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Featured this week

2006-06-08

FEATURED: John Githongo discusses democracy and governance on the African continent at the launch of TrustAfrica in Senegal
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Salma Maoulidi urges deeper understanding of the HIV/Aids pandemic in order to “deal with why it is and is allowed to be”
- Hein Marais on how the costs of the HIV/Aids pandemic in South Africa are being displaced on the poor
LETTERS: On the historian and his struggle
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Is Olusegun Obasanjo all out of luck? Tajudeen Abdul Raheem thinks so
BOOKS AND ARTS: Shailja Patel reviews the Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD), recently opened in San Francisco
AFRICAN UNION MONITOR: News on AU/CSO forum
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: No agreement on UN force for Darfur/US loss in Mogadishu?
HUMAN RIGHTS: Increased trade union repression in Africa
WOMEN AND GENDER: Niger MPs reject women’s rights protocol
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Investigating sexual abuse by humanitarian workers
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Succession crisis looms in Nigeria
DEVELOPMENT: Why NGOs won’t change the world
CORRUPTION: Uganda probe into Aids scam
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: Civil society denounces political declaration on HIV/Aids
EDUCATION: The importance of women teachers
ENVIRONMENT: UN expert warns on toxic waste
LAND AND LAND RIGHTS: Harare to evict 4000 black farmers
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: More websites blocked in Ethiopia
ADVOCACY AND CAMPAIGNS: Misfortune500 launched
PLUS: Internet and Technology; e-Newsletters and Mailings Lists; Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, Seminars and Workshops; Jobs.

* Read last week’s special edition on trade and justice by clicking on http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/257 Comment by sending mail to editor@pambazuka.org or online at www.pambazuka.org

Promoting a culture of accountability in Africa

2006-06-08

John Githongo

Tuesday marked the launch of Trust Africa, a new foundation based in Dakar, Senegal that will focus on conflict resolution, trade, and increasing democracy in Africa. Trust Africa has been operating for the past five years as part of the Ford Foundation, but will now be run independently from Dakar with an all-African board of directors. In the speech below, given to mark the launch of the foundation, John Githongo discusses democracy and governance on the African continent.


Speech to mark the launch of TrustAfrica in Dakar, Senegal on 6 June 2006

Honourable Minister, trustees and officials of TrustAfrica, friends at the Ford Foundation, Ladies and Gentlemen…

I would like to take this opportunity to thank TrustAfrica for honouring me with the invitation to make this address here today during the auspicious occasion of their formal launch here in their new home in Dakar, Senegal. The Trust arrives at a critical time with an important mandate to address issues that have always been at the forefront of public consiousness but which in today's environment find increasingly articulate and urgent expression. I am doubly honoured to participate in what is clearly a special moment for TrustAfrica and all who have worked so hard to make this special African initiative possible.

I was asked to make a few remarks about the opportunities that exist for improving governance and accountability in Africa and I shall limit my comments to those broad issues.

In truth serious debate about the manner in which Africa was governed only became mainstream after the end of the Cold war. Prior to this human rights, democracy, freedom of expression and other basic freedoms of ordinary citizens often took a back seat to the grand geopolitical struggles that were played out on African soil. It was thus somewhat disconcerting for many of our leaders to find themselves being lectured about good governance in the early 1990s by the very same Western patrons who had previously supported some of the most corrupt and oppressive regimes on the continent.

By the mid-1990s, on the heels of the macro-economic adjustments of the 1980s, governance - the fight against corruption in particular - had become central to the international development agenda as it was expressed in regard to Africa. By the end of the 1990s - 1997 in particular - the multilateral institutions were including governance-related conditionalities in their lending programmes and the bilaterals followed suit.

South African independence in 1994 saw the beginning of African attempts to reclaim the governance agenda. I would argue that the NEPAD initiative - its African Peer Review Mechanism in particular - is the most direct and potentially most successful instrument available for African to truly take ownership of this agenda. This is bolstered by the African Union's gentle slide away from the principle of non-interference in the affairs of sovereign nations especially when those sovereign African nations are led by groups intent on murdering significant numbers of their own populations. In truth we have been interfering quietly in each others affairs for a long time, mainly using our intelligence services. The time has come to interfere face-to-face and above the table to bolster the cause of democracy and good governance and, most importantly, to urgently intervene when situations go berserk and fear consumes populations.

Political accountability in practice

One of the most interesting issues to arise as a result of the spate of peaceful transitions across the continent since the mid-1990s has been that of political accountability. There has been a sense historically that a nation's top leadership were somehow not accountable and impunity attended to decision-making especially with regard to the management of public finances. This has changed. Just as we have had an unprecedented number of retired heads of state since the mid 1990s so to we have seen the establishment of commissions of inquiry into past human rights abuses and economic crimes and other transitional justice mechanisms. There are likely to be more of these in the coming few years and this is perhaps an interesting area for an institution like TrustAfrica to focus, at the very least to ensure that every new regime does not immediately embark on a witch hunt of its predecessors. Still, the key question that will continue to reverberate is to whom does the President answer and how? It is not unlikely that leaders will continue to get caught out by the media; find themselves under increased scrutiny of civil society and caught up by processes aimed at stemming newly urgent problems such as money laundering and terrorist finance. This is especially likely to be true of oil exporting countries.

One of the things that has always impressed me about many public figures in Asia when they are found to have abused the public trust is their public demonstrations of regret, contrition, shame and even tears before cameras. This culture does not yet exist for us here. Attitudes are still quite brazen. Partly as a result public confidence in leaders is low and around the world our leaders are often objects of derision, presented as greedy, corrupt and oppressive. The expectations of Africans with regard to their leaders is also broadly not one that suggests they expect altruism to drive decision-making and therefore opt for the second best of hanging around to see what they can gain directly for themselves and their families. This is changing, partly as a result of demography and a younger population with expectations driven by global imperatives. It also the case that the democratic tradition has truly kicked in across the continent. Despite challenges no one reasonable harks back to the one party state or military rule. Maybe we are yet to see a leader stand up and agree to having looted the public purse and express contrition for it. More importantly perhaps we could be moving to a situation where the leader who gets thus caught out does not enjoy the spontaneous and determined support of his or her people who rally to their cause because they perceive them to be victims of an ethnic witch hunt.

Regional integration as a tool for political accountability

I should like to argue that regional integration may potentially hold out the most important opportunity for improving political accountability across the continent. There is a sense in which some of the internal political contradictions - especially within some of the smaller landlocked countries within Africa - will only be resolved when these nations become integral parts of larger entities. And so one would hope that one day very soon, for example, Rwanda and Burundi will be part of a wider East African political entity. This would also put paid to the backward theories that are sometimes bandied about to the effect that tribalism in some African countries is so acute that we need to create tribally homogenous states.

Similarly, with regard to the dispensation of justice one would hope to see regional higher and supreme courts and other regional judicial instruments and processes coming into being that are perhaps less subject to the vagaries of internal national political challenges that can sometimes be vexatious in the extreme. On the other hand it can also be argued pragmatically that regional institutions will provide us with an opportunity to promote politicians who are sometimes reluctant to let go of national positions and institutions; we can promote retired Presidents to play useful roles at the regional level when they reach the point of diminishing returns nationally.

Development with Equity

But the most interesting and I should like to argue critical issue that TrustAfrica and similar institutions can assist many nations in Africa address is 'development with equity'. There is a sense in which development with equity especially in our highly heterogenous societies become a discredited concept in the mid-1980s when we were all structurally adjusted; it was dismissed as an outmoded socialist concept whose time had ended with the failure of some of the ambitious political and economic experiments of the Cold War years.

The political and economic programmes implemented at independence to promote the redistribution of wealth in light of the structural and institutionalised inequalities of the colonial era had stagnated by the early 1980s and lost credibility as a result of the inefficiency, incompetence and corruption that came with them - state owned enterprises in particular. The ostensible donor designed replacement programmes have been implemented half-heartedly and therefore perhaps less successfully. Indeed, macroeconomic stability has finally come to Africa at the beginning of the 21st century, but the pressing issues of political economy - equity in particular - remain unresolved. More than two decades since adjustment we have democratised but seem to have lost the intellectual will and machinery to grapple with the major equity issues facing the continent - the fact that even where economic growth has been rapid especially as a result of mineral wealth - the distribution of this wealth has been extremely unequal. People are afraid of being called socialists at a time when even in Europe the distinctions between Left and Right in terms of economic policy have become blurred. This is doubly problematic for us in Africa because inequality quickly finds regional, ethnic, tribal and religious expressions that complicate the politics in an extreme way. Most importantly it leads to the perception that closeness to the state creates and sustains elites on the basis of kinship ties and therefore governance is all about my tribe or my group or my family assuming the levers of power so that they can eat.

For a long time the prevailing philosophy said that the tribe had been overtaken by the nation; Gikuyus were overtaken by Kenyans; Yorubas by Nigerians; Hutus by Rwandese etc. In fact this philosophy was taken a step further when single party states were created to save us from the dangers of too many political parties that quickly assumed tribal characters. The detribalisation political experiment seemed to have failed in many places. Despite the national language; national anthem; national schools and of course the national single leaders; the tribe and its baggage refused to go away. In fact it started to become clear that within the single detribalising party those from this or that family or this or that tribe or region seemed to wield a disproportionate amount of power and similarly the economic benefits of development seemed to go to one group more than all the others.

