Pambazuka News is produced by a pan-African community of some 2,600 citizens and organisations - academics, policy makers, social activists, women's organisations, civil society organisations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators who together produce insightful, sharp and thoughtful analyses and make it one of the largest and most innovative and influential web forums for social justice in Africa. 
humanitarian
What does Gaddafi's fall mean for Africa?
Mahmood Mamdani
2011-09-06, Issue 546
cc V VGaddafi’s fall points to more Western interventions to come in Africa, writes Mahmood Mamdani.
Somalia: Global war on terror and the humanitarian crisis
Horace Campbell
2011-08-18, Issue 545
cc F WThe US government’s counterterrorism activities and ‘humanitarian’ assistance in Somalia and the Horn of Africa go a long way towards explaining the region’s entrenched problems, writes Horace Campbell.
Famine in Somalia
The story you're unlikely to hear any time soon
Rasna Warah
2011-08-03, Issue 543
cc OxfamIn the absence of a well-functioning central government, Somalia is in effect being ‘managed and controlled by aid agencies’, writes Rasna Warah. But it’s a story that is unlikely to be told by either the global news networks or the ‘aid workers whose livelihoods depend on donor money that will soon flow into Somalia via Kenya.’
Transitional justice and forced displacement
Adam Branch
2011-07-27, Issue 541
cc UN PhotoAcronyms used to conceptualise transitional justice and forced displacement can have negative political consequences when deployed to understand situations and inform interventions, observes Adam Branch, as ‘people start to take that acronym for uncontested reality, forgetting the words that make it up’.
Local integration: The forgotten durable solution
Berna Ataitom
2011-07-27, Issue 541
cc J & M KnotsBerna Ataitom makes the case for the local integration of refugees in their host countries, describing it as the forgotten yet ultimate solution.
Can the crime of displacement be accounted and paid for?
Levis Onegi
2011-07-26, Issue 541
cc B HFaced with the slow response to the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons, the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) convened a debate over 3–6 July in Kampala on gaps between ratification and implementation, engaging member states and involving civil society.
The protection of internally displaced persons and property rights in Africa
Denis Barnabas Otim
2011-07-27, Issue 541
cc UN PhotoExisting ‘normative social, political and legal structures do not support’ internally displaced persons and ‘their quest to own and have access to properties or land’, writes Denis Barnabas Otim, in an exploration of the relationship between IDPs and property rights in Africa.
The exclusion of urban IDPs
Eveliina Lytinen
2011-07-27, Issue 541
cc MFFOEveliina Lytinen reports back on a roundtable discussion about the exclusion of internally displaced persons from protection and assistance, during the recent International Association for the Study of Forced Migration conference in Uganda.
America's role in Somalia's humanitarian crisis
US sends in the 
marines and more drones

Glen Ford
2011-07-20, Issue 540
cc E IGlen Ford for Black Agenda Radio explains how US militarisation has contributed to the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa.
Sudan: International crimes and threats to peace are mounting rapidly
Eric Reeves
2011-07-07, Issue 538
cc UN Photo‘After so many years of work on Sudan, I thought myself fully braced for the worst the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime might do. As so often before, I was wrong. The litany of egregious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law over the past five weeks is simply overwhelming---in South Kordofan, in Abyei, but in other areas along the North/South border as well.’ Eric Reeves provides an overview of the situation.
Behind the boycott
Why South Africa's academic boycott of Ben Gurion University took hold
2011-06-30, Issue 537
cc S LOn 23 March, the University of Johannesburg in South Africa cut all ties with Ben Gurion University in the Negev in Israel. Salim Vally is a senior researcher at the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, lecturer at the Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg and the coordinator of the Education Rights Project. While he was in Montreal in May 2011, giving a lecture at McGill University in Montreal entitled Reading Edward Said in South Africa, he spoke with Lillian Boctor regarding the University of Johannesburg’s decision to sever links with Ben Gurion University, the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid within the South African context, academic freedom and the role of academics and science in society. Listen to the interview online here.
