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. 
reconstruction
Haiti's 'odious debt' must be completely and unconditionally cancelled
Eric Toussaint and Sophie Perchellet
2010-01-28, Issue 467
cc Haiti EarthquakeEric Toussaint and Sophie Perchellet criticise mainstream commentary on Haiti for failing to look beyond the earthquake and to ask where Haiti's poverty is rooted. They depict the historical passage of political and economic exploitation and individual greed that has led Haiti into a hole of crippling debt. Haiti, they argue, 'needs to be rebuilt because it has been stripped of its means to rebuild itself'. Toussaint and Perchellet note that 'All current financial aid announced following the earthquake is already lost to the debt repayment!' They conclude that those most responsible for systematically exploiting Haiti, namely France and the US, must pay their compensation through a fund for the country's reconstruction.
China and India in Africa: challenging the status quo?
Sanusha Naidu and Hayley Herman
2008-09-03, Issue 394
‘Equality and mutual benefit’ are reflected today in Chinese leaders’ frequent emphasis on aid as a partnership, not a one way transfer of charity, -quoted in Deborah Brautigam’s, China’s African Aid: Transatlantic Challenges\...
Post 9/11 aid, security agenda and the African state
Shastry Njeru
2008-08-26, Issue 394
The nexus between aid, security and development is now beyond doubt. In fact, security is a precondition for development. The often cited ‘no development without security, no security without development’ captures this interconnectivity (Dochas 2007)...
Third world prospects in an Obama presidency
Steve Sharra
2008-08-11, Issue 393
The exclamatory commentary that has accompanied Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the presumed nomination of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate has excited, beneath it, the question of what the nomination itself, and a possible Obama presidency, might mean for the Pan-Africanist world as well as the Third World. While much of the commentary has been laudatory, there have also been cautionary tones, not to mention ambivalent ones. Beyond the excitement, caution and ambivalence of what a possible Obama presidency might entail for Pan-Africa and the Third World, what Obama himself has said in his writing, and has not said, might prove to be revelatory in attempting to explore the discussion that has exercised many minds around the world. We take this exploration by examining some of the issues that have been raised by editorialists and columnists, bloggers and other commentators in Africa and beyond. We also delve into what Obama himself has said in his two best-belling books, as we ponder how the significance of a possible Obama presidency may be realized more in the symbolic transformation of perceptions of race, racism and racial identity in the US and in the world, than in what the office of the US presidency itself is capable or incapable of achieving.
Access to information as a tool for socio-economic justice
Mukelani Dimba
2008-04-08, Issue 372
In this article Mukelani Dimba shows how freedom of information legislation can be used by citizens to pursue their socio-economic rights. He argues that it creates the conditions in which government decisions about resource allocation can be effectively challenged.
Thabo Mbeki must reconsider his Zimbabwe position
Azad Essa
2008-04-15, Issue 362
Azad Essa speaks to Grace Kwinjeh, Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Diaspora Forum on South Africa, foreign aid, the MDC and the role of the Zimbabwean diaspora in bringing about change, amongst other things
Peeling the Kenyan Conflict Onion
Alice Nderitu
2008-04-15, Issue 362
Alice Nderitu argues that development, security and human rights should be the priorities in Kenya post conflict reconstruction; and not creating a bloated cabinet under the guise of power-sharing.
It’s official. We have a grossly overpaid cabinet of 40, the largest ever in East Africa.
Zimbabwe Doctors on the Zimbabwe elections
Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights
2008-04-08, Issue 360
Statement on World Health Day The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights calls to attention the state of the public health system. Zimbabwe?s healthcare system, in a known state of crisis, is in need of urgent attention. It is crippled ...
Zimbabwe should not look to Kenya
Rasna Warah
2008-04-01, Issue 358
Rasna Warah reminds Zimbabweans that Kenya can only be a model of what not to do - the cost in terms of lives, a shattered economy, internally displaced populations, and broken trust is to high a price to pay.
Mugabe could be history
Mary Ndlovu
2008-03-24, Issue 356
Mary Ndlovu argues that in spite of the obstacles placed by ZANU-PF, Zimbabwean people must at a minimum strive to vote Mugabe out of power and elect a leadership that will unite Zimbabwe, rebuild the economy and deliver justice and healing as opposed to revenge
Joaquim Chissano and the neo-liberal virus in Mozambique
Horace Campbell
2007-10-31, Issue 326
Since independence in 1975, the living conditions of the working people of Mozambique have deteriorated considerably. In 2007 the quality of life of the majority of citizens remains very poor. Mozambique ranks 168th out of 190 on UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI), the lowest in Southern Africa. At the same time, there is a new class of rich capitalists in Maputo who live in luxury, says Horace Campbell.