The principle of disadvantaged groups; of affirmative action; of the better off providing for those who don't have so much was never one to be discussed seriously. Instead boils of resentment were allowed to fester and explode into calls for sovereign conferences and rebel groups claiming their rightful share of wealth they consider to be more theirs than anyone else’s. And this is happening at a time when there is an increasing acknowledgment of the stark inequalities of globalisation at least in the short term. The problem for our states that have been independent for around half a century is that globalisation's short term is our long term, and besides that we have watched as the Asians seem to have reduced poverty dramatically within the same time we have managed to deepen it here. So African impatience is not going to go away.

It just so happens that some tribes are richer than others - by mistake of history, access to markets, education, climate or sometimes because they happen to sit on huge deposits of some precious commodity that can be dug up and sold; or - because they wield the levers of power and can control that precious commodity that's dug up and sold. The sharing of resources seems to be discussed with greatest clarity as a result of a crisis - when one group has expressed its dissatisfaction with the status quo in a manner that undermines central authority. Be it oil, gold, diamonds or water - the shape of states will be moulded by these resource issues. One would hope that the principle of equity will inform the outcomes of the debates that are underway and those that are yet to happen upon us. TrustAfrica from its vantage point here in Senegal is uniquely placed to inform and help to shape this debate, to frankly address the equity issues that we have tried to sometimes sweep under the political carpet.

The Durability of Embedded Corruption Networks

Finally, a word about corruption. Too often discussions about governance are overtaken by the corruption debate. In part this is because it is such a vexatious issue in Africa - vexatious because even though it may not be worse than in other parts of the world the starkness of the inequalities in yields in Africa and the fact that those inequalities find ethnic, tribal and regional expression makes it a particularly compelling political reality. It is also the case that a few African leaders have been spectacularly colourful and excessive in their stealing. Embedded corruption networks on the continent consisting of civil servants, politicians, businessmen/brokers and security/defence sector officials have remained influential since the Cold War when most of them were engineered. In my experience with the new increased focus in Africa on the oil sector there is an urgency for accountability with regard to these resources more than ever before.

TrustAfrica will find that in the holding of public officials to account on the continent, especially with regard to the management of resources, the media will be at the cutting edge. Indeed, the media remains the first and most incisive tool of public accountability. The importance of media and information generally in this age of information technology that has democratised access to information between the First and Third Worlds and which has considerably enhanced the capacity of media and civil society cannot be underplayed.

I should like to conclude by pointing to a number of lessons from my experience where corruption is concerned:

1. National security and the procurement processes it derives is the last refuge of the corrupt. Extractive industries and communications are also open to spectacular abuse.

2. Political financing will become an increasingly troubling issue. Who pays for democracy in Africa?

3. Presidential accountability is key and only constitutional reform can make this happen.

4. Failure of the prosecutory authorities led to the creation of anti-graft agencies across Africa at the behest of development partners.

5. It sometimes appears as if in the Third World that the multilaterals are engineered to deal with authoritarian regimes. They are also faced with a glaring contradiction vis-à-vis governance: for them success is measured by the amount of money they lend or donate, the size of the programme they develop for a country. This imperative can sometimes contradict some of the executive measures they would need to encourage with regard to governance issues generally and anti-corruption matters specifically.

6. Restitution is more important than prosecution in the fight against corruption.

Despite some setbacks and bizarre developments across the continent, in Africa we are learning that public service means we serve the people and not an individual; that the public no longer accept that weary excuse of the past that one received orders from above to break the law or abuse public trust in any way. So a culture of political accountability may be beginning to take root. It will lead I believe, in the coming years to increasing calls for greater Presidential accountability in particular which might be expressed in the constitutional reform processes. This will be a positive development with wider implications where despite generally positive developments on the democratisation front ultimate presidential accountability is something we are only starting to learn.

Finally, the setbacks on the democratic front in Africa are not causing a generalised feeling of decline, despondency and failure – the maturing democracy thus far seems able to absorb the shocks. The TrustAfrica launch is yet another demonstration of this maturing. It is an honour to share this special occasion with all of you…

Thank-you.

* Pambazuka News has previously been the recipient of a Trust Africa grant. Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Breaking the HIV/AIDS spell in Africa

2006-06-08

Salma Maoulidi

Last Friday evening, the United Nations adopted a Political Declaration of Commitment on HIV/Aids following a meeting in New York to thrash out a response to the pandemic. While welcomed in some quarters, the declaration has also faced criticism from an African civil society grouping, who described it as an “utter disappointment” and declared a Week of Action - from June 13 to 17 - to mobilize support for previous commitments made by African governments to fighting the pandemic (Please see the HIV/Aids section of Pambazuka News for more details). In the article below, Salma Maoulidi goes beyond showcasing the pandemic in an attempt to “deal with why it is and is allowed to be”.


Tanzania has a national HIV/Aids policy and is in the process of finalizing legislation on HIV/Aids. The expectation is that once the policy and legal framework is set, people living with HIV/Aids and their families will be afforded greater protection. But will a legal framework that solely addresses the public health dimensions of HIV/Aids and not the intimate aspects of personal relationships that maintain the status-quo in power relations between the sexes suffice?

Treating an invisible syndrome

When one reads the alarming statistics explaining the magnitude of HIV/Aids in sub-Saharan Africa one gets an impression that people are dropping down like flies. One would think that as one walks the streets, every other person would be noticeably HIV positive. This, however, is not the case, not because HIV/Aids is not present but because it is rendered invisible - something that makes ongoing efforts to combat HIV/AIDS ineffective, if not difficult.

While HIV/Aids is very much in our midst it remains hidden from many either by choice or by design. It remains hidden by choice because we choose not to see it; or those that are affected by it choose not to divulge their status. It remains hidden by design when those who have it go to extra lengths to conceal their positive status. Also, it remains obscured when the state fails to address the problem at its core, that is confronting the underlying cause contributing to widespread infections rather than its consequence.

I have been following the progression of HIV/Aids since the mid-eighties when the formulation of the first national response against HIV/Aids emerged, but it remained invisible to me until the late nineties. Until then my association with HIV/Aids was based on health statistics and my long association with women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. Putting a face to someone living with the virus came much later. But when these live testimonies finally emerged they were persistent in underscoring the pervasiveness of the pandemic. From the outset, it became clear to me that each story of a women who had contracted the virus was peculiar and in most cases did not meet the popular myths around HIV/Aids.

There are many dimensions to the problem that is HIV/Aids, something that is not so clear with prevailing responses against the disease. One can only appreciate the complexity involved in combating the pandemic when one reviews the stories of countless women, men and children infected and affected by HIV/Aids. It is also these stories that inform my political stance on the adequacy of existing HIV/Aids approaches in combating the pandemic.

Protecting the unsuspecting

One of the first cases I came across involved a bright girl, full of life and humour. I met her for the first time when she was ten but looked more like a five year old. She was born HIV positive, a fact that led her father to abandon the family. It was left to her mother and elder sibling to love and provide for her amidst great hardship. Although an innocent child, she was not spared the humiliation meted out on PLWHA’s that resulted from prevalent institutional ignorance about HIV/Aids. Her teachers openly discriminated against her, forcing her to wear a red badge to signify her HIV status.

Fortunately, her mother joined an association of PLWHA which provided her and the family with much needed moral and material support. Her sisters, who were not positive, became peer educators and volunteers for an HIV/Aids community based programme. She thus never saw herself as a victim. She accepted her condition and sought to live to the fullest in spite of the fact that she was positive. Her status was only an issue when it made her too sick to play or attend school. She died before her twelfth birthday, unable to realize her many dreams. Her brave attitude gave us a useful advocacy platform to intensify the campaign for the rights of PLWHA.

Progressively, the reality of HIV/Aids came close to home when a close friend of mine lost her baby girl. Although she had suffered bouts of TB it only became clear that she may be infected with the virus after her very sick daughter was diagnosed with the virus. Indeed it is not exceptional that many women get to know about their positive status in this manner since they do not fit the profile of women who are likely to be infected with the virus in the sense that they are not prostitutes or “loose” women but women who are in stable relationships, the majority having the respectable status of being someone’s wife and, therefore, by local social standards, outside the ambit of the risk category associated with immoral behavior.

Consequently, a significant number of HIV positive women I know contracted the virus as unsuspecting victims. They were brought up to believe that it was enough that they were in a happy, healthy and lasting marriage. The husband’s fidelity was immaterial to complete this equation. On the contrary, the overwhelming perception is that a chaste and faithful wife sufficed to protect the family from ill health and ensure a strong progeny. Increasingly women are finding that an institution that was traditionally meant to provide them with security, stability, health and respect is in fact endangering their lives and livelihoods.

Many of these women are torn between confronting their problem and in so doing drawing attention to themselves, a fact that leaves them vulnerable to public scorn and stigmatization. Importantly, it has the potential to ostracize them from traditional systems of support, especially after their spouse rejects them upon divulging their status. Indeed it is the dilemmas and contradictions women face as the weaker sex that puts them at risk of contracting the virus. Certainly, it is the denial of women’s agency in matters of sexual and reproductive nature that informs women’s social and economic predicament, a situation intensified by the HIV/Aids pandemic.

Are we fighting a disease or a curse?

The contradictory nature of the disease vis a vis women’s wellbeing is most evident in the story of my namesake, now deceased, who I came to know by virtue of my work with Muslim women. She was an only child, begotten late in life. Her elderly mother was anxious about her welfare after she passed on, such that when a widower proposed marriage she hastily agreed, believing that she was marrying her child to a responsible man. She did not know how her future son-in-law lost his wife nor did he oblige the information. It seems that he had two main concerns - either to draw upon the youth and vitality of his young bride to will himself to good health or to have a healthy person to care for him as his health deteriorated. In either case it was not the welfare of his new wife that was paramount to the fatal union nor did he take any measures to minimize the risk of infection to his young wife.