Haiti: Reparations and reconstruction
Horace Campbell
2011-05-19, Issue 530
cc N H LThe process that brought Michel ‘Sweet Micky’ Martelly to Haiti’s ‘presidency was a farce that will 'force popular forces to distinguish between processes of democratisation and pseudo-elections without democratic participation’, writes Horace Campell, in an article on the people of Haiti’s two-hundred year struggle to reconstruct their society.
Human tsunamis and the world refugee system
Tricia Redeker Hepner
2011-05-05, Issue 527
cc SandyThe dictatorship in Eritrea results in large numbers of people feeling the country. But once they enter the international refugee system their problems are only just beginning, writes Tricia Redeker Hepner.
The reconstruction of Haiti: A record of failure
Colette Lespinasse
2011-04-14, Issue 525
cc UN PhotoLast March, donors pledged billions of US dollars for the reconstruction of Haiti, after an earthquake devastated the country. But a year later, a group of 40 Haitian organisations finds that ‘nothing significant has really been undertaken’. Instead Haitian players have been excluded from strategic decision-making and the ‘millions of people affected directly or indirectly by the earthquake continue to face the consequences in destitution, and with no support whatsoever.’
Haiti and the endless revolution
Sokari Ekine
2011-03-24, Issue 522
cc L GAristide’s return to Haiti, the West’s war on Gaddafi, AU intervention and protests in Senegal and Morroco are among the stories covered in this week’s round-up of African uprisings, compiled by Sokari Ekine.
Where hypocrisy knows no bounds
Sokari Ekine
2011-03-03, Issue 519
cc UN PhotoUS foreign policy on Haiti, sanctions on Libya, Kenyan leaders and the ICC and the murder of David Kato, Ugandan LGBTI activist, are among the topics featured in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere, compiled by Sokari Ekine.
The iron heel: Why the US continues to crush Haitian democracy
Ben Terrall
2011-02-23, Issue 518
cc L GRecent Wikileaks cable releases reveal why the US continues to crush democracy in Haiti.
Haitian diary: Struggling and waiting for the third revolution
2011-01-06, Issue 511
cc HaitianaWriting from Haiti, Sokari Ekine describes the problem of unsanitary conditions, the randomness of the destruction caused by last year’s earthquake, the wounds of people who survived and the possibility of a third revolution to come.
Haiti: No resolution in sight?
Sokari Ekine
2011-01-06, Issue 511
cc HaitianaStill reeling from the earthquake, hurricane and cholera outbreak, Haiti has had to face fraudulent elections followed by protests. There’s ‘no resolution in sight, other than possibly to cancel the elections altogether,’ reports Sokari Ekine, in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere.
Haitian diary: survival in the time of cholera
Sokari Ekine
2010-12-21, Issue 510
cc Arie"It’s been just over three weeks and I am finally getting a sense of the destruction to the people and the city. My original plan to meet with women organising in the community has fallen short of what I had hoped due to family crisis, cholera, election protests and now petrol shortages. Still I feel I have met sufficient community activists to get a sense of the truly amazing work they are doing and I will write of these in my final piece, but the story has changed and that in itself is a Haitian story and in this year, more so than usual. The earthquake is unavoidable and the intensity of the destruction is overwhelming. There is a randomness about the destruction. Whole streets destroyed except for one building and in others the whole street standing with one structure collapsed."
Haitian diary: SOPUDEP and local organisation
Sokari Ekine
2010-12-08, Issue 509
cc P LAs she visits Haiti, Sokari Ekine writes of the history behind the community-run SOPUDEP school, the efforts of local organisations to organise in response to the devastation of the country’s earthquake, a micro-credit scheme and people’s broad lack of faith in the power of the current elections to promote change.
