway and other initiatives concerned with the globalisation of devt knowledge.

I attach a paper above which I did on this some months back.

DATE: Wednesdays 6:30-8:30 pm: April 18th -June 27th 2001
LOCATION: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,
Keppel St, London, WC1 United Kingdom
FEE: Conference Fee - £100. Individual session fees - £20 each
APPLICATION CLOSING DATE: Thursday 12 April, 2001
A Health and Human Rights Course over 10 weeks
organised by Physicians for Human Rights-UK
(CME approved by the Royal College of Physicians.
PGEA approval being sought)
The course will provide students with a good understanding of some
of the most important health and human rights issues of the day.

DATE: May 20-24, 2001
LOCATION: Orlando, Florida

Ethiopian troops have been found inside a buffer zone intended to keep apart the once-warring armies of Horn of Africa neighbors Ethiopia and Eritrea, the United Nations said on Thursday.

Egypt has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty. Speaking at the UN, an Egyptian representative stated that the treaty "did not take into consideration the legitimate right of States for self-defense, including the use of landmines in certain conditions."

On 26 June 2001, individuals and organizations worldwide will join the international campaign to commemorate the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. This year, the IRCT is coordinating the fourth consecutive global campaign to support these events in every region of the world. We hope that you will also be a part of this special day.

Claudio Schuftan's paper "Elements For A Human Rights Activists Course And Curriculum" can be downloaded as WORD f. WINDOWS file (44 kB).

A daily update on human rights and democratic development of the Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law based in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

One of the world's most powerful international financial institutions is violating international standards on freedom of information. The World Bank's review of its own information disclosure policy singularly fails to guarantee the public's right to know and allows individual countries the right to veto disclosure of information. ARTICLE 19, the Global Campaign for Free Expression, demands that the institution substantially revise its proposals.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), based in Accra, Ghana, is sending a team of human rights lawyers from Ghana and Nigeria to Liberia to assist in the defense of the four journalists detained on the charge of espionage.