Next my cousin fell ill to recurrent bouts of TB. In his quest to prove that he did not have something more serious, he repeatedly neglected to complete the prescribed dose for treating the disease, creating resistance against TB. His mother and siblings never accepted that he may have contracted HIV, though they knew he was a womanizer. Instead they were more willing to forgive his philandering but content to blame his wife and her mother for bewitching him. In vain my aunt tried to break the marriage as her son’s condition deteriorated, perhaps to minimize the likelihood of her laying any claims to the matrimonial property, but failed. To our dismay my aunt unceremoniously chased the widow out of the house immediately upon completing her iddat (the mourning period) in spite of the fact that she had two young sons.

Then the young woman who helps us around the house was afflicted by a double HIV/Aids tragedy: her brother in law died after a long illness that was explained as diabetes coupled with witchcraft. During her time off she visited her sister and took care of him. There is no knowing what risk she exposed herself to as she only confirmed that he may have died of Aids after her sister succumbed and died soon after. This tragedy ended the working life of this young woman as her mother went into shock, forcing her to take a leave of absence to nurse her until she died. To save her from a predicament like her sister’s, her uncle and brothers planned to marry her off to a man who had been divorced thrice.

While a number of these women were ignorant about their status, a number were in denial not because of arrogance but because they feared the repercussions their status might have. My friend took some time to accept her HIV positive status. A lot of anger was exhibited against her husband’s long love interest and while she came from a religious family she readily invoked witchcraft to explain her errant husband’s behaviour. Perhaps it was more tolerable to accept that her husband was not acting in selfish disregard of her feelings and health were it not for an evil third hand or influence.

My most recent house help must have known for sometime she had the virus but instead of focusing on her condition actively sought out other women suspected to be infected as if in an attempt to deflect attention from her own status. Otherwise she hid her ill health well, substituting it with other debilitating diseases like malaria or typhoid. But when her ten-year old daughter died, she lost her will to live and succumbed almost two months later. The fate of her husband is unknown since he is adamant his daughter was a victim of someone’s bad spell, a view his wife never sought to correct lest she became suspect and was thrown out in the streets.

Interrogating the source of repeated transmissions

The stories serve to underscore certain truths that hardly feature as the key issues in the battle against HIV/Aids. It is more likely for women to admit their HIV status than it is for men. In most cases I have come across, the women were categorical that it was the sexual permissiveness of their partner that put them at risk. In many cases they were unsuspecting victims. In some cases, they suspected infidelity but were helpless to stop it since as opposed to their sexuality being regulated, their husband’s infidelity was given free reign by religious dicta and the legal framework. While society is more preoccupied with the status of the woman during marriage - whether she is a virgin or not; whether she is rebellious or not; whether she is respectable or not - equal consideration is not given to the status of her partner. On the contrary legal and social institutions tend to extol men’s sexual prowess and irresponsibility.

Likewise, while it is common for women who contract the virus to be punished for their condition there is never talk of compensating them for the harm inflicted on them and the ensuring violation of their privacy and property rights. My namesake was disposed of all her property by her in-laws - even her cooking pots - though it was well known that her culinary skills sustained the family during their short married life. She attempted to fight for her rights but died without justice being realized. The sister of my house help was evicted from the house where she lived and nursed her husband and ended up living with a relative before being bundled back to her village to die.

After initial denial my friend is living an open life. She recently lost her husband and is in the middle of a property distribution exercise directed by his family. While the family is keen to expedite her share of inheritance, perhaps in view of her condition, there is no mention of compensating her for the harm her late husband caused her, if not knowingly then by sheer negligence. She dares not bring up the issue lest her in-laws fall short of being generous towards her. It is this attitude of looking at women as creatures to be pitied and helped, instead of full partners in a relationship, that limits their agency and bargaining power in a relationship. Surely, awarding her compensation is not a matter of retribution or her inability to forgive. On the contrary it is her ability to forgive and go on with her life that contributes to her positive and healthy living. But should such chivalry be abused?

The wrong these women have been subjected to goes unrecognized. The contributions they made to families in terms of monetary and non-monetary forms of contributions go unacknowledged. Instead, these women are vilified by relatives and society for their positive status. Their positive status is equal to a death sentence and licenses their dispossession. Their continued existence means they are delaying the process of wealth transfer and if the virus won’t kill them in time, then heart ache and harassment are efficient mechanisms to expedite the sentence!

The unresolved politics of HIV/Aids

Most governments have failed to look at the social impact of HIV/Aids beyond the rhetoric of sharing the burden of looking after those affected by the HIV/Aids scourge. And while the pandemic presents new opportunities for governments to address gender inequalities there is paralysis in taking deliberate action to promote natural and social justice. Certainly the pandemic presents an opportunity to influence reforms in law and attitudes not only towards HIV/Aids but in reforming gender relations. Other than reaffirming state responsibility towards principles of gender equality and justice, it affords states an opportunity to engage in social engineering towards meeting constitutional and civic commitments to its citizens, male and female.

The development sector’s HIV/Aids response fares no better. While it is commonplace to maintain that having HIV/Aids does not amount to having a death sentence, prevailing policies, discourses and practice related to HIV/Aids continuously pass death sentences on those infected by the virus. Though my organization addresses HIV/Aids in the context of reproductive health, I resist working in the field mainly because the overwhelming support to the sector seems to promote welfarism - approaching infected persons as helpless victims thereby subscribing to dominant attitudes that tend to seal the nails on the coffins of those afflicted by the virus. This is an approach to development that we abandoned two decades ago in favour of a more empowering development approach and discourse.

Indeed, whereas we have tried to reclaim the dignity of people who survived gender based physical and sexual violence we are shamelessly victimizing people infected with HIV/Aids. The biggest pastime for people who want to placate their sense of guilt or get a piece of the HIV industry in my country are projects involving HIV/Aids orphans where countless children who are infected or who lost parents to the disease are not allowed to get over their loss and the stigma associated with their loss. The association with HIV/Aids is the brand that sells. Oblivious are we to the message that underlies such projects: Why can’t these children get on with their lives and be assisted by virtue of being orphaned and not because they are orphaned by HIV/Aids?

Also appalling is the wastage of resource poured in by the international community on material purchases and workshops that do very little to actually help communities deal with the HIV pandemic. Indeed, HIV/Aids has become the new development craze diverting much needed income from more sustainable development interventions. Why is overall spending in preventive health and reproductive health falling when they form part of the equation for an effective heath response to the pandemic? I visited Rwanda in 2004 and was appalled to find that each major UN agency and international NGO was into the HIV/Aids sector with very little coordination between them. I found a similar situation in Zanzibar where the bulk of advocacy organizations felt compelled to get into the HIV/Aids sector to secure funding to remain afloat.

I am equally wary of the ongoing politicization of the question of access to anti-retrovirals for PLWHA. Certainly I have no desire to profit pharmaceuticals, who seek to commodify people’s health in the name of a pseudo-cure. I am also hesitant to create dependency on the drugs in the absence of better nutrition and a guarantee that the scientific community is serious in finding a cure or a better drug regiment. The idea is not to create another dependent population, this time not only on food aid or donor aid but on ARVs. The objective should be to empower PLWHA to live healthy and independent lives without fear of incrimination, stigmatization or impoverishment. It should be about giving security and dignity to those infected and affected by HIV/Aids.

Conclusion

Statistics explaining the magnitude of the pandemic are plentiful. It is however not helpful when numbers are considered in a vacuum. I took inspiration from a book a young woman participating in our mentoring program is working on to open dialogue about HIV/Aids. The book is particularly insightful as other than using narratives of women infected and affected by HIV/Aids to expose the human dimension of the pandemic, it does so while charting her personal trajectory with HIV/Aids. She explores myths about the disease; education and prevention strategies; and personal and community responses they invoke. Certainly it is in understanding the interactions that inform individual HIV/Aids experiences that more sustainable prevention options will evolve, options that go beyond showcasing the scourge for what it is but attempt to deal with why it is and is allowed to be.

* Salma Maoulidi is the Executive Director of Sahiba Sisters Foundation, a development network that works with the concerns of Muslim and provincial women. Sahiba’s mission is to build the leadership and organizational skills of women and youth. It has network members in 13 regions of Tanzania.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

A plague of inequality

2006-06-08

Hein Marais

Hein Marais reviews the HIV/Aids pandemic in South Africa, describing how “the costs of Aids are being socialised, deflected back into the lives, homes and neighbourhoods of the poor”.


Shelve the abiding fiction that disasters do not discriminate - that they flatten everything in their path with “democratic” disregard. Plagues zero in on the dispossessed, on those forced to build their lives in the path of danger. Aids is no different. In South Africa, where at least five million people are living with HIV, the epidemic is entangled in the circuitries that determine the distribution of power and privilege.

The mainstays of South Africa’s efforts to fend off the impact of the HIV/Aids epidemic are anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy provision and home-based care. While vitally important, each in current form also expresses the kinds of prevailing inequalities that warp society.

Today, of the estimated one million South Africans in need of ARVs, only about 200 000 are receiving such therapy - half of them through the private health sector, which is accessible to a small minority of South Africans. According to Statistics SA, only about 15% of South Africans (and a mere 7% of black Africans) belong to medical insurance schemes.

The bulk of ARV provision will have to occur through the public health sector, which is being pummelled by Aids. According to research by the Human Sciences Research Council in 2003, Aids was responsible for about 13% of deaths among health workers between 1997 and 2001 - when the wave of Aids mortality was still beginning to crest. Yet the need for well-trained health personnel has never been greater. Completing the rollout of the government’s ARV programme will require an additional 3 200 doctors, 2 400 nurses, 765 social workers and 112 pharmacists in the public health system by 2009. Need far outstrips supply.