Haitian diary: Five years in darkness
Sokari Ekine
2010-12-01, Issue 508
cc UN PhotoSokari Ekine is in Haiti for the next four weeks and will be sending regular updates to Pambazuka. During her stay she will be meeting with women community organisers and members of youth groups with a view to documenting their work. Much has been written about the situation in the camps and neighbourhoods such as Cité Soleil and Bel Air, as well as those children and parents involved in SOPUDEP.
No, Haiti should not become a UN Protectorate
Anthony Morgan
2010-12-02, Issue 508
cc R MA closer look at Haiti’s history demonstrates ‘how deeply problematic it is to think that the US and France should play any role in the governance and internal policy-making of Haiti,' writes Anthony Morgan.
Haiti: Reclaiming sovereignty
2010-11-24, Issue 507
cc UN PhotoAs Haiti gears up for its forthcoming elections, Jean William Jeanty decries the complete absence of transparency in the country around post-earthquake reconstruction and the ability of foreign companies to usurp Haitian law. With the country gripped by cholera (the ‘natural indicator of underdevelopment’), Jeanty stresses that Haiti’s leaders ‘are trying to rush the elections so that they can perpetuate things the way they are’.
Haiti 2010: Exploiting disaster
Part II
Peter Hallward
2010-11-18, Issue 505
cc IFRC‘For the last twenty years, the most powerful political and economic interests in and around Haiti have waged a systematic campaign designed to stifle the popular movement and deprive it of its principal weapons, resources and leaders,' writes Peter Hallward. January’s earthquake ‘triggered reactions that carried and that are still carrying such measures to entirely new levels’.
Haiti 2010: Exploiting disaster
Part I
Peter Hallward
2010-11-11, Issue 504
cc National Guard‘For the last twenty years, the most powerful political and economic interests in and around Haiti have waged a systematic campaign designed to stifle the popular movement and deprive it of its principal weapons, resources and leaders,' writes Peter Hallward. January’s earthquake ‘triggered reactions that carried and that are still carrying such measures to entirely new levels.’
Haiti: ‘We’ve been forgotten’
Sokari Ekine
2010-10-28, Issue 502
cc S T BNearly 11 months since Haiti was devastated by an earthquake, the country is still in ruins, with 1.5 million internally displaced people forced to live in crowded unsanitary conditions. Sokari Ekine reports from the Haitian blogosphere on the progress that hasn’t been made.
Cuba in Haiti: Selective commendation, selective indignation
Emily J. Kirk, John M. Kirk and Norman Girvan
2010-04-22, Issue 478
cc A JCuba’s offer to rebuild Haiti’s entire national health service is arguably the most ambitious and impressive pledge made at the UN’s recent donor conference, write Emily J. Kirk, John M. Kirk and Norman Girvan, so why then have its efforts been largely ignored by the media, while those of other governments have been praised?
'Our bodies are shaking now'
Rape follows earthquake in Haiti
Beverly Bell
2010-04-01, Issue 476
cc US ArmyHaiti’s earthquake has left women and children in the country highly vulnerable to rape and violence. Beverly Bell gives an account of this vulnerability and of the relentless work of KOFAVIV (Commission of Women Victim-to-Victim), a grassroots anti-violence group in Haiti, to prevent and protect women and children against rape and violence. Bell depicts the hostile environment that KOFAVIV is working in – one in which police and aid and relief groups are either less than willing to help or have limited resources. Furthermore, Bell points out that KOFAVIV members' advocacy has ‘come at a price’: Their daughters, their families and they are being personally targeted for their work.
Haiti needs solidarity, not charity
Marilyn Langlois interviewed by Amanda Zivcic
2010-03-11, Issue 473
In a revealing interview, Amanda Zivcic asks Marilyn Langlois of the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund (HERF) about the country's efforts at recovery following its devastating earthquake in January, the dubious practices of foreign organisations ostensibly operating in support of the Haitian people, and the debilitating historical and contemporary role played by US policy.