Meanwhile, care needs surge. At the turn of the century, researchers were already finding that almost one in two patients in public medical and paediatric wards was HIV-positive, and that their hospital stays were almost twice as long as those of non-Aids patients. Staff workloads and stress mounted accordingly.

All this is overlaid with broader inequity. A large share of South Africa’s gross domestic product - about 9% - goes to healthcare. However, the spending occurs in a two-tier system. About 60% of the funds pay for the healthcare of the 15% of South Africans with private medical insurance. Annual per capita expenditure on healthcare in the private sector is almost six times larger than that in the public sector, and fully 80% of specialists and at least 60% of general practitioners now work in the private sector. As a general rule, income determines who gets what sort of healthcare.

It’s obvious that in an epidemic this severe, some form of home- and community-based care is vital; otherwise the sheer volume of care needs would swamp the public health system. This has been an important element of the post-1994 overhaul of the health system. In theory, by creating a “continuum of care” that links contributions and resources from the public health system and others, home- and community-based care would boost the quality, scale and sustainability of the care effort.

The reality is rather more profane. Most of the burden of Aids care is being displaced into the “invisible” zones of the home - and onto the shoulders of women.

As practiced, Aids care in South Africa today relies on retrograde notions of womanhood and domesticity, casting women in the roles of bearers of children, nurses of the frail, guardians of the hearth. Women oblige with extraordinary stoicism and courage. But that does not disguise the fact that home-based care, as currently practiced, codifies and exalts the rampant exploitation of women’s labour, financial and emotional reserves.

This form of value extraction subsidises the economy at every level from the household outward, yet remains invisible in political and economic discourse. If nothing else, home-based care lays bare the coercive subtext that nestles in the notion of “mothers of the nation”.

But life, and the struggles to guard it, go on. Patients and their care-givers must subsidise many aspects of care provision, and bear the costs of not receiving the levels of care and support they require - the consequences of which spill across households and families in the forms of stress, trauma and depression.

Although thrust into the roles of mediators, counsellors and saviours, care-givers often are unable to provide things as basic as pain-killers or a meal. They typically admit to feeling overwhelmed and alone, buckled by emotional stress and fatigue. Aids stigma poisons these experiences even further.

Home-based care appears to be a more “realistic” or “affordable” option because its true costs are hidden, deflected back into the domestic zones of the poor. In doing so, it adheres to the same polarising logic that defines our society.

Not only is this unjust, it also undermines the sustainability of care provision in the face of a crisis set to continue well into the future. Aids is meshing with the routine distress endured by millions of South Africans - but to pummelling effect, as it intensifies those hardships, and drives an even thicker wedge between the privileged and the deprived.

Supported by consistent but modest economic growth, infrastructure development and service delivery have improved markedly since 1994 - but on a scale that does not match mushrooming needs, and on terms that bow to the logic of the market.

With access to secure, paid employment at a premium, and institutionalised forms of support deficient, the poor have to absorb shocks themselves. Their margins of safety are wafer-thin. Savings are very low, debt is high and access to medical and other forms of insurance rare. For many millions of South Africans, a regular, living wage is a comparative luxury. According to the 2005 Afrobarometer survey, four in 10 respondents said they went without food or were unable to buy medicine they needed, three in 10 couldn’t afford to pay for water, and six in 10 went without an income at some stage in the past year. African women are hit particularly hard.

At the institutional level, Aids will leave its mark as higher morbidity and mortality rates translate into increased absenteeism and personnel losses - trends already vivid elsewhere in Southern Africa. Especially vulnerable are those sectors of the state and civil society most closely involved in the reproduction of “human” and “social capital”.

Aids mortality now ranks among the top causes of staff losses in the public education system - which says something in a sector already racked by low morale. More than half the educators polled by the Human Sciences Research Council in 2005 said they intended leaving their jobs. Training capacity lags far behind need, with management and administrative skills replenishment especially weak.

In such a context, Aids is likely to aggravate dysfunction in the public school system. The effects could spill wide. If basic education suffers, the springboard for higher education and skills training weakens - to unhappy effect in an economy that has been geared to rely more heavily on a strong skills base. Channels for quality educational advancement will of course be available - to those who can afford them.

What might this mean for inter-generational social mobility? If the quality of public school education deteriorates further, against a backdrop of continuing marginalisation of the poorest households - and of overall polarisation - social mobility will be hobbled, trapping more in the mire of chronic poverty. Whether South Africa can avert such consequences will help decide what kind of society future generations will inherit.

Overall, Aids will corrode institutions’ capacities to provide predictable, consistent and acceptable standards of service. Already saddled with hulking workloads and compromised capacity, the police, correctional and judicial services seem especially vulnerable to additional debilities. So, too, the many community-based organisations that play vital welfarist roles at local level - many of which rely on a few key individuals.

How does this tally on the bottom line? It seems indisputable that the epidemic will affect the economy - but how and to what extent is not easily gauged. Some estimates seem almost to trivialise the effect of Aids by suggesting a negligible effect on national economic output. Other projections anticipate severe damage.

The disagreements stem from the fact that the estimates rest on varying assessments of the epidemic’s demographic impact, the channels along which Aids affects the economy, and the nature of those effects.

Such bird’s-eye views of economic impact carry some illustrative value, but they provide little substantive insight. As usual, the devil resides in the details. And it’s there that one encounters further evidence of the uneven and discriminatory impact of Aids.

A handful of major companies have introduced high-profile ARV treatment programmes for some of their employees, and some also emphasise prevention. Most companies, though, seem to be taking Aids in their stride. They have considerable leeway for deflecting the effects of the epidemic - and they’re using it.

Companies continue to shift the terms on which they use labour, a trend that predates Aids but is having a huge effect on working South Africans’ abilities to cushion themselves against the repercussions of the epidemic.

For more than a decade, companies have been intensifying the adoption of labour-saving work methods and technologies, the outsourcing and casualisation of jobs, and cutting worker benefits. The effects have been particularly harsh on workers in the middle and lower skills tiers.

Medical benefits are now customarily capped at levels far too low to cover the costs of serious ill health or injury. Companies have been cutting death and disability benefits, limiting employer contributions and requiring that workers pay a larger share of the premiums for the same benefits. A mammoth shift has occurred from defined-benefit retirement funds to defined-contribution funds (the latter offering scant help to workers felled, for example, by disease in the prime of their lives).

The net effect has been a constant paring of real wages and benefits for those South Africans with formal employment - at a time when they and their families are at increased risk of severe illness and premature death. Recall that we’re talking here about those workers with relatively secure, and probably unionised, jobs. Left to fend for themselves are the masses of “casual” workers, and the unemployed.

In such ways, the costs of Aids are being socialised, deflected back into the lives, homes and neighbourhoods of the poor. This amounts to a massive, regressive redistribution of risk and responsibility. These sorts of adjustments are enabling many companies (particularly larger ones) to sidestep the worst of the epidemic’s impact. But many thousands of enterprises lack that evasive agility.

Smaller firms, especially those that rely heavily on the custom of poor households, will be hit hardest, to say nothing of informal retailers, spaza shops and “microenterprise”.

The Aids epidemic meshes with the social relations that reproduce inequality and deprivation, generating a glacial, miserable crush. Aids unmasks the world we live in, and underlines the need for drastic change that unreservedly favours the dispossessed. In a society in which millions are impoverished in the midst of abundance, this crisis demands nothing less than a new strategy - and struggle - for realising social rights.

At the very least, this implies an upgraded social package that slots into an accelerated programme of redistribution and rights-realisation. It would include safeguarded food security, the provision of affordable (that is to say, decommodified) essential services, job creation and workers’ rights protection, and the alignment of social transfers to unfolding needs.

Shirk that duty, and current trends will harden and intensify. For hundreds of thousands of people, Aids is already dismantling the hope of a better life in the most incontrovertible way possible: by killing them. It threatens to steal from many millions more the very idea of a different, better world.

* Hein Marais’s new book, ‘Buckling: The Impact of Aids in South Africa’, is published by the Centre for the Study of Aids at the University of Pretoria. It can be ordered at csa@up.ac.za or http://www.csa.za.org

* This article was first published in the Mail and Guardian newspaper (http://www.mg.co.za) It is reproduced here with kind permission of the author and the Mail and Guardian

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Obasanjo: Nigeria's Mandela, Napoleon, and Jesus Christ rolled into one?

2006-06-08

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

Has Olusegun Obasanjo finally run out luck? Tajudeen Abdul Raheem charts the career of the Nigerian president.


Anybody who believes that treachery does not pay has not studied the life history of Nigeria's recently humbled aspirant-maximum-ruler, retired General, Chief Mathew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

A combination of capacity to speak to the left while going right - and extraordinary luck - has propelled him far beyond what his childhood dreams could have been from his very humble beginnings in Owu, Abeokuta. For a man of no exceptional ability to have risen from pauper to president is a worthy mythic story in itself, but Obasanjo even managed to do the journey in reverse also: from prisoner to president. It will require extr ordinary humility not to begin to believe that the Almighty God specifically created you to deliver Nigerians. His acolytes convinced themselves that Obasanjo was Nigeria's chosen messiah and with time Obasanjo himself began to believe that he is Nigeria's Mandela, Napoleon, and Jesus Christ rolled into one.

Given where he started from and how far he has travelled the temptation was almost irresistible but as a self –confessed born again evangelical Christian one would have expected his faith to counsel him and make him grateful to the Good Lord for all the bounties showered on him. Instead Obasanjo began to believe he is the Lord redeemer himself. I hope in these sober days he reflects on those very Christian words: Pride goes before a fall.

After all this was a man who according to his own biographer, as a boy, wanted to be a motor mechanic! His life's ambition would have been satisfied if he had ended up owning a shared workshop in some run down area of Abeokuta. But he ended up training as a technician (though he keeps claming he is an engineer) in the Nigerian army.

He was a junior officer during the Nigerian civil war and an average performer until lady luck shined on him in two distinct ways. Towards the end the war, he took over the command of the third marine commando (TMC), from one of the most authentic heroes (or villains) of the civil war, Benjamin Adekunle, The Black Scorpion. But good fortune smiled on Obasanjo and TMC troops fell on the radio station of the Biafrans, a few days after which General Effiong surrendered to the federal troops. And who was the officer he surrendered to? Yes, your guess is right: Major Olusegun Obasanjo.

How kinder can faith be? Like other young officers (Murtala Muhammad, TY Danjuma, Mohammed Shuwa, Alani Akinrinade etc etc) propelled to command posts by the exigencies of the civil war, Obasanjo finished the war and went into obscurity to continue a steady rise in the army. Towards the end of the Gowon regime he was made a federal commissioner (minister) but not many people would remember that until Gowon was overthrown in July 1975. The coup was essentially by young officers who had served in the war and were disgruntled by the lack of direction of the Gowon regime, especially as it became clear that he was unwilling to handover power to civilians, but bent on civilianising himself. Murtala became the preferred leader for the coup plotters. Obasanjo became his deputy. Six months down the line Murtala was assassinated (February 1976) and a reluctant Obasanjo became head of state.

From then onwards more accidents have conspired to keep Obasanjo ahead of his many enemies, but also his serial betrayal at the highest levels became a guiding principle. He changed course from the dynamism of the Murtala regime in relations with the West, but kept the Africa-centred focus. He invited Jimmy Carter to Nigeria on the first ever official trip by a sitting US president to an African country. From then onwards he thought himself friend of the US. Domestically he endeared himself to everyone by handing power to an elected civilian government in 1979 in an imperfect transition. He thus became the first military leader to peacefully hand over power without a coup to an elected civilian leader.

Nigerians forgave the excesses of his authoritarian rule, including killing of a university student during demonstrations, detentions without trials, introduction of fees in universities, etc because he handed over power. Internationally Obasanjo's stocks rose rapidly, courted by the many friends of Africa looking for signs of good news from the much abused continent. Contrary to his domestic authoritarianism Obasanjo became part of a global progressive coalition, claiming friendship of Carter, the former British Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, Willy Brandt, etc. He was to become one of the eminent persons of the Commonwealth that tried to broker a reconciliation between the liberation movements of South Africa and the apartheid regime in the 1980s. He was even at some stage considered a likely candidate from Africa for the post of UN Secretary-General. Nigerians could not understand why a man with at most a dubious internal record could become an international hero. The only comparable global experience is former President Carter, who became more popular after leaving office in very dismal circumstances.

Under the military dictatorships of General Babangida and Abacha, Obasanjo became a reluctant pro democracy advocate but was never loved or trusted by the real democrats. This was a man who used to cane people, especially press representatives who dared to trespass on his Otta farm. He even reportedly had signposts at his gates specifically naming categories of undesirables, including journalists.

His opposition to both IBB (Babangida) and Abacha were based on military reasons rather than democratic considerations. He did not want the military to be 'disgraced out of office'. He connived in IBB's annulment of Nigeria's only free and fair popular election won by Abiola. In spite of coming from the same historical city as Abiola, Obasanjo was very public in his criticism and opposition to Abiola being president.

It were these anti-democratic credentials that recommended him to the power blocs that conspired to impose him as Nigeria's leader after the exit of Abacha. His betrayal of June 12 made him a beneficiary of the democratic dispensation. Who says betrayal does not pay?

No sooner was the man released from jail than did other generals hurry to him asking: Oga abi you wan go back Aso Rock (i.e. Boss would you like to go back to Aso Rock). The man had famously criticized General Gowon for wanting to contest presidential elections in one of IBB's many aborted primaries. Obasanjo asked the former general: “What did you forget in Dodan Barracks (the former seat of power in Lagos) that you want to go and pick?” Obasanjo did not tell us what he had hidden in Aso rock that he needed to go and dig up.

But the generals were in charge and hence their choice became 'the choice of the people'. A man who could have been killed in Abacha's prison without much protest from many quarters metamorphosed into the presidency and began to behave as though he was a messiah. At a personal level one cannot begrudge him his feelings of triumph but after sometime people got fed up, especially as the initial promise of 'good days are back' was undermined by the president's arrogance and I-know-all mentality.

Obasanjo sees himself as the only person who believes in the so-called Nigeria Project. Like all dictators he thought the nation must forever be grateful to him for ruling us. His grown up bootlickers who prefer to call themselves Baba's boys and girls did not help matters by making themselves so loyal that they could not even tell their boss if he had bags of saliva on his nose! Many former advisers and even current ones have been known to complain bitterly that their boss never listens to anyone What the hell were/are they doing in his government then?

But luck and chicanery have gone full cycle on Obasanjo.

His sad term bid has ended sadly with the rejection of his cocktail of amendments in which the constitutional limitations on terms would have been removed. Most reasonable Nigerians did not think that the bill would pass but Obasanjo listened to the echoes of his own voice through his hired hands. Threats, intimidation, bribery and all kinds of measures were deployed but at the end of the day, he lost it. Unfortunately for him all the good he has done (and there are quite a few) may not now be remembered. It is this defeat, which has undermined him both locally and internationally, that history will remember him for. Maybe treachery, in the end, does not pay.

For a man who has been lucky enough to be at every great historical moment (right place right time) in Nigeria's history, Obasanjo has finally run out of luck. He is now highly weakened, a lame duck president who may not be able to influence his succession as the country faces a certain or uncertain period of electioneering to replace him in less than one year. The look I saw on the face of the president when I was attending a conference in Abuja recently was not the usual boisterousness that he usually displays at official Pan African forums. He looked tired, off-minded and somehow not all there. He is probably, finally, thinking of life after Aso Rock. There are a few fellow presidents who need to begin to do the same before history sweeps them into oblivion. Those who cannot embrace change will ultimately be swept aside in this unforgiven game of politics. No President can preside in perpetuity.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Keeping in touch

2006-06-08

Elizabeth Colson

Many thanks [for arranging for me to be subscribed.]. I have missed Pambazuka News. I am off to Zambia for five months at the end of May and Pambazuka News will be then even more important in keeping me in touch with what is happening.

Pambazuka publishing?

2006-06-08

Namposya Nampanya

I find the articles and news summaries published by Pambazuka News very insightful, informative and educational. I wish an African publishing company could get formed that would tap into the rich African writing/poetry that exists, but doesn't see the light of the day unless it's published by the Macmillan’s and/or Heinmann’s of this world. Why can't Pambazuka News start an African publishing house just as they started this very useful website and/or engage ghost writers to help African writers tell their stories.

Pambazuka News replies: Thanks for your letter and the suggestion. You're right, there is a gap for publishing the work of talented writers. Feel free to send us your work and we'll consider publishing it on our site. Fahamu, the publishers of Pambazuka News, is currently reviewing plans for publishing books and other materials from Africa. Watch this space!

The Historian and His Struggle

2006-06-08

Chuka Agugua

This is a great article (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/34532). The history of Africa has been covered up for the most part and individuals that are from the diaspora have not been able to easily learn about their history. When you learn about your history and are able to get in touch with your roots, no matter what your culture, you are able to grow up and walk around with a sense of pride, a sense of ownership, a sense of purpose, inclusion and entitlement that says my ancestors and I have played an important part in this world and that I, my peers and our offspring have an obligation to continue to do so.

MOAD: When Did You Discover You Are African?

2006-06-07

Shailja Patel

“African Diaspora: the scattering of people from Africa and the sowing of their cultures globally.” The Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD), recently opened in San Francisco and aims to “connect all people through the celebration and exploration of the art, culture and history of the African Diaspora.”


You don’t have to be in San Francisco to visit MOAD. Its website, www.moad.com, offers a comprehensive, multimedia, participatory, virtual experience. You can take a video podcast tour of all three floors; submit a story for the archives projects; view slide shows of art, sculpture, photography, currently on exhibit; and read first-person African narratives from the Middle Passage to the 21st century.

After an hour on the site, you might be tempted to skip a visit in person. This would be a pity. MOAD is as much a model of architecture as it is a museum. A triumph of light, space, elegance and transparency, the building offers numerous clever sensory delights and surprises. The deceptively simple 3-floor, glass-walled atrium structure incorporates a higher-than-average number of seating areas for “rest and reflection”. As you walk into the entrance lobby, you are greeted by a question on the wall: “When Did You Discover You Are African? “

Few museums I’ve visited, in cities around the world, pull off the difficult feat of filling the mind and imagination without exhausting the brain and senses. The very nature of museums often leads to overstimulation. Complex navigation routes through multiple galleries and exhibits can cause tiredness and frustration. There is often just too much to absorb in one visit. MOAD’s offerings are certainly abundant, demanding, and multifaceted. But clearly, considerable thought was given to making them joyfully digestible.

The MOAD experience begins across the street from the building. Through the giant glass wall of the museum, passersby see a 2-story photomosaic of an African child’s face. The mosaic, constructed upon a photo by Chester Higgins Junior, is made up of thousands of photos submitted from around the world, of people both on the continent and in the Diaspora. Many of them are accompanied by titles and explanations, but, disappointingly, the main image of the young girl is not. I wondered what her name was, where the photo was taken. Is she still alive? What is her story?

One of the stated goals of MOAD is to remind visitors that “human life originated in Africa and gradually traveled to the rest of the world.” The point is brought graphically home by a glowing wall display. A few tiny dots of light emerge in the middle. They spread and multiply, creating a map of the world, while a timeline above the map highlights simultaneously the dates of major human migrations. The day I visited, a school group of 9-year olds were riveted by this feature. Their teacher had to force them to move on after 3 repetitions.

MOAD emphasizes its unique identity as a “first voice museum”, one that draws directly on the original testimonies of those who live the art, culture and history it explores. It’s ongoing I've Known Rivers Story Project is an unprecedented effort by an international museum to collect, publish, and archive "first voice" narratives from people of African descent.

Permanent exhibits include:
Celebrations—Ritual & Ceremony
Music of the Diaspora – connecting jazz, blues, and gospel to reggae, rock and roll, and hip-hop.
Culinary Traditions – highlighting Africa’s role as primary producer of major food products
Adornment
Slavery Passages, and the Freedom Theater
Temporary exhibits are curated around four universal themes - Origins, Movement, Adaptation and Transformation. This seems a little simplistic. One questions the thinking behind such rigid classification. Living culture is messy and boundary-defying. As a museum-goer, I prefer to be confronted with its complexity, offered tools to engage with the contradictions and commonalities, rather than told that this particular collection exemplifies “Adaptation” or “Movement”.

For example, in July of this year, MOAD will mount the first solo exhibition in America of Qes Adamu Tesfaw, Ethiopia’s finest living artist. How can a body of work created over a 70-year lifetime slot into one or two themes?

Another question raised by my visit to MOAD is that of accessibility. Entry is free to children, $5 for seniors, $8 for everyone else. No sliding scale that might accommodate those on lower incomes. This seems a particularly ironic blind spot, given the national rate of poverty among African-Americans: consistently double that of white Americans since the Civil War. In addition, the majority of African Diaspora newcomers to San Francisco are refugees from Africa’s economic and military crises. $8 per person for a museum visit is simply outside the budget for households in these circumstances. Even more ironic, MOAD does not participate in the Free Museums Day Program, where entry to all San Francisco museums is free on the first Tuesday of every month. At the time of writing, MOAD’s staff had not returned my calls requesting further information on the reasoning behind these policies.

There is no question that MOAD is an exhilarating, enriching, and exciting addition to the global culture of the African Diaspora. In the breadth of its vision and the aesthetics of its conception, it does important and groundbreaking work. Its task in the years ahead will be to ensure that the very populations it portrays within its walls are equally represented among the visitors who walk through its doors.

Visit MOAD at www.moad.com

* Shailja Patel is a Kenyan poet, writer and theater artist. Visit her at www.shailja.com

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Kenya: Muthoni Garland Nominated

2006-06-07

http://www.kwani.org/news.htm

Kenyan writer, Muthoni Garland has been nominated for the Caine Prize for African Writing, 2006 (http://www.caineprize.com) for her story, 'Tracking the Scent of My Mother.' Muthoni says that her story was inspired "by the climate of private fear in which many children and women in our part of the world exist."

Africa: AU award for child champions

2006-06-07

The African Union Commission will give the first ever AU Award on children which will be open to African non-profit organisations. The African Union Award for Children's Champions in Africa honours and celebrates the initiatives taken by organisations and recognises leadership, dedication and commitment to improve the life chances of children throughout the continent.
CALL FOR NOMINATION AFRICAN UNION AWARD FOR CHILDREN'S CHAMPIONS IN AFRICA

The African Union Commission will give the first ever AU Award on children which will be open to African non-profit organisations. The African Union Award for Children's Champions in Africa honours and celebrates the initiatives taken by organisations and recognises leadership, dedication and commitment to improve the life chances of children throughout the continent. It will serve as an instrument to encourage other individuals or organisations to take similar exemplary initiatives in promoting the rights and improving the well being of children.

Objectives of the Award
The African Union Award for Children's Champions in Africa has two objectives:

• to promote the meaningful recognition of Children's Champions who are actively working on the continent to further the rights and welfare of the African Child, and to identify such Champions who, through their work, are a living embodiment of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child;

• to encourage and multiply the identification of role models, who through their work, should enjoy the same prestige, as sports superstars, movie stars, and should be accorded the same importance for championing children's issues in Africa.

Purpose

The African Union Award for Children's Champions in Africa is a means to identify, popularize and showcase the contributions of the Children's Champions, who, through their work, change the lives of those they help. The improvement of the living conditions of children is important for the progress of Africa, as children are the future leaders of the continent. Children's social welfare is also an integral part of the personal, economic and civic aspects of our society. Commitment to improving the social welfare of children is also a commitment to improving the life opportunities of all Africans.

It will focus on programmes and activities that are transplanted beyond their immediate community and these will receive particular attention. Champions that promote development of creative strategies to improve the educational outcomes of children; other Champions who labour to keep the needs of children visible within Government policies and directions; and their expertise and success in helping children out-of-home care (OOHC) are recognised internationally.

It will also focus on children's champions who run programmes and activities targeting children in isolated rural communities. Through their enthusiasm and tireless voluntary work, champions in rural areas provide an important pillar of strength and support to children in disadvantaged communities. The Award will also take account of children's champions who do outstanding research related to laws, policies and programmes on children and thereby secure their upliftment.

Criteria

A nominee should promote all or any one of the following:

Rights and Welfare of the Child;
Protection of the child against abuse, neglect, sexual exploitation, violence, discrimination, harmful social and cultural practices;
Civil and Political Rights of the Child;
The best interest of the child;
Socio-Economic and cultural rights, including rights to health, water and shelter, land, consumer services, education, food, etc.
Capacity building of organizations dealing with social welfare of the child;
Poverty alleviation;
Social protection of Vulnerable groups, particularly Orphans and Children living with HIV/AIDS;
Research on any of the above.
A nominee shall demonstrate all or anyone of the following:

Innovative ways of promoting the rights and welfare of the child at national or regional or international levels in his or her advocacy work.
Innovative ways of facing challenges at national or regional or international levels in his or her advocacy work.
that the activities of the organization actively promote the rights and welfare of the child and are recognized as such at the national level.
The African Union Award for Children's Champions in Africa will consist of a prize and a seal. The selection for the Award winner will be an integral part of the annual 16 June celebration of the Day of the African Child. The AU Commission, in collaboration with the African Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, will assume overall responsibility for the management and administration of the African Union Children's Champions Award.

Call for nomination
The African Union Commission is calling for nominations of worthy organisations which run programmes to promote the rights and well-being of the African children. Nominations should include the name, address, including email or mobile phone number of the proposer, the name of the nominee and the merits and achievements of the nominee in not more than 50 words. The nominations will be considered and the winner chosen by an independent jury which will have clear terms of reference. The winner will be invited to the AU Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government in July 2006 to receive the Award.

The closing date for the nominations is 9 June, 2006 and this can be forwarded to the: The Awards Committee, Department of Social Affairs, African Union Commission, P.O Box 3243, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Fax: 00-251-5517844-or by email to: RahimS@africa-union.org

More...

Gambia: AU-CSO Forum

2006-06-06

http://africa-union.org

The Commission of the African Union is convening an AU-Civil Society forum on the margins of the AU Summit in Banjul, the Gambia. The meeting will provide a briefing on developments related to the AU-CSO agenda since the last Pre-Summit Forum in January 2005. It will also deliberate on the theme of the Summit itself i.e., Economic Integration, including the proposal for the Rationalization of Regional Economic Communities.

Africa: African women’s engagement with the UN

2006-06-06

http://www.awid.org/go.php?list=analysis&prefix=analysis&item=00319

An interview with Dr Jacinta Muteshi of Kenya's National Commission for Gender and Development, by Kathambi Kinoti.

AWID: What real impact has the United Nations and its processes had on women in Africa?

Jacinta Muteshi: The United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM) has delivered resources for a lot of our work. By resources I do not mean just financial resources but also technical assistance and capacity building. We need the work of UNIFEM, the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) and other such structures to continue. However they should be strengthened, their profiles raised and their resources increased.

* Click on the link provided to read the rest of the interview.

ALGERIA: A Woman's Place? Just About Everywhere

2006-06-07

http://ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=33459

In years gone by, Algerians who used the term "women's work" would probably have been referring to tasks such as weaving, the manufacture of terra cotta pots, and the production of traditional cakes. Custom in this predominantly Muslim country of North Africa ensured that women were first and foremost wives and homemakers. But, no longer.

Global: Relying on women migrants

2006-06-07

http://www.whrnet.org/docs/issue-uhuru-0605.html

One out of two migrants is a woman. Increasingly present and increasingly visible, women who live and work away from their countries of origin send billions of dollars to their relatives - often more frequently than men. Can this money sent back to Africa, Asia and Latin America serve as a sustainable development tool for the entire population? Can migrant women become investors in their countries of origin? Ms. Ndioro Ndiaye explains how the face of migration - as well as that of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) - is becoming increasingly feminized.

Global: The Gender, Institutions and Development Data Base

2006-06-07

http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1058262?intcmp=911

The Gender, Institutions and Development (GID) database represents a new tool for researchers and policy makers to determine and analyse obstacles to women’s economic development. It covers a total of 162 countries and comprises an array of 50 indicators on gender discrimination.

Kenya: Changing tradition through talk

2006-06-05

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=33407

Kajiado is a part of Kenya where prevalence rates for female genital mutilation (FGM) are at their highest, and communities are deeply resistant to cultural change. However, Kajiado district is also an area where simple conversations hold out the promise of helping to end FGM.

Kenya: Gender disparities and economic growth

2006-06-06

http://allafrica.com/stories/200606051455.html

A new report released in Nairobi last week indicates that the country is unlikely to meet its growth targets if it does not address glaring gender disparities and increase its attention on gender dimensions in economic development. "Kenya Gender and Economic Growth Assessment", was commissioned by the ministry of Trade and Industry and conducted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the World Bank.

Liberia: Women queue up to join Johnson-Sirleaf's army

2006-06-07

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1790971,00.html

The Liberian army began recruiting women into its new post-war forces yesterday (5 June), part of a move to reform the military. The army will initially have 2,000 troops, with roughly 400 of them women, an official said.

Niger: MPs reject Africa protocol on women's rights

2006-06-07

http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L05214697

Niger's parliament has voted down Africa's Maputo Protocol on women's rights in a setback for the accord aiming to guarantee women equality in all spheres of life and end the practice of female circumcision. The protocol, adopted by African heads of state in 2003 at a summit in Mozambique, came into force last November after being ratified by the threshold 15 nations. The government of Niger, one of the world's poorest nations, approved the protocol back in January, but lawmakers voted against it at the weekend by 42 votes to 31, with four abstentions, official media said on Monday (June 5).

Swaziland: Alleged serial killer's trial puts spotlight on gender issues

2006-06-05

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53637

The long-deferred trial of Swaziland's alleged first serial killer began this week, highlighting the issues raised at the time of the defendant's arrest in 2001: the vulnerability of women and children in the kingdom's patriarchal society.

Africa: Trade union repression intensifies

2006-06-07

http://www.icftu.org

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions 2006 survey of trade union rights violations reveals an intensification in the violent repression of workers' rights in Africa, the world's poorest continent. Among the most striking manifestations of the rise in repression was the failure of most governments to respect the rights of their own employees - the right to organise, to strike or bargain collectively.

Egypt: Police severely beat pro-democracy activists

2006-06-05

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/05/31/egypt13482.htm

President Hosni Mubarak should immediately order an independent judicial investigation into last Thursday’s severe beatings by security agents of political activists Karim al-Sha`ir and Mohamed al-Sharqawi, Human Rights Watch says. Police also sexually assaulted al-Sharqawi, according to a written statement he smuggled out of prison.

Kenya: House team dismisses revised anti terrorism bill

2006-06-07

http://allafrica.com/stories/200606060112.html

The revised Anti-Terrorism Bill ran into trouble after a parliamentary committee dismissed its enactment as an "American priority". The committee said that even before the contents of the Bill were discussed, the Bush administration must accept that it was responsible for acts of terrorism. In a statement issued after meeting Islamic leaders, the committee said Kenya must not be lured into debating the merits and demerits of the draft until policy issues are resolved.

Liberia: Court dismisses Taylor's bid to prevent change of trial venue

2006-06-06

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/211389/1/.html

The Special Court for Sierra Leone has dismissed an application by former Liberian president Charles Taylor challenging a bid to change his trial venue, a court official said. Taylor's lawyer Karim Khan filed in April a motion asking that the court's president either withdraw his request to transfer the trial to The Hague or that the defence be allowed to comment on the issue before a decision is reached.

Nigeria: Criminalizing Homosexuality the Nigerian Way

2006-06-07

http://www.whrnet.org/docs/issue-uhuru-0605.html

Nigeria is about to set itself apart, yet again, in one of the most sweeping anti-gay laws in the world. While the pending civil law proposes a lighter sentence than the criminal law, its legal reach is breathtaking. Interestingly homosexuality is already criminalized in Nigeria. Depending on whether the accused is Christian or Muslim, the penalty is either 14 years imprisonment or death by stoning.

South Africa: Creating dialogue about socio-economic rights

2006-06-06

http://www.nyuhr.org/docs/WPS%20NYU%20CHRGJ_Dixon_Final.pdf

The decision of the South African Constitutional Court in "Government of the Republic of South Africa v. Grootboom" is one of the leading examples involving judicial enforcement of socio-economic rights known to comparative constitutional lawyers. At the time of the decision, many praised the court's decision, as pragmatic and a democracy-sensitive approach to the enforcement of socio-economic rights by the judiciary, which provided important evidence of the possibility of judicial enforcement of these rights.

Africa: UNHCR attacks point-scoring pundits

2006-06-06

http://www.guardian.co.uk/immigration/story/0,,1790319,00.html

Public debate about asylum seekers has become increasingly "negative and vitriolic", despite a rapid fall in the number arriving in the UK, according to a report from the UN high commissioner for refugees. The author, commissioner Antonio Guterres, said asylum seekers were an easy target for politicians and media pundits wishing to score points.

Ethiopia: Somali refugees live in isolation

2006-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/mzr2p

Today, less than 20,000 Somalis live in the one remaining camp in the country, Kebribeyah. The people there cannot return home because it is still too violent and dangerous. The harsh landscape in Ethiopia was once home to more than half a million Somali refugees who lived in eight camps. After more than a decade in exile, assistance has diminished significantly.

Global: Building capacity to investigate sexual abuse by humanitarian workers

2006-06-07

http://www.womenscommission.org/pdf/BSO.pdf

Following reports of sexual exploitation of refugees in West Africa in 2001 and in Nepal in 2003, the UN Secretary-General issued a Bulletin obliging UN agencies and their partners to prevent, and when suspected, to investigate any sexual exploitation and sexual abuse (SEA) by humanitarian staff. Humanitarian organisations began adopting and revising Codes of Conduct and other related policies. This evaluation is a critical component underpinning the larger SEA prevention and response equation as the humanitarian community makes efforts to build capacity to receive and investigate allegations of sexual abuse - or exploitation-related staff misconduct.

Global: Debating development and migration

2006-06-07

http://www.imi.ox.ac.uk/pdfs/wp2-development-instead-of-migration-policies.pdf

The belief that aid, trade and migration-propelled development will reduce migration is more problematic than it seems. First of all, it reflects the implicit but contestable assumption that migration is undesirable and is therefore a problem - the antithesis of development. Second, on the analytical level, this belief is ultimately based on the assumption that development in sending countries will reduce migration. The aim of this paper is argue why such policies are bound to fail.

Global: Refugees mark World Environment Day

2006-06-06

http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/news/opendoc.htm?tbl=NEWS&id=4483b8f94

From Kashmir to the Congo, the UNHCR joined hands with internally displaced persons and refugees to celebrate World Environment Day. This year's theme was Desert and Desertification and the slogan, "Don't Desert Drylands!" But in order for the theme to be more applicable and relevant to most refugee situations, UNHCR chose to use the slogan "Combat Land Degradation in Refugee-Hosting Areas."

Sudan: Displaced make themselves at home

2006-06-06

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EKOI-6QH7MF?OpenDocument

Some humanitarian workers, particularly Sudanese ones, are concerned that the services provided by the camps may entice residents into staying even after peace has come to Darfur. "In the camps they find a lot of water and good health provisions, fine schools for their children," says Khalil Tukras who heads the Sudan Social Development Organization.

Zambia: Concern over Somalis leaving refugee camp

2006-06-06

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53744

Somali refugees are leaving Zambian settlement camps, and although they have the right to move, the government and the UN refugee agency are concerned about being used as a "stepping-stone" to other destinations. Peter Mumba, permanent secretary of the Zambian Ministry of the Interior, told IRIN: "Out of the over 120 Somali refugees that we officially registered in March this year, only two are in Meheba camp now. This is a very sad situation for us, because it will make us to start treating every refugee with suspicion."

DRC: EU military communications advance team arrives

2006-06-08

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53818

A 20-member advance team of the European Union (EU) force charged with safeguarding the first general elections in 45 years in the Congo has arrived in the capital, Kinshasa, a spokesman for the force said on Thursday. Some 16 EU countries are contributing troops to this force, mandated to support the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, which already has a 17,500-strong force in the country.

GUINEA: Unions threaten indefinite strike

2006-06-07

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53735

Guinea’s two most powerful trade unions have threatened to call an unlimited general strike from Thursday unless the government acts on demands issued two weeks ago. An unprecedented general strike three months ago brought the capital Conakry to a halt and forced the government to promise 30 percent pay rises for civil servants and commit to the introduction of a minimum wage for everyone else.

Liberia: The case for maintaining sanctions

2006-06-06

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/liberindex.htm#cautiously

Global Witness has warned the Security Council against lifting sanctions on Liberian diamonds and timber. Liberian President Ellen Johnston Sirleaf asked the UN to lift the sanctions, providing a much needed boost to Liberia's damaged economy. However, the new government has still not gained full control over these resources from former militiamen. In the past the revenue from the diamond and timber industries funded rebel groups and fueled the conflict in the county, says Global Witness.

Nigeria: Succession crisis looms

2006-06-05

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53684

After the Nigerian parliament threw out a bid to change the constitution and enable President Olusegun Obasanjo to stay in office for a third consecutive term, uncertainty is growing over who may succeed him in less than 12 months.

South Africa: Cabinet rejects claims of 'dictatorship'

2006-06-05

http://allafrica.com/stories/200606010148.html

The cabinet has dismissed claims that SA was "sliding towards dictatorship", as it moved to defend President Thabo Mbeki from increasingly strident criticism from his left-wing allies. Last week the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) warned against a "slide towards dictatorship" and the use of "state resources to settle political contradictions".

Zimbabwe: Continuing self-destruction

2006-06-06

http://www.crisisgroup.org

With the economy in free fall, the potential end of Robert Mugabe’s presidency looming, and deep cracks dividing both the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), unrest and violence threaten, warns the International Crisis Group. “With anger widespread, ZANU-PF wants to avoid a popular vote by using the legislature it controls to establish a ‘transitional presidency’ and appoint a successor to Mugabe. The rising influence of the military is also troubling. Opposition forces need to put their disputes behind them and present a unified front to take on a government that is increasingly desperate and dangerous.”
* Related Link
Bid to crack down on political parties
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=273067

Cameroon: Catholic schools' pilot program to fight corruption

2006-06-08

http://admin.corisweb.org/index.php?fuseaction=news.view&id=121428&src=dcn

Catholic schools in Cameroon, a country known for widespread corruption, are piloting a program to teach students to identify and act against dishonesty in their schools and the rest of society. "The natural place for the fight against corruption is in the schools," said Sister Josephine Julie Ntsama, principal of the College de la Retraite, a Catholic secondary school in Yaounde, Cameroon's capital.

Kenya: New anti graft plan amidst old scandals

2006-06-07

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33442

A new plan to address corruption in Kenya has been adopted as government continues to be criticised for overseeing widespread graft. The National Anti-Corruption Plan was drawn up by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC), a government body mandated to investigate graft. The plan comes amidst charges that President Mwai Kibaki's administration has failed dismally in meeting its election pledge to root out corruption in the country, despite having introduced new measures to prevent bribery and related ills.

Nigeria: Renewed fight against corruption

2006-06-05

http://voanews.com/english/Africa/2006-05-31-voa14.cfm

The chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission says he will bring corruption charges against 24 state governors when their terms end next year. The governors currently enjoy constitutional immunity from criminal prosecution.

Uganda: Probe recommended in AIDS fund scam

2006-06-06

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53664

A Judicial probe into the mismanagement of grants to Uganda from the Geneva-based Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has recommended that former health ministers and other managers of the funds be investigated for possible criminal prosecution. Former health minister Jim Muhwezi and his two deputies, Mike Mukula and Alex Kamugisha, have all been implicated in the mismanagement of funds.

Africa: Africa and the new imperial strategy

2006-06-08

http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2,40,5,1037

An article on the website of the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal begins: "Imperialism is constant for capitalism. But it passes through various phases as the system evolves. At present the world is experiencing a new age of imperialism marked by a US grand strategy of global domination. One indication of how things have changed is that the US military is now truly global in its operations with permanent bases on every continent, including Africa, where a new scramble for control is taking place focused on oil."

Africa: Chinese envoy defends policy on Africa

2006-06-06

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5045496.stm

A top Chinese diplomat has vigorously defended his country's growing economic involvement in Africa, including close trade links with Zimbabwe and Sudan. The charge d'affaires at China's South Africa embassy said China was just protecting its own interests. Its policy of non-interference in the affairs of others has nothing to do with its need to import oil, he added. China's quiet pursuit of raw materials in Africa in return for cheap Chinese goods has caused considerable concern.

Africa: Ford Foundation launches African venture

2006-06-07

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/06/world/africa/06africa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The Ford Foundation has launched a new philanthropic effort called Trust Africa that aims to link groups in order to better battle regional problems. Trust Africa will be led by Africans and based in Dakar, Senegal.

Africa: Where is the development in trade talks?

2006-06-08

http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol20no1/201-trade-talks.html

It was a close thing. But after six days of arm-twisting, all-night bargaining sessions and closed-door meetings in Hong Kong, an eleventh-hour concession by Europe on farm subsidies saved the December 2005 summit meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) from another embarrassing collapse. The European move kept the troubled global trade liberalization talks, launched at Doha, Qatar, in 2001, alive - but just barely, says this article in Africa Renewal, a UN publication.

Africa: Why NGO's won't change the world

2006-06-08

http://www.arushatimes.co.tz/2006/14/features_5.htm

The role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in development in Africa has of late been a subject of rigorous debate, writes Vincent Obiro in the Arusha Times. "The now frequently asked questions among development practitioners and academics concern the possibilities and limitations of NGOs in Africa as development catalysts."

Global: Forum to examine link between migration and development proposed

2006-06-07

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=18765

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has proposed a standing forum led by all 191 Member States which governments could use to share ideas and discuss best practices and policies related to international migration and how this phenomenon ties in with global development. Presenting a wide-ranging 90-page report entitled "International migration and development" to the General Assembly, Mr. Annan described the exhaustive study as "an early road map for this new era of mobility," and said that "the advantages that migration brings are not as well understood as they should be."

Global: The darker side of global civil society

2006-06-06

http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-think_tank/civil_society_3413.jsp

The way NGOs and other global civil society organisations operate must be reformed if they are to embody the progressive claims often made on their behalf, argues Leni Wild. For too long, people on the liberal left of politics have assumed that global civil society is inherently progressive and a force for social progress. This approach is partial and ignores the darker side of the phenomenon.

Africa: African civil society denounces political declaration on AIDS

2006-06-07

African civil society organisations have denounced a political declaration adopted by world leaders attending a United Nations AIDS meeting in New York. At the High Level Review Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly member-states negotiated a political declaration which African activists have described as 'utterly retrogressive' and 'a sham'.
PRESS RELEASE

Issued by the African Civil Society Coalition on AIDS

African civil society denounces political declaration on AIDS

Leaders at AIDS meeting have failed Africa, say activists

NEW YORK, June 2 2006: African civil society organisations have =
denounced a political declaration adopted today by world leaders =
attending a United Nations AIDS meeting in New York.

At the High Level Review Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly,
which closed today, member-states negotiated a political declaration
which African activists have described as 'utterly retrogressive' and 'a
sham'.

AIDS organisations expressed their 'utter disappointment' at African
leaders and negotiators at the meeting, for excluding key regional
priorities and commitments in the political declaration.

"What has been signed on by African leaders at this meeting is a
document that set us several years back, to the days of denial,
complacency and a criminal refusal to act in the face of a consuming
epidemic", said Prudence Mabele of the Positive Women's Network, a South
African organisation that provides services to HIV-positive women.

"Our leaders have shown an utter lack of responsibility in standing up
for the lives of 25 millions HIV-positive Africans", she added.

The activists particularly lamented the absence of any reference to the
African Common Position on AIDS, adopted last month in Abuja, Nigeria,
which lists targets, milestones and commitments which African states
should meet to achieve universal access to prevention, treatment, care
and support of HIV and AIDS by the year 2010.

"The political declaration has pushed Africa several steps back in our
fight against AIDS," said Adenike Esiet of Action Health Inc, which runs
youth reproductive health programmes in Nigeria.

"By refusing to push for inclusion of targets and commitments agreed to
in Abuja, African leaders have shown that they are not to be trusted
when human lives affected by HIV are concerned."

The activists are particularly angry at countries such as Egypt, South
Africa and Gabon, which repeatedly blocked all references to the African
Common Position, and removed references to specific populations that are
most at risk of HIV, such as women and girls, sex workers, and men who
have sex with men.

But they commended Nigeria and Namibia, which spoke out in support of
the Abuja commitments, even when other African countries were not in
agreement.

Also criticised was the attitude of many African missions as well as the
African Union, whose diplomats stayed away from the key negotiations
that produced the political declaration.

"It's a shame that many countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are most
affected by this epidemic were nowhere to be found when it came to
protecting the interest of their peoples", noted Innocent Laison of the
African Council of AIDS Service Organisations, based in Senegal.

Civil society organisations are however resolute in defence of the
regional and national targets as contained in the African Common
Position. To this end, African CSOs have declared a Week of Action -
from June 13 to 17 - to mobilize support at country and regional levels
for the Abuja commitments.

"We will not allow this betrayal to stand," said Ludfine Anyango-Okeyo
from Kenya. "We will work tirelessly to hold our leaders accountable to
their commitments."

##

Issued by the African Civil Society Coalition on AIDS

For more information contact:

Omololu Falobi
Email: omololu@nigeria-aids.org
+234 1 802 3139 636

Sisonke Msimang
Email: sisonkem@osisa.org
+27 83 450 7382

More...

Africa: Hungry Africans' stark Aids dilemma

2006-06-05

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/5041798.stm

Delegates at the UN summit on Aids have been hammering out the finer details of a declaration to combat HIV/Aids. Meanwhile, 40 million people worldwide are living with the disease. Severe drought across Kenya and the Horn of Africa has meant that patients on anti-retrovirals who don't get enough to eat have been unable to tolerate their medicines. So they have stopped taking them.

Global: Annan frustrated by wording of AIDS conference declaration

2006-06-06

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/5039948.stm

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has accused some countries of putting their "heads in the sand" in failing to spell out the truth about Aids. He told the BBC he was disappointed a declaration at a UN Aids conference did not specify homosexuals, prostitutes and drug addicts were at risk. But Mr Annan still said the declaration was better than he had expected. The declaration commits countries to work towards universal access to Aids care by 2010.

Global: Gender and HIV/AIDS Portal

2006-06-07

http://www.oneworld.net/link/gotoarticle/addhit/134265/66/85488

UNIFEM, in collaboration with UNAIDS, has developed this gender and HIV/AIDS web portal to provide up-do-date information on the HIV/AIDS epidemic from a gender-aware perspective.

Kenya: A partnership with Brazil on health

2006-06-06

http://allafrica.com/stories/200606060020.html

Kenya and Brazil have launched a campaign aimed at making governments prioritize and fund research and development projects, which address essential and basic health needs of their people. The campaign, being undertaken under the umbrella of the Drug